Many countries require cigarette smokers to pay particularly high taxes on their purchases of cigarettes; similar taxes are being considered for unhealthy foods. The policy of imposing high taxes on cigarettes and other unhealthy products has a number of social benefits.
First of all, the taxes discourage people from indulging in unhealthy behaviors. Raising taxes on cigarettes, for instance, leads people to buy fewer of them. Smoking has declined as taxes on tobacco have risen, showing that these taxes do work to make society healthier. It can be expected that imposing similar taxes on unhealthy food and beverages would help reduce obesity rates.
Second, taxes of this kind are financially fair. When people get sick as a result of their smoking or eating unhealthy foods, they create medical costs. It is unfair that everyone in the society—including nonsmokers and people who follow a healthy diet—should contribute equally to covering these costs. Taxing people who engage in unhealthy behaviors creates extra income that can be used to cover the medical costs. In this way, some of the financial burden is shifted from all of society to just those who choose to participate in the unhealthy activities.
Finally, the high rate of taxation on cigarettes significantly increases revenue for the government. In addition to using this tax revenue on medical assistance, governments often use the revenue for other projects that benefit public welfare, such as building stadiums or creating public parks. Even basic government-supported services like public education benefit from these taxes. Thus, the taxes on cigarettes—and the proposed taxes on unhealthy foods—benefit everyone.
Both the lecture and the reading material are talking about the social benefit brought by the policy of charging high taxes on cigarettes and other unhealthy foods. While the author of the article argues that there are three advantages brought by the policy, the lecturer disputes the claim presented in the passage. Her position is that the benefits are still challenging.
To begin with, the author asserts that the high taxes will discourage people from keeping these behaviors. According to the passage, people will buy much fewer bad products due to the high taxes. The lecturer challenges this argument. She argues that it is unnecessary. Because people will buy much cheaper products, which contain more unhealthy substances, people will continue buying these unhealthy products.
Secondly, the author points out that taxes are financially fair to the whole of society. The article notes that extra income can be created by taxing people who buy these things to cover medical costs. The lecturer, however, contends that it is still unfair to everyone in society. It means a little to the people who are rich, however, the taxes are too heavy for the people whose income is relatively low. Heavy taxes may cause a great burden for poor people.
Finally, the author points out that the high rate of taxation can increase the income of the government. The author goes on to say that governments can use the revenue to benefit public welfare, which is good for everyone. In contrast, the lecturer suggests that the government will depend on taxes. She adds that governments will not make more laws or policies to prevent people from indulging in unhealthy behaviors, because they do not want to lose their income.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, however, may, second, secondly, so, still, while, in contrast, talking about, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 10.4613686534 115% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 5.04856512141 198% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 7.30242825607 41% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 16.0 12.0772626932 132% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 22.412803532 103% => OK
Preposition: 32.0 30.3222958057 106% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1441.0 1373.03311258 105% => OK
No of words: 285.0 270.72406181 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.05614035088 5.08290768461 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.10876417139 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.44083955908 2.5805825403 95% => OK
Unique words: 153.0 145.348785872 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.536842105263 0.540411800872 99% => OK
syllable_count: 441.0 419.366225166 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 3.25607064018 123% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 1.25165562914 240% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 13.0662251656 130% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 21.2450331126 75% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 40.119285804 49.2860985944 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 84.7647058824 110.228320801 77% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.7647058824 21.698381199 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.88235294118 7.06452816374 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 4.45695364238 224% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.211663544205 0.272083759551 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0608124806984 0.0996497079465 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0703354846245 0.0662205650399 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.123859216059 0.162205337803 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0386519422419 0.0443174109184 87% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.8 13.3589403974 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 63.7 53.8541721854 118% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.4 11.0289183223 76% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.77 12.2367328918 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.31 8.42419426049 99% => OK
difficult_words: 70.0 63.6247240618 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 10.7273730684 70% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 10.498013245 80% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.2008830022 71% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 71.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 21.5 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.