The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava.
"The birthrate in our city is declining: in fact, last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students enrolled in our public schools will soon decrease dramatically, and we can safely reduce the funds budgeted for education during the next decade. At the same time, we can reduce funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. As a result, we will have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults, since we can expect the adult population of the city to increase."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
A variety of assumptions are made in this argument that are clearly invalid. This argument claims that birthrates are declining and that the decline in birthrates will mean less money needs to be spent on the younger generation. The argument equally seeks to convince its readers that there will be an incline in adults in the city of Calatrava, and therefore, additional funding can go towards the adult population. A careful reader is sure to see that the points made in this excerpt are invalid and need further proof.
A first assumption to consider is that not enough information is given about the population in Caltrava. In example, 5 years ago, this city may have had 1000 residents. Currently, the city may have 500 residents. If the births, this year are half of the population 5 years ago, this could mean that 100 percent of residents gave birth this year. Thus, the city would need to put aside much more money towards education, athletic playing fields, and other recreational activities. Had the author of this passage, provided more information about how many residents existed in Caltrava 5 years ago and today, readers would have a better idea of how much funding needed to go towards the children being born.
Another assumption that this article makes is that less money needs to go towards athletic playing fields and recreational activities. Caltrava couple be a big football town that people from all over the state visit just to watch the kids play. This could bring lots of funds to the city. If the city stopped contributing money towards this popular sport, the lack of visitors could decline which could result in a further lack of funding in the city. In addition, if a hurricane hit this city recently or this year predicted the highest amount of snowstorms, Caltrava would need to set aside funding to ensure that enough existed to maintain athletic playing fields or outdoor recreational activities. Had the article discussed weather conditions and given more information about the residents in the city of Caltrava, it may have been stronger. Nevertheless, a lot can happen with weather, storms, and society that is unpredictable. Caltrava would need to consider this when trying to reduce funding for the public schools.
A final assumption that is made in this article is that there will be a larger adult population. There are many ways this could be untrue. Caltrava could have a population with the highest amount of heart attacks due to the city being poor and eating a poor diet like fast food on a daily basis. In addition, the Ebola virus could have just hit the city of Caltrava and many adults could be getting infected and dying. The audience does not know enough about the population of Caltrava to assume that additional funding needs to go to an increasing adult population. Had the article provided its audience with realistic demographic information about the adults this year in Caltrava, it would have been stronger.
The writer of the argument essentially wanted to show how Caltrava would need less funding for children and more for adults. In carefully reviewing this article, it was apparent that many assumptions were made that needed further evidence. Had this article provided further evidence about the city’s population and demographic, it may have been stronger.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-29 | sajib | 42 | view |
| 2020-01-03 | p30kh40 | 50 | view |
| 2019-11-19 | IFE360TOXIC | 52 | view |
| 2019-11-12 | Dhruv_gre | 49 | view |
| 2019-10-15 | salamikehinde | 55 | view |
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 556 350
No. of Characters: 2715 1500
No. of Different Words: 218 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.856 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.883 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.514 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 185 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 149 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.593 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.015 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.444 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.308 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.356 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.074 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 2 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...reduce funding for the public schools. A final assumption that is made in this ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, if, may, nevertheless, so, therefore, thus, in addition
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 28.0 12.9520958084 216% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 27.0 16.3942115768 165% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2784.0 2260.96107784 123% => OK
No of words: 556.0 441.139720559 126% => OK
Chars per words: 5.0071942446 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.85588840946 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6293241684 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 225.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.404676258993 0.468620217663 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 853.2 705.55239521 121% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.0759328788 57.8364921388 85% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.111111111 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.5925925926 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.48148148148 5.70786347227 43% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.124969030781 0.218282227539 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0409722622262 0.0743258471296 55% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0487351466679 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0828143115463 0.128457276422 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0514382140089 0.0628817314937 82% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.35 8.32208582834 88% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
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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.