5月考试，写了新狗AA052，来不及了请大家狠拍拯救我

jiaerbaobei

The following editorial appeared in the Elm City paper.
“The construction last year of a shopping mall in downtown Oak City was a mistake. Since the mall has opened, a number of local businesses have closed, and the downtown area suffers from an acute parking shortage, and arrests for crime and vagrancy have increased in the nearby Oak City Park. Elm City should pay attention to the example of the Oak City mall and deny the application to build a shopping mall in Elm City.”



In this argument, the author concludes that Elm city should deny the application to build a shopping mall. To support this conclusion, the arguer points out that the construction of a shopping mall in oak city was a mistake. In addition, the arguer reasons that after the mall’s open, local business closed, and the downtown area suffers from a shortage of parking lots, what’s more, asserts for crime and vagrancy have increased nearby. At first glance, the argument is somehow plausible, but further reflection reveals that it suffers from at least two logic flaws.


In the First place, the author commits a fallacy of “post hoc”, his line of reasoning is that the newly located shopping mall is the cause of declining local business, acute parking lots as well rising criminal rates. The only evidence to support this conclusion is that the construction of the mall preceded the negative affairs. However, the evidence is insufficient to establish the claim in question because a mere chronological relationship leaves open the possibility that two events are not causally related but merely correlated. To establish a causal relationship, many other factors that could bring about the same result should be considered and limited. For example, the closed local business may have carried their stores to the new shopping mall in order to share the resource of large quantity of consumers. And the problem of parking shortage has existed for a long period. Furthermore, the crime and vagrancy may not be paid much attention on until the huge mall’s open brings a intensity analogy.


The second assumption is that Oak city will be analogous to Elm city. Apparently, this assumption is weak, since although there are points between Oak and Elm, differences between the two cities clearly outweigh the surface similarity. For example, oak city might be an historical city and lack of fundamental facilities so that it is not suitable for large construction projects while Elm city is nearly founded and the questions of parking lots and competition within the industry are already considered. The same may be true of the amount of unemployed people who have a higher possibility to become crime or vagrancy. Problems such as these preclude them from having a similar effect on the Elm city.


In sum, the author fails to validate the conclusion that to build a shopping mall in Elm city is a mistake. To make it logically acceptable, the author should demonstrate that atmospheres in the discussed two cities are the same. Additionally, the arguer would have to provide more concrete evidence, especially the information concerning that the appearance of the new shopping mall is the only cause of the bad results, to rule out the abovementioned possibility that would undermine the author’s claim.