The following appeared in a memo from a budget planner for the city of Grandview.
"When the Grandview Symphony was established ten years ago, the city of Grandview agreed to provide the symphony with annual funding until the symphony became self-sustaining. Two years ago, the symphony hired an internationally known conductor, who has been able to attract high-profile guest musicians to perform with the symphony. Since then, private contributions to the symphony have tripled and attendance at the symphony's outdoor summer concert series has reached record highs. Now that the symphony has succeeded in finding an audience, the city can eliminate its funding of the symphony."
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.
Although the memo attempts to argue for the elimination of city funding for the Grandview Symphony, several assumptions are made that, if shown to be untrue, significantly weaken the memo's position.
One main assumption made in the memo is that the hiring of a new internationally known conductor is the cause of high profile guest musicians to perform at the symphony, which in turn causes the recent surge in the symphony's popularity. Though it is entirely plausible that internationally known conductor is responsible for attracting high-profile guest musicians, other factors may have also been the source of attraction. Perhaps the symphony, established ten years ago, finally reached the level of musical maturity and skill necessary to attract popular guest musicians. Another confounding factor may be a population increase in the city, or an influx of musicians moving to Grandview. Whatever the reason, the assumption of the new conductors effectivenss in attracting guest musicians may prove untrue. Similarly, the performance of high profile guest musicians may not be the reason for increased private contributions and attendance. Although donations and concert attendence has increased since then, these increases may also be due to external factors, such as the ones mentioned earlier. If these assumptions are true, then the city may be confident that even with the elimination of funding, the symphony can continue to thrive. However, if any assumption in this chain of logic is untrue, it is possible that private donations and attendence decrease in coming years, and the city may not have the confidence to eliminate funding for a struggling symphony.
Another key question to ask is, with this increase in private donations and summer concert attendence, is the symphony actually self-sustaining? The budget planner who wrote this memo implies that the city can stop funding the symphony because the symphony can sustain itself, but it is nonetheless an unproven assumption. Despite the increase in private contributions and summer concert attendance, the symphony may still not be making enough money to sustain itself. Perhaps the summer concert is free to attend, or an expensive marketing campaign is reponsible for the increase in attendence, in which case the symphony's revenue would be much less than implied. A tripling in private contributions may also not be as significant, if the amount of private contributions was low to begin with. If the assumption of the symphony being self-sustaining currently is untrue, then the symphony may struggle to survive if the funding provided by the city is eliminated. This would severely weaken the author's position that the city can eliminate funding for the symphony while still allowing the symphony to continue its work.
Finally, the article assumes that past performance predicts the future success of the symphony. The author implies that due to the recent success of the symphony in attracting concert-goers and private contributions, that this trend will continue. However, a multitude of factors may cause this to not be the case. For example, the new internationally known conductor may leave for a different city or retire. Perhaps the economy will worsen, causing less people to attend concerts for recreation, and less private donations to be made. Whatever the reason, the future popularity of the symphony may not align with its recent success. If the symphony's performance worsens, then the elimination of funding from the city may be disastrous.
Although the memo attempts to argue for the elimination of city funding for the Grandview Symphony, several assumptions are made that, if shown to be untrue, significantly weaken the memo's position. The author implies that the city can safely remove funding because the symphony can sustain itself. If any of the budget planners assumptions prove unwarranted, then the symphony may not be as well off as the author implies, and a removal of city funding for the symphony can cause it to fail.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 639 350
No. of Characters: 3326 1500
No. of Different Words: 230 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.028 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.205 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.914 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 262 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 214 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 146 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 91 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.348 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.815 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.364 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.508 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.124 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 13, column 452, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...erhaps the economy will worsen, causing less people to attend concerts for recreatio...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, however, if, may, nonetheless, similarly, so, still, then, well, while, for example, such as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 26.0 12.9520958084 201% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3412.0 2260.96107784 151% => OK
No of words: 639.0 441.139720559 145% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.33959311424 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.02776782673 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.99020452907 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 253.0 204.123752495 124% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.39593114241 0.468620217663 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1066.5 705.55239521 151% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 12.0 2.70958083832 443% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.623660167 57.8364921388 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.37037037 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.6666666667 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.07407407407 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.287522379039 0.218282227539 132% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.095276379339 0.0743258471296 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0762760866103 0.0701772020484 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.198263729775 0.128457276422 154% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0672442688379 0.0628817314937 107% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.99 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.19 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 138.0 98.500998004 140% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 20.0 12.3882235529 161% => 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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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.