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.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
The author concludes that regular dental care has no contribution to preventing tooth decay. This conclusion was based on the evidence provided by a recent study which indicated that children living in the Himalayan mountain region have lower levels of tooth decay while, children of America, who visit a dentist on an average of 1.25 times a year, show a higher level of tooth decay. Although the cited pieces of evidence seem logical and probable, the conclusion relies on several doubtful assumptions which do not lend credible support to the argument. Hence, the argument seems logically unconvincing in several aspects.
Firstly, the author assumes that the study was representative and was conducted on a large sample of children. Perhaps, the Himalayas are not as densely populated as America, and hence the comparisons made between two different sized- populations cannot predict accurate results. Moreover, the Himalayan population might comprise only a fewer number of children. Therefore, the results must have shown a lower level of tooth decay in the children living in the Himalayan mountain region. Also, was the survey conducted, by taking into consideration the entire population of children of the Himalayan regions?. Perhaps they have conducted the survey only in the suburban areas and not on the children of rural areas. Also, how was the survey conducted, and what was the margin of error? All of these major flaws should be at least acknowledged and perhaps, improved by providing additional information about the survey that was conducted recently.
In addition to this, the author assumes that receiving professional dental care can guarantee that children would not suffer from tooth decay. But perhaps, the children of Nepal eat healthy food and brush properly as a result of which their teeth and gums are healthy. Further, their staple food might contain more amounts of nutrients such as calcium and vitamins that are useful in strengthening the bones of the body. Alternatively, American children might eat junk food more often, especially sticky food such as chocolates which would speed up tooth decay. Further, they won't be brushing their teeth well, as a result of which they are not able to keep their teeth healthy. Thus the author should consider additional factors that could be responsible for the differences in the levels of tooth decay between the two regions.
Finally, the author assumes that regular dental care is not helpful in preventing tooth decay. Perhaps the dental care professionals in the Himalayan regions are more practiced and skilled than that of American dental professionals. Therefore, the dentists from the Himalayan region are more capable of healing a tooth decay and this could explain why there are lower levels of tooth decay in the children of Nepal. Also, American children may have to visit the dentist more than 1.25 times a year, for instance, maybe 12 times a year (once in a month) to prevent any cases of tooth decay. Without ruling out these possibilities, the author should not reach a hasty conclusion that dental care has no contribution to preventing tooth decay.
To sum up, the argument consists of some obvious fallacies and loopholes. Small, biased, and unrepresentative samples can prove that the argument is misleading. To strengthen the argument, the author should have provided additional information about the survey conducted and what other factors could be attributed to the lower levels of tooth decay in children from Himalayan regions. But in the absence of this data, the argument relies on certain doubtful assumptions that render it unconvincing as it stands.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 13 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 589 350
No. of Characters: 3006 1500
No. of Different Words: 243 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.926 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.104 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.657 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 218 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 166 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 113 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 66 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.815 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.512 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.741 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.307 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.497 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.086 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 680, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...e not able to keep their teeth healthy. Thus the author should consider additional f...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, hence, if, may, moreover, so, then, therefore, thus, well, while, at least, for instance, in addition, such as, as a result, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3087.0 2260.96107784 137% => OK
No of words: 588.0 441.139720559 133% => OK
Chars per words: 5.25 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.9242980521 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73377304952 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 255.0 204.123752495 125% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.433673469388 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 938.7 705.55239521 133% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.3458334907 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.333333333 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.7777777778 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.2962962963 5.70786347227 110% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 16.0 6.88822355289 232% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.336710794875 0.218282227539 154% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0924371046912 0.0743258471296 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.119960456081 0.0701772020484 171% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.186760930255 0.128457276422 145% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0723547141294 0.0628817314937 115% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => 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: 8.38 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 138.0 98.500998004 140% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.