While the Department of Education in the state of Attra suggests 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, we recommend that all teachers in our high schools should assign homework no more than twice a week.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In the above the recommendation the author states that teachers should assign homework no more than twice a week. The author’s recommendation is based on the survey report that students in Marlee earned better grades than students in Sanlee despite being assigned homework more than two times a week. However, before evaluating the author’s recommendation three questions must be answered.
Firstly, can circumstances from one school be used to generalize and predict the others? In other words are high schools in Marlee comparable with high schools in Sanlee? Maybe high schools in Marlee have developed education systems than high schools in Marlee. Perhaps students in high schools in Marlee are more sincere and sedulous than students in Sanlee . Then the teachers in Sanlee have to give homework on a daily basis to improve their student’s performance. Maybe students in the Marlee also have other sources of education like private tutors or coaching centers, from where they may get homework on regular basis. On the other hand, high schools are the only source of education for most of the students in Sanlee. Then assigning homework three to five times a week homework may improve their performance. If any of the above scenarios is true, then the author’s recommendation holds no water.
Secondly, is it viable to conclude about something only from the percentage? In other words, is the percentage sufficient to determine which one has more credits? A Percentage is a tricky number, without the absolute value being given, sometimes percentage is confusing information. Let the high schools in Marlee have a total of 100 teachers and the high schools in Sanlee have a total of 1000 teachers. Then 86 percent of the teachers implied 86 teachers were a proponent of the recommendation of assigning homework no more than twice a week. But 25 percent of the teachers in Sanlee means 400 teachers have touted the idea of assigning homework on daily basis. In other words, stating a conclusion only from the percentage is very likely confusing and unwarranted. If the above scenario is true then the author’s unstated recommendation is built unreliably.
Thirdly, is some student’s bad performance depend on only one factor? Maybe students in Sanlee were provided with better education policy. Perhaps teachers in the high schools in Marlee are more better teaches than high schools in Sanlee. Maybe teachers in Marlee focused more on getting grades rather than gaining knowledge. Perhaps most of the high schools in Sanlee are in rural area and and most of the student’s financial condition is not good so they have to do some jobs to support their family. If anyone of the above scenarios is true then the author’s argument is seriously unwarranted.
In the conclusion, the argument as it stands now is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to answer the three questions above and offer more evidence(perhaps in the form of a systematic research study), then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation that assigning home work no more than twice a week will improve students performance.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 18 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 523 350
No. of Characters: 2624 1500
No. of Different Words: 208 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.782 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.017 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.757 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 198 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 147 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 107 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.679 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.397 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.643 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.483 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.12 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...tion three questions must be answered. Firstly, can circumstances from one sch...
^^^
Line 3, column 15, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[2]
Message: The verb 'can' requires the base form of the verb: 'circumstance'
Suggestion: circumstance
...ons must be answered. Firstly, can circumstances from one school be used to generalize a...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 360, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...ere and sedulous than students in Sanlee . Then the teachers in Sanlee have to giv...
^^
Line 3, column 908, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...author’s recommendation holds no water. Secondly, is it viable to conclude about...
^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 769, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
... very likely confusing and unwarranted. If the above scenario is true then the aut...
^^
Line 8, column 191, Rule ID: MOST_COMPARATIVE[2]
Message: Use only 'better' (without 'more') when you use the comparative.
Suggestion: better
...chers in the high schools in Marlee are more better teaches than high schools in Sanlee. Ma...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 388, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: and
...igh schools in Sanlee are in rural area and and most of the student’s financial conditi...
^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 504, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...o do some jobs to support their family. If anyone of the above scenarios is true t...
^^
Line 10, column 1, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: In
... argument is seriously unwarranted. in the conclusion, the argument as it stan...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, in other words, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 12.0 28.8173652695 42% => OK
Preposition: 79.0 55.5748502994 142% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2699.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 523.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16061185468 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.78217453174 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87523608555 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.411089866157 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 833.4 705.55239521 118% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 47.0216379848 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.3928571429 119.503703932 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.6785714286 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.35714285714 5.70786347227 76% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 9.0 5.25449101796 171% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => 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: 0.298128315936 0.218282227539 137% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0937532044517 0.0743258471296 126% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.077071255765 0.0701772020484 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.173152077846 0.128457276422 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0879383405517 0.0628817314937 140% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.2 14.3799401198 85% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.55 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => 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.