From a letter to the editor of a city newspaper.
"One recent research study has indicated that many adolescents need more sleep than they are getting, and another study has shown that many high school students in our city are actually dissatisfied with their own academic performance. As a way of combating these problems, the high schools in our city should begin classes at 8:30 A.M. instead of 7:30 A.M., and end the school day an hour later. This arrangement will give students an extra hour of sleep in the morning, thereby making them more alert and more productive. Consequently, the students will perform better on tests and other assignments, and their academic skills will improve significantly."
The author of the letter above argues that high school students needs more sleep in order to be productive at school. He based this argument on the outcome of two disparate research studies. On research concluded that many adolescent needs more sleep than they are getting, while the other concluded that high school students in the author's city are dissatisfied with their academic performance. However this argument lacks logic and the premise with which the author based his assumptions is weak.
The first research that concluded that many adolescent needs more sleep than they are getting does not indicate that these adolescents include high school students in the author's city. Hence concluding that schools in the author's city should resume at 8:30am instead of 7:30am might be a wrong conclusion. The study might have been carried out in a city where school hours spans from 6:30am to 6:00pm. Comparing such a city to the author's city will therefore be unsubstantiated.
Further, the author mentioned that high school students in his city are dissatisfied with their academic performance based on the research study. However, we do not know if there are factors other than early school resumption implicated in their poor performance. If schools in the author's city do not have competent teachers and other resources that can facilitate comprehensive learning then opening such a school an hour later will definitely not improve the academic performance of the students. Bad parenting, lack of basic writing materials, too much of academic workload and low intelligence quotients (IQ) are several factors that could have equally contributed to the poor academic performance of the students.
While it is true that a better sleep can contribute to better productivity, it is not clear if reducing the schooling hours will be utilised by the students in getting better sleep. The students could have invested the extra hours in other activities such as playing video games.
Also the sleep-wake cycle is usually unique for an individual. For some people, an average of 8hrs sleep will be sufficient while for others this will be detrimental. Too much sleep can also stymie productivity.
In addition, we should remember that sleep-wake cycle is usually difficult to change, hence altering the schooling hours may not translate into extra hour of sleep for the students.
The author could have strengthened his argument by mentioning that the two research studies represents a significant number of high school students in the author's city. Also a survey sampling the opinions of school administrators on reducing the school hours would have definitely give the argument an immutable status.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 436 350
No. of Characters: 2231 1500
No. of Different Words: 196 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.57 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.117 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.722 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 154 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 97 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.066 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.7 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.353 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.353 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.126 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 397, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...isfied with their academic performance. However this argument lacks logic and the premi...
^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 185, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...gh school students in the authors city. Hence concluding that schools in the authors ...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...tivities such as playing video games. Also the sleep-wake cycle is usually unique ...
^^^^
Line 7, column 169, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...gh school students in the authors city. Also a survey sampling the opinions of schoo...
^^^^
Line 7, column 281, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error -- use past participle here: 'given'.
Suggestion: given
... the school hours would have definitely give the argument an immutable status.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, however, if, may, so, then, therefore, while, in addition, such as, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2270.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 432.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.25462962963 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55901411391 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76961377443 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 196.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.453703703704 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 684.0 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => 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: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.1869344858 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.5 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.6 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.15 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.316104594068 0.218282227539 145% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.106583395551 0.0743258471296 143% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.109637302531 0.0701772020484 156% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.151578739038 0.128457276422 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.111759346276 0.0628817314937 178% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.17 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.11 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.