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.
In this argument, it is recommended that Calatrava government should decrease the funds budgeted for education while increasing the ones allocated for adult programs and city facilities. It appears as a recommendation by the committee planning a ten-year budget for the city. But the committee’s recommendation seems to be unwise and short sighted.
Firstly, the author states that the birth rate in the city is declining, by stating, the birth rate last year was only half that of five years ago, here the author is comparing last years data with data 5 years ago which is unjustified, as there would have been any socio-economic, cultural, climatic change or a spread of some disease in the previous year. There might be a possibility that there was some social crises last year, which might have led to poverty in people living in Calatrava, and due to that, people might not have had the budget to raise kids specifically in that year. There many such possibilities as there is no scientific and concrete data provided regarding child birth.
Secondly, the author wrongly assumes that, the number of students enrolled in our public schools will soon decrease. There is also a possibility that there might be economic crises in the near future which might les the parents to send their kids to the public schools as they would not have money to send the kids to private schools. Also, what if the birth rate drastically increases in the next two years due to some new technologies in pharmacy industry? The number of kids would drastically increase in the next decade and step decrease in the funds to education, this would be an unwise decision.
Lastly, the committee thinks of reducing funds for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities, assuming these athletic playing fields and recreational facilities are only used by children and not by adults. Reducing funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities would hamper the health of kids as well as adults, as to keep ourself fit and healthy outdoor activities are essential. And reducing budget over them would lead to an unhealthy environment.
To conclude, the decision of the committee of decreasing the funds budgeted for education while increasing the ones allocated for adult programs and city facilities, is unwise. More scientific information and accurate statistic data is required to come to an precise and correct decision.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 398 350
No. of Characters: 1995 1500
No. of Different Words: 187 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.467 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.013 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.716 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 139 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 105 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.533 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.725 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.325 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.552 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.097 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 183, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'years'' or 'year's'?
Suggestion: years'; year's
... ago, here the author is comparing last years data with data 5 years ago which is unj...
^^^^^
Line 8, column 256, 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
...e statistic data is required to come to an precise and correct decision.
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, lastly, regarding, second, secondly, so, well, while, as to, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2048.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 398.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.14572864322 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46653527281 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8139851028 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 195.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.489949748744 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 630.0 705.55239521 89% => 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: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => 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: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 74.4141563593 57.8364921388 129% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.533333333 119.503703932 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.5333333333 23.324526521 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.8 5.70786347227 119% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.312388520287 0.218282227539 143% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0994187886993 0.0743258471296 134% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.113030401712 0.0701772020484 161% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.163583181476 0.128457276422 127% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.111471905551 0.0628817314937 177% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.89 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.62 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 93.0 98.500998004 94% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.