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 letter complains about the the new cafeteria management and the low-fat food they serve, and argues that offering 'healthier' food is going to cause students to bring their own, less healthy lunches, and cause serious consequences for the students. The letter, however, leaves a lot of questions which would make the argument reasonable completely out of the picture.
The argument uses a very small sample size of students to argue that the food vendor should be replaced. The parent mentions his son, and his son's friends- and that's it. It's entirely possible that a number of students, or even a vast majority of the students prefer the new vendor. So the most obvious question that needs to be answered here is what the majority of the students think. If an authentic survey of the students, and their preference of food, including whether or not they like the new vendor was presented, and it was found that most students do indeed dislike the food, it would make the argument and it's prediction that students are going to face health-consequences, more reasonable.
But this isn't the only hole in the argument. The parent assumes that the enjoyment of a meal is directly dependent on how fat and calorie rich it is. That is often not the case. A lot of healthy food is considered tasty by a lot of people. So if the argument can reliably answer the question of which low-fat foods that are served are avoided by a majority of the students, and what unhealthy food they go for instead, the prediction becomes more palatable. It could be the case that students just prefer one type of food just because of its taste, unrelated to its nutritional value.
A balanced diet is incredibly important for a school-going child. If the cafeteria is serving a balanced diet, and the students are avoiding it just because of its taste, then that is going to harm the students directly. The parent needs to find what food is actually being served, what the weekly schedule is, and if it's well-balanced or not. If the served food is indeed well-balanced, then perhaps the parent should try to convince their child to eat a balanced diet to stay healthy, instead of complaining about the food, and eating unhealthy lunches. And maybe that's what happened with the other students, and they don't buy unhealthy lunches. If the parent can show that a majority of the students are indeed buying unhealthy lunches from outside the cafeteria, then the argument becomes more reasonable, and the principal would be more inclined to take measures to bring better-tasting food into the cafeteria.
Unless these questions are answered, the argument is incomplete and will have difficulty achieving its goals.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not exactly
argument 3 -- not OK. need to argue:
If Swift is not replaced with another vendor, there will be serious health consequences for Kensington students.
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sample:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-argument-task-essays/following-letter-p…
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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: 20 15
No. of Words: 460 350
No. of Characters: 2184 1500
No. of Different Words: 198 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.631 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.748 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.619 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 151 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 118 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 90 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.058 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.45 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.324 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.52 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.07 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 28, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
The letter complains about the the new cafeteria management and the low-fa...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 28, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
The letter complains about the the new cafeteria management and the low-fa...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 1, 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.
...able completely out of the picture. The argument uses a very small sample size ...
^^^
Line 3, column 106, 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.
...hat the food vendor should be replaced. The parent mentions his son, and his sons f...
^^^
Line 3, column 161, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: that's
...ions his son, and his sons friends- and thats it. Its entirely possible that a number...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 467, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...and their preference of food, including whether or not they like the new vendor was presented,...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 10, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
...sequences, more reasonable. But this isnt the only hole in the argument. The pare...
^^^^
Line 7, column 567, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: that's
...and eating unhealthy lunches. And maybe thats what happened with the other students, ...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 621, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...pened with the other students, and they dont buy unhealthy lunches. If the parent ca...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, however, if, may, so, then, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 21.0 11.1786427146 188% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2241.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 458.0 441.139720559 104% => OK
Chars per words: 4.89301310044 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62611441266 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70119458822 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 214.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.467248908297 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 675.9 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 14.0 1.67365269461 836% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 76.7406508964 57.8364921388 133% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.05 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.9 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.35 5.70786347227 41% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 9.0 5.25449101796 171% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.171752267569 0.218282227539 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0529630544713 0.0743258471296 71% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0364300556543 0.0701772020484 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0938401732156 0.128457276422 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0354552065258 0.0628817314937 56% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.38 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.83 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.