The author presents the views that the sharp decline in literature readers has negative impacts on the culture in general and the future of literature in particular. The lecturer, on the other hand, offers each of the writer's arguments with an alternate explanation.
First, in the reading passage the writer indicates that people are missing out on important benefits such as the intellectual stimulation novels and plays provide when they stop reading literature. The speaker rebuts this argument when she says beside literature, other genres such as science, history and political can offer intellectual simulation as well. Moreover, such books are often creative and well-written, unlike what the author claims them to be.
Second, while the writer believes people are lowering the standards of culture by tuning to other forms of entertainment instead of sitting down with a challenging novel, the lecturer doesn't feel the same. She disagrees with the idea that non-literature forms, such as music and movies, equal low-quality of culture. In fact, nowadays culture has changed and many other forms of art seem to express people's concerns more directly than literature can do.
Third, the reading passage highlights the lack of support for today's writers and blames it on the public's low standards of culture. In contrast, the professor expresses that the blame should be partly directed to the authors themselves. This is because today's writers often intentionally make it difficult to understand their works, to the point that not even people from the past would have interest in reading them.
- TPO 50 Independent Writing Task all university students should be required to take history courses no matter what their field of study is 76
- TPO 66 Do you agree or disagree with the following statement People who develop many different skills are more successful than people who focus on one skill only Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer 76
- TPO44 Some people believe that when busy parents do not have a lot of time to spend with their children the best use of that time is to have fun playing games or sports Other believe that it is best to use that time doing things together that are related 73
- Tpo 10 Do you agree with statement that playing computer games is a waste of time Children should not be allowed to play them 73
- TPO 01 Do you agree or disagree with the following statement At universities and colleges sports and social activities are just as important as classes and libraries and should receive equal financial support Use specific reasons and examples to supp 76
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 26 in 30
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 11 12
No. of Words: 255 250
No. of Characters: 1323 1200
No. of Different Words: 157 150
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 3.996 4.2
Average Word Length: 5.188 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.683 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 81 60
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 50 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 31 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.182 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.176 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.909 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.362 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.626 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.136 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 4