A recent study indicates that children living in the Himalayan mountain region in Nepal have lower levels of tooth decay than children living in suburban areas in the United States, despite the fact that people in the Himalayan mountain region in Nepal receive little to no professional dental care, while people in suburban areas in the United States see a dentist an average of 1.25 times per year. Thus, regular dental care is not helpful in preventing tooth decay.
The argument seems fallacious for various reasons, it assumes that the conditions in Nepal will be similar to that of the United States, the percentage of the children with tooth decay is assumed to be commensurate with the number of tooth decays in both the areas, the authenticity of the study is not stated and the author also assumes that the number of dentist visits is tantamount to the tooth decay rate.
The study indicates that the children in the Himalayan mountain region of Nepal have lower levels of tooth decay and that children of the United States have higher levels of tooth decay. This cannot be the base for the stated conclusion as the conditions and the food habits of the two places are very different, regular dental care may not be the reason for this difference in the levels of tooth decay. The fluoride content in the water of the United States may be higher than that of the Himalayan region of Nepal which is most likely the cause for this higher levels of tooth decay in the former or the food consumed by the majority of the children in the United States may have high sugar content as compared to that of the children of the Nepal region which is causing more tooth decays in the former region. Hence, the author's claim that regular dental care is not helpful in preventing tooth decay will be fallacious in this case as there is a probability that the regular dental care is mitigating the tooth decay caused by the reasons stated above.
The argument states that the tooth decay is high in the United States but the percentage of the tooth decay is not stated. If the percentage of the tooth decay in the United States is lower than that of the Himalayan region of Nepal then this repudiates the author's claim that regular dental care is not helpful in preventing tooth decay.
The argument completely relies on a study but the validity of the study is not certain. It is not certain if the study considered the entire population in the two areas or it used the right factors to reach this conclusion. If one or more of these factors is not considered then the conclusion of the study may not be accurate. Hence, the authenticity of the study is also vital in determining the validity of the argument.
The argument also assumes that the number of dentist visits is commensurate with the tooth decay rate but it fails to consider the fact that most people can visit a dentist as a precautionary measure, which means they can visit a dentist just to prevent any complications in the future.
Hence, the above stated points can rival the proposed explanation.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 461 350
No. of Characters: 2107 1500
No. of Different Words: 144 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.634 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.57 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.401 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 83 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 56 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 34 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 35.462 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 20.121 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.923 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.453 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.453 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.197 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 611, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...of tooth decay in the former or the food consumed by the majority of the children...
^^
Line 3, column 123, 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.
...ntage of the tooth decay is not stated. If the percentage of the tooth decay in th...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, if, may, so, then
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2136.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 461.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 4.63340563991 5.12650576532 90% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63367139033 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.43950527781 2.78398813304 88% => OK
Unique words: 150.0 204.123752495 73% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.325379609544 0.468620217663 69% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 684.9 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 35.0 22.8473053892 153% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 110.792572327 57.8364921388 192% => OK
Chars per sentence: 164.307692308 119.503703932 137% => OK
Words per sentence: 35.4615384615 23.324526521 152% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.69230769231 5.70786347227 47% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 8.20758483034 12% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
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: 0.366393277482 0.218282227539 168% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.149060606246 0.0743258471296 201% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.166877387872 0.0701772020484 238% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.160704398617 0.128457276422 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.131725976097 0.0628817314937 209% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.1 14.3799401198 126% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.41 48.3550499002 92% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.17 12.5979740519 81% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.87 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 98.500998004 74% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 27.0 12.3882235529 218% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 16.0 11.1389221557 144% => OK
text_standard: 16.0 11.9071856287 134% => 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.