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 concludes that the relaxed pace of life in small towns plays a vital role in promoting better health and greater longevity than those people who live in big cities with hectic pace of life. He comes to this conclusion based on the following evidence - individual workers take fewer leaves in the small town Leeville than their counterparts in the nearby large city Masonton, proportion of physicians to residents is lesser in Leeville as compared to that of Masonton, and finally, the average age of residents of Leeville is considerabley greater than those living in Masonton. However, there could be alternate explanations that would account for these marked differences which could weaken the author's conclusion.
Firstly, the author states that the workers in the small town Leeville take fewer leaves than those in the nearby large city Masonton. However, there is a possiblity that there is no adpet system in place in the town to keep a track of the leaves taken by the workers rigorously. In the absence of such a system, the number of leaves stated will be erronous and will not be a representative of the actual number. Thus, it is not warranted to compare the number of leaves taken by the workers in the town with those living in the nearby city Masonton. If this turns out to be true, the author's conclusion that people in small towns lead a healtheir life is significantly weakened.
Secondly, the author asserts that since the ratio of physicians to residents is lesser in the town as compared to that of the nearby city, people in towns have better health. However, though convincing at first glance, this evidence could be spurious in indicating the health of the people. It is plausible that since the population is towns is generally much lesser than that of cities, there will be need of fewer physicians in towns than that of cities. Moreover, people in the cities will have better means for visiting physicians than those of the people living in the towns. Therefore, more physicians are entailed in cities and hence, the physicians-residents ratio is higher in cities. As a result, this scenario siginificantly weakens the author's conclusion.
Finally, the author cites the difference in the average age of people living in towns and cities to support his conclusion. However, this evidence seems to be fallacious inasmuch as the author does not provide any information about the distribution of age in towns and cities. The arthemetic average has the tendency to get affected by the extreme values. It could very well be the case that there are a few folks in the town whose age is far above the average and hence, the average seems to be higher in the town as compared to the city. If this is the case, the author's argument is significantly weakened.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands, is unpersuasive as it rests on a series of facts and figures that would have alteranate explanations.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 10 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 499 350
No. of Characters: 2387 1500
No. of Different Words: 184 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.726 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.784 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.69 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.95 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.093 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.347 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.55 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.108 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 708, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...rked differences which could weaken the authors conclusion. Firstly, the author st...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 586, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...nton. If this turns out to be true, the authors conclusion that people in small towns l...
^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 749, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...his scenario siginificantly weakens the authors conclusion. Finally, the author ci...
^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 566, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...d to the city. If this is the case, the authors argument is significantly weakened. ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, therefore, thus, well, in conclusion, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 76.0 55.5748502994 137% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2457.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 499.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 4.92384769539 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72634191566 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77016894792 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 196.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.392785571142 0.468620217663 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 774.9 705.55239521 110% => 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: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 64.6478731282 57.8364921388 112% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.85 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.95 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.55 5.70786347227 115% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.317768155913 0.218282227539 146% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0957919891646 0.0743258471296 129% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.111279138242 0.0701772020484 159% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.169271067627 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.132660821568 0.0628817314937 211% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.55 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.93 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 27.0 12.3882235529 218% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 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.