The data from a survey of high school math and science teachers show that in the district of Sanlee many of these teachers reported assigning daily homework, whereas in the district of Marlee, most science and math teachers reported assigning homework no more than two or three days per week. Despite receiving less frequent homework assignments, Marlee students earn better grades overall and are less likely to be required to repeat a year of school than are students in Sanlee. These results call into question the usefulness of frequent homework assignments. Most likely the Marlee students have more time to concentrate on individual assignments than do the Sanlee students who have homework every day. Therefore teachers in our high schools should assign homework no more than twice a week.
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 argument suggests that homework should be at most twice a week because of the data mentioned in the argument. However, some musing over evidence is very first very much before taking any steps.
Firstly, the writer proposes that a data from a survey showing that Marlee students can still gain better grades overall even with less frequent homework. Still, we don't know about whom the survey is done by and the detailed information of a survey has to be presented in the argument. It could be true that the survey coming from an authoritative institution with credible reputation in the international education analysis field. Another probable explanation is that the author of a survey is a teacher who is in charge of review homework by students. He is bored with the heavy homework correction routine and wants to end this by a survey showing that less frequent homework is beneficial. Therefore, the report is suggested to use 3rd party survey for cross check to make sure the validity of it.
Additionally, the detailed content of homework has to be presented before jumping into a conclusion. It is possible that the content of the homework of Marless changed together with the frequency, the material was improved by experts in education field, so it could be the material affecting the performance of pupils, not the frequency of the homework. Thus, the content of homework has to be shown in the argument so that we could examine if the material changed and mattered.
Moreover, the author mentioned that Marlee students have more time focusing on the homework than Sanlee pupils. Nevertheless, the detailed of the information needs to be offered because it could be roughly judged. For instance, the reporter just compares the off school time of Marless and Sanlee. Because Marlee off school time is 1 hours earlier, it seems that the Marlee students have more time doing homework. However, it is possible that Marlee needs to go school 2 hours earlier than Sanlee. Or Marlee students have to attend the extra outdoor classes after school. The detailed information for how much time for Marlee and Sanlee students to do homework is recommended to provide in order to make the argument convincing.
In conclusion, unless the credential of detailed evidence mentioned above is offered, the readers could not believe in the argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 392 350
No. of Characters: 1915 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.45 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.885 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.61 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 114 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.632 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.547 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.579 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.335 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 165, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
... with less frequent homework. Still, we dont know about whom the survey is done by a...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, however, if, moreover, nevertheless, so, still, therefore, thus, as to, for instance, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1960.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 391.0 441.139720559 89% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.01278772379 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44676510885 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70404455113 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 183.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.468030690537 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 616.5 705.55239521 87% => 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: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.683028983 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.157894737 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.5789473684 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.05263157895 5.70786347227 106% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.193653716043 0.218282227539 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0632632622478 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0409425421644 0.0701772020484 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0875161015995 0.128457276422 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0649333562993 0.0628817314937 103% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.78 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 78.0 98.500998004 79% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.