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."
The appeared recommendation by the commitee concludes that by reducing the funds budgeted for education during the next decade and at the same time reducing funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities will help in saving money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults, based on the fact that birthrate in the city is declining. However three questions are needed to be answered as follows.
Firstly, birthrate might be decreasing but population of students and atheles might be increasing ? The argument assumes the fact that since birthrate is declining, hence population of students and atheles might also be declining. What if the population of students and athelets might actually be increasing? In that case cutting off funds for education and atheletic facilities will impede the career of these people and hence as as a result the conclusion is not justifiable.
Secondly, how much fund is going into schools and atheletic grounds since already birthrate is half of what it was five years ago? Since the argument states that currently the birthrate is already very low comparatively, there might not be enough funds allocated to education, athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. So even if we reduce their budgets there won't be any significant savings to sponsor city facilities and programs used primarily by adults and hence the argument does not hold water.
Lastly, It is stated ten year budget, but what happens if the birthrate again increases during this time? The plan's duration is not taking into account the probable increase of birthrate. For instance supposedly in the year 2005 the birthrate is thirty and then in 2015 it becomes thirty five or even forty causing problems in the education system as well as atheletics practices and other facilities. The probable increase might require more budget allocation to schools and fields than being alloted and thus this weakens the argument.
In conclusion it can be stated that the argument stated above is considerably flawed because of its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author answers the above three questions and provides sufficient evidence to back them up, then it might be possible to evluate the validity of the proposed budget planning.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 10 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 369 350
No. of Characters: 1908 1500
No. of Different Words: 187 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.383 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.171 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.695 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 148 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 117 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.6 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.142 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.61 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.109 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 376, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...hat birthrate in the city is declining. However three questions are needed to be answer...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 429, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: as
...de the career of these people and hence as as a result the conclusion is not justifia...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 111, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'plans'' or 'plan's'?
Suggestion: plans'; plan's
...e again increases during this time? The plans duration is not taking into account the...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, firstly, hence, however, if, lastly, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well, for instance, in conclusion, as a result, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 55.5748502994 72% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1946.0 2260.96107784 86% => OK
No of words: 368.0 441.139720559 83% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.28804347826 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.37987740619 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77245971197 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 191.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.51902173913 0.468620217663 111% => OK
syllable_count: 608.4 705.55239521 86% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => 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: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 74.3306725981 57.8364921388 129% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.733333333 119.503703932 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.5333333333 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 10.4666666667 5.70786347227 183% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.20758483034 24% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.213280282828 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0705737810007 0.0743258471296 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0653538190336 0.0701772020484 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.115743897902 0.128457276422 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0624119405541 0.0628817314937 99% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 14.3799401198 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 38.66 48.3550499002 80% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.7 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.77 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 92.0 98.500998004 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.