The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava.
"The birthrate in our city is declining: in fact, last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students enrolled in our public schools will soon decrease dramatically, and we can safely reduce the funds budgeted for education during the next decade. At the same time, we can reduce funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. As a result, we will have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults, since we can expect the adult population of the city to increase."
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.
The argument claims that last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago, thus the budget for education can be reduced. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence.
To begin with, the argument readily assume that the birth rate is declining because last year's birthrate was only one-half of five years ago. Only by comparing last year's decline can't explain the trend of the past five years. What if last year just happened to have lower bithrate? What if two years ago, the birthrate is twice that of five years ago? The argument failed to provide the birthrate of the five years to show the inclination of decrease.
Moreover, the argument claims that declining birthrate will lead to the decrese of the number of students. Even if the birthrate is actually declining, this is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the claim does not reveal the exact expected number of enrolling students. What if the city is a prosperous urban area, attracting people from other regions to move in? Residents who move from other region could have kids who is going to enroll in Calatrava's public school. Without the exact number of expected students, we are not able to make this conclusion.
Finally, the argument claims that the adult population is going to increase, so the city will have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults. What if people who need pensions also increase? What if more transportation facilities are needed?
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above- mentioned reasons and therefore unconvincing.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 272 350
No. of Characters: 1326 1500
No. of Different Words: 140 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.061 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.875 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.526 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 90 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 66 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 55 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 31 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.295 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.688 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.35 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.599 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.124 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 90, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'years'' or 'year's'?
Suggestion: years'; year's
...he birth rate is declining because last years birthrate was only one-half of five yea...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 180, Rule ID: CANT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'can't' or 'cannot'?
Suggestion: can't; cannot
...o. Only by comparing last years decline cant explain the trend of the past five year...
^^^^
Line 5, column 68, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ms that declining birthrate will lead to the decrese of the number of students. E...
^^
Line 11, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...reasons and therefore unconvincing.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, if, moreover, so, therefore, thus, in conclusion, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 9.0 28.8173652695 31% => OK
Preposition: 33.0 55.5748502994 59% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1383.0 2260.96107784 61% => OK
No of words: 272.0 441.139720559 62% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.08455882353 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.06108636974 4.56307096286 89% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59834412519 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 144.0 204.123752495 71% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.529411764706 0.468620217663 113% => OK
syllable_count: 422.1 705.55239521 60% => syllable counts are too short.
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
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: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 37.6870335792 57.8364921388 65% => OK
Chars per sentence: 86.4375 119.503703932 72% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.0 23.324526521 73% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.5 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => 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: 0.422487304558 0.218282227539 194% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.13520676436 0.0743258471296 182% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.141198416963 0.0701772020484 201% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.200087685322 0.128457276422 156% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.168823221805 0.0628817314937 268% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.0 14.3799401198 76% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.3550499002 112% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.89 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.43 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 68.0 98.500998004 69% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.