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 this letter, it is stated that Kensington students will bring their own unhealthy lunchboxes instead of eating the cafeteria's healthy food which will result in serious health consequences. The parent has come to this conclusion due to his son and his friend's complaints about the lunch options provided by the school cafeteria. However, three questions must be answered before the argument can be properly evaluated.
Firstly, what are the types of complaints? In other words, are the complaints related to the options provided during lunch? It is possible that the criticism received may be due to the pale food provided. Further, there is a possibility that students are not happy about similar choices provided by the school every day. If either of these scenarios holds merit, then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, do all the parents and students want the same? It is possible that many households are paying a hefty fee to the school to provide lunches to their children. The majority of parents expect that school will take responsibility for proper hygiene and good food. Further, it is also possible that the rest of the students are enjoying the lunch options provided by the school. If the above is true, then the argument does not hold water.
Finally, how will the students bring unhealthy lunches? The parent prematurely assumes that every student will have their own less healthy lunches. However, this might not be the case. Parents won't allow or give allowances to their children to buy street food. Further, there is a possibility that teachers do not allow their students to go off-premise during school hours. If either of these scenarios holds true, then the argument is significantly weakened.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now is considerably flawed due to its reliance of unwanted assumptions. If the author is able to answer the three questions above and offer more evidence (perhaps in the form of a systematic way), then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation to replace Swift with another vendor.
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: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 351 350
No. of Characters: 1747 1500
No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.328 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.977 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.656 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 128 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 101 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 33 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.714 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.923 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.619 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.284 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.489 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.035 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
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: 1795.0 2260.96107784 79% => OK
No of words: 350.0 441.139720559 79% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.12857142857 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.32530772707 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73108933936 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 179.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.511428571429 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 541.8 705.55239521 77% => 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: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 47.6549864382 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 85.4761904762 119.503703932 72% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.6666666667 23.324526521 71% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.04761904762 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
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: 0.134215178441 0.218282227539 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0405049195018 0.0743258471296 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0357948301002 0.0701772020484 51% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0803752985039 0.128457276422 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0359816925304 0.0628817314937 57% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.1 14.3799401198 77% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 63.7 48.3550499002 132% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.4 12.197005988 69% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.18 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.81 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 98.500998004 76% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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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.