The director of the International Health Foundation recently released this announcement:
"A new medical test that allows the early detection of a particular disease will prevent the deaths of people all over the world who would otherwise die from the disease. The test has been extremely effective in allowing doctors to diagnose the disease six months to a year before it would have been spotted by conventional means. As soon as we can institute this test as a routine procedure in hospitals around the world, the death rate from this disease will plummet."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on the assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
In the argument, it is stated that incorporating the new medical test as a routine in hospitals as soon as around the world will decrease the death rate. The director of the International Health Foundation has come to this conclusion based on the new medical test, that allows the early detection of the disease. However, before this announcement can be properly evaluated, two questions must be answered.
Firstly, does the early detection help in curing the disease? The argument assumes that if the disease is diagnosed before six months to a year, it can be cured. It is possible that the disease can’t be cured within this period. Without ruling out this possibility, the argument doesn’t hold water.
Secondly, does incorporating the new medical test as a routine procedure in hospitals decrease the death rate? The argument assumes that as soon as the new medical test is incorporated in hospitals, people will be aware of and undergo this test. This might not be the case. People may not know this new test availability in hospitals. Even though if the people are aware, there is a possibility that the test is expensive and people below the poverty line might not be able to afford it. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is much weakened.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If we have answers to the above two questions or have evidence perhaps in the form of systematic study, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the announcement that the application of the new medical test in hospitals decreases deaths caused by the disease.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 290 350
No. of Characters: 1388 1500
No. of Different Words: 138 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.127 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.786 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.736 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 98 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 75 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 53 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 34 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.333 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.261 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.348 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.549 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.08 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion
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 : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 34.0 55.5748502994 61% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1449.0 2260.96107784 64% => OK
No of words: 289.0 441.139720559 66% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.01384083045 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.12310562562 4.56307096286 90% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85642600992 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 144.0 204.123752495 71% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.498269896194 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 460.8 705.55239521 65% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => 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: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 57.6296991335 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.6 119.503703932 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.2666666667 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.0 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.20758483034 24% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.267700548153 0.218282227539 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.100751041637 0.0743258471296 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.093778534114 0.0701772020484 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.169585425984 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0906368364084 0.0628817314937 144% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.8 14.3799401198 82% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.51 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 98.500998004 73% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => 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: 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.