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 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.
__________
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.
In this argument, the recommendation to promote the new breed of millet high in Vitamin A is being made to the government of Tagus to combat the Vitamin A deficiency among its people. The evidence provided to support this are the subsidies provided to farmers to farm this new kind of millet in the face of its higher cost and the fact that millet is already a staple food in Tagus. I believe that this argument as it stands is weak and can only be evaluated if the answers to at least three important questions are provided.
The first is, What is the difference in the cost of the seeds of the new type of millet and the subsidy being offered to the farmers? Are they able to offset these increased costs of seeds with the subsidy being provided? Perhaps, the subsidy is too little to cover the price gap in the seeds of ordinary millet versus the new kind. Maybe, there are additional hidden costs in growing the new kind of millet that would render the subsidy pointless. If either of these were to be true and the impoverished farmers would actually have to pay more to grow the new kind of millet, the argument would lose a lot of weight.
The second is, Is there any difference in the taste, texture or smell of the new kind of millet when compared to the old one? It could be that the new kind of millet has a markedly different taste and thus, is not readily accepted by the people of Tagus. It is also possible that the new millet has a different texture altogether and thus cannot be consumed as a replacement for the other kind of millet, needing different ways of cooking altogether to be consumed. If either of these points were true, the new millet would not be so readily adopted, rendering the argument quite weak.
The third is, What is the cost of buying the new kind of millet when compared to the old one? Maybe, the cost is much higher than the regular kind of millet and is out of reach for most of the impoverished people who actually face the Vitamin A deficiency. Perhaps, the new kind of millet needs to be stored in special kinds of containers which are required to be bought separately, leading to a much higher cost to the buyer. if either of these were true, it would be difficult for the impoverished people of Tagus to readily adopt the new kind of millet and the argument would lose a lot of water.
To conclude, the argument as it stands is flawed. If answers to the three questions mentioned could be provided, it would be possible to evaluate the recommendation thoroughly with the complete facts at hand and decide whether the recommendation is likely to have predicted result or not.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 480 350
No. of Characters: 2103 1500
No. of Different Words: 179 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.681 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.381 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.425 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 137 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 91 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 59 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 32 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.235 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.904 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.41 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.41 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.146 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 427, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: If
...ing to a much higher cost to the buyer. if either of these were true, it would be ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, if, may, second, so, third, thus, at least, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 38.0 19.6327345309 194% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2147.0 2260.96107784 95% => OK
No of words: 480.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 4.47291666667 5.12650576532 87% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68069463864 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.47953341125 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.391666666667 0.468620217663 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 681.3 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.59920159681 88% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.0509983002 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.277777778 119.503703932 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.6666666667 23.324526521 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.11111111111 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.381522083485 0.218282227539 175% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.147443863326 0.0743258471296 198% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0853712191113 0.0701772020484 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.224879695517 0.128457276422 175% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.104705011662 0.0628817314937 167% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.0 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 62.01 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 8.94 12.5979740519 71% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.26 8.32208582834 87% => OK
difficult_words: 71.0 98.500998004 72% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.