Benton City residents have adopted healthier lifestyles. A recent survey of city residents shows that the eating habits of city residents conform more closely to government nutritional recommendations than they did ten years ago. During those ten years, local sales of food products containing kiran, a substance that a scientific study has shown reduces cholesterol, have increased fourfold, while sales of sulia, a food rarely eaten by the healthiest residents, have declined dramatically. Because of these positive changes in the eating habits of Benton City residents, we predict that the obesity rate in the city will soon be well below the national average.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
The citizens of Benton have adopted healthier lifestyles. Their responses to a recent survey show that in their eating habits they conform more closely to government nutritional recommendations than they did ten years ago. Furthermore, there has been a fourfold increase in sales of food products containing kiran, a substance that a scientific study has shown reduces cholesterol. This trend is also evident in reduced sales of sulia, a food that few of the healthiest citizens regularly eat.
The given argument contends that the citizens of Benton have now switched to a healthy lifestyle. The arguer utilizes three facts to substantiate this claim. The first fact is that the responses of the citizens to a recent survey show that their eating habits now conform to the government nutritional recommendations more than they did ten years ago. The second fact is that there has been an exponential increase in the sales of food products that contain a cholesterol reducing substance known as kiran. The last fact is that there has been a reduction the sales of sulia which is a food product that is not eaten regularly by healthy people. Despite the evidence presented by the arguer, the argument is not persuasive enough in order to convince the reader that the citizens of Benton have indeed switched to a healthy lifestyle.
A major lacuna in the given argument is the absence of details regarding the survey which has provided the first fact in support of the claim made by the arguer. As the method of conduct of the survey is questionable, the conclusion arrived at by studying the statistics of the survey cannot be deemed as reliable. There is no mention of the people who were a part of the survey. It is likely that the survey took into account a disproportionate number of young people who are probably more health conscious than the older generation and hence, the difference in eating habits as compared to the ones that existed ten years ago is seen. In such a case, the statistics cannot hold true for all the citizens of Benton and hence the conclusion of the argument is baseless. The argument could have been strengthened if the arguer had included details of the cross-section of people who were a part of the survey in such a way that their responses could have reflected the lifestyle of all the citizens of Benton.
The second and third facts presented by the arguer do little to substantiate the claim made in the argument. This is because the arguer fails to establish a concrete link between leading healthier lifestyles and the increasing sales of products containing kiran or the declining sales of sulia. It is likely that the citizens of Benton are buying food products that contain kiran in very small amounts which does little to help them lead healthy lifestyles. Additionally, it is possible that the food product experiencing a boom in sales is actually junk food and it contains kiran in traces. Hence, these food products are actually having an adverse effect on the health of the citizens of Benton. There is no mention of the nutritional content of sulia. It is likely that sulia has high nutritional value, but the healthy citizens do not like to have it because of its taste or other reasons. Even if sulia is an unhealthy food, it is likely that its sales are declining due to other reasons like low production of the food product. It is not necessary that the citizens have willingly stopped buying sulia as a result of their adoption of healthy lifestyles. Therefore, the argument fails to establish a link between the sales of these food products and the healthy lifestyles of the citizens of Benton.
In the absence of evidence that proves beyond doubt that the survey was conducted amongst people who represented the entire population of Forsyth, the assumption that the eating habits of people conform more closely to government nutritional recommendations than they did ten years ago cannot be termed as reliable. Moreover, there is no concrete evidence in support of the fact that sulia is an unhealthy food and it is for this reason that it is being avoided by healthy people. In view of the above, the given argument is highly unconvincing in its present form.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 12 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 719 350
No. of Characters: 3448 1500
No. of Different Words: 244 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.178 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.796 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.68 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 249 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 177 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 127 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.793 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.514 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.552 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.335 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.112 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 158, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...three facts to substantiate this claim. The first fact is that the responses of the...
^^^
Line 3, column 352, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...tions more than they did ten years ago. The second fact is that there has been an e...
^^^
Line 3, column 507, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...erol reducing substance known as kiran. The last fact is that there has been a redu...
^^^
Line 5, column 550, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'junked'.
Suggestion: junked
...xperiencing a boom in sales is actually junk food and it contains kiran in traces. H...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, furthermore, hence, if, moreover, regarding, second, so, then, therefore, third, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 41.0 19.6327345309 209% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 32.0 13.6137724551 235% => Less relative clauses wanted (maybe 'which' is over used).
Pronoun: 54.0 28.8173652695 187% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 94.0 55.5748502994 169% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3504.0 2260.96107784 155% => OK
No of words: 719.0 441.139720559 163% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.87343532684 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.17824056563 4.56307096286 113% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73295572377 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 254.0 204.123752495 124% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.353268428373 0.468620217663 75% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1097.1 705.55239521 155% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 18.0 8.76447105788 205% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.0513324035 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.827586207 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.7931034483 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.13793103448 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 16.0 6.88822355289 232% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.206562283681 0.218282227539 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0658152826602 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.108615215308 0.0701772020484 155% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.161275749823 0.128457276422 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0769643218197 0.0628817314937 122% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.26 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.64 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 128.0 98.500998004 130% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.