Working 4 days a week
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 inorder 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 morestaff 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.
The reading passage suggests that there exist various benefits for companies to allow employees to work four days per week, such as the boost of the country's economy, the creation of more profit margin for individual companies and the well-being of employees, while the lecturer argues against the opinions supported by the passage in all aspects.
First of all, the passage claims that as employees work 4 days per week, they would have more time to rest and would perform more carefully at work after sufficient pause. This allows them to make fewer errors, which are often costly for companies to cover. Thus, the costs for the companies are reduced significantly. However, the lecturer argues that it is the reversed situation that will occur. Companies would be forced to spend a lot more than they imagined. As they hire more employees to cover the work, they need to put more money to train new employees and spend more on medical costs for these employees. Also, since owning more employees requires more office space and bureau materials, the additional cost would be a huge sum, cutting into the company's profits.
Second, the passage asserts that for the country, providing four-day work environment for employees would reduce the unemployment rate. Since the work left by these four-day employees still needs to be done, the companies are likely to hire more employees, creating more jobs than before. However, the lecturer refutes this opinion by arguing that since hiring new employees is expensive, the companies may force their employees to work overtime, and finish in four days the work that is supposed to be completed in five days. This not only does not cut the unemployment rate, but also lowers the overall satisfaction of employees towards their job.
Last but not least, the passage presumes that employees who sacrifice a small proportion of their salary can acquire happiness, since they have more leisure time to take part in whatever activity they are interested in. But the lecturer suggests that these employees are at greater risks of losing their job and they may not be competent in advancing their career, for companies are more willing to offer management positions to those who attend work five days a week.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, second, so, still, thus, well, while, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 10.4613686534 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 5.04856512141 198% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 7.30242825607 123% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 12.0772626932 99% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 22.412803532 134% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 43.0 30.3222958057 142% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 5.01324503311 160% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1887.0 1373.03311258 137% => OK
No of words: 373.0 270.72406181 138% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.05898123324 5.08290768461 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.39467950092 4.04702891845 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.48100402607 2.5805825403 96% => OK
Unique words: 190.0 145.348785872 131% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.509383378016 0.540411800872 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 570.6 419.366225166 136% => 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: 11.0 8.23620309051 134% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 1.25165562914 399% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.51434878587 198% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 21.2450331126 122% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 78.2312114759 49.2860985944 159% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.785714286 110.228320801 122% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.6428571429 21.698381199 123% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.78571428571 7.06452816374 96% => 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 : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
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: 0.311251885489 0.272083759551 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.127909716146 0.0996497079465 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0931508907768 0.0662205650399 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.222597027891 0.162205337803 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0626924512385 0.0443174109184 141% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 13.3589403974 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 53.8541721854 99% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 11.0289183223 112% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.36 12.2367328918 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.48 8.42419426049 101% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 63.6247240618 132% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 10.7273730684 168% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 10.498013245 118% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.2008830022 116% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 20 minutes.
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.