The data from a survey of high school math and science teachers show that in the district of Sanlee many of these teachers reported assigning daily homework, whereas in the district of Marlee, most science and math teachers reported assigning homework no more than two or three days per week. Despite receiving less frequent homework assignments, Marlee students earn better grades overall and are less likely to be required to repeat a year of school than are students in Sanlee. These results call into question the usefulness of frequent homework assignments. Most likely the Marlee students have more time to concentrate on individual assignments than do the Sanlee students who have homework every day. Therefore teachers in our high schools should assign homework no more than twice a week.
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 presented by the author is flawed due to numerous reasons. Primarily because the author only takes the survey, which may not be representative or true, into account. Thus, the fault survey renders the argument invalid.
Firstly, teachers may have provided wrong information to seem more successfull despite giving less homework. In many states the wage received by the teachers are concluded via the success of the students. Thus the teachers in Marlee may have presented unaccurate information to improve their wages.
Furthermore, it is not certain that the survey is representable of whole Sanlee or Marlene students. The author does not give enough information, thus we do not know if the highschools are randomly chosen or if they display similar characteristics such as the budget of the school or the teacher quality. Since the survey might be faulty or present innacurate findings and the author solely based his or her claims on the findings of the said study, it proves the argument of the author to be not logically sound.
Even if the survey presented is true and students may perform better with less homeworks due to claimed reasons, the success of the students should not be only measured through better grades or repetition of the school year. Having homework everyday may be tiring, but it may also build stamina for the general exams. Overall the students from district of Sanlee may be accepted more into undergraduate programs, even though they may seem less successfull on the survey. If the survey disclosed has also given statistics on the acceptance rates into universities, it would support the claim of the author further.
Moreover, the survey does not take the social class and disposible income of the students and their families. If the Marlee is a richer district, the students may have better teachers who are capable of teaching more material in less homework assignment. Furthermore due to the higher budgets of the students, private tutoring may be accessible to Marlene students but not Sanlee students. If the author would have stated that these highschool's students have a similar financial background, it would strenghten the claim of the author.
Conclusively, because the argument of the author is fully based on the survey which lacks important information to be shown truthfull, the author fails to make a convincing case.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 388 350
No. of Characters: 1952 1500
No. of Different Words: 184 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.438 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.031 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.682 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 158 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.556 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.447 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.778 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.377 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.377 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.119 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 205, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...cluded via the success of the students. Thus the teachers in Marlee may have present...
^^^^
Line 4, column 75, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun homeworks is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...ue and students may perform better with less homeworks due to claimed reasons, the s...
^^^^
Line 5, column 255, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Furthermore,
...e material in less homework assignment. Furthermore due to the higher budgets of the studen...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 404, Rule ID: IF_WOULD_HAVE_VBN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'had stated'?
Suggestion: had stated
... but not Sanlee students. If the author would have stated that these highschools students have a ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, if, may, moreover, so, thus, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 15.0 28.8173652695 52% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 55.5748502994 72% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1996.0 2260.96107784 88% => OK
No of words: 388.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.14432989691 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.43821085614 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76695634252 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 190.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.489690721649 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 607.5 705.55239521 86% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.9087635604 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.888888889 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5555555556 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.22222222222 5.70786347227 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.140502117934 0.218282227539 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0529455071414 0.0743258471296 71% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0446248274427 0.0701772020484 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0774723128483 0.128457276422 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0490082149846 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.6 14.3799401198 95% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.53 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.67 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
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.