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 recommendation committee propounds the ten-year budget for the city of Calavatra to fund for facilities prominently used by adults. The committee is proposing this keeping in mind that the previous year’s birthrate was half of that of five years ago, and assumes that there will be drastic drop in the population of children. However, this argument by the committee faces three major loopholes.
The argument specifies that the birth rate of previous year has been half of that of five years ago. But this does not indicate that there is a trend of birth rates decreasing with every year. Nor does it give a quantitative measure of the average decrease in birthrate in the city of Calatrava. It is possible that the previous years was a mere exception, and there is no trend of decreasing birthrates. Or it is also possible that five years ago, the birthrates were exponentially high, thereby making previous year’s birthrates fall in the normal range. If either of these statements are true, then the argument becomes irrelevant.
The committee also assumes that the number of students enrolled in public schools will drastically decrease. With the evidence provided by the committee it is possible that the there might be a reduction in the enrolment of students. But that is confirmed only for one grade of students. The rest of the grades at school might still have copius students enrolled. And this in turn will not suffice for reducing the funds budgeted for education.
Furthermore, the argument also assumes that the adult population will surely increase. But it very much possible that the adults in future might migrate to other places for work or higher studies, thereby weakening the argument to use funds for facilities used by adults.
The argument propounded by the recommendation committee is as of now full of loopholes and weak. If the committee manages to provide solid evidences like city surveys or quantifiable trends, it is possible to consider the argument.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 329 350
No. of Characters: 1627 1500
No. of Different Words: 157 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.259 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.945 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.705 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 113 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 94 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 76 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.278 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.53 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.556 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.325 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.325 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.078 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, furthermore, however, if, so, still, then
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1671.0 2260.96107784 74% => OK
No of words: 329.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.07902735562 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.25891501996 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78428412009 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 161.0 204.123752495 79% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.489361702128 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 522.9 705.55239521 74% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 8.0 1.67365269461 478% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 37.618167728 57.8364921388 65% => OK
Chars per sentence: 92.8333333333 119.503703932 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.2777777778 23.324526521 78% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.88888888889 5.70786347227 51% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.377526114281 0.218282227539 173% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.111751087013 0.0743258471296 150% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0944332658183 0.0701772020484 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.186945323914 0.128457276422 146% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.129627486995 0.0628817314937 206% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.6 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.18 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.22 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 98.500998004 78% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.