The following appeared in a memo from a budget planner for the city of Grandview.
"Our citizens are well aware of the fact that while the Grandview Symphony Orchestra was struggling to succeed, our city government promised annual funding to help support its programs. Last year, however, private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent, and attendance at the symphony's concerts-in-the-park series doubled. The symphony has also announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. Such developments indicate that the symphony can now succeed without funding from city government and we can eliminate that expense from next year's budget. Therefore, we recommend that the city of Grandview eliminate its funding for the Grandview Symphony from next year's budget. By doing so, we can prevent a city budget deficit without threatening the success of the symphony."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The argument claims that the city of Grandview can eliminate its funding for Grandview symphony from next year's budget, since this year, the private contributions and attendance increased and also the symphony is going to increase ticket prices from next year. Stated in this way the argument manipulates facts and conveys a distorted view of the situation, besides, the author fails to mention several key factors, which can be used to evaluate the prediction of the passage. Therefore, there are some questions that should be answered in order to verify the conclusion.
First question arises here that whether private contributions and attendances will be continued until next year? The author assumes that since this year, private contributions increased by 200 precents and the symphony faced with more attendants, we will not need to any governmental budget for next year's festival. This statement is a stretch and not substantiated in any way. There is no any guarantee that these contributions will be perpetuated until next year, or there is no assurance that next year's symphony would have participants as many as those of this year. For example it is possible that a new advertising campaign or attendance of a celebrity increased private donations and attendances.
A the second question we can ask is that whether higher prices for ticket will not decrease the number of attendances? The argument claims that by increasing the price of tickets the symphony can succeed with any funding from the city. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim that the argument did not demonstrate any correlation between the price of tickets and the number of attendances. To illustrate this weakness we can say that maybe the price of tickets will increased while the number of attendances will be lower than before. If the argument had provided evidence that the high price of tickets will not have any negative effect o the number of attendances the argument would have been more convincing.
Finally, the last question is that whether the amount of private contributions and the payment from tickets will full-fill the whole budget we need for the symphony? Probably, we may need more budget even if private donations will be continiued. Without answering to this question, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wistful thinking rather than substansive.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed with the abovementioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing.it could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned facts and evidences regarding the estimated number of attendants in next year, the preference of private donators to continue their financial supports and the positive correlation between the price of tickets and the number of audiounces.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 449 350
No. of Characters: 2312 1500
No. of Different Words: 195 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.603 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.149 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.868 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 137 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 101 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 66 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.412 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.469 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.647 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.358 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.358 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.157 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 96, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...inate its funding for Grandview symphony from next years budget, since this year,...
^^
Line 2, column 301, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'years'' or 'year's'?
Suggestion: years'; year's
...eed to any governmental budget for next years festival. This statement is a stretch a...
^^^^^
Line 2, column 388, Rule ID: NOW[2]
Message: Did you mean 'now' (=at this moment) instead of 'no' (negation)?
Suggestion: now
... not substantiated in any way. There is no any guarantee that these contributions ...
^^
Line 2, column 502, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'years'' or 'year's'?
Suggestion: years'; year's
...ear, or there is no assurance that next years symphony would have participants as man...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'A' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: A; The
...sed private donations and attendances. A the second question we can ask is that whet...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 474, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'will' requires the base form of the verb: 'increase'
Suggestion: increase
...ay that maybe the price of tickets will increased while the number of attendances will be...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 543, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
... attendances will be lower than before. If the argument had provided evidence that...
^^
Line 4, column 83, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... the amount of private contributions and the payment from tickets will full-fill ...
^^
Line 4, column 294, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... answering to this question, one is left with the impression that the claim is mo...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, finally, first, if, may, regarding, second, so, then, therefore, while, for example, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.9520958084 170% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2350.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 449.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.23385300668 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.60321845022 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.93162609745 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 198.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.440979955457 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 725.4 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 78.91881861 57.8364921388 136% => OK
Chars per sentence: 138.235294118 119.503703932 116% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.4117647059 23.324526521 113% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.94117647059 5.70786347227 122% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 9.0 5.25449101796 171% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => 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: 0.0984148755564 0.218282227539 45% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0363177957735 0.0743258471296 49% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0527714680649 0.0701772020484 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0663524132788 0.128457276422 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.047330710911 0.0628817314937 75% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.4 14.3799401198 114% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.35 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.51 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 102.0 98.500998004 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.