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 author of the passage concludes, based on the findings, that people who are expecting longer and healthier lives should avoid living in bigger communities, rather they should move to smaller communities. In order to state this conclusion, the author presents the following pieces of evidence; employees of the businesses of the small town of Leevile took fewer sick leave than those of the nearby large city of Masonton, the proportion of the physician to residents is higher in the larger town among the two, and the mortality rate is higher in the larger city. However, there are three unwarranted assumptions that the author has assumed to come to the conclusion.
First of all, the author compared the numbers of individual workers taking sick leaves in each of the cities and found that the workers of the small city took fewer sick-leave. Perhaps, it is because the total number of residents is fewer in the small city than in the big city. Furthermore, it may be the proportion of taking sick leave is lower in the large city because of their huge population. Therefore, it indicates that, in fact, the large city is in a better position in terms of taking sick-leave by the workers. If this is the case, then the argument of the author will be proven flawed.
Secondly, in drawing his conclusion, the author mentioned the proportion of physicians to residents to show that the fewer number of doctors in the Leevile city is an indication of a healthier community. However, it may not be true, because the lesser number of doctors maybe evidence of poor healthcare facilities in Leevile city. Moreover, it may also state that in times of an emergency the Masonton community will likely to get better treatment than that of the Leevile city community. If this hypothesis is true, the argument of the author at best will be weakened or at worst will be debunked.
Finally, the author presumes that the people of the small Leevile city area will live longer than the nearby large Msonton, since the average age is higher in the former than in the latter. However, it maybe that the significant number of residents in the smaller city is old and a vast majority of the large city are young, which is caused the average age of the smaller city to rise and vice-versa. Even it is possible the younger generation is inclined to living in the large Masonton city, and more young people left Leevile for Masonton, thereby increasing the average age in Leevile city. If it is proven to be the actual reason, the author might have wrongfully interpreted the data.
After analyzing the unstated assumption of the author, it can be said that the argument, as it stands now, is flawed. The author needs more evidence regarding the actual number and proportion of the workers who took sick leave, is required to clarify how a lesser number of doctors reflects the better health of the community and the total number of young and old members of both cities. If all the aforementioned matters become clear, the author will be able 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: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 528 350
No. of Characters: 2469 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.794 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.676 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.485 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 181 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 118 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.789 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.884 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.737 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.376 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.376 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, in fact, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 76.0 55.5748502994 137% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2531.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 528.0 441.139720559 120% => OK
Chars per words: 4.79356060606 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.79356345386 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.5857197888 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 217.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.410984848485 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 810.0 705.55239521 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.9480112465 57.8364921388 119% => OK
Chars per sentence: 133.210526316 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.7894736842 23.324526521 119% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.05263157895 5.70786347227 124% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => 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: 0.157754433278 0.218282227539 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0545515958989 0.0743258471296 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0607470703655 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0959314818453 0.128457276422 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.056587579283 0.0628817314937 90% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.53 48.3550499002 109% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.6 12.197005988 103% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.8 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.27 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 110.0 98.500998004 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => 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.