An international development organisation, in response to a vitamin A deficiency among people in the impoverished nation of Tagus, has engineered a new breed of millet high in vitamin A. While seeds for this new type of millet cost more, farmers will be paid subsidies for farming the new variety of millet. Since millet is already a staple food in Tagus, people will readily adopt the new variety. To combat vitamin A deficiency, the government of Tagus should do everything it can to promote this new type of millet
Even though some citizens of Tagus are characterised by a lack in vitamin A, it is difficult to understand the relevance of this deficiency as concrete quantifications are not reported. In addition, the reasoning presents two unjustified assumptions, regarding the production and the consumption of the new variety, that can invalidate the final conclusion.
The writer describes a situation in which the presence of vitamin A is low in the population of Tagus. However, it is not addressed exactly what should be the normal value of vitamin A in human beings, or in other words, the shortage is not quantified, and the number of individuals affected by this disease is unknown. As a result, it is not possible to acknowledge the seriousness of the matter and conclude that government should intervene immediately in order to change the actual situation.
Furthermore, the first assumption concerns the fact that farmers will undoubtedly produce the new variety of millet since the government partially covers the cost through the issue of subsides. Nevertheless, weak elements arise in this argumentation. Actually, the economic policy of subsides does not constraint farmers to produce the new millet. They could just take the money without implementing the intervention of government. Moreover, even if we assume that farmers follow government’ recommendations, it is hard to predict whether the supply will meet the demand, leaving someone without the new commodity. For instance, since being financially sustained by the State, farmers could implement free-riding strategies, which may convert in an insufficient or - in the worst-case scenario - null production.
Moreover, the second hypothesis refers to the adoption of the new product. It is stressed that since citizens of Tagus already consume millet, they will readily introduce to their needs the novel variety of millet. Along with the unjustified assumption, in this sentence is possible to detect a trouble analogy. This is since the writer is assuming that consumers of one type will be also consumers of the second type of the good. However, this may not be the case. For instance, people may not like the taste of the new product and/or they may not be incentivised to purchase it due to its expensive price or an unsuccessful marketing campaign.
Summing up, the conclusion of the writer seems to rely on weak reasonings that can be contradicted. Nevertheless, in order to strength his position, the author should report some statistics on the biological deficiency and the population of Tagus. In addition, to avoid cunning behaviour, the government should force farmers to produce the new millet with, for example, supply contracts. Finally, the writer should consult and report analysis on the consumers’ preferences in order to sustain his analogy.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 447 350
No. of Characters: 2314 1500
No. of Different Words: 221 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.598 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.177 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.972 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 182 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 145 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 104 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 71 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.286 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.048 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.286 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.512 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.044 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...order to change the actual situation. Furthermore, the first assumption concer...
^^^
Line 9, column 507, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...rences in order to sustain his analogy.
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, nevertheless, regarding, second, so, for example, for instance, in addition, as a result, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2393.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 446.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.36547085202 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5955099915 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.11688918737 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 229.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.513452914798 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 741.6 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.9833986045 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.952380952 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.2380952381 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.42857142857 5.70786347227 148% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.290190142396 0.218282227539 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.075354671589 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0487690012325 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.143625502346 0.128457276422 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0492221601052 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.42 8.32208582834 113% => OK
difficult_words: 134.0 98.500998004 136% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.