Workers in the small town of Leeville take fewer sick days than workers in the large city of Masonton, 50 miles away. Moreover, relative to population size, the diagnosis of stress-related illness is proportionally much lower in Leeville than in Masonton. According to the Leeville Chamber of Commerce, these facts can be attributed to the health benefits of the relatively relaxed pace of life in Leeville.
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 in the passage is showing the comparison between the Leeville and Masonton cities. The author is willing to convey the message that relaxed lifestyle in Leeville being a small town is reason for the health benefits. Though the author adopts effective explanation methodology to prove his points, but due to lack of specific evidences and not considering alternative possibilities the statement seems to be unacceptable.
Initially, the author start with statement correlating the health of the population to workers taking less sick days. There can be certain possible alternative explanations as given further. It can be the case that it population in small town tolerate sickness and most probably avoid to visit doctors, thus they prefer taking less sick days. Also, the large city people may be bluffing their bosses in the name of sickness to take leave. Another case can be that the most of the population in small town can be non-worker population, thus, would not expect any sick leave. Due to lack of any kind of statistics in this matter, we cannot make any concrete statement.
Further, the author tells about less population size diagnosed of stress-related illness in Leeville, thus, are more healthy as compared to Masonton people. This statement can be disproved by adding other alternative explanations. The basic one can be the size of population in Leeville is already less than Masonton, thus, by relation have less stress-related ill ones. Also, the unhealthy population may also include patients with physical disorder, mental or emotional problems and not only stress-related problems. As these statistics are missing in given information, thus, cannot comment on the health of population. So, the author is expected to collect and provide with more information to prove his statements.
Moreover, the author concludes with a reef statement that more health benefits are attributed to more relaxed pace of life. Though this can be considered a possible health enhancer, but other possible practices also exists. Some other practices can be regular exercise, meditation, yoga, balanced diet. It is also possible that due to natural soothing milieu, the people are experiencing healthier living. Another thing can be the unhealthy population in Leeville have migrated to some other city or even in Masonton by adding and advantage of containing only healthy population. Thus, the author is not at a position to make any conclusion based on the evidence provided.
Finally, the only suggestion to the author is to carry out a thorough survey of above situation that include all possible alternatives. At that time when the author comes up with some evidential results, those can be excepted.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 435 350
No. of Characters: 2234 1500
No. of Different Words: 207 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.567 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.136 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.804 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 102 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.913 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.283 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.696 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.324 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.324 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.076 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 279, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'avoid visiting'.
Suggestion: avoid visiting
...own tolerate sickness and most probably avoid to visit doctors, thus they prefer taking less s...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 204, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this can' or 'those cans'?
Suggestion: this can; those cans
... comes up with some evidential results, those can be excepted.
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, if, may, moreover, so, thus, another thing, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2291.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 435.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.26666666667 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56690854021 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88921347405 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 210.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.48275862069 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 735.3 705.55239521 104% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 33.0830998152 57.8364921388 57% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 99.6086956522 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.9130434783 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.08695652174 5.70786347227 54% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => 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: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.192266779824 0.218282227539 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.058381991475 0.0743258471296 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0779378508559 0.0701772020484 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.102371719352 0.128457276422 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0767363860554 0.0628817314937 122% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.29 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.56 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.