"For many years the city of Grandview has provided annual funding for the Grandview Symphony. Last year, however, private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent and attendance at the symphony's concerts-in-the-park series doubled. The symphony has also announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. Given such developments, some city commissioners argue that the symphony can now be fully self-supporting, and they recommend that funding for the symphony be eliminated from next year's budget."
According to the article, due to some reasons, the city commissioners argue that the symphony can be fully self-supporting and they recommend that the funding for the symphony should be eliminated from the budget. However, we need to ask a few questions about the private contributions, the attendance as well as the ticket prices in order to evaluate the argument and the recommendation.
To begin with, the article indicates that, aside from the funding from the government, the private contributions have increased 200 percent last year; but we need to ask that total amount of fundings from private individuals or corporations relative to the over all financial support received including the government funding. It is important to note that the private funding until last year could be so little that it can not make a difference to the running of the symphony. For example, it is possible that the funding from private sources is only 3 thousand compared with 1 million from the government. If that is the case, the funding from private sectors is still not very much, leading to a shortage of funding if the government cuts the budget.
Similarly, the increase of attendance at the symphony's concert-in-the-park also deserves further investigation. Even if the attendance doubled, we still need to ask about the exact number of people who attend the symphony. Maybe only a few people attended before last year, the number of the audience still not huge. In addition, we also need to see how important are the park series relative to other event of the symphony. Questions about whether these people will contribute to the income, at the same time, also need to be answered so as to find out the income these increased people can bring. If , for example, tickets are not required when attending the series, or if the cost of such series is so high that the increased ticket revenue can not make up for the loss, the symphony will not be self-supporting if it can not receive funding from the government.
Finally, we still need to answer the question about how sensitive the audiences are to the price change. According to economic theories, consumers are less willing to buy products if the price grows. Given that the symphony announces that ticket prices will be increased, it is possible that some people will not choose to come. With fewer people attend the symphony, the total income might decrease even if the price increase. Therefore, we need more information, such as asking some visitors whether they continue to come with higher tickets price, to evaluate the outcome of eliminating the government budget. If there will be few people attend, the income of the symphony will dramatically incline, making it impossible to support itself.
In conclusion, it is understandable that the city commission tends to save the cities budget. But some questions mentioned above are supposed to be answered in order to find out whether the recommendation is reasonable.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 496 350
No. of Characters: 2424 1500
No. of Different Words: 208 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.719 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.887 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.744 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.847 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.9 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.341 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.554 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.14 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 537, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...the same time, also need to be answered so as to find out the income these increased peo...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 602, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...ome these increased people can bring. If , for example, tickets are not required w...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, however, if, may, similarly, so, still, therefore, well, as to, for example, in addition, in conclusion, such as, as well as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 67.0 55.5748502994 121% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2495.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 495.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.0404040404 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71684168287 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88312302557 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 219.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.442424242424 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 784.8 705.55239521 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.9928954127 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.75 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.75 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.95 5.70786347227 139% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.251092655383 0.218282227539 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0785533964865 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0720382540227 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.137492244915 0.128457276422 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0755346132203 0.0628817314937 120% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.25 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.02 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 20.0 12.3882235529 161% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.