Amtrak is an intercity train service currently owned by the United States government. There are a number of critics who believe that the government should not own Amtrak and that Amtrak should be sold to a privately-owned company. These critics put forward several arguments to support their position. First, the critics point out that the government loses money on many Amtrak routes. In its effort to serve citizens in all parts of the country, Amtrak maintains routes even in remote and less populated areas. Those routes are not used by enough passengers to cover the cost of maintaining them. The amount of money lost every year due to underuse is sizeable: the government loses up to several hundred dollars per passenger on some routes: and the total losses due to underuse add up to hundreds of millions of dollars every year If Amtrak was privatized, these unprofitable routes could be cut. Second, government ownership of Amtrak is unfair to privately owned transportation companies such as airlines Government funding of Amtrak means that ticket prices on Amtrak are cheaper than they otherwise would be. However, the government does not give airline companies money so they can lower their ticket prices. This situation clearly is unfair to airlines and other private transportation companies because they must compete against trains for customers. Third, critics maintain that if the government wants to support national transportation, it should spend its money elsewhere Rail travel is relatively unimportant in the United States: Amtrak currently transports less than 1 percent of the people traveling between cities. A large majority of intercity travelers use other means of transport, such as private cars. The critics argue that rather than finance Amtrak, the government should direct its funding at maintaining and improving the highway system so that intercity car travel becomes faster and more efficient.
Recently, there has been a ton of debates about who should be the owner of the Amtrak train service. More specifically, regarding the passage, the writer suggests that the U.S. government should sell Amtrak to a privately-owned company. In the listening, the lecturer quickly points out some serious flaws in the writer's claims. The professor believes that the argument made in the article is not convincing.
First and foremost, the author of the reading states that the government lost a lot of money on the Armtrak routes. According to the article, many roads in U.S. cities are not used by many people. However, some professionals in the same field stand in firm opposition to his claim. In the listening, for example, the professor states that the main purpose of Amtrak is not for profit. She elaborates by mentioning that the main goal of Armtrak is to provide people in the U.S. with comfortable and convenient transportation.
One group of scholars, represented by the writer, thinks that owning Armtrak by the U.S. government is unfair to other private airline companies. Of course, though, not all experts in the field believe this is accurate. Again the speaker addresses this point when she states that the U.S. government always supports private airline companies. She adds that the U.S. government builds control traffic towers and funds weather satellites. Moreover, she says that private companies could not exist without the support and funds from the U.S. government.
Finally, the author wraps his argument by posting that people in the U.S. do not use railways any more, and the government should use the money on other things. Not surprisingly, the lecturer takes issue with this claim by contending that the government in the U.S. should invest more money to improve the services of Armtrak, so citizens in the states will railways more than before.
To sum up, both the writer and the professor hold conflicting views about the ownership of the Armtrak company. It is clear that they will have trouble finding common ground on this issue.
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...t and funds from the U.S. government. Finally, the author wraps his argument b...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, however, if, moreover, regarding, so, for example, of course, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 10.4613686534 86% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 5.04856512141 139% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 12.0772626932 116% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 22.412803532 107% => OK
Preposition: 48.0 30.3222958057 158% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 5.01324503311 219% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1736.0 1373.03311258 126% => OK
No of words: 341.0 270.72406181 126% => OK
Chars per words: 5.09090909091 5.08290768461 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.29722995808 4.04702891845 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66425474927 2.5805825403 103% => OK
Unique words: 176.0 145.348785872 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.516129032258 0.540411800872 96% => OK
syllable_count: 510.3 419.366225166 122% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 3.25607064018 123% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.23620309051 85% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 2.5761589404 272% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 13.0662251656 138% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 21.2450331126 85% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 36.3686966877 49.2860985944 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.4444444444 110.228320801 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.9444444444 21.698381199 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.83333333333 7.06452816374 68% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 4.45695364238 202% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.27373068433 140% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.247237891005 0.272083759551 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0673528153288 0.0996497079465 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0781581897262 0.0662205650399 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.121487255587 0.162205337803 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0945048112092 0.0443174109184 213% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.0 13.3589403974 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 53.8541721854 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 11.0289183223 83% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.24 12.2367328918 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.05 8.42419426049 96% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 63.6247240618 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 10.7273730684 70% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 10.498013245 88% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Rates: 76.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 23.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.