A recently issued twenty-year study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia investigated the possible therapeutic effect of consuming salicylates. Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, food-processing companies also add salicylates to foods as preservatives. The twenty-year study found a correlation between the rise in the commercial use of salicylates and a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by study participants. At the time when the study concluded, food-processing companies had just discovered that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods, and, as a result, many companies plan to do so. Based on these study results, some health experts predict that residents of Mentia will suffer even fewer headaches in the future.
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.
Health experts are predicting a decline in the number of headache cases reported by the residents of Mentia. They have based this prediction on a twenty-year old study which hints that a chemical named salicylates is known for reducing the intensity of headache. The health experts claim that the recent discovery, made by food-processing companies involves adding salicylates as flavor additives. Therefore, the residents of Mentia will suffer even fewer headaches. The prediction as well as the evidences seem compelling at first. But a closer look could unearth unwarranted assumptions and possibilities that could undermine the prediction, made by the health-experts.
Firstly, salicylates are known to be found naturally in many food items, as well as used as preservatives by food-processing companies. The arguer states that adding salicylates as a flavor additive will have a postie effect on the people of Mentia who consume it. How can the arguer be sure about that? Since it is mentioned in the above prompt that the discovery was made after the study was concluded. How can the arguer be sure that the amount of salicylates present naturally in food or present in preservatives is comparable to flavor additives? It can be possible that the amount of salicylates in flavor additives is way less that what is found naturally in fruits or in food-preservatives. It could mean that the presence of salicylates in flavor-additives does not have any effect on the headache suffered by the citizens of Mentia. This could mean that the prediction made by the health expert would be wrong.
Secondly, the arguer suggests that over the twenty-years of study, the decline in headache had a correlation with the commercial use of salicylates. That is with the increase in salicylates as food-preservatives, the number of cases of headache declined. The question arises that how can the arguer compare the increase in commercial use of salicylates with the decrease in people suffering from headache? It could be possible that such a trend coincides with a new drug that proved to be a success in reducing the headache suffered by people. This could mean that attributing the decline in headache suffered by the citizens of Mentia to salicylates is a fallacious claim. And therefore, it could undermine the arguer's prediction.
Lastly, the use of salicylates as additive flavors was recently discovered by the food-processing companies. The arguer states that this will reduce the number of people suffering from headache further. But the arguer fails to consider one main aspect. Is the use of salicylates as a flavor additive, commissioned by the higher authorities of Mentia. If this new discovery has detrimental effects as a result of using it as flavor additives. The arguer's prediction will never come to frutation since the use of salicylates would be banned.
In sum, the evidences provided by the arguer of the above prompt fails to consider other alternate possibilities as a result of the evidences provided. Therefore, it undermines the prediction that is made in the prompt above. And it cannot be categorically claimed if the prediction made by the arguer, will be a successful one.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 518 350
No. of Characters: 2635 1500
No. of Different Words: 193 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.771 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.087 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.125 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 197 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 123 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 84 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.862 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.469 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.414 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.32 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.488 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.085 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 713, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguers'' or 'arguer's'?
Suggestion: arguers'; arguer's
.... And therefore, it could undermine the arguers prediction. Lastly, the use of salic...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 447, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguers'' or 'arguer's'?
Suggestion: arguers'; arguer's
...lt of using it as flavor additives. The arguers prediction will never come to frutation...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, if, lastly, look, second, secondly, therefore, well, as a result, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 77.0 55.5748502994 139% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2692.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 518.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19691119691 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.77070365392 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.2034374659 2.78398813304 115% => OK
Unique words: 202.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.389961389961 0.468620217663 83% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 865.8 705.55239521 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 33.6398000506 57.8364921388 58% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 92.8275862069 119.503703932 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.8620689655 23.324526521 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.34482758621 5.70786347227 59% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 16.0 6.88822355289 232% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.267498046297 0.218282227539 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0806527559457 0.0743258471296 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0636481870357 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.162084810271 0.128457276422 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0792291589657 0.0628817314937 126% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.0 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 45.76 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.58 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.83 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 110.0 98.500998004 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.