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.
The argument presented is not convincing. The author fails to acknowledge key factors on the basis of which the conclusion can be evaluated. The author concludes that it is better to replace Swift Nutrition to safeguard the health of the students based on the evidence that some of the students carry their own unhealthy food to avoid eating at Swift Nutrition. The argument fails to highlight information on the subset of the people not liking the food of Swift and how the alternatives currently available will help resolve the situation. Thereby, resulting in a logical gap between the premise and the conclusion.
First of all, the author has failed to mention the alternatives available to Swift Nutrition. There is no denying to the fact that children must be given a balanced diet in order to meet their nutrition requirements. Thereby, closing down Swift Nutrition as they offer low-fat and low-calorie diet is going against the good will of the students. The author must try to find some common ground between what the students wish to eat and what is being served to them. For example, Swift Nutrition can have a eclectic collection of food items. A small portion of food which is liked by students can be introduced in order to encourage the students to eat healthy.
Secondly, the author fails to mention the alternatives to Swift Nutrition, a key concept omitted in the argument. For example, if the alternatives to Swift Nutrition are offering the same variety of food, then the whole purpose of replacing Swift Nutrition will be nullified. How the alternatives will help resolve the current situation? The author fails to provide answers for these questions. Had the author provided explicit information on the food being offered by the alternatives the argument would have been more convincing.
Thirdly, the author fails to mention the subset of the students who are unhappy with the food at Swift Nutrition. Is the subset of students large enough to extrapolate this information? or is the number of students who feel this is significant enough? Without responses to these questions, the conclusion of the author feels to be based on wishful thinking than on substantive evidence.
The author presents an interesting hypothesis. However, the data provided in the argument is not adequate enough to justify the reasoning of the author. The long litany of fallacious reasoning seriously jeopardises the claims of the author. Nonetheless, with answers to the subset of students facing some an issue and how the alternatives will help resolve the current situation, the logical gap between the premise and conclusion can be tightened.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 23 15
No. of Words: 434 350
No. of Characters: 2174 1500
No. of Different Words: 182 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.564 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.009 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.734 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 163 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 131 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 90 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.87 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.974 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.304 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.347 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.519 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.094 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 142, 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.
... which the conclusion can be evaluated. The author concludes that it is better to r...
^^^
Line 1, column 275, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...the students based on the evidence that some of the students carry their own unhealthy food...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 363, 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.
...ood to avoid eating at Swift Nutrition. The argument fails to highlight information...
^^^
Line 1, column 475, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...not liking the food of Swift and how the alternatives currently available will he...
^^
Line 5, column 504, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
.... For example, Swift Nutrition can have a eclectic collection of food items. A sm...
^
Line 13, column 187, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Or
...enough to extrapolate this information? or is the number of students who feel this...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, if, nonetheless, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, for example, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 12.0 28.8173652695 42% => OK
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2235.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 434.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.14976958525 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56428161445 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84026623343 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.435483870968 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 676.8 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 46.5333661652 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.125 119.503703932 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.0833333333 23.324526521 78% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.25 5.70786347227 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => 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: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0975971395839 0.218282227539 45% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.032056180205 0.0743258471296 43% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0393889055869 0.0701772020484 56% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0629095485233 0.128457276422 49% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0383533236067 0.0628817314937 61% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.29 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.09 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.