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.
The principal of Kensington Academy received a recommendation from a student's parent to switch the cafeteria's vendor, Swift Nutrition, in order to prevent the students from facing serious health consequences. The parent has come to this conclusion based on her son and his friend's experience not liking the low-fat, low-calorie food served by the vendor, and claims she has to give him unhealthy food for this reason. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, three questions must be answered.
First of all, would the parent's son and his friends taste palette apply to the taste of all students as Kensington academy? Perhaps, her son and his friends have a predilection for fried and fatty foods. It may be possible that the a majority of the students actually find the food served by Swift Nutrition palatable. If the above holds true, then the parent's proposal holds no water.
Secondly, if students don't enjoy the cafeteria food, would they bring unhealthy food from home? In other words, would parents readily send unhealthy food for their kids if the cafeteria food doesn't suit their taste palette? It could be possible that most parents are also concerned for the child's health, and would take some effort to only prepare healthy foods to substitute the cafeteria food. There is also a potential that many parents may not be able to send food for their kids due to their unavailability or no house help available - this would compel students to devour the low-fatty and low-calorie cafeteria meals available. If either of these scenarios hold merit, the conclusion drawn by the parent is significantly weakened.
To add to this, if students end up bringing unhealthy food for recess, would this pose a serious health risk for them? The parent prematurely assumes that high-calorie food is unhealthy and leads to health concerns. However, this may not be the case. Students might have a high participation in sports and physical exertion, which requires a high calorie intake to avoid a calorie deficit. Also, consuming higher calorie food may just make students a bit fatter - this would not be a serious health concern. If the above situations hold true, the parent's proposal is considerably flawed.
In conclusion, the recommendation proposed by the parent, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the parent is able to answer the three questions and offer more evidence(perhaps in the form of a school-wide survey), then it would be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation to replace the current cafeteria vendor, Swift Nutrition, at Kensington Academy.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 12 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 437 350
No. of Characters: 2194 1500
No. of Different Words: 210 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.572 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.021 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.818 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 156 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.85 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.881 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.329 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.539 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.11 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 100, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'cafeterias'' or 'cafeteria's'?
Suggestion: cafeterias'; cafeteria's
...on from a students parent to switch the cafeterias vendor, Swift Nutrition, in order to pr...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 25, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'parents'' or 'parent's'?
Suggestion: parents'; parent's
...be answered. First of all, would the parents son and his friends taste palette apply...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 229, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'a' is left.
Suggestion: the; a
...nd fatty foods. It may be possible that the a majority of the students actually find ...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 354, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'parents'' or 'parent's'?
Suggestion: parents'; parent's
...able. If the above holds true, then the parents proposal holds no water. Secondly, i...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 23, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...olds no water. Secondly, if students dont enjoy the cafeteria food, would they br...
^^^^
Line 5, column 119, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'would' requires the base form of the verb: 'parent'
Suggestion: parent
...y food from home? In other words, would parents readily send unhealthy food for their k...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 192, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...od for their kids if the cafeteria food doesnt suit their taste palette? It could be p...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 548, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'parents'' or 'parent's'?
Suggestion: parents'; parent's
... If the above situations hold true, the parents proposal is considerably flawed. In ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, as to, in conclusion, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2251.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 435.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.17471264368 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56690854021 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87109766051 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 214.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.491954022989 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 681.3 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 61.1395125921 57.8364921388 106% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.55 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.75 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.95 5.70786347227 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.233587533964 0.218282227539 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0734722347694 0.0743258471296 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0592752263723 0.0701772020484 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.143948340378 0.128457276422 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0637084149009 0.0628817314937 101% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.3799401198 96% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.09 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.