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这是新题第一篇,也是我练习的第一篇，有颜色的地方是我自己改的.你们提提意见吧。
judy似乎很久没来了；入画好像最近在猛攻awa哦，所以请教一下你呵
140. The following editorial appeared in the South Fork Gazette.
“Last year, the city contracted with Flower Power to plant a variety of flowers in big decorative pots on Main Street and to water them each week. By midsummer many of the plants were wilted. This year the city should either contract for two waterings a week or save money by planting artificial flowers in the pots. According to Flower Power, the initial cost for artificial flowers would be twice as much as for real plants, but after two years, we would save money. Public reaction certainly supports this position: in a recent survey, over 1,200 Gazette readers said that the city wastes money and should find ways to reduce spending.”
Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.
In this editorial, the author recommends that, in order to change the current circumstances about wilted street flowers, either wartering twice a week or replacing them by plastic flowers should be considered. To support this position, the author argues that the artificial ones could be economical after two years of planting, which is claimed by Flower Power, the contractor, and cites the result of a survey, which says 1,200 Gazette readers call for reducing expenditure. However, the line of reasoning in this editorial is problematic for several fallacies followed.
In the first place, the author makes an "Either-Or" fallacy by concluding that there are only two methods to respond to the problem. In fact, without analyzing real reasons causing the wilt, nothing can be logically proposed. For example, if the reason of wilted flowers is not lack water but a nutritional deficiency, watering frequently will be a useless attempt. And if that is, in order to complement their growths, the effective solution is to appropriately fertilize those flowers， rather than water them. Moreover, perhaps these flowers are not adaptive to the climate here, thus，no matter what we do, they cannot survive. For instance, some flowers prefer a warm climate, but unfortunately the city is latitude 70 degrees north
with an arctic climate throughout the year. To a certain extent,. bringing in another type might be a good choice.
In the second place, the author provides an unconvincing survey which fails to offer the total number of readers involved and the way in which the survey is conducted. Without these information, the credibility of the survey cannot be guaranteed, thus it is inappropriate to apply its result to support the position in this argument. Suppose that there are 20,000 readers participating it, such a small ratio of supporters to dissenters will lend little credibility to prove anything. Or suppose that only 10 percent of all citizens read Gazette, even if 1,500 joined the survey, it is still biased to lead to the conclusion for they could not represent all.
Finally, the author’s further inference about views of readers from the survey is called into question. The readers only express their desire for less government spending, but not targeting any specific project. However, the author wrongly assumes that these readers, when complaining, refer to the flower project and fails to link their discontents to his own assumption validly. Thus the argument is undermined again.
In sum, if the author proves that only two ways mentioned in his argument can rescue flowers and that the artificial flowers are really thrifty, the proposed suggestion will be well-established and persuasive. In addition, it could be more convincing by clarifying the biased survey and applying it correctly.
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发表于 2006-2-18 17:39:00
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