The following appeared in an editorial in the Bayside Sentinel.
"Bayside citizens need to consider raising local taxes if they want to see improvements in the bayside school district. Test scores, graduation and college admission rates, and a number of other indicators have long made it clear that the Bayside School District is doing a poor job educating our youth. Our schools look run down, Windows are broken, bathrooms unusable, and classrooms equipment hopelessly out of date. Yet just across the Bay, in New Harbor, school facilities are up-to-date and in good condition. The difference is money; New Harbor spends twenty-seven percent more per student than Bayside does, and the test scores and other indicators of student performance are stronger in New Harbor as well."
According to the editorial, the Bayside schools lack of consistent and substantial investments to improve their level, that is why local taxed should be increased.
First, the author based his argumentation on what he thinks to be objective indicators. The indicators he mentioned are strictly related to academic achievements of the students, but none are related to extracurricular activities of the school, such as sports competitition rates, students social life, not to mention clubs and associations that make a school reputable and attractive to many students that apply.
Second, he based his assumptions of poor quality of education on the external appearance of the schools of the district, whereas the two items are not correlated. Indeed, the schools may want local subsidies to renovate and have better looking, modern and safe facilities, but they still can have interesting professors teaching motivated students.
Finally, the columnist implicitely assumed that much investments equals undoubtedly improvements in academic indicators. He relied on the flawed example of the neigbour district. According to him, since the schools buildings are in better shape and that the city spends more money on education, the indicators suggest that students are doing much better. However, money is not the unique factor that cause these imporvements. New Harbor could be a more priviledged city that Bayside, in terms of libraries and cultural facilities, such as museums and music schools. The social background of New Harbour should also be considered; for instance, the inhabitants could have higher incomes that the ones of Bayside or had better education, meaning the families could support financially and academically their offsprings, resulting in general better results in the indicators. Furthermore, the editorial mentions that New Harbour invests more money per student. The latter words points out that this city may have less students than Bayside. Consequently, the results of the investments are more sensible and visible for the same amount of money.
To conlude, this editorial presents a flawed argumentation to persuade rather than convince the residents of Bayside to pay more taxes to support education in the districts. Indicators giving an incomplete picture of the schools, unproved relation between money and quality of education and ultimately, not appropriate comparison with New Harbour make the article less effective in its objective, because these arguments weaken the author credibility, coherence, and his ability to persuade.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Sentence: The indicators he mentioned are strictly related to academic achievements of the students, but none are related to extracurricular activities of the school, such as sports competitition rates, students social life, not to mention clubs and associations that make a school reputable and attractive to many students that apply.
Error: competitition Suggestion: competition
Sentence: Finally, the columnist implicitely assumed that much investments equals undoubtedly improvements in academic indicators.
Error: implicitely Suggestion: implicitly
Sentence: He relied on the flawed example of the neigbour district.
Error: neigbour Suggestion: neighbour
Sentence: However, money is not the unique factor that cause these imporvements.
Error: imporvements Suggestion: improvements
Sentence: New Harbor could be a more priviledged city that Bayside, in terms of libraries and cultural facilities, such as museums and music schools.
Error: priviledged Suggestion: privileged
Sentence: To conlude, this editorial presents a flawed argumentation to persuade rather than convince the residents of Bayside to pay more taxes to support education in the districts.
Error: conlude Suggestion: conclude
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argument 1 -- not exactly. 'a number of other indicators' in the topic may mean 'extracurricular activities' too.
argument 2 -- it is not related to 'poor quality of education' and 'the external appearance'. but whether 'higher tax rate will be helpful' in this situation.
argument 3 -- OK
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read a sample:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/following-appeared…
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 389 350
No. of Characters: 2127 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.441 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.468 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.898 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 173 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 140 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 96 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 70 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.312 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.292 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.688 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.319 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.539 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.101 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 49, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
... the columnist implicitely assumed that much investments equals undoubtedly improvem...
^^^^
Line 7, column 1011, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun students is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...ords points out that this city may have less students than Bayside. Consequently, th...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, look, may, second, so, still, whereas, for instance, in general, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 19.6327345309 61% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2189.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 389.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.62724935733 5.12650576532 110% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44106776838 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.01511404354 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.547557840617 0.468620217663 117% => OK
syllable_count: 684.9 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 85.0594461245 57.8364921388 147% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.8125 119.503703932 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.3125 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.6875 5.70786347227 152% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.130333649608 0.218282227539 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0403736025963 0.0743258471296 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0467434669047 0.0701772020484 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0871505931373 0.128457276422 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0491029971543 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.2 14.3799401198 120% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 30.2 48.3550499002 62% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.67 12.5979740519 124% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.94 8.32208582834 119% => OK
difficult_words: 126.0 98.500998004 128% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.5 12.3882235529 125% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 16.0 11.9071856287 134% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.