"All students should be required to take the driver's education course at Centerville High School. In the past two years, several accidents in and around Centerville have involved teenage drivers. Since a number of parents in Centerville have complained that they are too busy to teach their teenagers to drive, some other instruction is necessary to ensure that these teenagers are safe drivers. Although there are two driving schools in Centerville, parents on a tight budget cannot afford to pay for driving instruction. Therefore an effective and mandatory program sponsored by the high school is the only solution to this serious problem."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The author assumes that several accidents are involved teenage drivers, and near driving schools cannot be used to instruct teenage drivers; So, Centerville High School can force a mandatory driving course to reduce the accidents that have involved teenage driver. However, lacking cogent evidence and no considering some possible factors makes this assumption dubious.
To begin with, the author relies on reports to suggest that several accidents in and around Centerville have involved teenage drivers. However, the report does not mention the exact number of accidents that are involved teenage drivers and the total number of accidents. Specifically, the total number of accidents in Centerville is 300, and the number of accidents that are involved teenage drivers is 3; With only 3 accidents, people do not know whether teenage drivers are a dangerous factor or not. As a result, the reports cannot represent the overall number of accidents that have involved teenage drivers in Centerville, because these are just minority cases.
Secondly, the arguer fails to establish the causal relationship between no budget to pay for driving instruction and no attending driving school. It is highly possible that other factors contributed to that children do not attend driving school. For instance, the things that children do not attend driving school might have resulted from that parents reckon it is entirely unnecessary; Since parents thought the quality of driving schools is bad, attending driving schools is unnecessary. Lacking evidence that links between lacking money and no attending driving schools, it is presumptuous to suggest that lacking money was responsible for no attending driving schools.
Even if parents lack the budget to arrange for their children to driving schools, the editor’s recommendation depends on the assumption that mandatory programs sponsored by the high school will cause that teenagers can get good driving instruction. However, a myriad of other factors, including lacking practical space and lacking funding, might be the cause of the conclusion that schools cannot force such mandatory programs. To be specific, schools have no space to train students, and teaching them only using text is not effective; Or lacking money will result in that schools is incapable of forcing this policy. Without ruling out these and other possible causes, the editor cannot justifiably conclude that only a mandatory program can instruct students.
To sum up, the author’s assumption is unwarranted. The author must offer the exact number of accidents, consider some possible factors, such as the links between lacking money and no attending driving schools, and consider schools’ conditions; Therefore, this recommendation will be more reasonable.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 426 350
No. of Characters: 2299 1500
No. of Different Words: 180 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.543 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.397 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.641 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 209 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 166 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 86 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.625 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.44 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.688 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.38 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.642 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.167 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 668, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... because these are just minority cases. Secondly, the arguer fails to establish ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, however, if, second, secondly, so, therefore, for instance, such as, as a result, to begin with, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2371.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 426.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.56572769953 5.12650576532 109% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54310108192 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75197976463 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.443661971831 0.468620217663 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 706.5 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => 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: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.427351785 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 148.1875 119.503703932 124% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.625 23.324526521 114% => 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 : 1.0 8.20758483034 12% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.264200284823 0.218282227539 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.103613434424 0.0743258471296 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.107838241498 0.0701772020484 154% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.16468099662 0.128457276422 128% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.127896600302 0.0628817314937 203% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.1 14.3799401198 126% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 36.63 48.3550499002 76% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.32 12.5979740519 122% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.56 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.