The following appeared in a health newsletter.
"A ten-year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago, approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets, whereas today that number is nearly 80 percent. Another study, however, suggests that during the same ten-year period, the number of bicycle-related accidents has increased 200 percent. These results demonstrate that bicyclists feel safer because they are wearing helmets, and they take more risks as a result. Thus, to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents, the government should concentrate more on educating people about bicycle safety and less on encouraging or requiring bicyclists to wear helmets."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
In this passage, by mentioning the fact that the accident rate increases during the ten years, even more bicyclists choose to wear helmet, the author assumes rather than setting restrictions on requesting people to wear safety equipment, the government should focus on educating people some traffic knowledge to protect them from accidents. Although education about bicycle should decline the accidents somewhat, wearing helmet is still very important.
First of all, I highly doubt the validity of the study, as it says, during the ten years the rate of wearing helmets has increased 55 percent, however, this statistic is from bicyclists, not by other means, such as sampling from the total bicyclists on the road or from a report of traffic authority. In other words, the real number of wearing helmets could be unchanged or even less. For example, due to the restriction imposed on bicyclists, riding on the road without helmet will have some penalties. Therefore, when being asked by some surveys, if they wear helmet when ride on the road, most bicyclists inclines to lie instead of revealing the fact. Additionally, if the study covers the all the areas of this city is another question, even though in some area where residents have awareness of safety, the rate of wearing helmet is very high. But the other area may have worse situation. If the study only focuses on some areas only, it is unable to reflect the real situation about wearing helmets. Hence, the study offered in this passage could not lend any support to the author’s assumption. To strengthen his argument, a study conducted by traffic authority that with full scope, range and more representative should be provided.
What’s more, even if the study is trustworthy, the rate of accidents increases during ten years, we still can’t conclude wearing helmet has not effectiveness. Firstly, considering about the amount of traffic could increase seriously, which contributes more traffic accidents on the road, not only of bicyclists but also of cars, trucks or even walking people. Even though helmet has already protected people from being hurt, as the total accidents generally increase, the ascending accident rate of bicyclists is acceptable. Secondly, the effectiveness of helmet is directly linked with the seriousness of accidents, not the accident rate. For example, people should get neck bone fracture if they did not wear helmets in an accident but was lightly hurt when they wear it. We are unable to equate the increasing accident rate with the ineffectiveness of wearing helmet. Thusly, without any evidence from scientific community to prove the ineffectiveness of helmet, the argument is incredible. In this step, the author fails to construct a concrete connection between the accidents and wearing helmets. To support his idea, another statistic concerning about seriousness of accidents after people wear helmet should be offered.
Finally, there is no apparent evidence to show education about bicycle is better than equipping helmets on reducing accidents. As the author assumes, people are likely to take more risks on the road after they wear helmets. However, bicyclists are already clear about the basic traffic knowledge aiming to point what is dangerous or what is not. I don’t think such an education would reduce the risks some bicyclists are interested to experience but waste the budget of government. As I mention above, helmet could be an effective way of keeping bicyclists from serious injuries. Concentrating on some traffic knowledge that most people already know and discourage them from wearing some necessary equipment at the same time will lead the result opposite to its original goal, which is protecting people’s life from being threatened. Even traffic education is always important, but some equipment like helmet to bicyclists, safety belt to driver plays the most important role on protecting them.
To sum up, basing on some invalid evidence and unsubstantial assumptions this argument is rife with holes and ill logics. Through a meticulous examination, the audiences easily find the proposal is unable to maximize the interest of client. To make his argument more persuasive and reasonable, the author needs to provide more representative evidence and circumstantiate how they necessarily relate to his conclusion.
第二篇
The following is a letter to the head of the tourism bureau on the islandof Tria. "Erosion of beach sand along the shores of Tria Island is a seriousthreat to our island and our tourist industry. In order to stop the erosion, weshould charge people for using the beaches. Although this solution may annoy afew tourists in the short term, it will raise money for replenishing the sand.Replenishing the sand, as was done to protect buildings on the nearby island ofBatia, will help protect buildings along our shores, thereby reducing thesebuildings' risk of additional damage from severe storms. And since beaches andbuildings in the area will be preserved, Tria's tourist industry will improveover the long term." Write a response in which you discuss whatspecific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how theevidence would weaken or strengthen the argument. While it may be true that charging peoplefor visiting shores and replenishing sand to the shore will improve theenvironment somewhat, however, if this action will achieve the goal that bring prosperityto the Tria Island is still unknown to us. There are many factors should betaken into consideration such as the expense and revenue, long-term affectionsand some climate elements. Let’s take a meticulous analysis of them. Admittedly, charging people for usingshores should collect funds for restore the buildings. However, it doesn’tguarantee this will work out as predicted. Firstly, there is no evidence toshow people will not throw any junk including chemical substance that couldcontaminate the ocean environment after they are charged. Rather than chargingvisitors money, I think setting some restrictions regarding punishments whenactions of destroying ocean environment are detected is more effective.Secondly, if charging fees will reduce the total visitors is another question. Maybe it is Tria shore such a beautiful placefree to visit that it is able to attract a big amount of visitors, which expandsits tourism. After this action being executed, the number of total visitors mayshrink seriously, a big declination of total income may happen, ruining the originalgoal that collecting funds for restoring. To bolster his recommendation, theauthor should rule out the negative possibilities to the tourism by providingsome survey about the feels of visitors after this shore becomes a resort notfree to visit. What’s more, we hardly conclude thatmethods applied by another island have the same applicability to Tria Island.Batia Island, which seriously lack of sand could be protected well after moresand are replenished. However, without any information about exact problem ofTria Island, applying the same approach is hasty. Maybe for Tria, the most seriousproblem currently is contamination, which gives visitors bad smells and highly threatensocean creatures. Government should prioritize to make a budget for cleaning theocean instead of protecting the buildings. In this step, the author commits amistake that the two examples are not similar enough to justify the analogue.In order to strengthen his conclusion, the author needs to offer more detailsabout the problem of both islands and demonstrate the how method recommendedcould work. Finally, even if replenishing sand couldescalate the environment of Tria Island into a higher level, there is nowarranty that this will boost its tourism. We all know tourism of one place canbe affected by multiple reasons, such as climate, civilization, relic, etc.Even we could improve the environment generally, we are unable to change itsweather condition, its custom, or construct a fake relic. What’s more, from thepassage, we are uncertain about how tourism of Tria Island is developed. If thetourism is nearly saturated, no matter what improvement is, the tourism will beslight affected. To confirm his contention, the author should illustrate to hisreaders if there still is some space for Tria tourism to grow and if it isnecessarily correlated to the problem he recommend to be fixed. Ina nutshell, even though seemingly plausible, this argument is teeming withinvalid evidence and incomprehensive considerations. Basing on some optimisticassumption and ostensible phenomena could not give any help for solving theproblems completely. To make this passage more persuasive, the author shouldoffer more details about Tria Island and circumstantiate an avenue of how hisproposal will work perfectly.
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发表于 2013-9-23 07:23:58
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