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 wo | TOEFL IELTS GMAT GRE SAT ACT PTE ESL

Essay topics:

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 people seeking longer and healthier lives should consider moving to small communities.
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 these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

The argument asserts that people seeking longetivity and healthier lives should consider moving to small communities instead of living in big cities. In making this proposition, the author presents pieces of evidence such as less days of sick leave, fewer doctors per residents and higher average age of people in Leeville (a small town) compared those to Masonton (a big city). However, these premises rely on assumptions which make the argument less persuasive and three of these assumptions will be reviewed in the following paragraphs.

Firstly, the author assumes that the businesses reporting these cases are representative of the entire enterprises in Leeville and Masonton. There may be more businesses or firms whose statistics of leave were unreported for reasons such as inability or unavailability to participate in the reporting or simply lack of interest of the reporting such data - an activity that may be pereceived as not directly related to corporate interests. If the number unreported cases of days of sick leave in Leeville is far more than the reported cases or equals the number of reported cases in Masonton, then this argument is less convincing.

Secondly, the prompt presumes that comparing the ratio of doctors or physicians per thousand of persons in two locations indicates the relative health status of the respective populace. This assumption precludes other factors that could account for such ratio in the first place. For example, the number of doctors in Leeville may be based on the availability of such personnel i.e. there is only doctor resident in or living within reasonable radius of commute to Leeville whereas the town actually requires as many as twenty physicians. Besides, there is no evidence that all physicians in Masonton are still in active service and are catering to the health needs of the residents. The count may include long retired doctors who decided to settle in the big city for the rest of their life. If it is proven that number of doctors required in Leeville is more than the number of available available or that the doctors in Masonton are mostly retired personnel, then argument becomes faulted and unsound.

Thirdly, the average age of residents is used as a metric for the life expectancy and state of health of the people in two places. However, this metric is inherently flawed because an average age is just the result of a computation of ages. The average or mean age could be high where there are considerably more older people in a location even though most of those aged persons are in poor state of health. Similarly, a lower average age may be obtained from a population with more young people who, though are very healthy, engage in risky endeavours which increases mortality rates. Thus, this third piece of evidence is susceptible to various contending explanations which may make it inadequate to support the conclusion and hence logic of the argument is adversely impacted.

In conclusion, the argument appears flawed because it is supported by unwarranted assumptions. Further evidence such as comprehensive data from thorough research or studies is required to properly evaluate the argument and make the conclusion valid.

Votes

Essay Categories

GMAT/GRE Argument Task

Comments

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 226, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun days is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...hor presents pieces of evidence such as less days of sick leave, fewer doctors per r...
^^^^
Line 5, column 881, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: available
... in Leeville is more than the number of available available or that the doctors in Masonton are mos...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 309, Rule ID: MOST_COMPARATIVE[2]
Message: Use only 'older' (without 'more') when you use the comparative.
Suggestion: older
...ld be high where there are considerably more older people in a location even though most o...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 96, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Further,
...s supported by unwarranted assumptions. Further evidence such as comprehensive data fro...
^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, besides, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, second, secondly, similarly, so, still, then, third, thirdly, thus, whereas, for example, in conclusion, such as, in the first place

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2698.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 523.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.1586998088 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.78217453174 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.80101187107 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 253.0 204.123752495 124% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.483747609943 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 885.6 705.55239521 126% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.899318995 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 142.0 119.503703932 119% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.5263157895 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 10.1052631579 5.70786347227 177% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.152769028232 0.218282227539 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0456109386769 0.0743258471296 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0463445684648 0.0701772020484 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0793470020971 0.128457276422 62% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.046716858329 0.0628817314937 74% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.6 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 35.61 48.3550499002 74% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.32 8.32208582834 112% => OK
difficult_words: 144.0 98.500998004 146% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments