▶ Your Answer : In this passage, the author argues that the
demand of home heating oil will increase in northeastern United States and
people should invest in Consolidated Industries. Although this argument may seem
convincing at first, the lack of sound assumptions leads me to question the
validity of the argument. First,
the author needs to prove about forecasted weather assumption, how much forecaster’s
prediction is valid. Because minor factors called butterfly effects can affect
weather very easily, prediction of weather is one of the complicated tasks in
the world. That is why every weather prediction have the percentage of accuracy.
However, the author did not mention the specific accuracy about prediction. It
is possible that this cold weather pattern is an aberration and the prediction
of weather is wrong. Even though the prediction about weather pattern is correct
so the weather will be getting colder, the idea that demand of oil will be
increase is not sound. Even if there is tradition about using oil for heating
home, people might not care about tradition. Since oil is not eco-friendly
energy, making a lot of pollution, people may realize using other energy like
natural gases is helpful for environment rather using oil.
Second, building new houses does not directly mean the increase of
population. This is radical assumption. It is plausible that people do not want
to move their region even many new attractive houses are built. When people
move to another city, they consider many factors like their money, safety of
city and jobs. If the city qualifies their requirement, the number of people
will not grow.
Lastly, people might not use much of oil, even
if weather getting cold and cold days will extend. In other word, people may
cannot afford the oil, if the economy of United Stated is stagnant and oil price
will increase. Since people do not have enough money to live, they will start to
reduce the usage of oil and choose the cheaper decision, getting clothes
thicker. Therefore, predict the oil consuming is very complicated. The author need
to reprove assumptions for high consuming of home heating oil. |