The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava."The birthrate in our city is declining: in fact, last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students en

Essay topics:

The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava.

"The birthrate in our city is declining: in fact, last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students enrolled in our public schools will soon decrease dramatically, and we can safely reduce the funds budgeted for education during the next decade. At the same time, we can reduce funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. As a result, we will have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults, since we can expect the adult population of the city to increase."

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 has failed to convince us that the budget that belongs to education of children shall go directly to programs, which are designed to assist primarily needs of adults. Even if the claim may seem logical at first glance, the article lacks the illustrative information to prove this claim. The argument, as it satnds, is based on questionable assumption and a faulty line of reasoning, a fact that renders it over-simplistic and unconvincing. In what follows, some evidences, which are necessary to admit the conclusion are expressed and elucidated.

The primary issue with the writer’s evidences lies in his/her unsubstantiated premises. First, he contended that the birthrate has been cut to half in comparison to five years ago. The question here is “how was the birthrate in that specific year, which the last year is comprised with?” consider the number of infants in five years ago had a drastic increase so that although the aforementioned number is only one-half of that it is still normal in a period of 20 years or so. The point that shall be noted here is that for taking action on such statistics like birthrate a wide range period of time shall be chosen, also the statistics information of all that period should be given to readers.

Secondly, the author claimed that thus the number of birthrate is declined in last year the number of students enrolled in public schools will decrease consequently. However, a question raised here is “why the writer just mentioned public schools?” Actually, there is no evidence in this article that convinced us that just public schools will have excess funded. Maybe there are some students that have to enroll in private schools because there is not enough place in public schools; therefore, if the number of students is going to be declined in near future there are many applicants in comparison to past for enrolling in public schools, which are supported by the government.

Lastly, the author pointed out that the budget of recreational places will spend for programs that used primarily by adults. However, there is no concrete evidence that proves recreational places are given enough fund now. It would be better if the author supports this claim by additional statistics, which shows athletic playing fields, are taking surplus money also other facilities for adults are not taking enough money and they are in need of that budget.

To wrap up, considering all the aspects of the argument that has been discussed above, the lack in some evidences, reduces the robustness of the conclusion presented in the article. If the article includes all the additional premises, which are expressed so far in this article, it would have been more thorough and convincing.

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Sentence: The argument, as it satnds, is based on questionable assumption and a faulty line of reasoning, a fact that renders it over-simplistic and unconvincing.
Error: satnds Suggestion: stands

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argument 1 -- not OK

argument 2 -- not OK

argument 3 -- not OK
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flaws:
You are on the wrong track for GRE argument essays. In GRE/GMAT, we have to accept all data or evidence are true. Every thing 'is good for ETS' while it is 'bad for us'.

Let's analyze the structure of the statement and argue accordingly:

condition 1:
last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students enrolled in our public schools will soon decrease dramatically, and we can safely reduce the funds budgeted for education during the next decade. //maybe people will move from other cities to this city and keep the number of enrolled students stable.

condition 2:
At the same time, we can reduce funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. //maybe athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities are for adults too

conclusion:
As a result, we will have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults, since we can expect the adult population of the city to increase. //maybe the money reduced are not big enough to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults.

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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: ? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 455 350
No. of Characters: 2225 1500
No. of Different Words: 217 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.619 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.89 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.655 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 164 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 114 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.765 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.79 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.706 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.302 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.572 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.101 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5