READING
In the United States, employees typically work five days a week for eight hours each day. However, many employees want to work a four-day week and are willing to accept less pay in order to do so. A mandatory policy requiring companies to offer their employees the option of working a four-day workweek for four-fifths (80 percent) of their normal pay would benefit the economy as a whole as well as the individual companies and the employees who decided to take the option.
The shortened workweek would increase company profits because employees would feel more rested and alert, and as a result, they would make fewer costly errors in their work. Hiring more staff to ensure that the same amount of work would be accomplished would not result in additional payroll costs because four-day employees would only be paid 80 percent of the normal rate. In the end, companies would have fewer overworked and error-prone employees for the same money, which would increase company profits.
For the country as a whole, one of the primary benefits of offering this option to employees is that it would reduce unemployment rates. If many full-time employees started working fewer hours, some of their workload would have to be shifted to others. Thus, for every four employees who went on an 80 percent week, a new employee could be hired at the 80 percent rate.
Finally, the option of a four-day workweek would be better for individual employees. Employees who could afford a lower salary in exchange for more free time could improve the quality of their lives by spending the extra time with their families, pursuing private interests, or enjoying leisure activities.
LECTURE NOTES
Offering employees the option of a four-day workweek won't affect the company profits, economic conditions or the lives of employees in the ways the reading suggests.First, offering a four-day workweek will probably force companies to spend more, possibly a lot more. Adding new workers means putting much more money into providing training and medical benefits. Remember the costs of things like health benefits can be the same whether an employee works four days or five. And having more employees also requires more office space and more computers. These additional costs would quickly cut into company profits.Second, with respect to overall employment, it doesn't follow that once some employees choose a four-day work week, many more jobs will become available. Hiring new workers is costly, as I argued a moment ago. And companies have other options. They might just choose to ask their employees to work overtime to make up the difference. Worse, companies might raise expectations. They might start to expect that their four-dayemployees can do the same amount of work they used to do in five days. If this happens, then no additional jobs will be created and current jobs will become more unpleasant.Finally, while a four-day workweek offers employees more free time to invest in their personal lives, it also presents some risks that could end up reducing their quality of life. Working a shorter week can decrease employees' job stability and harm their chances for advancing their careers. Four-day employees are likely to be the first to lose their jobs during an economic downturn. They may also be passed over for promotions because companies might prefer to have five-day employees in management positions to ensure continuous coverage and consistent supervision for the entire workweek.
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 reading and the lecture are both about offering four-day work week to employees. The author of the reading believes that four-day work week would benefit employees. The lecturer casts doubt on the claims made in the article. He thinks that four-day work is does not beneficial to employees.
First of all, the author claims that short work week could increase company profits. He notes that employees can make fewer errors because they are more relaxed. This point is challenged by the lecturer. He says that companies are forced to spend a lot more than expected. Furthermore, he points out that employers had to provide more training and more insurance no matter for every employee.
Secondly, the writer states that short work week can reduce the unemployment rate. He argues that because for every four employees getting paid at eighty percent, company can hire a new employee at eighty percent. This argument is rebutted by the lecturer. He suggests that employers would raise the expectations on employees. He elaborates on this by mentioning that employees had to do the same amount of work in a short span of time making their lives more unpleasant.
Finally, the author mentions that employees can get more free time in exchange for lower salary. He is of the opinion that employees would have improve quality of life by spending more time with family. The lecturer, on the other hand, feels that short work week may decrease the job stability during economic downturn. He puts forth the idea that because they work four days, they will be the ones to get fired when there is economic downturn.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 170, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...-day work week would benefit employees. The lecturer casts doubt on the claims made...
^^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...k is does not beneficial to employees. First of all, the author claims that sho...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...surance no matter for every employee. Secondly, the writer states that short w...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...me making their lives more unpleasant. Finally, the author mentions that employ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 167, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Use past participle here: 'improved'.
Suggestion: improved
...f the opinion that employees would have improve quality of life by spending more time w...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, furthermore, if, may, second, secondly, first of all, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 10.4613686534 86% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 5.04856512141 198% => OK
Conjunction : 2.0 7.30242825607 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 12.0772626932 124% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 22.412803532 134% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 29.0 30.3222958057 96% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1343.0 1373.03311258 98% => OK
No of words: 272.0 270.72406181 100% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9375 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.06108636974 4.04702891845 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.44822854096 2.5805825403 95% => OK
Unique words: 145.0 145.348785872 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.533088235294 0.540411800872 99% => OK
syllable_count: 400.5 419.366225166 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 3.25607064018 369% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.23620309051 85% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 2.5761589404 39% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 13.0662251656 138% => OK
Sentence length: 15.0 21.2450331126 71% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 28.8545201543 49.2860985944 59% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 74.6111111111 110.228320801 68% => OK
Words per sentence: 15.1111111111 21.698381199 70% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.11111111111 7.06452816374 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 4.19205298013 119% => 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: 2.0 4.27373068433 47% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.24530035671 0.272083759551 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0830828976488 0.0996497079465 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0791603454691 0.0662205650399 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.160453784342 0.162205337803 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0709949344416 0.0443174109184 160% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 9.4 13.3589403974 70% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 64.71 53.8541721854 120% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.0 11.0289183223 73% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.78 12.2367328918 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.63 8.42419426049 91% => OK
difficult_words: 56.0 63.6247240618 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 4.5 10.7273730684 42% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.0 10.498013245 76% => 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.