To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
It might be difficulty to determine how to study a society, as there are so many intertwined parts. The prompt suggests that in order to learn the major characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities. I strongly disagree with this suggestion for three reasons.
First, whether or not major cities are accurate representatives of the society depends on the degree of urbanization. If a society is urbanized, then most of its people live in the cities, in which case studying the cities may be a good way to understand the society. However, if a society is not urbanized, that is, most of its people live outside of the cities, then studying the cities reveals only a small and biased piece of the society. For example, China in the 50s and 60s was not urbanized. There were major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, but 70% of its people live in villages. It is hard to argue that studying Beijing and Shanghai, probably representing less than 5% of the population, reveals the whole picture.
Sometimes the most important characteristics of a society lie in the inter-relationships between and dynamics of its people groups. Major cities may be populated with only one such group and therefore keep the inter-relationships unseen. Like in today’s China, most people do live in cities. However, they live in different tiers of cities. There are super-sized cities, which you probably count as “major cities”, like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. And there are numerous other cities ranging from large to medium to small to tiny in size. A major characteristic of today’s Chinese society is the inter-relationships and movability (or the lack of it) between different classes of people. In major cities, you are looking at the 5% population that is well-off, the wealthy and the middle to upper classes. The rest of the society, 95% of the population, include those living in lower-tier cities and those living in villages. It is hard to argue which group characterizes a society, especially given the large number of people in the latter group.
That said, today we do see a general trend of urbanization in societies around the globe. Cities are holding more and more important positions in many societies today. Many people migrate to major cities from lower-tier cities or countryside. These phenomena increase the complexity of major cities, which in turn makes studying them more revealing. One may be able to discover some major characteristics of a society by studying the major cities.
In summary, I think in most cases major cities are not accurate representatives of the society as a whole, therefore the suggestion by the prompt does not stand. Although studying major cities could be revealing, one should first consider a society’s degree of urbanization, how representative are the people living in major cities to the people of the society etc.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 8, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...s suggestion for three reasons. First, whether or not major cities are accurate representativ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 556, Rule ID: ADJECTIVE_IN_ATTRIBUTE[1]
Message: A more concise phrase may lose no meaning and sound more powerful.
Suggestion: tiny
...anging from large to medium to small to tiny in size. A major characteristic of today's...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, look, may, so, then, therefore, well, for example, i think, in summary, in most cases
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.5258426966 113% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.4196629213 56% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 14.8657303371 108% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 11.3162921348 80% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 33.0505617978 76% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 58.6224719101 125% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 12.9106741573 62% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2433.0 2235.4752809 109% => OK
No of words: 478.0 442.535393258 108% => OK
Chars per words: 5.089958159 5.05705443957 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67581127817 4.55969084622 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.1251568123 2.79657885939 112% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 215.323595506 95% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.428870292887 0.4932671777 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 774.0 704.065955056 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59117977528 101% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 6.24550561798 160% => OK
Article: 4.0 4.99550561798 80% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 3.10617977528 129% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.77640449438 113% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.38483146067 114% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 20.2370786517 128% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 23.0359550562 78% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 37.9188833693 60.3974514979 63% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.5769230769 118.986275619 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.3846153846 23.4991977007 78% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.23076923077 5.21951772744 81% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 7.80617977528 26% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 10.2758426966 78% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 5.13820224719 117% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 12.0 4.83258426966 248% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.240090575805 0.243740707755 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0757349081501 0.0831039109588 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0598383949199 0.0758088955206 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.15098564523 0.150359130593 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0522271273073 0.0667264976115 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.7 14.1392134831 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.8420337079 109% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.1743820225 85% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.24 12.1639044944 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.54 8.38706741573 90% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 100.480337079 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 11.8971910112 71% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.2143820225 82% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.7820224719 76% => 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.