The following is an excerpt from a speech given to the School Board about a change to the curriculum:
"Because the future will be dominated by technology, we must make four years of computer programming mandatory for all high school students. If our students take these classes, they’ll all be able to get high-paying programming jobs and lead fulfilling lives because software engineers and data scientists have the best job prospects and salaries. Therefore, we must educate our students so they can secure these kinds of jobs. Even if they pursue other careers, programming will still benefit them, given that all industries are becoming more technological."
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.
As suggested by speaker to School board, the future will be technology-driven, and technology will excel over the coming years. But to make computer programming a mandatory subject for all based on that pretense is a bit too much, just like adding more salt to the dish would make it even better.
First of all, the idea of the speaker that technology is basically computer programming is completely false. Technology, is both hardware and software driven. Consider a smartphone that we use in our daily life. It is made from a combination of both microprocessors and microchips as hardware and software over that hardware. If a only a software patch is released every year without updating the hardware, there is no way that hardware can keep up with the demanding software. That is one aspect of programming which is unavoidable i.e. it needs to run on a hardware.
I can agree on the fact that students who learn programming in school tend to have a much better grasp than the one who will learn later on. But the fact that it would lead them to get high-paying job is a bit misleading because there are many other jobs that are better and high-paying than programming. There is an absence of what is "high-paying" in terms of speaker.
And the speaker is assuming that software engineering and data engineer jobs are really good in each organization. But that fact is: they are not. It depends from company-to-company. Some might make them work rigorously and some of them would be just a cakewalk. We don't know until there are all the facts in front of us.
And to state that programming will benefit them if the student pursues a different career is totally dependent on what kind of career. Take an example of person who wants to be a fashion designer. Now, how will they choose which cloth to choose in the apparel. Will they use other's knowledge of which cloth would be better or will they create a code in which they are defining a particular requirement, compiling the code and would use that machine code. Obviously, the design will do the former. There are many case in which we use the most important part of our body than a code: our brain.
The speaker is very vague and too blunt just to put forward importance of computer programming. I can totally understand it's importance, and in the coming years, it will be a forefront in most of the industry. But to make it an undisputed king and supremely dubbing it as technology would be an overstatement. The speaker must do some more research about how different fields culminate together to give way to the technology.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 456 350
No. of Characters: 2084 1500
No. of Different Words: 215 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.621 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.57 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.75 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 120 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 98 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.538 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.732 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.308 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.247 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.494 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.096 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 330, 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
...are and software over that hardware. If a only a software patch is released every...
^
Line 9, column 49, Rule ID: AFFORD_VBG[1]
Message: This verb is used with infinitive: 'to program', 'to programme'.
Suggestion: to program; to programme
...ree on the fact that students who learn programming in school tend to have a much better gr...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 267, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...me of them would be just a cakewalk. We dont know until there are all the facts in f...
^^^^
Line 21, column 83, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...st to put forward importance of computer programming. I can totally understand it...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, if, really, so, kind of, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2163.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 455.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 4.75384615385 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61852021839 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95373985942 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 220.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.483516483516 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 674.1 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 8.0 1.67365269461 478% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 42.6670230046 57.8364921388 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 83.1923076923 119.503703932 70% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.5 23.324526521 75% => OK
Discourse Markers: 1.88461538462 5.70786347227 33% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 13.0 4.67664670659 278% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.245734433055 0.218282227539 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0575226022376 0.0743258471296 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0378031944652 0.0701772020484 54% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.120935223199 0.128457276422 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0530078391182 0.0628817314937 84% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 9.7 14.3799401198 67% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 62.68 48.3550499002 130% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 12.197005988 71% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.97 12.5979740519 79% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.12 8.32208582834 86% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 98.500998004 77% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.