Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia. Using an observation-centered approach to studying Tertian culture, he concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. Recently another anthropologist, Dr. Karp, visited the group of islands that includes Tertia and used the interview-centered method to study child-rearing practices. In the interviews that Dr. Karp conducted with children living in this group of islands, the children spent much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. Dr. Karp decided that Dr. Field's conclusion about Tertian village culture must be invalid. Some anthropologists recommend that to obtain accurate information on Tertian child-rearing practices, future research on the subject should be conducted via the interview-centered method.
The presented argument is flawed for various reasons, primary of them being that Dr. Field's study was conducted about two decades ago. The time during which Dr. Field conducted his research and the time when Dr. Karp interviewed the children definitely differed.
Maybe twenty years ago, when Dr. Field visited Tertia, the child-rearing traditions were such that the child was reared by the whole village. However, during recent times, i.e. when Dr. Karp interviewed the children the child-rearing practices might have changed. In recent times, the biological parents played a significant role in the child's childhood. If the passage had mentioned the recent child-rearing methods in Tertia and whether they changed or not would have strengthened Dr. Karp's claim.
Another fallacy in the argument is that of the territory of research, i.e. Dr. Field had conducted his observations in the island of Tertia while Dr. Karp visited the group of islands which included Tertia. The passage does not give enough evidence of whether Dr. Karp did actually conduct his research in Tertia. The children in the group of islands may differ from the children in Tertia in terms of their upbringing. Maybe the children on the other islands had their parents raising them and not the village, where the children of Tertia differ.
Finally, the passage remains vague when Dr. Karp mentions that the children who were interviewed talked more about their biological parents. The passage fails to show the context in which the children spoke about their biological parents.It could be that the children talked about their biological parents more because the questions were specific towards their parents. The questions which were asked to the children could this obscure idea if they were presented in the passage.
Dr. Karp's argument,which states that interview-based approach is better than observation-based approach to studying cultures hence fails for the above mentioned reasons. Thus, the argument lacks critical details and can be said to be invalid for the above stated reasons.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/story/gre-argument-essay-topic-21-outline
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 330 350
No. of Characters: 1713 1500
No. of Different Words: 149 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.262 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.191 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.563 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 129 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 58 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.842 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.409 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.681 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.223 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 197, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ldhood. If the passage had mentioned the recent child-rearing methods in Tertia a...
^^^
Line 12, column 188, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ssage fails to show the context in which the children spoke about their biologica...
^^^
Line 13, column 51, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: It
...en spoke about their biological parents.It could be that the children talked about...
^^
Line 16, column 19, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , which
...ed in the passage. Dr. Karps argument,which states that interview-based approach is...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, finally, hence, however, if, may, so, then, thus, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 35.0 55.5748502994 63% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1768.0 2260.96107784 78% => OK
No of words: 328.0 441.139720559 74% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.39024390244 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.25567506705 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66177918161 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 157.0 204.123752495 77% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.478658536585 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 498.6 705.55239521 71% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => 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: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 37.6702653148 57.8364921388 65% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.866666667 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8666666667 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.33333333333 5.70786347227 76% => OK
Paragraphs: 13.0 5.15768463074 252% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.267952580756 0.218282227539 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.101943583146 0.0743258471296 137% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0722431298127 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.105192628721 0.128457276422 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0712253020003 0.0628817314937 113% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.98 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.38 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 98.500998004 78% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.