"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 argument recommends reducing the funds budgeted for education, athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities during next decade by stating declining birth rate in the city the reason. The argument does not state proper evidence to support the recommendation. There must be specific evidence to evaluate the argument.
Firstly, there should be an evidence that the students enrolled in their public schools are only from their city. In that case, this evidence can strengthen the argument as number of students enrolled will be decreased when birthrate is declining in their city. But, if the public schools also allow students from other cities for enrollment in the public schools, then the number of students enrolled in the public schools will not decrease drastically despite declining birthrates in the city.
Secondly, there should be an evidence that athletic playing fields only allow students enrolled in public schools and other recreational facilities are only used by students enrolled in the public schools. In that case, this evidence provide support for the recommendation. If students from other cities also play in the athletic playing fields or make use of other recreational facilities, then funding needs to be increased or should remain constant. If adults of the city also make use of other recreational facilities like parks, then they may feel dissatisfied when funding are reduced for recreational facilities.
The author does not state specific evidence to evaluate the argument. The above specific evidences can be used to strengthen or undermine the argument. The above specific evidences helps in deciding whether the argument is reasonable.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 261 350
No. of Characters: 1401 1500
No. of Different Words: 106 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.019 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.368 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.725 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 113 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 90 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.077 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.286 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.385 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.416 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.641 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.188 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, may, second, secondly, so, then
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 19.6327345309 56% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 10.0 28.8173652695 35% => OK
Preposition: 32.0 55.5748502994 58% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1413.0 2260.96107784 62% => OK
No of words: 261.0 441.139720559 59% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.41379310345 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.0193898071 4.56307096286 88% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72542285037 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 102.0 204.123752495 50% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.390804597701 0.468620217663 83% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 445.5 705.55239521 63% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 1.0 19.7664670659 5% => 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: 261.0 22.8473053892 1142% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 0.0 57.8364921388 0% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 1413.0 119.503703932 1182% => Less chars_per_sentence wanted.
Words per sentence: 261.0 23.324526521 1119% => Less words per sentence wanted.
Discourse Markers: 62.0 5.70786347227 1086% => Less transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 8.20758483034 12% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 0.0 6.88822355289 0% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.224717156745 0.218282227539 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.224717156745 0.0743258471296 302% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0 0.0701772020484 0% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.138102163677 0.128457276422 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.121081769146 0.0628817314937 193% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 134.6 14.3799401198 936% => Automated_readability_index is high.
flesch_reading_ease: -201.9 48.3550499002 -418% => Flesch_reading_ease is low.
smog_index: 0.0 7.1628742515 0% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 106.3 12.197005988 872% => Flesch kincaid grade is high.
coleman_liau_index: 15.58 12.5979740519 124% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 19.06 8.32208582834 229% => Dale chall readability score is high.
difficult_words: 41.0 98.500998004 42% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 55.0 12.3882235529 444% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 106.4 11.1389221557 955% => Gunning_fog is high.
text_standard: 55.0 11.9071856287 462% => The average readability is very high. Good job!
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.