Some people believe that a gap year between school and university is a good idea, while
others disagree strongly. Consider both sides of this debate and present your own opinion.
You should give reasons for your answer, and include ideas and examples from your own
knowledge and experience.
While gap years are increasingly popular, they continue to be rather controversial because the
benefits are hard to quantify exactly. There are arguments on both sides of this very topical debate,
and I will discuss them now.
On the one hand, opponents of gap years point to the cost involved in areas such as air fares,
accommodation and living expenses. All this money has to come from the student’s family, or even
from borrowing to be paid later. Secondly, it is often said that gap years take a young person’s focus
away from studying, and allows them to get involved in distractions such as travelling. This can make
it hard to adjust to university life, damaging the student’s performance. Finally, there is a concern
over the safety of young people if they are travelling to remote places. Being kidnapped or mugged is
a poor start to an academic career, after all.
On the other hand, supporters of gap years say that the skills learned outweigh the
disadvantages. They highlight the independence and assertiveness that a student will acquire, in areas
such as time management and interpersonal skills. They also say that these skills lead to greater
career success later in life, thus cancelling out the costs involved. Furthermore, there are many
examples of young people using gap years to achieve something significant, whether in voluntary
work or in a sector of business that interests them.
In conclusion, my own feeling is that a year off can indeed be a useful activity, with the
experience leading to improved skills that are invaluable in the future. Of course, this is provided that
the year is planned carefully and used for something genuinely worthwhile.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 11, column 72, Rule ID: AFFORD_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the infinitive: 'to outweigh'
Suggestion: to outweigh
...f gap years say that the skills learned outweigh the disadvantages. They highlight the ...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, furthermore, if, second, secondly, so, thus, while, after all, as to, in conclusion, of course, such as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 13.1623246493 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 7.85571142285 51% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 10.4138276553 86% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 7.30460921844 110% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 24.0651302605 100% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 41.998997996 93% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 8.3376753507 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1439.0 1615.20841683 89% => OK
No of words: 281.0 315.596192385 89% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.12099644128 5.12529762239 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.09427095027 4.20363070211 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87583239698 2.80592935109 102% => OK
Unique words: 169.0 176.041082164 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.601423487544 0.561755894193 107% => OK
syllable_count: 441.0 506.74238477 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.60771543086 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 5.43587174349 147% => OK
Article: 2.0 2.52805611222 79% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.10420841683 95% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 0.809619238477 371% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 10.0 4.76152304609 210% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 16.0721442886 87% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 20.2975951904 99% => OK
Sentence length SD: 30.0204862025 49.4020404114 61% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.785714286 106.682146367 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.0714285714 20.7667163134 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.78571428571 7.06120827912 139% => OK
Paragraphs: 19.0 4.38176352705 434% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.01903807615 20% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.67935871743 104% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 3.9879759519 100% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 3.4128256513 29% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.143140768352 0.244688304435 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0480209235213 0.084324248473 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0298562352655 0.0667982634062 45% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0396664700636 0.151304729494 26% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0336575795473 0.056905535591 59% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 13.0946893788 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 50.2224549098 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.44779559118 118% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 11.3001002004 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.42 12.4159519038 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.18 8.58950901804 107% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 78.4519038076 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 9.78957915832 107% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 10.1190380762 99% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 10.7795591182 93% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Maximum five paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 67.4157303371 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 6.0 Out of 9
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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.