Essay topics:
Manned space flight is costly and dangerous. Moreover, the recent success of a series of unmanned space probes and satellites has demonstrated that a great deal of useful information can be gathered without the costs and risks associated with sending men and women into space. Therefore, we should invest our resources in unmanned space flight."
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 these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The person, in his letter to the editor of a magazine that publishes information related to space and aeronautics, has suggested that investment should be made on space flights that do not carry a human for its mission. He comes to this conclusion owing to the risks and expenses incurred when a man is sent on the mission. However, before this recommendation can properly be evaluated, the following questions must be answered.
To begin, the writer assumes that both the manned spacecrafts and unmanned space probes do the same job when are launched into space. If they both do the same tasks, why there had been 2 variants in these space probes in the first place. Firstly, the information that can be extracted from space by these 2 types of space satellites much be analysed. If a human is mandatory when on a mission, to evaluate the different dimensions of space then, launching only unmanned space flights would not serve the purpose.
Secondly, the recent success of unmanned space probes is mentioned in the letter. The writer assumes that, as the recent launches of unmanned satellites were successful, the future launches would also be successful. This cannot be guaranteed without a valid proof. He also assumes that all the launches of manned satellites would be futile. Even such a statement cannot hold water without a valid observation and reasoning.
Thirdly, the writer terms the manned space probes as 'expensive' and the unmanned ones to be 'cheap'. What is exactly that is making the manned satellites costly is the question. Is it the highly delicate parts that are being used in the manufacturing has to be known. The delicate parts not only being extremely effective, may also have been contributing to the risk of ruining the space shuttle. If this is properly studied and corrected, the risk factor associated with the manned shuttles can be reduced to a very large extent.
Therefore, the argument, as it stands now, is significantly flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the writer is able to properly answer the above-mentioned questions, then the viability of investing only in unmanned space flights can be evaluated properly.
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: 19 15
No. of Words: 363 350
No. of Characters: 1778 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.365 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.898 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.717 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 128 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 95 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 72 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 44 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.105 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.496 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.306 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.555 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.09 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, thirdly, as to, in the first place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 38.0 55.5748502994 68% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1832.0 2260.96107784 81% => OK
No of words: 363.0 441.139720559 82% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.04683195592 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.3649236973 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81720278458 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 182.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.501377410468 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 576.0 705.55239521 82% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 38.0291475908 57.8364921388 66% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.4210526316 119.503703932 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.1052631579 23.324526521 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.57894736842 5.70786347227 115% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.382268897849 0.218282227539 175% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.121057398884 0.0743258471296 163% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0643136139207 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.205293421002 0.128457276422 160% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0678465877646 0.0628817314937 108% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => 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: 12.01 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.49 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.