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.
The committee, planning for a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava, recommends reducing the funding allocated for education during the next decade, for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. The committee has reached to this recommendation observing the diminishing birth rate in the city. However, before evaluating the argument, specific evidence must be provided for these following cases.
First of all, it is important to evaluate whether the birth rate in the city, five years ago, was a significant number. The committee assumes five years ago the birth rate was quite high. However, this may not be the case. It is very possible that five years ago, the birth rate was a very small number like only 2 percent. Then last year, the birth rate must be 1 percent according to the prompt. This is not a significant decrease if the number of population in the city Caltrava is quite low. If the birth rate was 90 percent five years ago, then it must be a significant decline in the birth rate. The argument fails to address this and so is seriously flawed.
Secondly, it is important to evaluate whether only the students of Calatrava city are enrolled in the public schools of the city. The committee prematurely assumes that no one except the students of the city studies in those schools. In reality, this may not be the case. It is very possible that students from nearby cities attend these public schools and they provide a significant portion in the total number of students. If this case has merit, then less number of the students from Calatrava city will not have that much effect and the number of students in schools won’t decrease significantly. The argument fails to consider this and so does not hold water.
Finally, it is very important to evaluate whether adult population of the city will really increase. The committee, without any evidence, assumes that the number of adults in the will grow substantially. However, this may not happen. It is quite likely that in near future many adults will leave the city and start living in another place. If this happens, then increasing city facilities and programs will not have any satisfactory result. The argument fails to provide evidence for this and so is seriously weakened.
In conclusion, the argument, as it holds, is seriously flawed as it relies on many unwarranted assumptions which may not be valid. If the committee is able to provide enough evidences for the above stated three cases and conduct a more careful study, then argument will be evaluated properly and the recommendation can be taken in account otherwise it will remain flawed as it on surface.
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Comments
e-rater score 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: 25 15
No. of Words: 451 350
No. of Characters: 2159 1500
No. of Different Words: 182 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.608 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.787 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.59 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 151 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.04 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.302 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.68 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.318 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.501 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.073 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, however, if, may, really, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2226.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 450.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 4.94666666667 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.6057793516 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67502024914 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 193.0 204.123752495 95% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.428888888889 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 706.5 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 51.5780728605 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 89.04 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.0 23.324526521 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.88 5.70786347227 68% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.292354162919 0.218282227539 134% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0828355950332 0.0743258471296 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0756475257676 0.0701772020484 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.153475496064 0.128457276422 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0851872103018 0.0628817314937 135% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.9 14.3799401198 76% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.13 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.65 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.