Please Rate and Give me Some Advice! [Scott Woods]

[waitingforhim]

Hi, there! I am an international student and need some help.
My goal is to get 4.5~5.0 but ScoreItNow gave me 4.0. Any suggestion?
I think I cannot write over 350 words in 30 min.
On the other hand, do you think that "first of all, secondly, thirds .." are better than my transition words?
; I think e-rater cannot detect "put it differently" as a transition phrase. Am I right?
Thank you very much in advance!


Prompt
The following appeared as a letter to the editor of a local newspaper. "Five years ago, we residents of Morganton voted to keep the publicly owned piece of land known as Scott Woods in a natural, undeveloped state. Our thinking was that, if no shopping centers or houses were built there, Scott Woods would continue to benefit our community as a natural parkland. But now that our town planning committee wants to purchase the land and build a school there, we should reconsider this issue. If the land becomes a school site, no shopping centers or houses can be built there, and substantial acreage would probably be devoted to athletic fields. There would be no better use of land in our community than this, since a large majority of our children participate in sports, and Scott Woods would continue to benefit our community as natural parkland."

My response
In the letter, the author suggests that transforming Scott Woods into a school site with athletic fields would maximize the interest of the community. However, the author relies on several erroneous assumptions and faulty reasoning. Further, the author fails to fully analyze information available, and instead reaches unreliable conclusion. I would examine the letter closely to reveal its problems as follows.

To begin with, the author misleads the reader based on a conjecture, not on a fact. In other words, the past result of the vote is true but he cannot guarantee why the residents of Morganton made such a choice. Given that most votes do not ask people their ulterior motive but their final decision, the author's analysis is unlikely to reflect the voters' reason to leave the land undeveloped. Thus, the argument lends little support to its conclusion from the beginning.

Another problem with the argument is that the author poorly assumes that this idea of the planning committee is representative of most residents of the town. Put is differently, unless the population or circumstances of the Morganton has been changed radically for five years, there is no reason to think that the residents change their mind and agree with the new plan. To persuade the reader, the author needs to provide more concrete evidence that the situation is different from the past.

The author proceeds to claim that making the school and the athletic fields is the best option to benefit the whole community. Nonetheless, this statement will be weakened if the community consists mostly of singles and couples. Without additional information of the composition of population, the conclusion will remains unproven.

Finally, even supposing that the previous assertions of the letter are true, the author's proposal seems to be exaggerated because he ignores alternate options to use the land better for the community. For example, building a pro-environmental camping site or small zoo could be a better option which satisfies both natural state and interest of the community. Consequently, one should consider other ways to achieve the same result.

Taken as a whole, the argument is porous and therefore unconvincing. To bolster the statement, the author should provide more evidence and rule out other possibilities and alternatives. After that, the residents might be able to make a better decision.