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 promotes better health and greater longevity than does the hectic pace of life in big cities and hence, residents of smaller towns live longer, healthier lives. He reaches this conclusion by making a comparison between the small town of Leeville and the big city of Masonton whose average age is significantly lower than that of Leeville. He cites as evidence the fewer days of sick leave taken by individual workers in Leeville unlike businesses in Masonton and states that whereas Leeville has only one physician for its one thousand residents, the proportion of physicians to residents is five times as high in Masonton. While the author’s explanation might be plausible, there are other reasons that could account for the ‘’evidence’’ presented by the author in his argument.
To begin, it is pertinent to the argument to compare the lifestyles of the residents in Leeville and Masonton, as well as the type of food available in both places. It is possible that in a small town like Leeville, a large number of its residents may be engaged in blue-collar jobs that require them to exert themselves such as farming, mining or wood cutting, whereas the residents of Masonton are engaged in white-collar jobs that keeps them at their desks for a good part of the day and prevents them for having any form of exercise. In addition, a small town of Leeville may have an abundance of organic, home grown food and fresh fruits unlike a big city of Masonton that will depend on smaller towns for their food supply which may have been preserved with some inorganic compounds. If these scenarios prove true, then the longer and healthier lives of residents of small towns is as a result of their lifestyles and food availability and not as a result of the relaxed pace of life in small towns as the author concludes.
Furthermore, the proportion of physicians to residents in a place cannot be used as a good evidence in support of the author’s conclusion. Big cities have more specialized health facilities and job opportunities in the health care sector than small towns, which in turn means that more doctors can be found in big cities than in small towns. Perhaps, the residents of small towns visit big cities for their health care needs and then return to their town of residence where they no longer have a reason to visit a physician. If this is true, then the author’s inclusion of the proportion of physicians to residents is not germane to his argument.
In conclusion, while the author’s conclusion that the relaxed pace of life in small towns promotes better health and longevity than the hectic pace of life in big cities, using a comparison between Leeville and Manson town, might be true. There are other explanations cited above which could account for the better health and longevity of the residents of small towns.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 14 15
No. of Words: 497 350
No. of Characters: 2358 1500
No. of Different Words: 201 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.722 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.744 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.56 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 156 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 35.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.164 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.786 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.411 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.411 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.137 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 216, Rule ID: LARGE_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, or simply use 'many' or 'numerous'
Suggestion: many; numerous
...ble that in a small town like Leeville, a large number of its residents may be engaged in blue-co...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
furthermore, hence, if, may, so, then, well, whereas, while, in addition, in conclusion, such as, as a result, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 74.0 55.5748502994 133% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2419.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 497.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 4.86720321932 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72159896747 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73768759777 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.426559356137 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 749.7 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 35.0 22.8473053892 153% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 65.6586721195 57.8364921388 114% => OK
Chars per sentence: 172.785714286 119.503703932 145% => OK
Words per sentence: 35.5 23.324526521 152% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.64285714286 5.70786347227 151% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.431117251482 0.218282227539 198% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.161789340776 0.0743258471296 218% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.157249598221 0.0701772020484 224% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.314497531865 0.128457276422 245% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.132430290036 0.0628817314937 211% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 19.3 14.3799401198 134% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.41 48.3550499002 92% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.56 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.36 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 16.0 11.1389221557 144% => OK
text_standard: 16.0 11.9071856287 134% => 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.