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 survey from two schools suggested that students who receive less homework perform better in terms of overall grades and less possibility to repeat their year. Therefore, the recommendation is made to limit the homework assignments to achieve better performance. However, it requires more evidences to claim the recommendation to be valid, which I will explain further.
First, lots of factors contribute to better performance, such as teachers' quality, demography of students, as well as other relevant resources, like enough facilities to make proper scientific experiments. Therefore, it is premature to claim the outcome of better performance only results from one factor: the frequency of homework assignments. Instead, more other aspects should be examined to locate the major factors before suggesting any recommendation.
Second, though the frequency of homework assignments may play certain role to affect the performance. It is unclear whether the frequency is the main issue. There might be other reasons, such as the quality of the homework assignment, or the relevance of the homework to the tests. In fact, two phenomenon happened at the same time doesn't guarantee any causation, not even correlation, so more investigation on other aspects relating to homework should be done before making any recommendation.
Third, it also stated that less frequent homework provide students more time to concentrate on individual's learning which leads to a better performance. Again, there is no any supporting data to make this statement valid. Fewer frequency of the homework assignment doesn't mean less effort to be put into the accomplishment of the homework. Instead, the loading of the homework may be exactly the same as the daily homework assignment. If that's the case, then the statement for more individual learning time for less frequent homework will be no longer justified. Therefore, more evidence on comparison of homework time spending between students of two schools will be required for making further conclusion.
To sum up, more evidences are necessary relating to a broader background, such as teachers' quality and demography of students, before narrowing the factor to homework. Also the details of the homework assignment is required, like the homework quality and relevance, so that we can know further whether the frequency is a real main issue. Last, the time spending of the homework is also needed to finalize a more reasonable conclusion. Overall, only more evidences can prove a suitable result.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 396 350
No. of Characters: 2086 1500
No. of Different Words: 184 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.461 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.268 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.923 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 166 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 137 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 102 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.408 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.7 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.354 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.546 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.096 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 296, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'phenomenon' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'phenomena', 'phenomenons'.
Suggestion: phenomena; phenomenons
...the homework to the tests. In fact, two phenomenon happened at the same time doesnt guaran...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 333, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...wo phenomenon happened at the same time doesnt guarantee any causation, not even corre...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 170, Rule ID: NOW[2]
Message: Did you mean 'now' (=at this moment) instead of 'no' (negation)?
Suggestion: now
...o a better performance. Again, there is no any supporting data to make this statem...
^^
Line 7, column 266, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...er frequency of the homework assignment doesnt mean less effort to be put into the acc...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 439, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: that's
...me as the daily homework assignment. If thats the case, then the statement for more i...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 169, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...efore narrowing the factor to homework. Also the details of the homework assignment ...
^^^^
Line 9, column 282, Rule ID: KNOW_NOW[5]
Message: Did you mean 'now'?
Suggestion: now
...k quality and relevance, so that we can know further whether the frequency is a real...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, therefore, third, well, in fact, such as, as well as, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 11.0 28.8173652695 38% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2149.0 2260.96107784 95% => OK
No of words: 394.0 441.139720559 89% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.45431472081 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.45527027702 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.03347064213 2.78398813304 109% => OK
Unique words: 191.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.484771573604 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 679.5 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 42.8453906506 57.8364921388 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.45 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.7 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.85 5.70786347227 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.170372169228 0.218282227539 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0608758510924 0.0743258471296 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0410230961861 0.0701772020484 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.103521245121 0.128457276422 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0250243710565 0.0628817314937 40% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.33 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.67 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 102.0 98.500998004 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.