Several recent studies have shown a link between health and stair usage. One recently completed study shows that people who live in stairs-only apartment buildings (that is, buildings without elevators) live an average of three years longer than do people who live in buildings with both elevators and stairs. A second study shows that elderly residents of buildings with elevators make, on average, twice as many visits to doctors each year as do residents of buildings without elevators. Furthermore, several doctor's offices are reporting that residents of stairs-only buildings scored higher than average on questionnaires administered to new patients, in which the patients were asked to rate several aspects of their own health (e.g., fitness, sleep quality, susceptibility to injury, etc.). The clearest explanation for these findings is that the moderate daily exercise required of residents who must use the stairs instead of elevators increases people's health and longevity.
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.
In the following argument, the author proposed that residents must utilize stairs instead of elevators in order to increase their health and longevity. The author has come to this conclusion based on the reports from various doctor’s offices, which indicated that residents of stairs-only buildings scored higher than average on questionnaires administered to new patients. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, three specific pieces of evidence must be collected and analyzed.
First of all, according to the first completed study, the author assumes that the residents who live in buildings with both elevators and stairs use only the elevators for their convenience. The author is implying that without using stairs, it will decrease the residents’ longevity. There is a possibility that the majority of the people actually use the stairs. Just because buildings have both elevators and stairs, it doesn’t mean that people are going to feel the need to use elevators more often than not. Maybe, the residents in buildings with elevators and stairs have more health issues compared to the residents living in buildings with only stairs, which is why they live longer. Such health issues could include obesity, HIV/AIDS, tobacco usage, etc. Many of these health concerns do not correlate with not using stairs, even if there were stairs. In other words, people would still be able to use the stairs with their health issues. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, the author did not specify the age range of people who live in buildings without elevators. It seems believable that elderly residents of buildings with elevators make, on average, twice as many trips to the doctors office as opposed to those in buildings without elevators. Perhaps the people living in buildings without elevators are mostly between the ages of 25-30. They are highly capable of using the stairs compared to the elderly people. Further, elderly people visit hospitals for many other reasons instead of “using elevators,” such as health issues, pain/injuries, diseases, pneumonia, etc. If anything, they would most likely fall down if they use the stairs, so it would be safer for them to use an elevator. If the above is true, then the argument is not valid.
Finally, the author is assuming that there is no other form of exercise for people to perform in order to increase their health and longevity. It is possible that residents in buildings with elevators are very healthy because they include other activities in their daily routine instead of just using stairs. People go to the gym, play sports, go on runs, or go bike riding. It seems that the author is narrow-minded with the amount of opportunities people have to be healthy. Also, there’s a high chance that residents in buildings without elevators don’t engage in as much physical activity. Who knows, maybe the stairs are their only form of exercise. When taking these explanations to consideration, the argument would not hold water.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unstated assumptions. If the author observes the three points above and offers more evidence, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation for people to stick to only stairs for their health and longevity.
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: 26 15
No. of Words: 562 350
No. of Characters: 2814 1500
No. of Different Words: 247 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.869 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.007 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.569 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 216 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 148 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 108 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.615 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.758 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.32 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.484 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.085 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 220, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'doctors'' or 'doctor's'?
Suggestion: doctors'; doctor's
... on average, twice as many trips to the doctors office as opposed to those in buildings...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, in conclusion, such as, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 78.0 55.5748502994 140% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2920.0 2260.96107784 129% => OK
No of words: 558.0 441.139720559 126% => OK
Chars per words: 5.23297491039 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.86024933743 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72789762819 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 248.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.444444444444 0.468620217663 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 899.1 705.55239521 127% => 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: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 47.1180129341 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.285714286 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.9285714286 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.89285714286 5.70786347227 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 16.0 4.67664670659 342% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.29371423588 0.218282227539 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0849106034273 0.0743258471296 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.073900477822 0.0701772020484 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.168738609982 0.128457276422 131% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0561253713956 0.0628817314937 89% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.2 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.