Last year, Kensington Academy turned over management of its cafeteria to a private vendor, Swift Nutrition. This company serves low-fat, low-calorie meals that students do not find enjoyable – my son and several of his friends came home yesterday complaining about the lunch options. While the intent of hiring Swift may have been to cause students to eat healthier foods, the plan is just going to cause students to bring their own, less healthy lunches instead of eating cafeteria food. If Swift is not replaced with another vendor, there will be serious health consequences for Kensington students.
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 problem statement provided here is based on the change of the school catering services to a private vendor, Swift Nutrition'. The prediction by the parent who has written the letter to the principal states that if Swift is not replaced with another vendor, there will be serious health consequences for Kensington students. This prediction is based on the argument that the low-fat, low-calories meals being served by Swift is not being liked by the students. Hence, most students will insist on bringing their own, less healthy lunches instead of eating at the cafeteria.
There are a few pointers that need to be considered while deciding whether Swift should be retained as the catering vendor or should be replaced by another vendor:
First, Swift serves low-fat, low calorie meals that are claimed to be healthy yet not tasty. Most students, given their young age should be provided proper nutritious food for growth and development. Should the focus of Swift Nutrition company be low-fat, low-calorie meals vs nutritious meals which have balanced proportions of carbs, fat, fibre, proteins and vitamins.
Second, healthy foods can also be tasty. It would be incorrect to assume that healthy food is bland and cannot be enjoyed by the students.The management can confirm with the vendors if they have meal options that are healthy and yet will also appeal to the taste buds of the students.
Third, it takes time for any individual to get accustomed to change. As the new vendors have just been brought in, it is important to consider how long has it been since students have been subject to this change. Maybe after a few weeks, the students would get used to the taste of these meals and start enjoying them.
Fourth, when students head home complaining to their parents that they do not like the cafeteria food and hence would like to carry their own lunches, is it necessary that the lunch they bring from home would be less healthy. As parents know their kids taste much better than what the school does, they can make sure they send in tasty yet healthy lunch for their kids. This means that the students would not be subject to serious health consequences/
Fifth, in case the school considers replacing Swift Nutrition by another vendor, it is important to understand what meals options are being offered by the competitor vendors. If the students do not approve of any new vendor that is brought in then the school cafeteria would be left in a pickle.
By addressing the above questions or points it would be easy to evaluate of the prediction and the argument on which it is based are resonable.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 447 350
No. of Characters: 2120 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.598 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.743 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.372 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 142 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 66 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.833 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.167 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.444 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.325 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.643 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.072 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 288, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...low-fat, low-calorie meals vs nutritious meals which have balanced proportions of...
^^
Line 6, column 139, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: The
...d and cannot be enjoyed by the students.The management can confirm with the vendors...
^^^
Line 8, column 48, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[4]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'accustomed to changing'.
Suggestion: accustomed to changing
...it takes time for any individual to get accustomed to change. As the new vendors have just been brou...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 12, column 176, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...eing offered by the competitor vendors. If the students do not approve of any new ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, hence, if, may, second, so, then, third, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 35.0 19.6327345309 178% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2187.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 446.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 4.90358744395 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5955099915 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.46605888813 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 210.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.470852017937 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 629.1 705.55239521 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.59920159681 88% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => 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: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.3650931555 57.8364921388 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.647058824 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.2352941176 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.47058823529 5.70786347227 61% => OK
Paragraphs: 8.0 5.15768463074 155% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.211676248748 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0753945061001 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0731114991375 0.0701772020484 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0980916920747 0.128457276422 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0740238808987 0.0628817314937 118% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 14.3799401198 103% => OK
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: 11.44 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.86 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 83.0 98.500998004 84% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.