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 author argues that teachers in high school should not assign homework more than twice a week. The author makes his argument based on a survey of high school math and science teachers that reported to only giving out homework two or three days per week. In addition, the author claims that despite getting less homework, Marlee students get better grades compared to Sanlee students who are given homework each school day. However, the author fails to provide sufficient evidence, and avoids three important questions that weaken the authors argument.
First, the author fails to provide enough evidence that would in turn help make a stronger argument. While a survey was concluded, the author fails to provide evidence of how many teachers were interviewed. Were three teachers survyed or forty? How many schools did the author look at to come up with this assertion? Thus, by leaving out this curcial information the author fails to convience other schools to adopt a similiar approach.
Furthermore, the author throws in the word 'many' and 'most', however, what is many or most in his/her point of view? Maybe by many or most the author assumes that he/she does not have to provide the actual number of teachers who were surveyed. For instance, is it possible that by saying most the author reffers to the teachers who decided to complete this survey? Moreover, what about the teachers who disagree, and did not complete the survey what are their opinions on this. Thus, not enough crucial evidence is provided here to make such a bold request.
Finally, only two schools are mentioned here, thus is possible that perhaps the teachers who were surveyed by the author grade way differently and that being the reason for such grade difference between the two schools? In addition, the author compares two different schools that may operate differently and may have different teaching styles. Each school has its own philasophy, therefore, comparing just two schools to make this bold predicition is invalid and falls flat since not enough evidence is presented.
In sum, while the author may be on to something, he/she fails to provide sufficient evidence to convience other schools that giving out less homework will increase student performance. By failing to provide the number of teachers surveyed, throwing words in such as 'many' and 'most', and discussing if the two schools are similiar the author fails to provide necessary evidence to help think otherwise. Therefore, by having three major plot holes in his/her argument the author is unable to have a strong argument to convience other schools to adopt the same teaching method.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 440 350
No. of Characters: 2150 1500
No. of Different Words: 200 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.58 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.886 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.347 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 169 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 29 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.497 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.383 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.58 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.195 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 538, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ree important questions that weaken the authors argument. First, the author fails t...
^^^^^^^
Line 10, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ls to adopt the same teaching method.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, furthermore, however, if, look, may, moreover, so, therefore, thus, while, for instance, in addition, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2223.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 436.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.09862385321 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56953094068 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.44914180847 2.78398813304 88% => OK
Unique words: 199.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.456422018349 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 662.4 705.55239521 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.6312392994 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.15 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.25 5.70786347227 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.21128821977 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0798707360949 0.0743258471296 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0752835157615 0.0701772020484 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.130736506419 0.128457276422 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.070703297941 0.0628817314937 112% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.3 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.65 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 82.0 98.500998004 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.