From a letter to the editor of a city newspaper.
"One recent research study has indicated that many adolescents need more sleep than they are getting, and another study has shown that many high school students in our city are actually dissatisfied with their own academic performance. As a way of combating these problems, the high schools in our city should begin classes at 8:30 A.M. instead of 7:30 A.M., and end the school day an hour later. This arrangement will give students an extra hour of sleep in the morning, thereby making them more alert and more productive. Consequently, the students will perform better on tests and other assignments, and their academic skills will improve significantly." - GRE Argument 69
This letter concludes that the academic performance of local high school students would improve if the daily school schedule were to begin and end one hour later. To support this recommendation the letter's author cites two studies, one showing that adolescents generally do not get enough sleep, the other showing that many local high school students are dissatisfied with their academic performance. The recommendation relies on a series of unsubstantiated assumptions about the habits of high school students and about the studies themselves. As a result, the letter is not convincing.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 463 350
No. of Characters: 2457 1500
No. of Different Words: 198 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.639 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.307 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.818 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 181 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 140 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 109 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.048 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.243 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.549 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.107 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5