An international development organization, 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 the 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.
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Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
According to the author, the solution to the problem of vitamin A deficiency amongst the people of Tagus is to adopt the new breed of millet which is rich in vitamin A. He also urges the government of Tagus to do everything possible in order to promote this new breed of millet. While the author’s assertion could be true, he should provide adequate answers to the following three questions in order to increase the persuasiveness of his suggestion.
Firstly, the author states that residents of the impoverished nation of Tagus are vitamin A deficient. However, he fails to mention the source of this statement, and hence the credibility of this statement comes into question. Perhaps the source of this information is a survey that was conducted in a non-scientific manner. There is a very high possibility that the survey was taken by a bunch of high school students who had no prior experience in taking an actual survey. Conceivably, the survey was taken just outside a hospital, leading to an impression that all the residents of Tagus are vitamin A deficient. Another scenario that may be true is that the respondents of the survey correspond to a very small sample size and may not be representative of the entire population of Tagus. If any of the above-stated scenarios are true, the author’s statement is seriously weakened.
Another possibility that will hamper the effectiveness of the author’s suggestion is that the farmers will readily agree to grow this new breed of millet. The author assumes that the subsidies provided to the farmers will be enough to convince them to grow these crops. It is highly likely that the increase in the cost of growing this breed of millet exceeds the subsidies they are receiving. In addition, there is a good chance that the amount of work required to grow these crops is exponentially higher than the previous breed of millet and requires the farmer to put in more hours at the farm. Also, the amount of time this crop takes to grow could be significantly higher than the previous breed. Without any clarification on the aforementioned possibilities, the author’s assumption that the mentioned subsidies would make the farmers more willing to grow this breed of millet is unwarranted.
Finally, an argument that would decrease the credibility of the argument is the assumption that the new breed of millet will be perceived readily by the people. For instance, the changes done to engineer this new breed of millet may result in a change in the taste of millet. It is highly likely that this change in taste would not be welcomed by the citizens of Tagus ultimately leading to the rejection of this breed of millet. It could also be the case that the new breed would be more expensive compared to the previous breed of millet and because of this, the citizens would refuse to accept this new breed. The author is required to shed more light on these concerns in order to make his suggestion more compelling.
To conclude, although the author’s suggestion might hold water, indicating that this new breed of millet will increase the vitamin A content of the citizens of Tagus, he has to address the above-asked questions in order to bolster his suggestion. The author should provide the credibility of the survey as well as provide additional information about the production costs of this new breed.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 570 350
No. of Characters: 2739 1500
No. of Different Words: 222 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.886 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.805 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.742 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 193 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 102 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.909 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.785 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.545 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.358 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.558 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.197 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 290, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ote this new breed of millet. While the authors assertion could be true, he should prov...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 91, Rule ID: DT_JJ_NO_NOUN[1]
Message: Probably a noun is missing in this part of the sentence.
...mpoverished nation of Tagus are vitamin A deficient. However, he fails to mention the sourc...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 604, Rule ID: DT_JJ_NO_NOUN[1]
Message: Probably a noun is missing in this part of the sentence.
... all the residents of Tagus are vitamin A deficient. Another scenario that may be true is t...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 844, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...he above-stated scenarios are true, the authors statement is seriously weakened. Ano...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 63, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...at will hamper the effectiveness of the authors suggestion is that the farmers will rea...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 770, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...n the aforementioned possibilities, the authors assumption that the mentioned subsidies...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 27, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...mpelling. To conclude, although the authors suggestion might hold water, indicating...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, so, well, while, as to, for instance, in addition, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 47.0 28.8173652695 163% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 91.0 55.5748502994 164% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2791.0 2260.96107784 123% => OK
No of words: 570.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 4.89649122807 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.88617158649 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79931014234 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 228.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.4 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 873.0 705.55239521 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.5222789245 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.347826087 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.7826086957 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.08695652174 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.412813236621 0.218282227539 189% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.130322473451 0.0743258471296 175% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0828975313978 0.0701772020484 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.239973450858 0.128457276422 187% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0682201756798 0.0628817314937 108% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.44 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.12 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => 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.