The following appeared in a letter to the editor of Parson City's 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 letter’s author recommends that Parson City residents place a higher value on providing a good education in public schools than Blue City residents do. The author reasons that Parson City has recently spent almost twice as much per year as Blue City has for its public school. To support this recommendation the author points out that the city-run public schools come from taxes that each city government collects and both cities have about the same number of residents. There are several reasons why this argument for Parson City residents place a higher value on providing a good education in public schools than Blue City residents do is not convincing.
First of all, although Blue City spent less money than Parson City for its public school, their educational system may already be more complete than Blue City’s. Thus, schools in Blue City did not need extra money to complete their system.
Secondly, the author’s study was not comprehensive. The author mentioned that Parson City has recently spent more money than Blue City on their public school, which means the data was collected only in recent years. However, Blue City may spend more than Parson City for their public school in the previous year and the author did not mention.
Finally, Blue City’s less spending on their public school may not be attributed to they place less value school but rather to other factors, such as the number of students. The author mentioned that both cities have about the same number of residents, but the student number may be different. Students in Blue City may less than Parson City so that they do not need to spend the same as Parson City did on education.
In conclusion, the author’s argument that Parson City places a higher value on providing a good education in public schools than Blue City is not well supported. The author could strengthen the argument by providing more reliable evidence of a comprehensive study of both two cities.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 330 350
No. of Characters: 1592 1500
No. of Different Words: 127 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.262 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.824 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.296 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 114 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 64 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 49 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 29 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.385 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.631 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.538 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.515 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.709 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.195 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well, as for, in conclusion, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 8.0 19.6327345309 41% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 30.0 55.5748502994 54% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1642.0 2260.96107784 73% => OK
No of words: 330.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.97575757576 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.26214759535 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.42727840199 2.78398813304 87% => OK
Unique words: 133.0 204.123752495 65% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.40303030303 0.468620217663 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 486.0 705.55239521 69% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
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: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.6346043472 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.285714286 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.5714285714 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.78571428571 5.70786347227 154% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.398484758125 0.218282227539 183% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.197459898286 0.0743258471296 266% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.105220902364 0.0701772020484 150% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.265914959618 0.128457276422 207% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0774391519244 0.0628817314937 123% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.3799401198 96% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.9 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.36 8.32208582834 88% => OK
difficult_words: 54.0 98.500998004 55% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.