While the Department of Education in the state of Attra recommends that high school students be assigned homework every day, the data from a recent statewide survey of high school math and science teachers give us reason to question the usefulness of daily homework. In the district of Sanlee, 86 percent of the teachers reported assigning homework three to five times a week, whereas in the district of Marlee, less than 25 percent of the teachers reported assigning homework three to five times a week. Yet the students in Marlee earn better grades overall and are less likely to be required to repeat a year of school than are the students in Sanlee. Therefore, all teachers in our high schools should assign homework no more than twice a week.
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.
According to the argument, teachers in high schools in the state of Attra should assign homework no more than twice a week. By referring to a survey to illustrate its conclusion, this argument may seem plausible at first glance. However, this argument is based on a number of assumptions about the amount of the assignment, the pedegocial methods as well as the condition in these schools, which should be examined critically to evaluate its soundness.
To begin with, the author of the argument assumes that the amount of the homework being assigned every time is the same in the survey. However, this assumption may not be true for the following reason. It is probable that although most teachers in the district of Sanlee assigns homework three to five times a week, the amount of the assignment assigned everytime is far less than those in Marlee. Under such circumstance, students in Marlee have to cope with more homeworks than students in Sanlee. Since the frequency of assigning homework doesn't necessarily imply the amount of homework, the argument will be untenable if it turns out that teachers in Marlee assigned more homework everytime in the survey.
In addition, it is also assumed that the condition in the two schools in the survey is the same. The author claims that students in Marlee earn better grades overall and are less likely to repeat a years' study. However, this may be attributed to another reasons. Maybe the teachers in Marless are relatively experienced so their pedagogical method is better than the teachers in Sanlee. Or perhaps, students in Sanlee are generally more talented or more interested in study. If any of the aforementioned condition is the case, students in Marlee will be more likely to have a better academic performance even if frequency of assigning homework is equal to that in Sanlee. Therefore, the argument will be undermined without more information to rule out these possibilities.
Finally, even if the assumptions above is true, the assumption being made regarding the judgement of the effectiveness of study. It is assumed that lower grades and less repeat school year could necessarily indicate the effect of pedagogical method concerning the frequent of homework. However, it is probable that the schools in Sanlee is stricter. For example, maybe the exam in Sanlee is more difficult than Sanlee, resulting in a lower average scores. Also, it is equally possible that schools in Sanlee attach more importance to the overall development of the students. They may judge students by their overall performance like extracurricular activities. If so, the frequency of homework may not directly affect students’ grades.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 438 350
No. of Characters: 2190 1500
No. of Different Words: 191 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.575 4.7
Average Word Length: 5 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.772 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 173 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 125 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.909 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.101 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.727 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.324 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.472 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 543, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...nce the frequency of assigning homework doesnt necessarily imply the amount of homewor...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, regarding, so, therefore, well, for example, in addition, as well as, to begin with
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 : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2251.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 437.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.15102974828 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.57214883401 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.856528256 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 198.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.453089244851 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 720.0 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 46.974584301 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.318181818 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.8636363636 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.81818181818 5.70786347227 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => 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: 0.212514040508 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0680906571078 0.0743258471296 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0561883730344 0.0701772020484 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.137796750841 0.128457276422 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0338064499524 0.0628817314937 54% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.59 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.05 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.