Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a "Palean" basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the Brim River from Palea. The Brim River is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could have crossed it only by boat, and no Palean boats have been found. Thus it follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
According to this argument, the Palean baskets may have been made by people from areas other than Palea as the baskets have been found in the adjacent village. We need more evidence about geographical information of the area, the technologies of building boats and bridges and the characteristics of the baskets in order to evaluate the argument.
While the author assumes that the baskets could only have been carried by boats which had not been found, there are other possible scenarios. For example, maybe the river at the time was not as deep and broad as it is now. If the river was shallow and narrow, people in Palea and Lithos could be trading baskets by walking across the river. On the other hand, maybe the weather was extremely cold at the time and the river was frozen during the winter. Again the people from the two villages could simply walk across the river to trade. So we need more information about the geography and climate in the area at the time to assess how likely the scenarios discussed above were.
We also need to know more about the technologies of Palean and Lithoian people at the time for building boats and bridges.
Specifically, we want to know whether they were able to build boats and bridges and if they could what materials they used. Maybe they could build boats or bridges to cross the river but the materials they used could not survive the time and left no traces for archaeologists to locate. The absence of any tangible traces of boats or bridges does not necessarily imply no boats or bridges were available then. More information regarding these issues is needed.
Another importance piece of evidence we need is the materials being used to make the baskets. Specifically, we want to know whether the baskets could float in the water. It is possible that some of the baskets had been dumped by Palean people to the river and carried by the water to the other side of the river and then picked up by Lithoian people. To assess how likely this scenario is, we need to know the density of the materials of the baskets along with some other physical characteristics.
In conclusion, it is difficult to decide whether people from Lithos may have learned to make the baskets. More information about different issues discussed above has to be gathered to assess the strength of the argument.
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 19 15
No. of Words: 408 350
No. of Characters: 1891 1500
No. of Different Words: 164 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.494 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.635 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.421 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 117 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 83 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 49 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.474 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.443 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.36 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.575 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.199 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:
...ets in order to evaluate the argument. While the author assumes that the basket...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 191, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...float in the water. It is possible that some of the baskets had been dumped by Palean peopl...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, if, may, regarding, so, then, while, as to, for example, in conclusion, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 3.0 13.6137724551 22% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1940.0 2260.96107784 86% => OK
No of words: 408.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.75490196078 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49433085973 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.49150806877 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 169.0 204.123752495 83% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.414215686275 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 607.5 705.55239521 86% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 35.3216325859 57.8364921388 61% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.105263158 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4736842105 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.26315789474 5.70786347227 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.146298154566 0.218282227539 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0496856708458 0.0743258471296 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.083161618096 0.0701772020484 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0815954856265 0.128457276422 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0723824435443 0.0628817314937 115% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.7 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
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: 10.27 12.5979740519 82% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.43 8.32208582834 89% => OK
difficult_words: 71.0 98.500998004 72% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => 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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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.