The following appeared in the editorial section of a health and fitness magazine.
"In a study of the effects of exercise on longevity, medical researchers tracked 500 middle-aged men over a 20-year period. The subjects represented a variety of occupations in several different parts of the country and responded to an annual survey in which they were asked: How often and how strenuously do you exercise? Of those who responded, the men who reported that they engaged in vigorous outdoor exercise nearly every day lived longer than the men who reported that they exercised mildly only once or twice a week. Given the clear link that this study establishes between longevity and exercise, doctors should not recommend moderate exercise to their patients but should instead encourage vigorous outdoor exercise on a daily basis." - GRE Argument 42
This editorial concludes that to maximize longevity people should engage in vigorous outdoor exercise on a daily basis. To support this conclusion the editorial cites a 20-year study of 500 middle-aged men in which, among subjects responding to an annual survey, those who followed this regimen lived longer, on average, than those who exercised mildly once or twice per week. A careful analysis of the study reveals several problems with the editorial's argument.
First of all, the excerpt provides no information about the number of respondents or their occupational or residential profiles. ...
Subscribe as testbig VIP readers and get unlimited access to essays on the top list.
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 494 350
No. of Characters: 2570 1500
No. of Different Words: 217 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.714 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.202 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.806 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 202 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 161 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 124 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 70 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.979 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.421 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.358 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.587 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.104 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5