The following opinion was provided in a letter to the editor of a national aeronautics magazine:
"Manned space flight is costly and dangerous. Moreover, the recent success of a series of unmanned space probes and satellites has demonstrated that a great deal of useful information can be gathered without the costs and risks associated with sending men and women into space. Therefore, we should invest our resources in unmanned space flight."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
We learn in the above letter to the editor of a national aeronautics magazine that, the nation should invest in more unmanned space flight. We are asked to subscribe to the notion that since recent unmanned space probes and satellites have proved too successful in gathering information without the cost and risk associated with sending humans into space. To better evaluate this argument, additional evidence is needed that supports the assumptions associated with the conclusion.
The writer here states that manned space flight missions are much more costly and prone to dangers and risks as compared to unmanned flights. The writer here assumes that the objective of the space flights of the manned and unmanned missions are the same. As this is the case then the writer can compare the results of these missions and compare for the better. But since the writer has not provided enough information about such case, the possibility is that the manned and unmanned space flights had different objectives, such as manned space flights objectives were for the maintenance to the satellites wherewith the robots in an unmanned space flight this maintenance is not possible with the current technology available or be very costly as compared to the manned missions. Another possibility is that perhaps the there are some task to be carried in the space or on moon or another planet which includes handling of critical components and experiment with it and which cannot be trusted to be done by a robot as there is possibility of the whole mission to be a fail which may ultimatley lead to loss of myraid amount of resources incested in the mission. If both these cases prove to be true the writer's claim stands unwarrented and his recommendations is not persuasive.
The writer supports its conclusion on the base that with the recent success of series of unmanned space probes and satellites has demonstrated to be useful in collecting information without the cost and risk associated with sending humans to space. There is not enough information provided by the writer that helps of the overall cost of the manned and unmanned space flights for the same role of collecting the information, as it would help us analyze the facts and compare the risk and the cost involved during these space flights. Maybe, the intial research cost and production cost of these probes and satellites be much higher than the total cost to send humans to space. Also, there is not a clear indication as to which risk is here writer talking about, maybe the failure of these high-cost probes and satellites can cause the overall failure of the mission and prove fatal.
In conclusion, while the evidence cited in this argument does provide initial reasons to believe that unmanned space missions are more beneficial, the argument's conclusion rests on other assumptions -namely, that writer is comparing the overall same objective of the manned and unmanned space flights to claim that manned flights are costly and dangerous, and also on what overall cost and risk factor upon which the writer bases its conclusion with the recent success of unmanned space flights.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 9 2
No. of Sentences: 14 15
No. of Words: 523 350
No. of Characters: 2594 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.782 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.96 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.562 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 193 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 37.357 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 19.966 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.429 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.415 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.594 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.159 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 837, Rule ID: THERE_RE_MANY[3]
Message: Possible agreement error. Did you mean 'tasks'?
Suggestion: tasks
...lity is that perhaps the there are some task to be carried in the space or on moon o...
^^^^
Line 7, column 152, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguments'' or 'argument's'?
Suggestion: arguments'; argument's
...space missions are more beneficial, the arguments conclusion rests on other assumptions -...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, if, may, so, then, while, as to, in conclusion, such as, talking about
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 27.0 11.1786427146 242% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2631.0 2260.96107784 116% => OK
No of words: 523.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.03059273423 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.78217453174 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60385411036 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.407265774379 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 828.9 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 37.0 22.8473053892 162% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 122.310911957 57.8364921388 211% => The lengths of sentences changed so frequently.
Chars per sentence: 187.928571429 119.503703932 157% => OK
Words per sentence: 37.3571428571 23.324526521 160% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.78571428571 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.369741650088 0.218282227539 169% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.153662994723 0.0743258471296 207% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.107757485472 0.0701772020484 154% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.26157721862 0.128457276422 204% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0435968916372 0.0628817314937 69% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 20.9 14.3799401198 145% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 33.92 48.3550499002 70% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 17.7 12.197005988 145% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.49 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.64 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 16.8 11.1389221557 151% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.