The following appeared in a memo from a budget planner for the city of Grandview.
"Our citizens are well aware of the fact that while the Grandview Symphony Orchestra was struggling to succeed, our city government promised annual funding to help support its programs. Last year, however, private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent, and attendance at the symphony's concerts-in-the-park series doubled. The symphony has also announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. Such developments indicate that the symphony can now succeed without funding from city government and we can eliminate that expense from next year's budget. Therefore, we recommend that the city of Grandview eliminate its funding for the Grandview Symphony from next year's budget. By doing so, we can prevent a city budget deficit without threatening the success of the symphony."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In the memo, the budget planner for the city of Grandview recommends diminishing the funding allocated for the Grandview Symphony from the budget of next year by the city of Grandview. The budget planner has provided evidences of increased private contributions to the symphony, doubled attendance at the symphony’s concerts-in-the-park and increased ticket prices for the next year in order to support the recommendation. However, before deciding whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result, these following three questions must be answered properly.
First of all, will private contributions to the symphony increase in the upcoming years as it was the case for last year? The author, without any evidence, assumes that this increasing trend of private contribution will always tend to continue. However, this may not be the case. It is very likely that private contributions to the symphony will drastically reduce in the upcoming years instead of increasing or keeping a constant number. If this is the case, then eliminating government funding to the symphony will bring a disastrous future. It will not do any good for the symphony rather exacerbate the present situation. The budget planner fails to provide any evidence for this and so the argument is seriously flawed.
Secondly, was the number of people attending at the symphony’s concerts-in-the-park series last year a significant number to consider? The author prematurely supposes that the doubled attendance in last year is a huge number of attendances to consider. It is possible that the number of people attending the symphony’s concerts was only 20 double than its previous record of attendances of 10 only. If this case has merit, then the number of attendances will not provide any indication of the success of the symphony. Then cutting down government funding for the symphony will be very deleterious. The budget planner fails to provide necessary evidences for this and so the argument is seriously weakened.
Finally, won’t the announcement of increased ticket price next year have any harmful effect in the success of the symphony? The author assumes without any evidence that people who want to attend the concert are capable of providing that amount of money to enjoy the concert series. In reality, this may not be true. It is very possible that the number of people attending in the concerts will be deduced due to this increase in ticket price. They won’t want to pay so much money for enjoying a mere concert rather they will save it for upcoming future. The argument fails to provide necessary evidence for this issue and so it does not hold water.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands, is seriously flawed as it relies on unwarranted assumptions which may turn out to be invalid later. If the author is able to provide satisfactory answers for the above stated three questions and provide necessary evidences for supporting them , then the argument can be evaluated properly and take the recommendation to consider. Otherwise, the argument will remain flawed as it is on surface.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 507 350
No. of Characters: 2545 1500
No. of Different Words: 195 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.745 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.02 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.822 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 199 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 151 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 107 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.28 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.029 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.31 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.498 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.078 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 286, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
... necessary evidences for supporting them , then the argument can be evaluated prop...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2614.0 2260.96107784 116% => OK
No of words: 503.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19681908549 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73578520332 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.0074443623 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.41351888668 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 817.2 705.55239521 116% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.2609573051 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.56 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.12 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.76 5.70786347227 66% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.15529081308 0.218282227539 71% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.05125823871 0.0743258471296 69% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0833159648864 0.0701772020484 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.105594069276 0.128457276422 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0952188654328 0.0628817314937 151% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.88 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.86 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.