The following appeared in a newsletter published by the Appleton school district.
"In a recent study more than 5,000 adolescents were asked how often they ate meals with their families. Almost 30 percent of the teens said they ate at least seven meals per week with their families. Furthermore, according to the same survey, teens who reported having the most family meals per week were also the ones least likely to have tried illegal drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. Family meals were also associated with lower rates of problems such as low grades in school, low self-esteem, and depression. We therefore recommend that families have as many meals together as possible. We predict that doing so will greatly benefit adolescents and turn troubled teens away from bad behaviors."
Write a response in which you discuss which questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In the passage, the author recommends teenagers to have more family meals in their daily life because of positive results for their behavior and academic performance. To support his/her claim, the author cites a recent survey in the Appleton school district and illustrates some detailed information. Quite convincing though such recommendation appears at first glance, there exist several questions regarding his/her lines of reasoning that requires further analysis. Thus, the author's recommendation could end up being pretty compelling or invalid in the end, depending on the answers to the questions.
To start off, the author's recommendation heavily relies on whether such survey reveals the real situation of teens' family meals, a question that is not yet answered. It is possible that responders in the survey didn't tell the truth, because they were eager to establish their positive images in the survey. In the meanwhile, it is of equal probability that they didn't utilize such meals to well communicate with their parents, listening to their advice for study and life. Such phenomena could seriously challenge the validity of family meals' effects mentioned above and render his/her reasoning much less advisable. On the contrary, any valid proof that teens really had meals together with family and treated it as a precious learning opportunity will strengthen his/her recommendation.
Granted that the survey reflects the truth of family meals, whether it plays a positive role in students' behavior and academic performance is another question that requires a second look. Behind the author's reasoning lie two critical implications. The first one is that less trial for illegal drugs, tobacco and alcohol of teens results from their family meals. However, the probability that parents may not talk about deleterious results of the aforementioned cases must be considered and addressed. Yet, if parents really gave a lot of suggestions or warnings to students for deterring them from doing those behaviors, his/her reasoning will be lent more support to.
Furthermore, the second implication is that students' positive attitudes about study and school life can be attributed to family meals. While an agreeable family environment created by frequent meals may contribute to this, the possibility that students may receive more pressures from family meals could not be precluded in advance. For example, parents may make use such opportunity to force them to study hard, causing more learning pressures. Therefore, we have no clue whether students' positive attitude to study and campus life is closely coupled with family meals. If no, the author's reasoning seems unreasonable. Otherwise, we may consider the author's reasoning as tenable.
Last but not least, while we can acknowledge for a moment that all of the aforementioned advantages given by family meals are true, it remains to be seen whether it could help troubled teens away from bad behaviors. Other factors, such as how they retrospect their own behaviors, or whether they fully recognize their own faults, could also impact the author's prediction. If none of them would like to accept their incorrect behaviors, or even be reluctant to think about their former behavior, then turning them to betters one would become little more than the author's wishful thinking.
In summary, while family meals may be beneficial to students' development, this is not a conclusion that we can derive from the information available in the argument. Even if it is, whether it could help troubles students come back to the right track is still an assertion that is open to different possibilities. Only after the aforementioned questions are adequately addressed can we efficiently evaluate such recommendation and reach a logically sound conclusion.
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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: 16 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 603 350
No. of Characters: 3145 1500
No. of Different Words: 293 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.955 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.216 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.798 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 229 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 186 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 138 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 87 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.192 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.312 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.731 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.3 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.17 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 480, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...at requires further analysis. Thus, the authors recommendation could end up being prett...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 19, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... to the questions. To start off, the authors recommendation heavily relies on whethe...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 212, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
... possible that responders in the survey didnt tell the truth, because they were eager...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 363, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
...e, it is of equal probability that they didnt utilize such meals to well communicate ...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 64, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
...le we can acknowledge for a moment that all of the aforementioned advantages given by fami...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 353, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...their own faults, could also impact the authors prediction. If none of them would like ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, look, may, really, regarding, second, so, still, then, therefore, thus, well, while, for example, in summary, such as, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 58.0 28.8173652695 201% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3222.0 2260.96107784 143% => OK
No of words: 596.0 441.139720559 135% => OK
Chars per words: 5.40604026846 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94096258147 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86301008023 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 301.0 204.123752495 147% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.505033557047 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 991.8 705.55239521 141% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.4774480679 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.923076923 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.9230769231 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.84615384615 5.70786347227 120% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.204462508291 0.218282227539 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0570970996043 0.0743258471296 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0440099977153 0.0701772020484 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.110437163112 0.128457276422 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0482940527588 0.0628817314937 77% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.39 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.75 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 152.0 98.500998004 154% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.