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 editorial assumes that since lower newborn in the future, the city of Calatrava will save more money in the education and recreation facilities. And then, this saved money could be used to facilitate new programs used primarily by adults. Nevertheless, Due to lacking some evidences, the argument is unfounded.
To begin with, one problem with the argument is that it assumes the lower birthrate apply equally to the lower number of the students; Yet, this may not be the case, for a variety of possible reasons; Although birthrate is decline definitely, perhaps there are still more than one hundred million infants born in the city of Calatrava. As a results, the number of students in Calatrava in the future is still significant. So a piece of evidence that we would need in order to evaluate the reasoning behind it is information about how many infant born in the city of Calatrava. Without ruling out such possibility, the author cannot justifiably conclude that the number of students is small in Calatrava in the future.
Even though the number of infant is small in Calatrava in the future, we still need another evidence for a reasonable recommendation; The editor’s recommendation depends on the assumption that they can reduce the funds budget for education in the city of Calatrava because of low number of students in the future. However, a myriad of other factors, including increasing the number of new infant after two years, or extra added students, might weaken the argument. To be specific, economic recovery will cause increasing the number of infant, or increasing the extra added students because of excessive migration family. Without precluding these and other possible causes, the editor cannot justifiably conclude that they can safely reduce the funds budged for education in the city of Calatrava.
Further, the author’s conclusion that they will have more extra money to facilitate programs used by adults in the future is unwarranted; There is lacking a crucial evidence to support the conclusion; Maybe saved money is too low to force new programs. It is entirely possible that the amount of money a new program need will offset, even outweigh the saved money. Besides, a myriad of other unexpected occurrences, such as unfavorable economic depression, might prevent plans from being as available as the argument predicts.
In sum, the committee must offer the specific evidences to provide a useful recommendation: how many of infant now exactly, the extra evidence that can preclude some other factors, including increasing birthrate or extra added students after two years, and the evidence that predicts accurate saved money and programs expense.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 435 350
No. of Characters: 2201 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.567 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.06 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.672 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 14.052 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.533 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.388 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.622 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.14 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 340, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[1]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'a result' or simply 'results'?
Suggestion: a result; results
...fants born in the city of Calatrava. As a results, the number of students in Calatrava in...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, however, if, may, nevertheless, so, still, then, such as, as a result, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2271.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 435.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.22068965517 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56690854021 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.80722130912 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 197.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.452873563218 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 739.8 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => 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: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 84.6326965973 57.8364921388 146% => OK
Chars per sentence: 151.4 119.503703932 127% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.0 23.324526521 124% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.2 5.70786347227 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.157694147294 0.218282227539 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.055651698917 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.053169749053 0.0701772020484 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0855168029641 0.128457276422 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0682383357693 0.0628817314937 109% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.7 14.3799401198 123% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 33.58 48.3550499002 69% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.59 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.96 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.