The following appeared in a petition presented by Classen University students to the school’s administration.
The purpose of higher education is to prepare the student for the future, but Classen students are at a serious disadvantage in the competition for post college employment due to the university’s burdensome breadth requirement. Classen’s job placement rate is lower than placement rates of many top-ranked schools. Classen students will be more attractive to employers if they had more time to take advanced courses in their specialty, rather than being required to spend fifteen percent of their time at Classen taking courses outside of their subject area. We demand therefore, that the university abandon or drastically cut back on its breadth requirements.
The author assumes cutting down on breadth requirement is the sure way to improve on the current rate of job placement of Classen University. He also assumes that the other schools which the author views as top-ranked do not have courses that are taken outside students’ subject areas. The argument when viewed at first glance seems cogent but there are a lot of considerations to be made to make it reasonable.
To begin with, the burdensome breadth requirement was only stated to be fifteen percent of studies outside subject area. It is reasonable to think this percentage is not so huge to cause the disadvantage the students report. The actual cause of the disadvantage can be something different if the matter is searched into properly. The claim that top-ranked schools have higher job placement rate than Classen university was not backed by any prove nor was the source of the report mentioned.
Also, the statement made about abandoning or cutting back on breadth requirement is not the sure way to cause a change. Another alternative can be deliberated upon or a several alternatives can be weighed first to check the most reasonable and result oriented one. To add to the above, it was not stated that the other schools did not have breadth requirements. Besides that, the exact thing the school did to be recognized as a top school and to have a high rate of job placement was not searched into either. The other schools might have had additional hours for practical work; they might have been encouraged to enrol in vacation training in the companies they are likely to work.
Additionally, it was mentioned that the other schools were top-ranked; this may not be so. The type of school Classen University is making comparison to, may be too different and non-comparable. The type of school will show the type of job placement its students get. If the category of school is mentioned and when it is made clear that they are comparable, the matter can be better dealt with.
To better make this argument lucid, certain questions need to be answered first. Considering the credibility of the report, finding out the actual cause of the lower job placement rate, finding out what the other schools did differently to be ranked top-ranked will go a long way to make better conclusions.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Sentence: The other schools might have had additional hours for practical work; they might have been encouraged to enrol in vacation training in the companies they are likely to work.
Error: enrol Suggestion: No alternate word
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argument 1 -- OK, but better to put it in two arguments:
1. to spend fifteen percent of their time at Classen taking courses outside of their subject area.
2. Classen’s job placement rate is lower than placement rates of many top-ranked schools.
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- not OK. we always accept data/survey/study from GRE topics. we may argue like:
The job placement rate is lower than placement rates of many top-ranked schools not because of the fifteen percent of their time outside of their subject area. but something else.
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flaws:
No. of Grammatical Errors: 14 2
Read a good grammar book.
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 392 350
No. of Characters: 1869 1500
No. of Different Words: 180 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.45 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.768 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.705 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 127 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 96 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 62 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.778 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.187 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.321 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.55 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.083 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 178, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'alternative'?
Suggestion: alternative
...ve can be deliberated upon or a several alternatives can be weighed first to check the most ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, first, if, may, so, as to, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1917.0 2260.96107784 85% => OK
No of words: 392.0 441.139720559 89% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.89030612245 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44960558625 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79726687091 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.482142857143 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 602.1 705.55239521 85% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 36.3106028116 57.8364921388 63% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.5 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.7777777778 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.33333333333 5.70786347227 58% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
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: 0.131748733236 0.218282227539 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0472256153579 0.0743258471296 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0447884925351 0.0701772020484 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0761532154426 0.128457276422 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0503614335865 0.0628817314937 80% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.08 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.62 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 98.500998004 74% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.