GRE Argument:
The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist.
“Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. However, my recent interviews with children living in the group of islands that includes Tertia show that these children spend much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. This research of mine proves that Dr. Field's conclusion about Tertian village culture is invalid and thus that the observation-centered approach to studying cultures is invalid as well. The interview-centered method that my team of graduate students is currently using in Tertia will establish a much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions there and in other island cultures.”
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.
The author claims that the interview-centered method of understanding child-rearing traditions will produce much more accurate result than observation-centered method. The basis for this claim is a previous result of observation-centered method of understanding child-tearing tradition which is different from the interview-centered method. However, the basis on which the claim stands is not strong enough. Moreover, there are also some holes and illogical assumptions present in the argument.
First, the author found that the children, in the interview, talked more about their biological parent...
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Sentence: This scenario encouraged the author to make a hasty claim that the previous opinion about child-rearing tradition that the child are reared by the whole villagians not by their biological parents is invalid.
Description: The fragment that the child is not usually followed by are
Suggestion: Possible agreement error: Replace are with is
Sentence: Third, it would not be unwise to assume that the number of interview questions about the childrens' biological parents were more than other issues.
Description: A noun, plural, common, genitive is not usually followed by a noun, plural, common, genitive
Suggestion: children's
Sentence: That is why, the authors claim is not acceptable.
Description: A noun, plural, common is not usually followed by a noun, singular, common
Suggestion: author's claim
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 480 350
No. of Characters: 2434 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.681 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.071 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.43 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 165 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.818 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.988 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.545 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.329 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.546 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.177 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5