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
Here, the given argument prompt is saying that Kensington Academy has given the responsibility of its cafeteria to a company named Swift Nutrition which serves low-fat, low-calorie meals that the students do not find enjoyable. So, swift should be replaced by another company otherwise there will be serious health consequences for Kensington students. At first sight, the argument seems quite logical and cogent. But, a close scrutiny reveals that it has used some assumptions that are not clear. Some things should be made clear to make the argument a valid one.
Firstly, the parent has mentioned his/her child and several of his friends complaining about the food given by Swift Nutrition.
But, the author cannot say that the few students mentioned are the proper representative of the whole students of the school. They may not like the food but there may be other students who love the food provided by Swift Nutrition. So, to make this point clear and to avoid the invalid generalization, a survey should be taken from most of the students of the school. Only then it will be right to say that most of the students like or dislike the food provided by the authority of the company. Otherwise, it does not make any sense to accuse the quality of the foods depending on a survey where a few students take part.
Secondly, the parent in her/his letter has mentioned that the company serves low-fat, low-calorie foods that students do not find enjoyable. But, how does the parent know that the low-fat, low-calorie foods don't taste good? Maybe his/her child and their friends are not used to eating that type of food at home and that is why they don't find them tasty. Maybe the other children are used to eat these type of foods at their home and they are finding the foods tasty and not complaining about the food. To make any decision about the taste of the foods the parent should give a detail report having the comparison of the taste of various low-fat, low-calorie and high-fat, high-calorie foods. Only then he/she can explicitly say that the low-calorie and low-fat food are not that much tasty compared to other foods in the market.
Thirdly, the parent has suggested to replace Swift with any other vendor in the market. But, what will be consequences of this? Maybe the other vendors in the market also serve low-fat and low-calorie food items. Maybe they are not as good as Swift or maybe the price of their foods are considerably high which the school cannot afford. Maybe the taste of the foods of the other vendors is worse than that of Swift. So, to validate this point, the parent should provide a detailed comparison of food quality vs price of the available vendors in the market. Only then it will be appropriate to say that any other vendor is better than Swift in terms of quality and price.
To conclude, we have already seen that the given argument prompt has a lot of loopholes in it. There are a lot of questions to be answered to make the argument convincing and clear.
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| 2019-12-18 | Chayank_11 | 78 | view |
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- somehow duplicated to argument 1
argument 3 -- OK
----------------
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 531 350
No. of Characters: 2421 1500
No. of Different Words: 200 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.8 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.559 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.406 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 142 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 100 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.423 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.398 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.615 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.317 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.527 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.146 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 422, Rule ID: CLOSE_SCRUTINY[1]
Message: Use simply 'scrutiny'.
Suggestion: scrutiny
... seems quite logical and cogent. But, a close scrutiny reveals that it has used some assumptio...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 208, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...now that the low-fat, low-calorie foods dont taste good? Maybe his/her child and the...
^^^^
Line 6, column 333, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...pe of food at home and that is why they dont find them tasty. Maybe the other childr...
^^^^
Line 8, column 25, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'suggested replacing'.
Suggestion: suggested replacing
... the market. Thirdly, the parent has suggested to replace Swift with any other vendor in the mark...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 338, 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.
...ly high which the school cannot afford. Maybe the taste of the foods of the other ven...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2490.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 525.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 4.74285714286 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.78673985869 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.46360611747 2.78398813304 88% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.39619047619 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 759.6 705.55239521 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.59920159681 88% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 39.1069123265 57.8364921388 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 95.7692307692 119.503703932 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.1923076923 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.0 5.70786347227 53% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.260600143342 0.218282227539 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0811700738699 0.0743258471296 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0827940472562 0.0701772020484 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.12390640311 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0641314651179 0.0628817314937 102% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.0 14.3799401198 76% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 68.1 48.3550499002 141% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 12.197005988 71% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.21 12.5979740519 81% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 6.85 8.32208582834 82% => 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: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.