Several recent studies have shown a link between health and stair usage. One recently completed study shows that people who live in stairs-only apartment buildings (that is, buildings without elevators) live an average of three years longer than people who live in buildings with both elevators and stairs. A second study shows that elderly residents of buildings with elevators make, on average, twice as many visits to doctors each year as residents of buildings without elevators. Furthermore, several doctor's offices are reporting that residents of stairs-only buildings scored higher than average on questionnaires administered to new patients, in which the patients were asked to rate several aspects of their own health (e.g., fitness, sleep quality, susceptibility to injury, etc.). The clearest explanation for these findings is that the moderate daily exercise required of residents who must use the stairs instead of elevators increases people's health and longevity.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
The presented argument about the link between health and stair usuage sounds very logical based on the available datasets. The writer has done a good job of compiling research studies as well as going as far as getting data from questionnaires. However, there are a couple of alternative reason to why the links occur which the writer assumed wrongly about. Although the overall argument remains the same, an alternate viewpoint to reach the same conclusion would be presented below.
Firstly, considering the premier study on the longevity of people who stay in stairs-only apartment buildings compared to those who stay in buildings with both elevators and stairs, there isn't any data to show what floors these users were. It won't make any difference if they were on the ground floor because they would never need to use the stairs even if it was available. In addition to that, there isn't any available records around other factors that could increase the longevity of humans. Things like food intake, enviromental security, mental health, access to social and medical amenities. Infact, it can be argued that most stairs-only apartment buildings are older buildings - that were built before the adoption of elevator technology - and would most likely be located in low brow, non-secure or non-urban areas, thereby reducing the lifespan of the residents of such buildings.
Secondly, an important keyword on the second research study is 'elderly'. It is common knowledge that elderly people are more prone to hospital visits. The availblilty of staircases or not should not be the basis of their hospital visits because more elderly people would visit hospitals anyways. One can also argue that elderly people who visit the hospital more was because it was easier for them to be assisted to the hospital because of the presence of elevators. Also, the writer could have done a more comprehensive research on the elderly residents to account for their age, health status, approximate networth and availability of assistance. This would have given more insight to the reasons why they had/needed to make those doctor visits.
Lastly, for the last the reports from 'new patients', the writer indicated that it was a self-assessment. When it comes to medical records, it can be argued that a self-assessment might not give the full picture. The data would be more acceptable if it were the doctors that assessed them by. There was no indication of the age bracket of these 'new patients'. It is worthy to note as well that 'new patients' tend to be helthier than return patients, hence, the kind of apartment that they live cannot be the only indicator to account for their fitness, sleep quality, susceptibility to injury, etc.
In conclusion, even though the overall argument of the writer that states that moderate daily excercises increases people's health and longevity is very valid, a thorough research considering things like age, income level, what specific floor the users were on, number of daily steps, amongst others, would have helped solidify the argument against any possible hole-poking.
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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: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 508 350
No. of Characters: 2536 1500
No. of Different Words: 254 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.748 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.992 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.599 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 191 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 136 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.19 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.746 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.279 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.515 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 189, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
...s with both elevators and stairs, there isnt any data to show what floors these user...
^^^^
Line 3, column 403, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
...s available. In addition to that, there isnt any available records around other fact...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, anyway, first, firstly, hence, however, if, lastly, second, secondly, so, well, in addition, in conclusion, kind of, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2601.0 2260.96107784 115% => OK
No of words: 504.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16071428571 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73813722054 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68321592605 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 266.0 204.123752495 130% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.527777777778 0.468620217663 113% => OK
syllable_count: 818.1 705.55239521 116% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 76.9586277521 57.8364921388 133% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.857142857 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.0 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.33333333333 5.70786347227 111% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.193970927557 0.218282227539 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0496718157866 0.0743258471296 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0613143912376 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0932671349925 0.128457276422 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0620605308156 0.0628817314937 99% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.9 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 130.0 98.500998004 132% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.