The following is part of a memorandum from the president of Humana University.
"Last year the number of students who enrolled in online degree programs offered by nearby Omni University increased by 50 percent. During the same year, Omni showed a significant decrease from prior years in expenditures for dormitory and classroom space, most likely because instruction in the online programs takes place via the Internet. In contrast, over the past three years, enrollment at Humana University has failed to grow, and the cost of maintaining buildings has increased along with our budget deficit. To address these problems, Humana University will begin immediately to create and actively promote online degree programs like those at Omni. We predict that instituting these online degree programs will help Humana both increase its total enrollment and solve its budget problems."
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 author posits that online degree programs will help Humana University in increasing their enrollments and will help in solving their money problems. However, the author’s reasoning is based on flawless assumptions. Therefore, the argument is weak and unconvincing.
Firstly, the author claims that the number of students was increased by 50 percent last year but we don’t know what is the absolute count of the students. For example, what if the total number of students enrolled before last year was 10 and then the count was increased by 50 percent. It means that the number of students enrolled in online degree programs is still 30. Also, there are chances that there are more than 300 students in the classroom programs which is more than 10 times of online programs. Therefore, the narrator failed to take the absolute number of students in the account due to which the argument remains invalid.
Secondly, the passage states that the costs of classroom space and dormitory were decreased from the previous year due to the increment and gain in popularity of the online programs which is conducted on the internet. But we don’t have a reason to believe that this would be the case. There are chances that University is doing the cost-cutting and due to that, they are using the old furniture and equipment which they renewed last time. The other reason we can think of is that Christmas was near-by, so they might have received a charity from a lot of people who wants to donate to the University.
Lastly, the writer claims that due to these online programs, the number of enrollments was not increased. However, the author didn’t consider the other reason for not getting enough students. The University is facing competition from other universities. There are 3 more colleges in the town which are much better than Humana University in terms of Infrastructure, Tuition Fees and professors. Moreover, the college is not facing the budget deficit due to less number of students enrolled. There was a news that vice president of the college did the corruption which hampers the college funds. Also, the reputation of the college has gone down since then.
The argument would be strengthened if the author clearly mentions about the correct number of the students enrolled, the competition face due to other colleges, and the corruption made by the vice president.
In conclusion, the less number of students enrolled and the budget deficit is not due to online degree programs, but due to various other reasons mentioned above. Therefore, the argument is ill-minded.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 432 350
No. of Characters: 2098 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.559 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.856 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.549 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 113 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.636 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.568 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.773 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.32 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.32 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, moreover, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, for example, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2173.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 429.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.06526806527 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55107846309 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71542462573 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.440559440559 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 661.5 705.55239521 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 17.0 8.76447105788 194% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 48.4051428181 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.7727272727 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.5 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.90909090909 5.70786347227 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.243581572572 0.218282227539 112% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0697294258438 0.0743258471296 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0676343734493 0.0701772020484 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.118585432252 0.128457276422 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0695914189871 0.0628817314937 111% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.2 14.3799401198 85% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.13 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.82 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.