The following appeared in an article in the Grandview Beacon.
"For many years the city of Grandview has provided annual funding for the Grandview Symphony. Last year, however, private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent and attendance at the symphony's concerts-in-the-park series doubled. The symphony has also announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. Given such developments, some city commissioners argue that the symphony can now be fully self-supporting, and they recommend that funding for the symphony be eliminated from next year's budget."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
According to the article, due to some reasons, the city commissioners argue that the symphony can be fully self-supporting and they recommend that the funding for the symphone should be eliminated from the budget. However, we need to ask a few questions about the private contributions, the attendance as well as the ticket prices in order to evaluate the argument and the recommendation.
To begin with, the article indicates that, aside from the funding from the government, the private contributions has increased 200 percents last year; but we need to ask that total amount of fundings from private individuals or corporations relative to that of the government. It is important to note that the privite funding until last year could be so little that can not make a different to the running of the symphone. For example, it is possible that the funding from privite source is only 3 thousand compared with 1 million from the government. If that is the case, the funding from private sector is still not very much, leading to a short of funding if the government cut the budget.
Similiarly, the incrase of attendance at the symphony's concert-in-the-park also deserve further investigation. Even if the attendance doubled, we still need to ask about the exact number of people who attend the symphony. Maybe only few people attended before last year, the number of audiance still not huge. Questions about whether these people will contribute to the income, on the other hand, also need to be answered so as to find out the income these increased people can bring. If the tickets are not required when attending the series, or if the cost of such series are so high that the increased ticket revenue can not make up for the loss, the symphone will not be self-supporting if it can not receive funding from the government.
Finally, we still need to answer the question about the outcome of the increase in ticket prives for next year. According to economic theories, consumers are less willing to buy products if the price grows. Given that the symphony announces that ticket prices will be increased, it is possible that some people will not choose to come. With fewer people attend the symphony, the total income might decrease even if the price increase. Therefore, we need more information, such as asking some visitors whether they are continue to come with higher tickets price, to evaluate the outcome of eliminating the government budget. If there will be few people attend, the income of the symphony will dramatically incline, making it impossible to support itself.
In conclusion, it is understandable that the city commission tend to save the cities budget. But some questions mentioned above are supposed to be answered in order to find out whether the recommendation is resonable.
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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: 472 350
No. of Characters: 2289 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.661 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.85 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.73 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 163 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.842 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.167 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.895 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.332 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.554 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 423, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...he other hand, also need to be answered so as to find out the income these increased peo...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 519, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'continued'.
Suggestion: continued
...s asking some visitors whether they are continue to come with higher tickets price, to e...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, however, if, may, so, still, therefore, well, as to, for example, in conclusion, such as, as well as, to begin with, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2361.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 469.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.03411513859 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65364457471 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90650013057 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.452025586354 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 735.3 705.55239521 104% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.064273994 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.263157895 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.6842105263 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.10526315789 5.70786347227 142% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.190834926579 0.218282227539 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0636863712509 0.0743258471296 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0451538396558 0.0701772020484 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.107424979647 0.128457276422 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0479911802124 0.0628817314937 76% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.19 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.03 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 20.0 12.3882235529 161% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.