The following appeared in a letter from the faculty committee to the president of Seatown University:
A study conducted at nearby Oceania University showed that faculty retention is higher when professors are offered free tuition at the university for their own college-aged children. Therefore, Seatown should institute a free-tuition policy for its professors for the purpose of enhancing morale among the faculty and luring new professors.
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 on faculty retention, solely based on the tuition waver to its professors, is flawed and fails consider other reasons that might have affected the conclusion. Faculty retention depends on many aspects, the one mentioned, highlights just one such point, if at all has any real relevance.
To begin with, the argument doesn't mention about the retention rate among younger professors and the older ones. As a human nature, once we grow older, we look for more stable profession, since, everyone tends to maintain a balance between family and profession. While in case of younger generation, professional growth takes more precedence, most of the time. Any indication on the age group under the survey would have given a better perspective and base to the argument.
Secondly, there has not been a mention of the compensation that's given to the professors of the two universities. If Oceania University has a higher compensation, that would make a strong reason as to why there's a higher retention rate. In that case, no free-tuition would be a misattribution to decide higher attrition rate.
Again, amenities provided by an university, academic achievements, performance in sports determines the prestige associated to an university. Everyone would like to be a part of such esteemed institutions, even if there is no free-tuition involved. The author fails to take into account all such important criteria in ascertaining the true nature of such a study.
Yet, the reason mentioned in the study may have been a reason for some of the professors to remain in the same university. The author should have taken measures to corroborate this fact by giving a statistical record for a certain duration. By giving insight on the relevance of the aforementioned factors involved, the argument could have been made more rational.
Thus, the argument fails in taking note of all such nuances, that might have caused such retention rate in one university and induced attrition in the other. Inclusion of more variables in such a survey would have given better perspective to the wholesome reality and corroborated the argument.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/following-appeared…
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 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: 346 350
No. of Characters: 1741 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.313 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.032 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.886 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 124 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 94 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.353 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 3.48 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.529 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.319 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.616 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.074 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 30, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...elevance. To begin with, the argument doesnt mention about the retention rate among ...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 61, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: that's
... not been a mention of the compensation thats given to the professors of the two univ...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 206, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: there's
...at would make a strong reason as to why theres a higher retention rate. In that case, ...
^^^^^^
Line 4, column 31, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...on rate. Again, amenities provided by an university, academic achievements, perf...
^^
Line 4, column 129, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...s determines the prestige associated to an university. Everyone would like to be a...
^^
Line 5, column 68, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...in the study may have been a reason for some of the professors to remain in the same univer...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, thus, while, as to, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 7.0 19.6327345309 36% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 4.0 13.6137724551 29% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 8.0 28.8173652695 28% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 29.0 16.3942115768 177% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1789.0 2260.96107784 79% => OK
No of words: 345.0 441.139720559 78% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.18550724638 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.3097767484 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9973649423 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.544927536232 0.468620217663 116% => OK
syllable_count: 584.1 705.55239521 83% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 20.6951844022 57.8364921388 36% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 105.235294118 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.2941176471 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.41176470588 5.70786347227 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.152404227045 0.218282227539 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0469475440558 0.0743258471296 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0450348251381 0.0701772020484 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0783609871628 0.128457276422 61% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0466371247194 0.0628817314937 74% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.2 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.82 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.88 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 93.0 98.500998004 94% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.