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 musicians 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 statement may seem plausible at first glance. However, most of the contents are based on unwarranted assumptions which undermine the validity of the claim.
First of all, it is said that the Mozart School of Music should be the first choice since they accept students at all ability and age levels, especially without audition. However, when there is no audition in place, it also indicates the students' skill levels are difficult to be identified in the beginning. Therefore, students with different level of skills will be mixed into the same class which may harm the learning results since students will not learn the equivalent skills that fit to their own levels.
Additionally, the faculties are formed by some of the most distinguished musicians in the area. However, it wrongly assumes that people who are good at playing music are also good instructors. Counterexamples are easy to be identified. For instance, lots of professors who are prestigious in their own research are actually poor in giving courses. Hence, the faculty's eminent performance in their own music field doesn't guarantee good teaching quality nor the learning outcomes that the students may experience.
Last, it refers to certain well-known musicians who have taken courses in The Mozart School of Music to prove their quality of training. Nonetheless, it is doubtful to make this causal relationship without any other evidence. In other words, there are numerous reasons to turn a person into famous musicians. Therefore, it is problematic to solely contribute those musicians' success to the training of the schools and leverage it as an evidence to underscore the school's quality. For instance, though Bill Gates has studied in Standford, it is unsuitable to claim that students who attend Stanford will become Bill Gates.
To sum up, the questionable assumptions in terms of neglecting the negative effects of accepting students without audition, wrongly assuming professional musicians are also good instructors, as well as the unsuitable causal relationship between distinguished alumni and the learning quality that the music school can offer.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 338 350
No. of Characters: 1760 1500
No. of Different Words: 180 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.288 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.207 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.816 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 133 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.125 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.784 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.812 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.307 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.56 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.035 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 239, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'students'' or 'student's'?
Suggestion: students'; student's
...udition in place, it also indicates the students skill levels are difficult to be identi...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 513, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...nt skills that fit to their own levels. Additionally, the faculties are formed b...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 43, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...ditionally, the faculties are formed by some of the most distinguished musicians in the are...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 414, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...nt performance in their own music field doesnt guarantee good teaching quality nor the...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 366, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'musicians'' or 'musician's'?
Suggestion: musicians'; musician's
... problematic to solely contribute those musicians success to the training of the schools ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 623, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...attend Stanford will become Bill Gates. To sum up, the questionable assumptions ...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 325, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...uality that the music school can offer.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, hence, however, if, may, nonetheless, so, therefore, well, for instance, as well as, first of all, in other words, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1811.0 2260.96107784 80% => OK
No of words: 337.0 441.139720559 76% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.37388724036 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.28457229495 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89550389419 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 186.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.551928783383 0.468620217663 118% => OK
syllable_count: 549.9 705.55239521 78% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 65.3890998179 57.8364921388 113% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.1875 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0625 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.5 5.70786347227 166% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.260255045188 0.218282227539 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0769736679123 0.0743258471296 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.114292761447 0.0701772020484 163% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.125060574958 0.128457276422 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0663700903388 0.0628817314937 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.99 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 92.0 98.500998004 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.