The data from a survey of high school math and science teachers show that in the district of Santee many of these teachers reported assigning daily homework, whereas in the district of Marley, most science and math teachers reported assigning homework no more than two or three days per week. Despite receiving less frequent homework assignments, Marley students earn better grades overall and are less likely to be required to repeat a year of school than are students in Santee. These results call into question the usefulness of frequent homework assignments. Most likely the Marley students have more time to concentrate on individual assignments than do the Santee students who have homework every day. Therefore teachers in our high schools should assign homework no more than twice a week.
In this argument, the author claims that teachers in our high schools should assign homework no more than twice a week to raise students' grade of math and science. To support her argument, the author cited a survey which indicates that the teachers of Santee give daily homework to students and teachers of Marley give homework to students two or three days per week. Although students of Santee are given more homework than of Marley, their grades are lower than students of Marley, also, they are more likely to be required to repeat a year of school than are student in Santee. And she assumes this result shows that usefulness of homework is doubtful and Santee students focus for longer time on their homework than Marley students. This argument seems plausible first, however, careful scrutiny reveals that this argument has several logical problems.
To begin with, based on the fact that the students of Marley get lower grade than students of Santee, she assumes that comparing grades of students from two different school is reasonable. However, although absolute grade of Marley students is lower than Santee students, relative grade of Marley could be higher than Santee students. For example, if average ability for science and math is higher in school of Marley than school of Santee, a student who get A in math and science class in Santee could get B or C in Marley. If this is true, we cannot be convinced by this argument.
Secondly, based on the fact that the student of Marley are more likely to repeat a year than students of Santee, the author assumes that repeating a year can show a student's scholar achievement in math and science. However, that cannot be proper indicator of ability of a student. Common sense tells us that, when school committee decides to make a student repeat a year, there are many elements not only grade of math and science but also other class or school life. If the author cannot rule out this problem, this argument has no ground.
Finally,even if we admit other problems are true, there is another critical problem. Based on the fact that students of Sanlee are given less homework than students of Marlee, the author assumes that the number of homework per week is positively related to amounts of time when students do homework. However, the amount of homework could not be related to time for focusing on study. Generally speaking, deciding how much times is to be used for studying depends on one's will, not amount of homework and amount of time used for studying cannot guarantee raise of ability for science and math or grade. If she cannot explain why she thinks less homework are given to students, higher achievement will come out, this argument is not cogent.
To summarize, this argument is still dubious as it stands. To make this argument more persuasive, the author has to comparing grade for science and math of students with absolute criterion such as same test choice and question and has to give additional information which indicates that real reason why students of Marlee more frequently repeat a year. To evaluate better, we have to know proper evidence about positive relation between amount of homework and time used for studying.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 548 350
No. of Characters: 2607 1500
No. of Different Words: 206 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.838 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.757 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.285 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 209 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 137 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 24 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.095 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.258 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.364 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.545 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.195 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 193, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...nd science. To support her argument, the author cited a survey which indicates th...
^^
Line 1, column 603, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... student in Santee. And she assumes this result shows that usefulness of homework...
^^
Line 3, column 441, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... school of Marley than school of Santee, a student who get A in math and science ...
^^
Line 5, column 166, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'students'' or 'student's'?
Suggestion: students'; student's
...ssumes that repeating a year can show a students scholar achievement in math and science...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 8, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , even
... this argument has no ground. Finally,even if we admit other problems are true, th...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 418, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
...study. Generally speaking, deciding how much times is to be used for studying depend...
^^^^
Line 9, column 354, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...f Marlee more frequently repeat a year. To evaluate better, we have to know proper...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, second, secondly, so, still, as to, for example, such as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2673.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 547.0 441.139720559 124% => OK
Chars per words: 4.88665447898 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.83611736076 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.38477709999 2.78398813304 86% => OK
Unique words: 218.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.398537477148 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 827.1 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.7040350499 57.8364921388 110% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.285714286 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.0476190476 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.28571428571 5.70786347227 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.199803878626 0.218282227539 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0708282098615 0.0743258471296 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0713999463485 0.0701772020484 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.122908081105 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0589347139226 0.0628817314937 94% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.38 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.55 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.0 12.3882235529 137% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.