The following appeared in a memo to the board of the Grandview Symphony.
"The city of Grandview has provided annual funding for the Grandview Symphony since the symphony's inception ten years ago. Last year the symphony hired an internationally known conductor, who has been able to attract high-profile guest musicians to perform with the symphony. Since then, private contributions to the symphony have doubled and attendance at the symphony's concerts-in-the-park series has reached new highs. Now that the Grandview Symphony is an established success, it can raise ticket prices. Increased revenue from larger audiences and higher ticket prices will enable the symphony to succeed without funding from the city government."
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.
Based on the observation of past one year, in which the Grandview Symphony was able to attract double audience than normal and also enhanced private contribution, the author concludes that it no longer requires the funding from the city government, which was actually a major source of funding since its inception ten years ago. Had the author elucidated the premises with supporting evidence, the conclusion would have been plausible enough. However, as it stands now, the author must buttress his conclusion with following three pieces of evidence before gauzing its credibility.
First of all, Would the symphony succeed perpetually, if the newly hired internationally known conductor were to terminate contract in near future? The author mentions very little about the tenure and contract agreement of the newly hired conductor who apparently helped to increase the occupancy of concert-in-the-park series. It might be one undesirable situation if the Grandview Symphony decide to discontinue the funding from the government, and shortly loses its new conductor and added private contribution. As inferred in the memo, the government funding had been a major clog for sustainability of the Grandview Symphony since last 10 years and it would not be wise to abruptly counting it out without concrete evidence of durability of new change, in this case, persistance of new conductor and assurance of continued private contribution.
Moreover, the author seems to skip the part where the viability of ticket sales on higher price need to be assessed before making such a huge decision of discontinuing a primary source of fund. The possibility of people not opting to buy ticket at higher price can not be ruled out. Possibly, the private contribution which seems to have increased over last year might reduce as well, following the declination in number of audience. This would be a detrimental outcome for the Grandview Symphony team.
Finally, the conclusion seems hasty and rushed because of its inference based on the observation of a mere single year. Had the author provided evidence regarding the assurance of similar number of audience in following years too, that would have strengthen the recommendation. But, logically, it would take analysis of various other factors to predict the number of audience in following years, and without proper historical data to extrapolate, the author seems to fall short of options to justify the plausibility of his inference.
To conclude, the author in his memo draws an inference, albeit a seemingly premature one, based on some weak assumptions and observations over last year. To ensure that the Grandview Symphony will not suffer in future with implementation of hasty recommendations, the author must provide above mentioned pieces of evidence to strength his poin
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 446 350
No. of Characters: 2328 1500
No. of Different Words: 226 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.596 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.22 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.908 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 132 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 106 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 70 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.875 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.18 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.347 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.591 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.081 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 248, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Use past participle here: 'strengthened'.
Suggestion: strengthened
...in following years too, that would have strengthen the recommendation. But, logically, it ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, apparently, but, finally, first, however, if, moreover, regarding, so, then, well, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 19.6327345309 51% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 77.0 55.5748502994 139% => OK
Nominalization: 30.0 16.3942115768 183% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2385.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 445.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.3595505618 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.59293186426 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.02179433531 2.78398813304 109% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.516853932584 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 755.1 705.55239521 107% => 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: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 73.0974307004 57.8364921388 126% => OK
Chars per sentence: 149.0625 119.503703932 125% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.8125 23.324526521 119% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.9375 5.70786347227 122% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.306605726376 0.218282227539 140% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0966188737431 0.0743258471296 130% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0873840125412 0.0701772020484 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.167286160491 0.128457276422 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0629431225478 0.0628817314937 100% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.7 14.3799401198 123% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 35.61 48.3550499002 74% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.1 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.23 8.32208582834 111% => OK
difficult_words: 120.0 98.500998004 122% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => 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.