Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge the specific points made in the reading passage.
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.
The points made in the lecture challenge the benefits of levying heavy taxes on unhealthy items described in the reading by demonstrating how these taxes may, in reality, have detrimental effects. The lecturer supported each of the point challenging the ideas in the passage with ample details and examples.
To begin with, it is pointed out in the lecture that instead of promoting healthy behavior by reducing consumption via higher prices, these high prices may lead to even more unhealthy behaviors of the consumer. For example, smokers will tend to buy cheaper, thus worse quality, cigarettes when the prices are high, causing even more damage to their health. Furthermore, people may still buy the unhealthy food despite the higher price. This will result in the inability of these people to buy other healthy food. Therefore, after all, raising the prices via taxes on unhealthy items may not prove to be as beneficial as the passage suggests.
Secondly, the lecture suggests that it would actually be unfair to impose a fixed tax on the unhealthy products. This is because these taxes will affect the poor people more than they will affect the rich. This contradicts the viewpoint presented in the passage that levying taxes on these unhealthy products will create fairness.
Finally, while it is true that governments can gain extra income through these taxes on unhealthy item, the lecturer worries that governments will become dependent on them and become less forceful in promoting healthy regulations. Governments may become so reliant upon this extra income that they will not put up a real fight against unhealthy behaviors, such as banning public smoking.
In conclusion, the lecture challenges each benefit presented in the reading by presenting downsides of levying heavy taxes on unhealthy items. It seems, after all, these taxes may not be as helpful and fair as the passage suggests.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, finally, furthermore, may, second, secondly, so, still, therefore, thus, while, after all, for example, in conclusion, such as, it is true, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 7.0 10.4613686534 67% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 5.04856512141 297% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 3.0 7.30242825607 41% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 7.0 12.0772626932 58% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 22.412803532 112% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 30.3222958057 142% => OK
Nominalization: 1.0 5.01324503311 20% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1608.0 1373.03311258 117% => OK
No of words: 309.0 270.72406181 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.20388349515 5.08290768461 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.1926597562 4.04702891845 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.58690449438 2.5805825403 100% => OK
Unique words: 162.0 145.348785872 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.52427184466 0.540411800872 97% => OK
syllable_count: 488.7 419.366225166 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 3.25607064018 215% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 5.0 8.23620309051 61% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 1.25165562914 240% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 2.5761589404 194% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 21.2450331126 104% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.1110823653 49.2860985944 96% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.857142857 110.228320801 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0714285714 21.698381199 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 11.6428571429 7.06452816374 165% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 4.45695364238 202% => 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: 0.17559260311 0.272083759551 65% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0686640472971 0.0996497079465 69% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0578195647068 0.0662205650399 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.115159561813 0.162205337803 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0676112376757 0.0443174109184 153% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 13.3589403974 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 53.8541721854 91% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 11.0289183223 108% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.88 12.2367328918 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.51 8.42419426049 101% => OK
difficult_words: 74.0 63.6247240618 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 10.7273730684 126% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 10.498013245 103% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.2008830022 125% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 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.