The following report appeared in the newsletter of GoldenAge Independent and Assisted Living Facilities for Seniors.
"A novel therapy has come to our attention that promises to significantly decrease the incidence of dementia in our aging community. According to a 21-year study led by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and funded by the National Institute on Aging, while many physical activities like playing tennis or golf, swimming, bicycling, dancing, and walking for exercise provided cardiovascular benefits for seniors, only one physical activity offered protection against dementia: that was frequent dancing.
At GoldenAge we currently provide residents with extensive recreational facilities. These include tennis courts, a fitness center, and lap pools in each senior apartment complex. However, we have no dance studio space at GoldenAge, nor any social dance programs. Clearly, social dancing can prevent or delay the onset of dementia. Since the onset of dementia inevitably signals the imminent move of residents from our independent living apartments to the more heavily staffed and therefore more costly to operate assisted living quarters, we recommend the establishment of social dance programs at all GoldenAge senior residences — as a cost-effective, positive way to ward off dementia and enable our residents to remain in their independent living quarters."
Respond by writing an essay in which you discuss the specific evidence you would need to judge the validity of the argument and explain how this evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The newsletter report states that, based on a 21-year study by a medical college, frequent dancing seems to offer protection against dementia. Based on this, GoldenAge has recommended the establishment of social dance programs, so as to help seniors in being independent, and to avoid them from having to potentially pay money. However, there are multiple aspects of the argument that are weakly described, along with assumptions that could be falsified in case evidence against them arises. Judging the validity of this argument would require further evidence to prove all of the stated and unstated assumptions.
First, since the study took 21 years, one could possibly cite this to be a reason that the study's outcome is surely true. However, scientific discoveries are updated time-and-again, and the field of medicine is no stranger to contradictory studies that keep bringing up new possibilities in solving ailments and diseases. Consider the COVID-19 pandemic era: At one point, around April 2020, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) announced that masks would not be effective at shielding the spread of the pathogen, due to their minute size. This contradicted a view from earlier that masks would work. However, in the days that followed, they reversed their claims, and after thorough experimentation concluded that masks do help with slowing down the disease's spread, and that some types of masks may be more effective than others. This example shows how discoveries keep coming up; the validity of the study is hard to gauge and there is not enough information to prove that the outcomes of the study have been widely agreed upon by the members of the scientific community. There may also exist other studies that have disproved this very claim. Hence, any contradictory evidence that may arise from other studies could weaken this argument, and scientific consensus would strengthen it.
Second, the argument states that most other physical activities are known to prove beneficial in terms of cardiovascular health, and that frequent dancing helps to protect against dementia. However, is frequent dancing good for cardiovascular health? This has not been stated with surety in the argument. Although it states that dancing is good for the heart, it does not focus on 'frequent' dancing in this regard. Cardiovascular issues are known to be the leading cause of death in most developed countries, and taking into account the effect of frequent dancing is essential. Another associated assumption is that seniors will utilise the social dance programs with a high frequency. It may not be a good economic decision for GoldenAge if most seniors opt out in favour of other activities. The senior dance programs would need some kind of funding, and expecting all residents to voluntarily help may not be a good decision. Hence, if seniors greatly prefer dancing over other activities, and if the associated resources are present, then the argument is strengthened. In a case where the seniors disproportionately prefer other activities, then this argument is weakened.
Finally, this assumes that dementia is the only reason for residents to move to the more costly quarters, and that starting the dance programme would reduce these chances. If the number of people who are diagnosed with dementia is already low, then making this decision may not cause a huge real difference in such moves. If we find evidence in favour of other ailments causing a greater possibility of moving seniors to the costlier quarters, then it would imply that such a dance programme does not address the whole issue. This would only weaken the effect that the decision would have, thus weakening the argument. Meanwhile, if evidence arises that dementia is indeed a huge cause of the moves, then the argument would be strong.
Thus, more evidence must be provided to judge the validity of the argument. To address the various assumptions made, a stance can't be taken without provision of proper evidence.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 10 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 646 350
No. of Characters: 3277 1500
No. of Different Words: 300 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.041 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.073 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.676 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 239 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 186 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 128 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.276 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.538 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.655 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.268 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.461 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.101 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 229, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...establishment of social dance programs, so as to help seniors in being independent, and ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 571, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
...would require further evidence to prove all of the stated and unstated assumptions. Fir...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 43, Rule ID: MAY_COULD_POSSIBLY[1]
Message: Use simply 'could'.
Suggestion: could
...rst, since the study took 21 years, one could possibly cite this to be a reason that the study...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 127, Rule ID: CANT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'can't' or 'cannot'?
Suggestion: can't; cannot
... the various assumptions made, a stance cant be taken without provision of proper ev...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, second, so, then, thus, while, as to, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 33.0 19.6327345309 168% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.9520958084 170% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 24.0 13.6137724551 176% => OK
Pronoun: 47.0 28.8173652695 163% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 81.0 55.5748502994 146% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3361.0 2260.96107784 149% => OK
No of words: 646.0 441.139720559 146% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.20278637771 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.0414809386 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75670692014 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 308.0 204.123752495 151% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.476780185759 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 1032.3 705.55239521 146% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 10.0 1.67365269461 597% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.4027949105 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.896551724 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.275862069 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.1724137931 5.70786347227 56% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0582139599028 0.218282227539 27% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0193216635091 0.0743258471296 26% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0224930616792 0.0701772020484 32% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0336277671781 0.128457276422 26% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0237427551991 0.0628817314937 38% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.18 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.35 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 148.0 98.500998004 150% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.