Benton City residents have adopted healthier lifestyles. A recent survey of city residents shows that the eating habits of city residents conform more closely to government nutritional recommendations than they did ten years ago. During those ten years, local sales of food products containing kiran, a substance that a scientific study has shown reduces cholesterol, have increased fourfold, while sales of sulia, a food rarely eaten by the healthiest residents, have declined dramatically. Because of these positive changes in the eating habits of Benton City residents, we predict that the obesity rate in the city will soon be well below the national average.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
The writer of the memo states that residents of Benton City are going to face a low obesity rate than the national average in the coming period due to the fact that those residents have adopted a healthier lifestyle. However, the conclusion of the writing depends on unfolded assumptions which weaken the persuasiveness of the passage.
Firstly, the author assumes that recent research, offering people conformed their eating habits with the government recommendations, shows actual feelings or ideas of Benton City residents. However, taking what respondents tell during surveys at face value can be misleading. Maybe people responded in such a way that their first aim was to show Benton City as a success story in the whole nation, and, thus, gave biased answers. In addition, there is ten-year-gap between the condeucted surveys. For a survey to be successful and informative, it must be representative, viable and reasonable. Were the surveys mentioned in the memo conducted in this manner? Were the people interviewed the same? What is the age level of the respondents? Were they single or married? These are all questions that define the quality of a survey. As seen, if the above statements are, the memo looses its persuasiveness.
Secondly, the writer assumes that increase in the sales of local food products including kiran and decrease in the consumption of an unhealthy product sulia are two main indications of healthy eating habits. Taking only these two products while evaluating daily habits of a society seems to be significantly restrective, and misleading. The survey should include a list of healthy and unhealthy products so that respondents can pick the ones they consume and refrain from eating or drinking. In addition, since there is not enough information regarding eating habits of the people we cannot clearly define what caused a decline in the consumption of sulia. Maybe people gave up sulia, because its prices skyracketed because of high demand.
If these are true, then, maybe, people of Benton City is much more worse than ten years ago in the sense of their eating habit.
Thirdly, while the author iterates information about obesity level of Benton City people, he or she falls short in giving concrete numbers regarding people's actual weights. Such kind of information would be vital in determining whether there is a fall or an increase in the obesity level of the people of the region. In addition, this indicators should also be divided to age groups and sex to have a more realistic idea about the lifstyles of people. Therefore, the memo, again, is weakened significantly without the existence of such important indicators.
Overall, while the author is making a prediction regarding the future obesity level Benton City, he forgets to mention about factual information regarding the obesity level of people ten years ago and now. In addition, he or she forgets to mention other products other than kiran and sulia. Lastly, the surveys made are far from being comparable since there is no extra information is prodided. Hence, the author should consider making the memo more persuasive in the light of the information given above.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 9 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 9 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 518 350
No. of Characters: 2596 1500
No. of Different Words: 253 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.771 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.012 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.686 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 199 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 132 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.185 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.878 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.704 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.269 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.446 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.077 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 63, Rule ID: MOST_COMPARATIVE[2]
Message: Use only 'worse' (without 'more') when you use the comparative.
Suggestion: worse
...n, maybe, people of Benton City is much more worse than ten years ago in the sense of thei...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 331, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
... the people of the region. In addition, this indicators should also be divided to ag...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, hence, however, if, lastly, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, while, as to, in addition, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2671.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 518.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.15637065637 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.77070365392 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78555909205 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 261.0 204.123752495 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.503861003861 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 848.7 705.55239521 120% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 52.6225788276 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.9259259259 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.1851851852 23.324526521 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.96296296296 5.70786347227 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 11.0 4.67664670659 235% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.249831542261 0.218282227539 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0557485780326 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0770674674049 0.0701772020484 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.145881737755 0.128457276422 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0929388761191 0.0628817314937 148% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.63 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 133.0 98.500998004 135% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => 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.