The following appeared in a health magazine published in Corpora.
"Medical experts say that only one-quarter of Corpora's citizens meet the current standards for adequate physical fitness, even though twenty years ago, one-half of all of Corpora's citizens met the standards as then defined. But these experts are mistaken when they suggest that spending too much time using computers has caused a decline in fitness. Since overall fitness levels are highest in regions of Corpora where levels of computer ownership are also highest, it is clear that using computers has not made citizens less physically fit. Instead, as shown by this year's unusually low expenditures on fitness-related products and services, the recent decline in the economy is most likely the cause, and fitness levels will improve when the economy does."
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.
In this argument, the arguer claims that the decline in fitness is not caused by the increase of time spent on using computers but the decline in the economy perhaps, and fitness levels will improve when the economy does. To substantiate this conclusion, the author points out several fact. However, this argument is fraught with vague, oversimplified and unwarranted assumption.
The major questionable assumption in this argument is that the computer ownership in regions of Corpora has a certain relationship with the time people spend using it. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to support the idea that the higher levels of computer ownership in the regions are, the more time people there utilizing on computers. If it turns out that the reason why computers are more prevalent in that region is that people here own higher income than other regions, then the higher levels of computer ownership will fail to substantiate the conjecture that people consume more time on computers. Thus, this can not prove the conclusion that spending too much time using computer is not able to explain the decline in physical fitness.
Secondly, the author assumes too hastily that low expenditure on fitness-related products and services suggests that people do less physical fitness. Perhaps that people there just do not enjoy the sports which may cost a lot, preferring to do simple exercise such as running in the neighborhood and swimming in the sea near their home. In this case, keeping adequate physical fitness is not related to the economy situation closely. the recent decline in the economy will not influence the citizen’s physical fitness a lot.
Lastly, the author relies on the unsubstantiated assumption that as soon as the economy rebound, people would like to allocate more money on physical fitness. It might well happen that people here just do not pay so much attention to physical fitness, so that they are willing to spend money on eating or travelling instead of doing sports. It is not uncommon to see that in some country whose economic situation gets better, individuals here would like to increase daily expenditure on nutritious diet or taking vacation. Furthermore, even though people spend more on fitness, it is possible that they just buy some facilities to catch the trend instead of using them frequently. Either of the scenarios, if true, would render the author’s conclusion unfounded.
To sum up, this arguer fails to substantiate his claim mentioned in this passage, because there are several unreliable assumptions in his analysis. To convince us, he need to provide more convincing evidence.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 427 350
No. of Characters: 2156 1500
No. of Different Words: 205 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.546 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.049 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.7 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 166 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.118 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.797 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.647 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.33 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.579 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.122 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 278, Rule ID: MANY_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun fact seems to be countable; consider using: 'several facts'.
Suggestion: several facts
... this conclusion, the author points out several fact. However, this argument is fraught with...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 435, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: The
...lated to the economy situation closely. the recent decline in the economy will not ...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, furthermore, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well, such as, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2225.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 427.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.21077283372 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54576487731 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81758424804 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.496487119438 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 693.0 705.55239521 98% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.3635331164 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.611111111 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.7222222222 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.66666666667 5.70786347227 99% => 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 : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.058579179535 0.218282227539 27% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0213952739762 0.0743258471296 29% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0248234593285 0.0701772020484 35% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0283215257687 0.128457276422 22% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0241732736519 0.0628817314937 38% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.11 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.