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 writer of the letter above argues that the school board force all students at Centerville High School to take the driver’s education for three different reasons: first, he cites accident records which happened around Centerville and teenagers were engaged; Second, some parents who have not enough time for parental instruction asked the mandatory course; Third, despite two nearby institutions, parents living on a tight budget cannot afford it. However, his reasoning from the evidence is based on unproven assumptions.
To begin with, he assumes that if a teenager-involved accident happened around Centerville, then one student of Centerville High School should be engaged in and responsible for the accident. On the one hand, it would be sound if there were only one school nearby. Yet, this does not necessarily hold true. If there are many other schools in Centerville, then requiring Centerville High School students to take the driver’s education would not result in any good output. Hence, if the assumption that the accidents were the student’s fault, this data does not support his claim.
Next, the letter writer presupposes that parents who complained their tight schedule represent the whole parents of the student. However, he gives no statistical justification for representativeness of the complaint. If the complaining parents are not representative to the whole parents, for example, they are too small in number, the fact that there were complaints from few parents does not justify the need for the mandatory driver’s education at Centerville High School.
Similarly, his reasoning depends on the assumption that the parents on a tight budget are representative. If they are not, say, only a few parents have trouble paying for driving education, it would be more cost efficient for school to give the students in need financial aid for driver’s education outside the school. Thus, to make his argument sound, he needs to suggest evidence for this unstated assumption.
Finally, although he gives additional evidence which makes up any logical gap I mentioned above, it does not mean that it is the best solution to the problem. This is because the writer assumes that launching driver’s education at the high school is more efficient than out-sourcing it. If we consider the additional costs of hiring new instructors, buying and building materials required for the courses, it would be reasonable to our-source the education to pre-existing institutions.
In sum, the writer’s reasoning is dependent on at least four unjustified and unstated assumptions. Should it be the case that this undischarged possibility is true, the conclusion of the letter stands on the unstable basis.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 316, Rule ID: ADJECTIVE_IN_ATTRIBUTE[1]
Message: A more concise phrase may lose no meaning and sound more powerful.
Suggestion: small
...hole parents, for example, they are too small in number, the fact that there were complaints fr...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, hence, however, if, second, similarly, so, then, third, thus, at least, for example, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2332.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 428.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.44859813084 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.548423998 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.12529499001 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 214.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.5 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 703.8 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 14.0 4.96107784431 282% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 92.1610238712 57.8364921388 159% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.555555556 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.7777777778 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.33333333333 5.70786347227 111% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
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: 0.350464104081 0.218282227539 161% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0987687268561 0.0743258471296 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.104758076628 0.0701772020484 149% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.17915892221 0.128457276422 139% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0919377918009 0.0628817314937 146% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.63 12.5979740519 116% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.54 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 102.0 98.500998004 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 20.0 12.3882235529 161% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5 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.