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.
The argument begins by asserting that since a type of woven basket was found only near the Palea village, it means that it must have been made originally by Palea people. However, a later discovery reveals that such a basket was also found in Lithos, weakening the claim that the basket was made only by the Palean people. There are several pieces of evidence that need to be evaluated before concluding that the baskets were not uniquely Palea.
The argument highly depends on the fact that no Palae boats were found, meaning they could never travel accros the river and goto Lithos, thus, supporting the claim that these baskets were also made in Lithos. However, it might be possible that the founds have not been found yet, further examination might reveal the presence of such boats made by the Palea people. The Palean people might have had some vehicle other than a boat which they used to cross the river, they could have used a raft of huge wooden logs to cross the river. Another possibilty is that the boats made by Palea people were destroyed by some natural calamity or other reasons. The people in Lithos might have had boats made and could have travelled regularly to Palea, meaning they could have bought these baskets in Palea and could have taken them to Lithos. There might be a different way to reach Lithos apart from crossing the river, the Paleans could have used this way to travel to Lithos. Thus, presence of alternative routes, other types of vehicles for crossing river and travel of Lithonians to Palae are some areas that need to be explored.
It is also possible that it was indeed the people of Palea who migrated to Lithos at some point of time through a different travel route, this migration aspect undermines the claim that Lithos people themselves made these baskets. ?The argument has given no information with respect to the time difference between the presence of these baskets in Lithos and Palea. It might be possible that Lithos civilization developed years after the Palean one. So they might have already known about these baskets and could have made/copied them.
If we consider that the baskets were indeed not originally Palean, how could people from two different areas could have made the exact same design if there was no contact between them. It is a possibility that both these people share a common origin and were seperated at some point of time.
Thus, there are a lot of factors that need to be considered and evidence needs to be collected. It is possible that the baskets found were Palean made and its equally possible that they were not. The answers to these questions could be given through more rigorous research and excavation.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 467 350
No. of Characters: 2185 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.649 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.679 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.164 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 136 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 86 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 54 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 31 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.944 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.947 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.374 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.374 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.133 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 232, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: The
... people themselves made these baskets. ?The argument has given no information with ...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, however, if, so, thus, apart from, with respect to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 48.0 28.8173652695 167% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2230.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 466.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 4.78540772532 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64618479453 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.22980683794 2.78398813304 80% => OK
Unique words: 192.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.412017167382 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 708.3 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.8334648477 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.368421053 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.5263157895 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.94736842105 5.70786347227 52% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
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: 0.268481247524 0.218282227539 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0991684845223 0.0743258471296 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.074217763462 0.0701772020484 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.165532284473 0.128457276422 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0703349605748 0.0628817314937 112% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.8 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.61 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 82.0 98.500998004 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.