1. The following appeared in a letter to the editor of Parson City's local newspaper.
"In our region of Trillura, the majority of money spent on the schools that most students attend—the city-run public schools—comes from taxes that each city government collects. The region's cities differ, however, in the budgetary priority they give to public education. For example, both as a proportion of its overall tax revenues and in absolute terms, Parson City has recently spent almost twice as much per year as Blue City has for its public schools—even though both cities have about the same number of residents. Clearly, Parson City residents place a higher value on providing a good education in public schools than Blue City residents do."
下面这段文字出自Parson City当地报社记者的信。
在我们的Trillura区域，大多数学生就读的市属公立学校的大部分资金来自各个市政府收的税款。然而，该区域的各个城市给与公共教育的预算优先权是不一样的。例如，不管是就占全部税收的比重还是就总量而言，Parson市每年用于公共教育的资金几乎是Blue市的两倍，即便两市居民人数差不多一样。显然，Parson市居民比Blue市居民更重视给公立学校提供高质量的教育。
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
2. The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of Quiot Manufacturing.
"During the past year, Quiot Manufacturing had 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than at the nearby Panoply Industries plant, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. Experts say that significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents are fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers. Therefore, to reduce the number of on-the-job accidents at Quiot and thereby increase productivity, we should shorten each of our three work shifts by one hour so that employees will get adequate amounts of sleep."
下面这段文字节选自Quiot Manufacturing副总裁的备忘录。
去年，Quiot Manufacturing的工伤事故比邻近的Panoply工厂多30%，Panoply的每班工作时间比Quiot Manufacturing的短一个小时。专家认为导致很多工伤事故的重要因素是工人的疲劳和睡眠不足。因此，为了减少Quiot的工伤事故并且提高生产效率，我们每个班次的工作时间都应该减少一小时，这样工人将有更充足的睡眠。
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.
3. The following appeared in a memorandum from the planning department of an electric power company.
"Several recent surveys indicate that home owners are increasingly eager to conserve energy. At the same time, manufacturers are now marketing many home appliances, such as refrigerators and air conditioners, that are almost twice as energy efficient as those sold a decade ago. Also, new technologies for better home insulation and passive solar heating are readily available to reduce the energy needed for home heating. Therefore, the total demand for electricity in our area will not increase—and may decline slightly. Since our three electric generating plants in operation for the past twenty years have always met our needs, construction of new generating plants will not be necessary."
下面这段文字出自一个电力公司战略发展部的备忘录。
一些最近的调查表明，房主越来越强烈地希望节省能源，并且生产商现在正在推出很多比十年前的电器几乎节能两倍的家用电器，比如冰箱和空调。而且，更好的房屋隔热和被动式太阳能采暖的新技术已经可以用于减少家庭采暖所需的能源。因此，我们预计我们地区的用电需求总量不会增加，而可能有轻微下降。由于我们已经运作了20年的三座发电站总能够满足需求，我们无需建造新的发电厂。
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.
4. The vice president of human resources at Climpson Industries sent the following recommendation to the company's president.
"In an effort to improve our employees' productivity, we should implement electronic monitoring of employees' Internet use from their workstations. Employees who use the Internet from their workstations need to be identified and punished if we are to reduce the number of work hours spent on personal or recreational activities, such as shopping or playing games. By installing software to detect employees' Internet use on company computers, we can prevent employees from wasting time, foster a better work ethic at Climpson, and improve our overall profits."
Climpson人力资源副总裁给公司总裁提出如下建议：
为提高员工的生产效率，我们应该在员工的终端上加装电子监控来监视员工对互联网的使用。如果我们要减少用于私人以及娱乐活动，比如购物或玩游戏的工作时间，在终端上使用互联网的员工必须要被确认并且受到惩罚。通过在公司电脑上安装检测员工使用互联网的软件，我们可以防止员工浪费时间，并培养Climpson更好的工作氛围，以及提高我们的整体利润。
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.
5. The following appeared in a letter from the owner of the Sunnyside Towers apartment complex to its manager.
"One month ago, all the showerheads in the first three buildings of the Sunnyside Towers complex were modified to restrict maximum water flow to one-third of what it used to be. Although actual readings of water usage before and after the adjustment are not yet available, the change will obviously result in a considerable savings for Sunnyside Corporation, since the corporation must pay for water each month. Except for a few complaints about low water pressure, no problems with showers have been reported since the adjustment. I predict that modifying showerheads to restrict water flow throughout all twelve buildings in the Sunnyside Towers complex will increase our profits even more dramatically."
下面这段文字出自Sunnyside Towers apartment complex所有者给它的管理者的一封信。
一个月前，Sunnyside塔楼一至三层所有淋浴喷头的水压被调节成只有以前的大约三分之一。尽管在调节之后用水量的确切数据还没有出来，但这种变革显然将为Sunnyside公司节省大量的花费，因为公司必须每月为所用的水付费。除了关于低水压的几起投诉，在调节之后没有关于淋浴喷头问题的报告。可以预言，在Sunnyside塔楼所有的12层都限制水压将极大增加我们的利润。
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction
