Several recent studies have shown a link between health and stair usage. One recently completed study shows that people who live in stairs-only apartment buildings (that is, buildings without elevators) live an average of three years longer than do people who live in buildings with both elevators and stairs. A second study shows that elderly residents of buildings with elevators make, on average, twice as many visits to doctors each year as do residents of buildings without elevators. Furthermore, several doctor's offices are reporting that residents of stairs-only buildings scored higher than average on questionnaires administered to new patients, in which the patients were asked to rate several aspects of their own health (e.g., fitness, sleep quality, susceptibility to injury, etc.). The clearest explanation for these findings is that the moderate daily exercise required of residents who must use the stairs instead of elevators increases people's health and longevity.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
The argument that moderate daily exercise needed of residents who must make use of the stairs rather than elevators raises people's wellness and longevity does not seem to be complete. There are gaps in the logic that render it unconvincig. The following essay will expose theses flaws and demonstrate how the argument could be made more cogent.
First, the argument unfairly presupposes that the first mentioned study, that people dwelling in stairs-only flats live on average of three years longer than their counterparts living in building with both stairs and elevators, is in fact representative of the majority of the community's citizens. Perhaps the select group chosen for the research accounted for a tiny fraction of the society's populace and hence, its results cannot be extended to the general population. If the author had statistically shown that those people studied by the first mentioned research constituted considerable percentage of the general population, the argument could have been strengthened.
Second, the fact depicted by the second study, that old residents of buildings with elevators make, on average, twice as many visits to doctors yearly as do dwellers of buildings with elevators, is little indication that the latter are healthier and live longer. Perchance those people visiting doctors more often are indeed a small number of the general population who cannot be representative of the majority of a city's residents. Just like the first study, the author has only pointed out to the output of the second research without presenting any statistics regarding the size of its select group. The writer could reinforce their case by supplying quantitative details about the second study and that how its results can show the trend among the majority of the populace.
Finally, what the author means by "several doctor's offices"? In other words, the term "several" could acount for a handful of doctor's offices in a locality that cannot be representative of the whole population. Similar to the mentioned studies, this reference to doctor's offices lacks the sufficient clarity in terms of the number of the examined offices. Moreover, why scoring higher than average on inquieries administered to new patients amount to their weaker health? How the marks are correlated to the level of the respondents's well-being and longevity? According to the argument, the respondents were asked to rate several aspects of their own health. does higher rating mean less life expectancy? The writer has just failed to answer such critical questions clearly. Questions which should be addressed so as to enable us to evaluate the argument's validity. The line of reasoning would become stronger, if the author provided clear evidence with the purpose of helping with answering the above-mentaioned questions.
To summarise, the argument is not wholly sensible. The evidence in support of the conclusion that moderate daily exercise required of residents who must use the stairs rather than elevators raises people's health and longevity does little to substantiate that conclusion, since it does not address the suppositions already brought up.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 497 350
No. of Characters: 2622 1500
No. of Different Words: 254 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.722 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.276 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.772 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 212 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 153 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 117 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 70 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.728 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.524 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.299 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.501 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.063 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 326, Rule ID: SMALL_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, use 'a few', or use 'some'
Suggestion: a few; some
... visiting doctors more often are indeed a small number of the general population who cannot be re...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 398, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...pulation who cannot be representative of the majority of a citys residents. Just ...
^^
Line 7, column 680, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Does
...te several aspects of their own health. does higher rating mean less life expectancy...
^^^^
Line 7, column 832, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...ly. Questions which should be addressed so as to enable us to evaluate the arguments val...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 867, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguments'' or 'argument's'?
Suggestion: arguments'; argument's
...ssed so as to enable us to evaluate the arguments validity. The line of reasoning would b...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 19, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... already brought up.
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, hence, if, moreover, regarding, second, so, then, well, as to, in fact, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2717.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 497.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 5.46680080483 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72159896747 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.93381964507 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 266.0 204.123752495 130% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.535211267606 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 839.7 705.55239521 119% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.6356858528 57.8364921388 124% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.5 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.5909090909 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.63636363636 5.70786347227 81% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.229344061759 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0499337652736 0.0743258471296 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0688943439031 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.127952653499 0.128457276422 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0611032947366 0.0628817314937 97% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.74 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.08 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 137.0 98.500998004 139% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.