From a letter to the editor of a city newspaper: “One recent research study has indicated that many adolescents need more sleep than they are getting, and another study has shown that many high school students in our city are actually dissatisfied with th

The writer of the argument concludes that an extra hour of sleep in the morning will lead to better students’ performance in the school and will improve their academic skills as well. However, this conclusion cannot be accepted as it is because it relies on a number of unwarranted premises all of which one by one can be challenged in one way or another.

First of all, a threshold assumption upon which the conclusion stands is that the writer neglected other parameters that might affect the performance and improvement of the students and the writer considered only one parameter as his line of reasoning. As far as I’m concerned, there are lots of parameters which affect the performance of students such as teachers, school program; number of studying hours at home, etc. so the conclusion is not persuasive as it stands because it does not accounted other effective parameters.

Secondly, the write of the argument assumes that the students are more alert and productive only because of that extra one hour sleep in the morning. However, there is no strong evidence in the argument to prove this assertion. Maybe the students’ classes are very dynamic and the teacher methods of education are very persuasive. So the students are more observant and effective because of great teachers’ performance not that one our extra sleep in the morning.

Also, there is another problem with the conclusion. The writer of the argument did not indicate whether the students have enough sleep at night. Maybe the students’ poor performance in the morning is the result of lack of sleep at night. May be the students go to bed very late after midnight. There is no evidence in the argument to clearly show that the students sleep well enough so the conclusion is not persuasive as it stands.

To sum up, the writer of the argument concludes that the aforesaid change in the school timetable not only makes the students more attentive and prolific at school, but also enhances their academic skills. Nevertheless, this conclusion is absurd because it is based on a series of unsubstantiated assumptions as I clearly discussed in the body paragraphs all of which are questionable.