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.
It might seem logical at first glance, to agree with the argument. However, in order to fully evaluate the argument, we need a significant amount of additional evidence. The argument might end up being much weaker than it seems or might actually be quite valid. In order to make such determination, we need more information and then analyze what we learn.
The first piece of evidence that we need to evaluate the argument is whether the students will like the food served from other food vendor.
For instance, the parent is thinking of replacement of the Swift Nutrition because of his son and his friends are not liking the food served there. The food served at the Swift Nutrition is low-fat and low-calorie meals that will improve the student's health. The new vendor will also provide salubrious food, which again will become students dislike as the main problem here is not the food but the student's not liking the food served. The food served is healthy, but students are more attracted to unhealthy food at home. Thus, even though there is the replacement of the current food vendor, the health of the students will not improve and clearly, by eating the unhealthy food, the student's health will deteriorate gradually. Without the information about the student's agreement to eat the meals served at new vendor, we cannot clearly assume that there will be no health issue if there is a replacement of the Swift Nutrition.
The second piece of evidence that we need is whether the new food vendor will actually serve healthy food. The letter does not say anything about the quality of food that should be served by the new food vendor.For illustration, the new food vendor might serve tasty food, but not healthy food. The Swift Nutrition is considering the health aspects of students while preparing the food by using low-fat and low-calorie food. The new food vendor might provide the food which students like, but not giving importance to the quality of food. Though the students are not eating the unhealthy food from home, they are clearly eating the unhealthy food from a new vendor. This is absurd as the parents are simply spending money on new food vendor with no use.If there was evidence that the new food vendor will provide both healthy and tasty food, we can agree with the replacement of the Swift Nutrition.
Furthermore, there is no evidence about the other students (other than the parent's son and his friends) complaining about food. For example, other students might actually be liking the food. The other students are eating low-fat and low-calorie food which is very good for health. So, we need to know about the other students in the school. The exact number of students disliking the food served at Swift Nutrition is not provided in the letter.Thus, without the evidence about other students complaining about the food at Swift Nutrition, we cannot agree to the replacement of the Swift Nutrition.
In conclusion, we need more information in order to get a more complete understanding of the strengths and weaknesses.
We need to know about the quality of food served by the new food vendor, we need to know about the opinion of other students and also about the student's perspective about the healthy food. And we really need more information if we want to extend the results and agree on the replacement of Swift Nutrition.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 576 350
No. of Characters: 2731 1500
No. of Different Words: 178 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.899 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.741 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.433 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 180 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 125 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.04 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.185 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.88 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.409 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.59 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.266 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 251, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...tion because of his son and his friends are not liking the food served there. The food served ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 383, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'students'' or 'student's'?
Suggestion: students'; student's
...low-calorie meals that will improve the students health. The new vendor will also provid...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 576, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...he students not liking the food served. The food served is healthy but students are...
^^^
Line 3, column 707, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... even though there is replacement of the current food vendor, the health of the s...
^^^
Line 4, column 113, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'students'' or 'student's'?
Suggestion: students'; student's
...arly, by eating the unhealthy food, the students health will dwindle gradually. Without ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 187, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'students'' or 'student's'?
Suggestion: students'; student's
...ally. Without the information about the students agreement to eat the meals served at ne...
^^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 164, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
... example, other students might actually be liking the food. The other students are eating...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 10, column 264, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'students'' or 'student's'?
Suggestion: students'; student's
...on of other students and also about the students perspective about the healthy food. And...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, really, second, so, then, thus, while, for example, for instance, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 28.0 12.9520958084 216% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 34.0 16.3942115768 207% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2783.0 2260.96107784 123% => OK
No of words: 568.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 4.89964788732 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.88187981987 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.54121391779 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 184.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.323943661972 0.468620217663 69% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 828.0 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.09900837 57.8364921388 66% => OK
Chars per sentence: 99.3928571429 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.2857142857 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.75 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.15022351605 0.218282227539 69% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0683793007118 0.0743258471296 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0683147728095 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.093920054913 0.128457276422 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.057791810578 0.0628817314937 92% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.8 14.3799401198 82% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.14 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 6.69 8.32208582834 80% => OK
difficult_words: 74.0 98.500998004 75% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.