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.
This argument’s biggest weakness is represented by the various assumptions on which it is based. Some specific evidence related to the above mentioned assumptions could surely strengthen it. Let’s understand why.
At first, the committee assumes that since last year’s birthrate was half that of five years ago, the number of students enrolled in Calatrava’s public schools will decrease.
If the committee had a more specific analysis on the rate of birthrate decrease in the past five years, then it would have been more reasonable to draw conclusion on whether less students will attend schools. In fact, knowing the birthrate of last year and comparing it to the five years old one does not give us an insight on the rate of decrease! It could have happened that five years ago the birthrate had been the highest ever registered. If that were to be the case, then it would make little sense to compare last year birthrate to the latter when judging its decline. A detailed research on the decreasing rate would help us understand more about how less students are going to enroll in schools.
Moreover, even if the decline stated in the argument was true, we can not pretend to draw such conclusions on the number of students who will attend public schools. It is certainly true that fewer births will result in fewer students, but whether they will attend public or private schools is not possible to deduce. A survey showing that the majority of parents will opt for sending their newborns to public schools will surely strengthen this assumption.
Also, a research showing that only a small percentage of students tend to enroll in private schools would have explained more the conclusion made by the committee.
In the last sentence of the argument it is stated that an increase in the adult population is expected. This conclusion is based on more than one assumptions: first, how does a decrease in birthrates increases the adult population? Fewer children would rise the percentage of adults in town, but not its actual number. Furthermore, having a smaller number of births means that fewer teenagers will turn into adults, in so opposing what it is stated in the passage. Also, the committee does not consider the chance of future adults to leave the city and seek better life in other states or countries.
In my opinion this conclusion is the weakest part of the argument and can hardly be strengthen by any evidence.
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: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 413 350
No. of Characters: 1979 1500
No. of Different Words: 191 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.508 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.792 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.522 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 143 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 107 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 76 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.737 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.151 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.307 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.512 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.112 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 175, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun students is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...easonable to draw conclusion on whether less students will attend schools. In fact, ...
^^^^
Line 4, column 576, Rule ID: A_UNCOUNTABLE[3]
Message: Uncountable nouns are usually not used with an indefinite article. Use simply 'detailed research'.
Suggestion: Detailed research
...to the latter when judging its decline. A detailed research on the decreasing rate would help us un...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 659, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun students is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...would help us understand more about how less students are going to enroll in schools...
^^^^
Line 9, column 143, Rule ID: ONE_PLURAL[1]
Message: Don't use the numeral 'one' with plural words. Did you mean 'one assumption', 'an assumption', or simply 'assumptions'?
Suggestion: one assumption; an assumption; assumptions
.... This conclusion is based on more than one assumptions: first, how does a decrease in birthrat...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 403, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ths means that fewer teenagers will turn into adults, in so opposing what it is s...
^^
Line 10, column 75, Rule ID: ADVERB_WORD_ORDER[10]
Message: The adverb 'hardly' is usually put between 'be' and 'strengthen'.
Suggestion: be hardly strengthen
...he weakest part of the argument and can hardly be strengthen by any evidence.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, if, moreover, so, then, in fact, in my opinion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => 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: 2041.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 413.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.94188861985 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50803742585 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.62383946382 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 201.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.486682808717 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 615.6 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.4253349842 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.388888889 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.9444444444 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.27777777778 5.70786347227 75% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.272516280048 0.218282227539 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0764066660378 0.0743258471296 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.113523044496 0.0701772020484 162% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.125041984351 0.128457276422 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.14871255698 0.0628817314937 236% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.67 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.02 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 86.0 98.500998004 87% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.