The following appeared on the Mozart School of Music Web site.
"The Mozart School of Music should be the first choice for parents considering enrolling their child in music lessons. First of all, the Mozart School welcomes youngsters at all ability and age levels; there is no audition to attend the school. Second, the school offers instruction in nearly all musical instruments as well a wide range of styles and genres from classical to rock. Third, the faculty includes some of the most distinguished musician in the area. Finally, many Mozart graduates have gone on to become well-known and highly paid professional musicians."
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.
The argument provided states that the Mozart School of Music should be the first choice for the parents who want their children to take music lessons. The reasons provided are the absence of auditions to get into the school, nearly all types of musical instruments and genres are covered, eminent musicians as mentors and finally, prospects of being successful musicians. At the first glance, the reasons might look cogent but there are many unstated assumptions that seriously weaken the argument, three of those assumptions are provided below.
Firstly the author assumes that the Mozart School of Music is the 'only' school in the area that comes with the benefits stated. In other words, the benefits mentioned in the argument might be provided by any other school situated in that area. There even might be schools with additional facilities- like intitutions involving theatre and dance lessons which will provide students a multidisciplinary learning environment. Students in such institutions will be able to work on theatrical music design or musical dance montages. Further, the passage states the Mozart school covers nearly all musical instruments. Say, rarely instructed instruments like 'Kalimba' or 'Theremin' are not in the schools curriculum, but other musical schools might offer courses on these instruments to interest students eager to learn them. So if this assumption of Mozart School being the only school to provide this facities prove unwarranted, the reasoning behind the argument does not hold water.
Secondly, it is assumed that the school's easy admission system that requires no audition interests parents in getting their children in the Mozart school. Parents might be interested in getting their children into music schools that requires a competitive admission process. That way, only truly interested and passionate children will get in the school which will contribute to a necessary seriousness among the students in achieving their goals. As students can get admitted regardless of their abilities and seriousness, one might find himself in an learning environment full of dillettantes, not eager in properly learning their music lessons. This situation will prove adverse and might even inhibit his growth as a musician. So the assumption that parents would prefer an institution with easy admission might prove unwarranted.
To be the first choice as a school depends of many factors other than the ones stated above. Assuming that the factors stated in the argument only strengthens their position as the best school of parents' choice can prove unwarranted, as the demands and expectations can vary greatly from person to person. Incorporating more evidences i.e. statistics presenting low percentages of dropout, poles presenting local people's inclination towards the school can strengthen the argument greatly. Otherwise, the claim that parents' first choice for enrolling their children in the Mozart school of music is seriously flawed if the assumptions behind the reasoning prove unwarranted.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 11 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 469 350
No. of Characters: 2526 1500
No. of Different Words: 220 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.654 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.386 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.713 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 202 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 154 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 106 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.45 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.32 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.55 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.341 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.51 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.103 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 688, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'schools'' or 'school's'?
Suggestion: schools'; school's
...like Kalimba or Theremin are not in the schools curriculum, but other musical schools m...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 10, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...gument does not hold water. Secondly, it is assumed that the schools easy admi...
^^
Line 5, column 552, 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
... seriousness, one might find himself in an learning environment full of dillettant...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, if, look, second, secondly, so, then, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2574.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 469.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.48827292111 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65364457471 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78458941285 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 221.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.471215351812 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 765.0 705.55239521 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.278632141 57.8364921388 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.7 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.45 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.1 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.42242521784 0.218282227539 194% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.156182199808 0.0743258471296 210% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.116947856363 0.0701772020484 167% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.287599082003 0.128457276422 224% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0633247339837 0.0628817314937 101% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.2 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.86 12.5979740519 118% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.99 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 125.0 98.500998004 127% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.5 12.3882235529 101% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.