There is now evidence that the relaxed pace of life in small towns promotes better health and greater longevity than does the hectic pace of life in big cities. Businesses in the small town of Leeville report fewer days of sick leave taken by individual workers than do businesses in the nearby large city of Masonton. Furthermore, Leeville has only one physician for its one thousand residents, but in Masonton the proportion of physicians to residents is five times as high. Finally, the average age of Leeville residents is significantly higher than that of Masonton residents. These findings suggest that the relaxed pace of life in Leeville allows residents to live longer, healthier lives.
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 argues that living in Leeville, a city provides relaxed environment, make residents healthier and to live longer than people living in big cities. However, as discussed below, the argument relies on several critical assumptions supported by implausible evidence and insufficient information is therefore unpersuasive.
To begin with, the author assumes that people in Leeville is healthier than people in Masonton because there are fewer days of sick leave taken by workers in Leeville. However, fewer workers in Leeville were sick might not be conclusive evidence which can support the assumption if most workers in Leevilles works in Masonton. As Masonton is located near Leeville, there are possibilities that Leeville’s residents commute to Masonton everyday, and this might be a reason that why Masonton showed more number of day off because of illness. Furthermore, if standards for allowing days of sick leave is stricter in Leeville, the number of the days could not relevant to health condition of people in Leeville and Masonton. Therefore, the author need to present more information about how many people in Leeville commute to Masonton and proof that standards for sick leave is same in Leeville and Masonton to strengthen persuasiveness of his argument.
Moreover, the number of physicians in Leeville and Masonton might not be concrete supporting evidence of the author’s assumption on people’s health condition in Leeville and Masonton. If there are better hospitals in Masonton, and the citiy is very close to Leeville, people living in Leeville might prefer visit hospitals in Masonton to see a doctor in Leeville, and it caused concentration of the number of physicians to Masonton. In this case, smaller number of physicians in Leeville might not prove better health condition of Leeville’s residents. Accordingly, more information about proportion of the number of people in Leeville who prefer to visit hospitals in Masonton among all residents in Leeville is required to decide whether this evidence is plausible or not.
Futhermore, the author’s assumption on people’s life span in Leeville and Masonton is needed more evidence. The author assumes that Leeville’s residents live longer than people in Masonton because average age in Leeville is much higher than the average in Masonton. However, the author omitted to present information about people who recently moved to Leeville and left the town. If young people left the town to find chances in big cities, and huge number of people who retired moved to Leeville, the average age might less related to the assumption because this trend, which is not truly relevant to resident’s health condition and life span, could affect the statistics. Therefore, a proof that the research is conducted for people who have lived in the two places for their whole life might help to improve persuasiveness of the evidence.
In sum, the author’s argument might not be agreeable because assumptions used for arguments are not properly supported by concrete and conclusive evidence. Thus, as pointed above, the author should reinforce his supporting evidence and provide more information to strengthen his argument.
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: 18 15
No. of Words: 502 350
No. of Characters: 2638 1500
No. of Different Words: 186 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.733 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.255 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.761 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 220 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 168 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 134 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.889 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.698 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.459 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.656 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.217 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 436, Rule ID: EVERYDAY_EVERY_DAY[3]
Message: 'Everyday' is an adjective. Did you mean 'every day'?
Suggestion: every day
...eeville’s residents commute to Masonton everyday, and this might be a reason that why Ma...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, furthermore, however, if, moreover, so, then, therefore, thus, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 82.0 55.5748502994 148% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2719.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 502.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.41633466135 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7334296765 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90086148945 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 192.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.382470119522 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 856.8 705.55239521 121% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.2622379475 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 151.055555556 119.503703932 126% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.8888888889 23.324526521 120% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.94444444444 5.70786347227 87% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.147893019033 0.218282227539 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0651394347398 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0370096826258 0.0701772020484 53% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0841389495788 0.128457276422 65% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.043321778903 0.0628817314937 69% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.0 14.3799401198 125% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 35.61 48.3550499002 74% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.45 12.5979740519 115% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.0 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.