The following appeared in a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College.
"To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current trends, will double over the next 50 years, thus making existing dormitory space inadequate. Moreover, the average rent for an apartment in our town has risen in recent years. Consequently, students will find it increasingly difficult to afford off-campus housing. Finally, attractive new dormitories would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham."
According to the prompt, Buckingham college should build abounding number of new dorms in order to serve housing needs of students that are likely to enrol at college in future. Prompt bases this upon assumption that current trend of enrolment will probably remain same in future as well. Additionally, it asserts that students would prefer to stay in dormitories as average rent at off-campus housings are soaring. However, before this argument can be evaluated three specific evidence are required to properly assess prompt’s position.
Firstly, prompt assumes that enrolment trend will continually increase over period of time and thus dormitories requirement will probably increase. It doesn’t take into account several other factors that might likely change the entire housing situation for students enrolled in future. Perhaps it can be the case that in future most of the courses that previously required student to attend classes can be taken online and thus most student can attend courses remotely and thereby making increasing dormitories insignificant. Additionally, it can be the case that student enrolment in the university doesn’t remain as steady as predicted in the prompt and thus investing in making new dorms remains a dicey endeavour. If any of the above case is true, then the argument made in the prompt doesn’t hold water.
Secondly, prompt doesn’t provide information regarding rent that Buckingham college charges for staying in dorms. It assumes that increasing rent for an apartment in town is enough to lure students to choose dorms, but it doesn’t convey the difference between rent of staying in dormitories and off campus housing. It is probable that rents in dorms also accrue over period of time and there is not consequential difference between the rents and therefore making the argument position dubious. Moreover, it can be the case that rent of staying in on campus dorms is larger than staying off campus and thus making students to choose to stay off campus despite increase in rent in off campus housing. If such is the case, then asserting that increase in rent at off campus housing will lure students to stay in dorms is false.
Thirdly, prompt assumes that attractiveness of housing facility is the only factor that students consider while choosing where to stay. Perhaps it can be the case other factors like reach to downtown area of city, proper transportation facilities for commuting during weekends and adequate internet speed etc., are some factors that also affect students choice. Thus asserting that making dorms attractive would be enough is considerably wrong.
In conclusion, argument as it stands now is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unstated assumptions. If answers to above stated evidence are provided and perhaps a study is conducted to analyse their validity, then the prompt’s position can be properly evaluated.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 469 350
No. of Characters: 2393 1500
No. of Different Words: 207 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.654 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.102 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.646 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 196 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 142 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.684 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.901 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.842 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.337 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.559 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.102 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 168, Rule ID: IN_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean: 'in the future'?
Suggestion: in the future
...nts that are likely to enrol at college in future. Prompt bases this upon assumption that...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 265, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... trend of enrolment will probably remain same in future as well. Additionally, it...
^^
Line 4, column 77, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...nt trend will continually increase over period of time and thus dormitories requirement will p...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 101, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'dormitories'' or 'dormitory's'?
Suggestion: dormitories'; dormitory's
...y increase over period of time and thus dormitories requirement will probably increase. It ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 276, Rule ID: IN_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean: 'in the future'?
Suggestion: in the future
...housing situation for students enrolled in future. Perhaps it can be the case that in fut...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 369, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...le that rents in dorms also accrue over period of time and there is not consequential differen...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, moreover, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, well, while, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2465.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 464.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.3125 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64119157421 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72766763769 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 211.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.45474137931 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 750.6 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 0.0 8.76447105788 0% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.01057541 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.736842105 119.503703932 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.4210526316 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.78947368421 5.70786347227 136% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.202665036195 0.218282227539 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0754299591205 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.109818234699 0.0701772020484 156% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.123173728194 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.121255093308 0.0628817314937 193% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 14.3799401198 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.81 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.4 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 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.