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 tren | TOEFL IELTS GMAT GRE SAT ACT PTE ESL

Essay topics:

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."

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.

In a memo drafted by the director of student housing at Buckingham College, one of the recommendations made includes the construction of multiple new dormitories. The director has come to this conclusion on the basis of growth in Buckingham’s enrolment, rise in average rent prices in the town and that the promise of new dormitories will further improve enrolment at Buckingham. However before this recommendation can be implemented certain questions must be answered and evidence must be tendered to determine its viability.
Firstly, will the current trends indicating growth in enrolment at Buckingham College prove to be spot on 50 years from now? What if the trends were to reverse in the next decade, or the decade after, resulting in dearth of enrolment? Furthermore, only if the enrolment at Buckingham College doubles, will the existing dormitories become inadequate. In such circumstances is it prudent to undertake the time consuming and expensive endeavour of building several new dormitories? In such a situation, certain particulars are required to be known. This may include data on the percentage increase or decrease in enrolment at Buckingham College for the past half century, in order to get a general idea of what can be expected in the future. Another solution could be to observe the accommodation infrastructure of colleges with a similar rate of enrolment as Buckingham College, to make a more educated decision. In the absence of such evidence, the author’s argument that dormitory space will become insufficient in the future is seriously weakened.
Secondly, does a steady increase in average rent necessarily mean that students prefer to live on campus accommodation as compared to off campus recommendation? As is clear from the memo, the rise in average rent for an apartment has risen in the recent years, it is not a sudden phenomenon. If despite this rise, the number of students that can only afford to live in dormitories has not increased drastically, what is to say that there will be a burgeoning increase in students who are unable to afford off campus housing now. Furthermore, there are several factors apart from rent prices, such as lack of space constraints, freedom, choice of flatmates that are considered by students before deciding on whether to live on or off campus. Additionally, if students do not want to sacrifice the freedom that comes with living off campus, they may even move to areas with lower average rents as compared to their current accommodations, instead of living in college dormitories. Unless and until, a comprehensive study analysing the relationship between increasing rent prices and preference towards living in dormitories is conducted, the director’s premise remains flawed, sans a solid foundation.
Lastly, can new dormitories be the primary criterion looked at by students, while deciding to enrol into a particular university? What about factors such as curriculum, faculty, geographical location, placements etcetera? A survey of incoming college students must be conducted to determine how high ‘new dormitories’ lie amongst other factors that are/were considered by these students while making their choice. If new dormitories are not as much of a priority as any of the above listed factors, the director’s argument is rendered significantly fragile.
Thus, the argument in favour of constructing new dormitories at Buckingham college, as it stands is flawed in the absence of the aforementioned evidence. Only if the author is able to answer the questions raised in the previous paragraphs and provide more evidence, will it be viable to analyse his recommendation.

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GMAT/GRE Argument Task

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Essay evaluations by e-grader

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 381, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...urther improve enrolment at Buckingham. However before this recommendation can be imple...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 506, Rule ID: AFFORD_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the infinitive: 'to off'
Suggestion: to off
...se in students who are unable to afford off campus housing now. Furthermore, there ...
^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, lastly, look, may, second, secondly, so, thus, while, apart from, in particular, such as

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 103.0 55.5748502994 185% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3092.0 2260.96107784 137% => OK
No of words: 579.0 441.139720559 131% => OK
Chars per words: 5.3402417962 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.90534594407 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.20098335779 2.78398813304 115% => OK
Unique words: 287.0 204.123752495 141% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.495682210708 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 1002.6 705.55239521 142% => 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: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.3092294791 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.434782609 119.503703932 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.1739130435 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.65217391304 5.70786347227 99% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => 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: 0.32218794874 0.218282227539 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0944422749776 0.0743258471296 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0818037585997 0.0701772020484 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.176639886487 0.128457276422 138% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0656508005994 0.0628817314937 104% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.3 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 48.3550499002 78% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.99 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.46 8.32208582834 114% => OK
difficult_words: 168.0 98.500998004 171% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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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.

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, lastly, look, may, second, secondly, so, thus, while, apart from, in particular, such as

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments