The following appeared in a letter to the editor of city-run local newspaper:
"In our region of Trillura, the majority of money spent on the schools that most students attend—the city-run public schools—comes from taxes that each city government collects. The region's cities differ, however, in the budgetary priority they give to public education. For example, both as a proportion of its overall tax revenues and in absolute terms, Parson City has recently spent almost twice as much per year as Blue City has for its public schools—even though both cities have about the same number of residents. Clearly, Parson City residents place a higher value on providing a good education in public schools than Blue City residents do."
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 author states that Parson City residents place a higher value on providing a good education in public schools than Blue City residents do. However, the author must provide more solid information to strengthen the argument.
The author states that the region’s cities differ in the budgetary priority they give to public education. However, it is likely that Blue City is a whole new city, and Blue City will invest more funds in public constructions and transportation to fulfill the basic needs of local people. Thus, the Blue city government has to spend more money on these local constructions to attract more people living in Blue City. Moreover, it is possible that there are few children living in Blue City because Blue City is still a developing city, and a majority of residents in Blue City are adults. Therefore, the Blue city government do not have to invest more money in education. As a result, the author must tell us how many children live in Blue City.
The author claims that Parson City has spent almost twice as much per year as Blue City has for its public schools. However, it is likely that most residents in Parson City have higher salaries, such as ten thousand dollars per month, than the residents in Blue City. Because there are many big-scale software companies located in Parson City, such as Google and Amazon, the most residents in Parson City are engineers. Yet, the people of the Blue City are almost farmer, and they cannot obtain as much money as software engineers in Parson City. Also, the residents in Blue City may hope their children to engage the same occupations as their parents, so they will not spend lots of money on their children’s education. Thus, the Parson City government can receive more tax revenues than the Blue City because of different types of works in these two cities. As a result, the author must tell us if the residents in Parson City can get high salaries than the residents in Blue City.
The author mentions that both cities have about the same number of residents. However, it is possible that most residents of Blue City are old people, and they may not have enough abilities to engage in works. The Blue city government may have to pay more funds to build more hospitals because these old people are less healthy than other areas. If the Blue city government decides to spent more money on education, these old people may not be able to have enough care services from the Blue city government. As a result, the author must tell us if the old people account for a large part of the residents in Blue City.
If the Blue City government decides to spend more money on education, it may somewhat improve the education in Blue City. However, the author must provide more thorough information to strengthen the argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 486 350
No. of Characters: 2253 1500
No. of Different Words: 163 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.695 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.636 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.332 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 150 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 91 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.091 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.861 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.773 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.463 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.601 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.229 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, however, if, may, moreover, so, still, then, therefore, thus, as for, as to, such as, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2322.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 486.0 441.139720559 110% => OK
Chars per words: 4.77777777778 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.69525374022 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.42981029139 2.78398813304 87% => OK
Unique words: 172.0 204.123752495 84% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.353909465021 0.468620217663 76% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 737.1 705.55239521 104% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 31.5027219078 57.8364921388 54% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 105.545454545 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0909090909 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.68181818182 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.22900329228 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.100259061461 0.0743258471296 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0613436953257 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.153250473821 0.128457276422 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0403064340694 0.0628817314937 64% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.44 12.5979740519 83% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.0 8.32208582834 84% => OK
difficult_words: 70.0 98.500998004 71% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.