Reading Passage:
In many organizations, perhaps the best way to approach certain new projects is to
assemble a group of people into a team. Having a team of people attack a project offers
several advantages. First of all, a group of people has a wider range of knowledge,
expertise, and skills than any single individual is likely to possess. Also, because of
the number of people involved and the greater resources they possess, a group can
work more quickly in response to the task assigned to it and can come up with highly
creative solutions to problems and issues. Sometimes these creative solutions come
about because a group is more likely to make risky decisions that an individual might
not undertake. This is because the group spreads responsibility for a decision to all the
members and thus no single individual can be held accountable if the decision turns
out to be wrong.
Taking part in a group process can be very rewarding for members of the team. Team
members who have a voice in making a decision will no doubt feel better about
carrying out the work that is entailed by that decision than they might doing work
that is imposed on them by others. Also, the individual team member has a much
better chance to “shine,” to get his or her contributions and ideas not only recognized
but recognized as highly significant, because a team’s overall results can be more farreaching and have greater impact than what might have otherwise been possible for
the person to accomplish or contribute working alone.
Lecture:
Now I want to tell you about what one company found when it decided that it would turn
over some of its new projects to teams of people and make the team responsible for planning the projects and getting the work done. After about six months, the company took a
look at how well the teams performed.
On virtually every team, some members got almost a “free ride” . . . they didn ’t contribute much at all, but if their team did a good job, they nevertheless benefited from the recognition the team got. And what about group members who worked especially well and
who provided a lot of insight on problems and issues? Well . . . the r ecognition for a job well
done went to the group as a whole; no names were named. So it won’t surprise you to learn
that when the real contributors were asked how they felt about the group process, their
attitude was just the opposite of what the reading predicts.
Another finding was that some projects just didn’t move very quickly. Why? Because
it took so long to reach consensus; it took many, many meetings to build the agreement
among group members about how they would move the project along. On the other hand,
there were other instances where one or two people managed to become very influential over what their group did. Sometimes when those influencers said, “That will never
work” about an idea the group was developing, the idea was quickly dropped instead of
being further discussed. And then there was another occasion when a couple influencers convinced the group that a plan of theirs was “highly creative.” And even though some
members tried to warn the rest of the group that the project was moving in directions that
might not work, they were basically ignored by other group members. Can you guess the
ending to this story? When the project failed, the blame was placed on all the members of
the group.
The lecturer talks about research conducted by a firm that used the group system to
handle their work. He says that the theory stated in the passage was very different and
somewhat inaccurate when compared to what happened for real.
First, some members got free rides. That is, some didn’t work hard but gotrecognition
for the success nontheless. This also indicates that people who worked hard was
not given recognition they should have got. In other words, they weren’t given the
oppotunity to “shine.” This derectly contradicts what the passage indicates.
Second, groups were slow in progress. The passage says that groups are nore
responsive than individuals because of the number of people involved and their
aggregated resources. However, the speaker talks about how the firm found out that
groups were slower than individuals in dicision making. Groups needed more time for
meetings, which are neccesary procceedures in decision making. This was another part
where experience contradicted theory.
Third, influetial people might emerge, and lead the group towards glory or failure. If
the influent people are going in the right direction there would be no problem. But in
cases where they go in the wrong direction, there is nobody that has enough influence
to counter the decision made. In other words, the group might turn into a dictatorship,
with the influential party as the leader, and might be less flexible in thinking. They
might become one-sided, and thus fail to succeed.
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement Always telling the truth is the most important consideration in any relationship 83
- some employees who prefer a four day workweek instead of the traditional five day workweek 76
- Some people believe it is best to accept a bad situation such as an unsatisfactory job or a shortage of money Others argue that it is better to try and improve such situations 61
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement People benefit more from traveling in their own country than from traveling to foreign countries Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer 73
- Reading Passage In many organizations perhaps the best way to approach certain new projects is to assemble a group of people into a team Having a team of people attack a project offers several advantages First of all a group of people has a wider range of 65
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 14, column 84, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...ead the group towards glory or failure. If the influent people are going in the r...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, second, so, third, thus, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 10.4613686534 115% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 5.04856512141 119% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 7.30242825607 110% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 12.0772626932 99% => OK
Pronoun: 17.0 22.412803532 76% => OK
Preposition: 23.0 30.3222958057 76% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 5.01324503311 120% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1292.0 1373.03311258 94% => OK
No of words: 241.0 270.72406181 89% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.36099585062 5.08290768461 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.94007293032 4.04702891845 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60880051361 2.5805825403 101% => OK
Unique words: 154.0 145.348785872 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.639004149378 0.540411800872 118% => OK
syllable_count: 372.6 419.366225166 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 3.25607064018 184% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.23620309051 61% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.51434878587 264% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 13.0662251656 122% => OK
Sentence length: 15.0 21.2450331126 71% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 33.2377797092 49.2860985944 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 80.75 110.228320801 73% => OK
Words per sentence: 15.0625 21.698381199 69% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.375 7.06452816374 62% => OK
Paragraphs: 19.0 4.09492273731 464% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.27373068433 94% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.164102752662 0.272083759551 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0507280323776 0.0996497079465 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0454764358172 0.0662205650399 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0449283472237 0.162205337803 28% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0471118585123 0.0443174109184 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.3 13.3589403974 85% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 64.71 53.8541721854 120% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.0 11.0289183223 73% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.22 12.2367328918 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.25 8.42419426049 98% => OK
difficult_words: 59.0 63.6247240618 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.0 10.7273730684 56% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.0 10.498013245 76% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.2008830022 71% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Maximum four paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 65.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 19.5 Out of 30
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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.