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 recommendation by a committee planning a ten year’s budget for the city of Clakatrava is impractical, unwise and short sighted. The argument is based on unstated assumptions and without supported by evidence, this argument does not contain water.
First of all, the committee are assuming the birthday of the city is declining by viewing the fact from that of five years ago. They conclude that the number of students enrolled in their public school will decrease dramatically by viewing the birth rate of last year which was half of that the birth rate of five years ago. The committee fails to provide any statistical data regarding the birthrate of the city of last five years. It is not mentioned in the argument regarding the birthrate of the city except from the last years. It may be possible that actually the birthrate of the city of last year is half that of five years ago but it may be possible due to epidemic disease spread inside the city. Therefore, the parents are decided not to have babies on that havoc situation and may going to plan this year. The argument fails to provide evidence regarding the immigrants people within the city in coming years. The number of student enrolled may increase in public schools from the student of immigrants. The argument should be backup by these evidence to give any conclusive decision regarding the enrollment of students.
Secondly, the committee decided to reduce the funds budgeted for education during the next decade which seems implausible. Without backing up the evidences, the committee harshly jumps into the conclusion of the number of student’s enrollment decreases drastically. The committee’s prediction of decreasing number of student’s is backed up only by the birthrate of last year. What happens if the birthrate of child increases from this year now? This situation will create havoc in student for their enrollment in school and they fail to get admission inside school. The education level will decrease drastically inside committee school and the student fail to compete in global market.
Thirdly, the committee planning member decided to decrease the funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. How is it logical to connect the birthrate with the funding in athletic fields and other recreational facilities? There are others middle age population ranging in different age group who are fund of athletic and recreational games. The argument fails to accumulate the age groups of middle age population. It is reckless to consider only children population and adult aged population and ignoring middle aged population.
Moreover, the committee is expecting the adult aged population to increase. The argument fails to provide any relevant data regarding the increase in adult aged population group. It may be possible that the most of the adult aged population wants to live in pastoral life after retirement. It may be possible that the most of the middle aged group are from rural areas and will return to same idyllic life after the retirement from the job. The argument fails to differentiate between middle aged population and old aged population. The argument only considers the population from the old aged group and named it as adult aged group. The committee members want to increase funds in cities facilities and programming. They fail to provide any description plans regarding their investment in cities facilities as well as programming. Actually, their increment facilities will interest the adult aged population or not; either they may prefer to live within family environment supporting their children and loved ones. All these factors should be considered before coming to provide any definitive plans.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now is full of unwarranted assumptions. The argument must be backed up by series of evidences in the form of systematic research to provide any details regarding the decrease in the enrollment programs in public school in coming years.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 15 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 34 15
No. of Words: 649 350
No. of Characters: 3312 1500
No. of Different Words: 241 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.047 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.103 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.712 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 248 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 191 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 153 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 97 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.088 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.051 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.559 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.292 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.503 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.152 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 637, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... study. However, the population is such a unpredicted thing that depends on many ...
^
Line 3, column 345, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
...d reducing the budget might not provide much facilities and compress the talent expo...
^^^^
Line 3, column 408, Rule ID: THE_SUPERLATIVE[3]
Message: A determiner is probably missing here: 'with the least'.
Suggestion: with the least
...press the talent exposure. Even country with least population today participate and win pr...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 69, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[1]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...that the birthrate in Calatrava is less as compared to previous years and studies ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, so, still, then, therefore, third, thus, as to, for example, in conclusion, as a matter of fact, first of all, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 25.0 11.1786427146 224% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 25.0 13.6137724551 184% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 82.0 55.5748502994 148% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3281.0 2260.96107784 145% => OK
No of words: 663.0 441.139720559 150% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.94871794872 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.07432619952 4.56307096286 111% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75907386577 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 272.0 204.123752495 133% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.410256410256 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1021.5 705.55239521 145% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 61.91331827 57.8364921388 107% => OK
Chars per sentence: 142.652173913 119.503703932 119% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.8260869565 23.324526521 124% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.30434782609 5.70786347227 128% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.163535176682 0.218282227539 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.04677037787 0.0743258471296 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0386512694475 0.0701772020484 55% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0971781714373 0.128457276422 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0415496763411 0.0628817314937 66% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.3 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.52 48.3550499002 107% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.02 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.95 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 98.500998004 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.5 12.3882235529 157% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.