Directions Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage Reading Time 3 minutes Critics say that current voting systems used in the United States are inefficient and often lead to the inaccurate counting of votes Miscounts can be especially damaging if an e

Essay topics:

Directions: Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Critics say that current voting systems used in the United States are inefficient and often lead to
the inaccurate counting of votes. Miscounts can be especially damaging if an election is closely
contested. Those critics would like the traditional systems to be replaced with far more efficient
and trustworthy computerized voting systems.
In traditional voting, one major source of inaccuracy is that people accidentally vote for the
wrong candidate. Voters usually have to find the name of their candidate on a large sheet of
paper containing many names—the ballot—and make a small mark next to that name. People
with poor eyesight can easily mark the wrong name. The computerized voting machines have an
easy-to-use touch-screen technology: to cast a vote, a voter needs only to touch the candidate’s
name on the screen to record a vote for that candidate; voters can even have the computer
magnify the name for easier viewing.
Another major problem with old voting systems is that they rely heavily on people to count the
votes. Officials must often count up the votes one by one, going through every ballot and
recording the vote. Since they have to deal with thousands of ballots, it is almost inevitable that
they will make mistakes. If an error is detected, a long and expensive recount has to take place.
In contrast, computerized systems remove the possibility of human error, since all the vote
counting is done quickly and automatically by the computers.
Finally some people say it is too risky to implement complicated voting technology nationwide.
But without giving it a thought, governments and individuals alike trust other complex computer
technology every day to be perfectly accurate in banking transactions as well as in the
communication of highly sensitive information.

Directions: Here is the transcript.
Narrator Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor While traditional voting systems have some problems, it’s doubtful that
computerized voting will make the situation any better. Computerized voting may
seem easy for people who are used to computers. But what about people who
aren’t? People who can’t afford computers, people who don’t use them on a
regular basis—these people will have trouble using computerized voting
machines. These voters can easily cast the wrong vote or be discouraged from
voting altogether because of fear of technology. Furthermore, it’s true that
humans make mistakes when they count up ballots by hand. But are we sure that
computers will do a better job? After all, computers are programmed by humans,
so “human error” can show up in mistakes in their programs. And the errors
caused by these defective programs may be far more serious. The worst a human
official can do is miss a few ballots. But an error in a computer program can result
in thousands of votes being miscounted or even permanently removed from the
record. And in many voting systems, there is no physical record of the votes, so a
computer recount in the case of a suspected error is impossible! As for our trust of
computer technology for banking and communications, remember one thing:
these systems are used daily and they are used heavily. They didn’t work
flawlessly when they were first introduced. They had to be improved on and
improved on until they got as reliable as they are today. But voting happens only
once every two years nationally in the United States and not much more than
twice a year in many local areas. This is hardly sufficient for us to develop
confidence that computerized voting can be fully trusted.

Directions: Give yourself 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response is judged
on the quality of the writing and on how well it presents the points in the lecture and their
relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response will be 150 to 225 words.
You may view the reading passage while you respond.

Response time: 20 minutes
Question: Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt
on specific points made in the reading passage.

The passage states that traditional voting system in the United States should be replaced with a computerized or an automated voting system. Traditional voting system could lead to erroneous results because of inaccuracy in counting votes. On the other hand the computer based counting would solve this problem. According to the passage the voters having problems with eyesight often find it difficult to cast their votes due to small sheets of candidates list. Whereas, the computer screen could be magnified to make the candidates name clear to the eyesight thus helping such people cast their vote properly.

The passage also states that traditional voting system require human intervention for calculating the votes. This means that there is a need to count the votes one by one going through every ballot which cannot be possibly done without any mistakes, resulting in a long an expensive recount of the votes. The computer-based system could solve the above problem of human error. Although, some people believe it is too risky to implement complex voting technology nationwide, such computer-based systems are used in many other places like banking transactions and communication of highly sensitive information.

The professor however believes that computers may not be easy for everyone since many people find it difficult to operate. He/She argues that since computers are made by humans there is high chance that the computers designed by humans could also be erroneous. The professor states that it took many years for computer-based systems to improve their accuracy and thus implies that more research should be given to improving the effectiveness of such technologies in election results.

Votes
Average: 7.8 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 463, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Whereas” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...due to small sheets of candidates list. Whereas, the computer screen could be magnified...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 610, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...cation of highly sensitive information. The professor however believes that comp...
^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, however, if, may, so, thus, whereas, on the other hand

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 10.4613686534 105% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 5.04856512141 198% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 7.30242825607 41% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 12.0772626932 75% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 22.412803532 85% => OK
Preposition: 34.0 30.3222958057 112% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1446.0 1373.03311258 105% => OK
No of words: 268.0 270.72406181 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.39552238806 5.08290768461 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.04607285448 4.04702891845 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78429225465 2.5805825403 108% => OK
Unique words: 152.0 145.348785872 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.567164179104 0.540411800872 105% => OK
syllable_count: 454.5 419.366225166 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.55342163355 109% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 3.25607064018 61% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.23620309051 73% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 21.2450331126 104% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.6672149093 49.2860985944 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.5 110.228320801 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.3333333333 21.698381199 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.0 7.06452816374 71% => OK
Paragraphs: 3.0 4.09492273731 73% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 4.19205298013 48% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.27373068433 23% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.204761644519 0.272083759551 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.08780859939 0.0996497079465 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0750914205518 0.0662205650399 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.147169945772 0.162205337803 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0777281871336 0.0443174109184 175% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 13.3589403974 114% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 53.8541721854 76% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 11.0289183223 119% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.34 12.2367328918 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.97 8.42419426049 106% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 63.6247240618 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 10.7273730684 79% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 10.498013245 103% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Minimum four paragraphs wanted. The correct pattern:

para 1: introduction
para 2: doubt 1
para 3: doubt 2
para 4: doubt 3

Less contents wanted from the reading passages(25%), more content wanted from the lecture (75%).

Don't need a conclusion paragraph.

Read sample essays from ETS:
http://www.testbig.com/users/toeflwritingmaster


Rates: 78.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 23.5 Out of 30
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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.