The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist.
“Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. However, my recent interviews with children living in the group of islands that includes Tertia show that these children spend much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. This research of mine proves that Dr. Field's conclusion about Tertian village culture is invalid and thus that the observation-centered approach to studying cultures is invalid as well. The interview-centered method that my team of graduate students is currently using in Tertia will establish a much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions there and in other island cultures.”
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 argument presented thrives on the following assumptions; Dr. Karp’s research refutes that of Dr. Field because he used the observation-centered approach, the interview-centered approach is accurate, and that the children from Tertia are reared by their parents other than the entire village. At first glance, these evidences may seem logical and without question but when it is viewed critically, there are some flaws in there.
First of all, Dr Karp’s interview was not done exclusively on children from Tertia but on the children living in groups on the island. The number of Tertian children was not mentioned and it cannot be concluded that, that number was a representative of the children from Tertia. Interviewing children from different groups can affect results because every group may have their own way of doing things which could be totally different from another group.
Also, the kind of questions the interviewers asked could be the reason for the conclusion drawn. If the interviewer asked questions concerning their parents, of course they would talk about their parents but if he did ask general questions regarding who takes care of them and that sort, the answers they would get would also be different.
Furthermore, in no part of the argument was the different research approaches fully defined. Aside that, how the researches were carried out by both parties was not fully given. The different approaches could all be accurate depending on how they were carried out and how objective the researcher is. Besides that, the argument states that Dr Field’s research was done twenty years ago which is a long time for a lot of things to happen and change. If we consider that Dr Karp’s research was done well and his results are impeccable, he could consider that the lifestyle of the people may have changed over the years.
The argument cannot be viewed as logical because the number of children interviewed might not have been a representative of the number of children in the village. As well as, the questions asked might have resulted in the conclusion drawn and the accuracy of the different approaches are not firm.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
the sample arguments:
https://www.testbig.com/story/gre-argument-essay-topic-10-outline
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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: 14 15
No. of Words: 355 350
No. of Characters: 1758 1500
No. of Different Words: 167 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.341 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.952 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.763 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 124 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 93 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 66 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.357 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.269 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.643 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.349 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.63 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, first, furthermore, if, may, regarding, so, well, kind of, of course, as well as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1817.0 2260.96107784 80% => OK
No of words: 355.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.11830985915 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.34067318298 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88127294489 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 176.0 204.123752495 86% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.495774647887 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 540.0 705.55239521 77% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => 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: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.1397672723 57.8364921388 97% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.785714286 119.503703932 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.3571428571 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.14285714286 5.70786347227 143% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => 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: 0.174946565374 0.218282227539 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0655046998284 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0800525922608 0.0701772020484 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0961550176734 0.128457276422 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0742603308219 0.0628817314937 118% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.86 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 67.0 98.500998004 68% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.