Several charitable organizations in Pleasantville provide opportunities for teenagers to engage in community service. These organizations have a great need for volunteers, but in recent years, the number of teenage volunteers has significantly declined.
The Pleasantville School Board should take measures to increase the number of volunteers. Teachers, parents, and other community members agree that it is important for young people to learn the value of community service. Requiring high school students to engage in community service would provide much-needed assistance to worthy local charities and would also help young people understand the importance of giving back to their community. For this reason, the Pleasantville School Board should institute a program requiring students of Pleasantville High School to complete 40 hours of community service prior to graduation.
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on the assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
According to several charitable organizations in Pleasantville, teenager studens should make themselves available for volunteering for community services as engaging in such activities will help teenagers learn the value of giving back to their community. As the organizations are in the need of volunteers, and there is a decline in the number of teenage volunteers recently, the School Board is thinking of implementing a program to make it a requirement for students to volunteer. However, making it compulsion does not necessarily guarantee the required result. There are several factors to consider before coming to the conclusion.
As the charitable organizations are in the need of volunteers, the students who work for these organizations will not be paid. For this work, they will have to work on their own will for the betterment of others who are in need. If the School Board forces them to work for community, this will not be volunteering but will only be an act to be done to graduate. This will not play any role in making teenagers learn the value of charity or community service. In contradiction, it might create negative opinions on students' mind about these organizations and community services.
Moreover, the given argument does not give any details of the academic syllabus of the high school students. It might be possible that the students find it difficult to focus on studies if they spend their time on volunteering activities. High school is a crucial part in students' life as after this, they have to decide what to pursue in life. Entrance exam for universities and career counselling might leave students with no time to go for volunteering for these organizations. If the students are forced to spend 40 hours on community services prior to graduation, these will have a negative impact on students' academic result.
There is no doubt that it is important for youngsters to learn the value of community service and engage in such activities. But a compulsion of 40 hours of community service prior to graduation may make students dislike the community services or hinder their future plans. Therefore, the Pleasantville School Board should come up with a more student-friendly program or the charitable organizations should find other ways to gather volunteers.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 373 350
No. of Characters: 1890 1500
No. of Different Words: 164 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.395 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.067 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.019 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 132 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.941 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.932 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.471 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.329 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.066 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, however, if, may, moreover, therefore, no doubt
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 4.0 13.6137724551 29% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1931.0 2260.96107784 85% => OK
No of words: 373.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.17694369973 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.39467950092 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.10848631113 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 169.0 204.123752495 83% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.45308310992 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 605.7 705.55239521 86% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.2998352101 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.588235294 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.9411764706 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.05882352941 5.70786347227 54% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
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: 0.362922422393 0.218282227539 166% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.119902721196 0.0743258471296 161% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.101888398976 0.0701772020484 145% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.236096453774 0.128457276422 184% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.093199011744 0.0628817314937 148% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.76 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.9 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 98.500998004 77% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.