The following is a letter from the parent of a private school student to the principal of that school:
Last year, Kensington Academy turned over management of its cafeteria to a private vendor, Swift Nutrition. This company serves low-fat, low-calorie meals that students do not find enjoyable – my son and several of his friends came home yesterday complaining about the lunch options. While the intent of hiring Swift may have been to cause students to eat healthier foods, the plan is just going to cause students to bring their own, less healthy lunches instead of eating cafeteria food. If Swift is not replaced with another vendor, there will be serious health consequences for Kensington students.
__________
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
In the letter, the author implies that Kensington Academy should replace its cafeteria vendor as they may lead to health consequences for their students. While this may be true, the argument is based on assumptions that need to be answered first.
Firstly, the author has stated that the students do not enjoy the food from the cafeteria. Is it true for all students? There is no evidence to support whether this claim is applicable to a majority of the students in that school. Before changing the vendor, the school must survey all of its students to get a thorough understanding of the issue, as it could be due to its taste or lack of options that the cafeteria provides. In which case the school would have to change its solution accordingly.
Secondly, The reason for the student's dislike of cafeteria meals isn't clearly defined. Is it because of the low-fat, low-calorie food being served? While it is true that healthier foods may not taste as good as their unhealthy counterparts, healthy food may benefit its students in the long run. Swift Nutrition could also look into making its food more enjoyable for the students. It could sometimes provide some unhealthy yet tasty options so that students could sometimes snack on them.
As stated in the letter Swift Nutrition provides low-fat and low-calorie meals, and it may be the school's decision to introduce such meals to introduce healthy food options for its students. Has there been any improvement in its student's health? Since Swift Nutrition was instated as the cafeteria management last year, the school can compare its student's health status with a year-old record and decide whether the healthy food options have benefitted the students.
Thus while the authors claim that might be true, the school must consider these questions before replacing the vendor as they may shed light to the actual issue the students face.
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: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 317 350
No. of Characters: 1545 1500
No. of Different Words: 159 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.22 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.874 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.496 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 112 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 83 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 59 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 33 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.812 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.126 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.358 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.574 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.086 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 66, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
...the students dislike of cafeteria meals isnt clearly defined. Is it because of the l...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, first, firstly, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, thus, while, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 30.0 55.5748502994 54% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1584.0 2260.96107784 70% => OK
No of words: 316.0 441.139720559 72% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.01265822785 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.21620550194 4.56307096286 92% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.54425656484 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 160.0 204.123752495 78% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.506329113924 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 459.9 705.55239521 65% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 55.3178316639 57.8364921388 96% => OK
Chars per sentence: 99.0 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.75 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.9375 5.70786347227 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.309976691452 0.218282227539 142% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.10701896113 0.0743258471296 144% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0700980715283 0.0701772020484 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.169978363452 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0802660176334 0.0628817314937 128% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.0 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.73 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 63.0 98.500998004 64% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => 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.