Nature's Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products, is opening its next franchise in the town of Plainsville. The store should prove to be very successful: Nature's Way franchises tend to be most profitable in areas where residents lead healthy lives, and clearly Plainsville is such an area. Plainsville merchants report that sales of running shoes and exercise clothing are at all-time highs. The local health club has more members than ever, and the weight training and aerobics classes are always full. Finally, Plainsville's schoolchildren represent a new generation of potential customers: these schoolchildren are required to participate in a fitness-for-life program, which emphasizes the benefits of regular exercise at an early age.
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The prompt here discusses how opening a health store, Nature’s Way, in Plainsville is a great idea because residents of the town follow a healthy lifestyle. The author’s suggestion is based on the frequent sales of exercise equipment, the high attendance in fitness classes and the introduction of the Fitness-for-Life Programme for school children in Plainsville. However, the author has made three major unwarranted assumptions that significantly weaken his argument, and might even render it completely false.
Firstly, the author presumes that there are no other health stores in Plainsville. Since it has been highlighted that the town is particularly health-conscious, it is quite natural to presume that the residents already have a go-to place for purchasing health-related products. In such a scenario, it is unlikely that another health store would serve any purpose here. It is wise to presume that most people would stick to the store they are already familiar with, instead of venturing out to Nature’s Way for trying out something new. Even if they do start shopping there, it would, at best, divide the population between two stores, lowering sales in each but never really boosting any particular business. Thus, if even one other health food and products store is present in Plainsville, then the introduction of the Nature’s Way franchise would not have the response that the argument anticipates.
Second of all, just because the residents of Plainsville enjoy exercising, does not mean they will also enjoy healthy food. Perhaps a lot of these individuals work so hard on their fitness so that they can eat to their heart’s content, without caring about how many calories they put on their plates. It is also likely that the town is flooded with highly-popular dessert shops, because residents enjoy a hot chocolate doughnut as much as they enjoy sweating it out at an aerobics lesson. In such a scenario, a health food shop would find no takers, and the Nature’s Way wouldn’t be able to make as much profit as it expected. Thus, if either of these scenarios is true, then the author’s argument doesn’t hold much water.
Thirdly, enrolling schoolchildren in a mandatory fitness for life programme doesn’t ensure that they will grow up to be healthy citizens, let alone ones that would be willing to spend their hard-earned money at a health food store. It is possible that the constant pressure of “working out” may make them develop severe body issues, and alienate them from exercise. Such people are unlikely to choose healthy options when they grow up, and are very less likely to be interested in products that help them in improving their health. Even if they somehow manage to escape the crippling body dysmorphia that accompanies those who grow up in a “health-obsessed” environment, it is still unlikely that they would want external equipment to help with their fitness. Perhaps they have learnt enough at school and don’t wish to spend any extra money on equipment that they already have lying around from their years in school. Thus, no matter how they feel about the fitness-for-life programme, most kids would not feel the need to purchase anything from a store that sells healthy food and products. If true, these instances would further weaken the author’s argument that these schoolchildren are “potential customers” for Nature’s Way.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands right now, is based on a number of unwarranted assumptions that render it extremely unconvincing, if not outright specious. More evidence, perhaps in the form of systematic research studies about the town of Plainsville, can help in evaluating the argument in a better way.
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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: 9 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 15 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 607 350
No. of Characters: 3012 1500
No. of Different Words: 285 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.964 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.962 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.785 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 208 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 160 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 117 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 66 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.391 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.309 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.609 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.297 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.297 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.072 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...luating the argument in a better way.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, may, really, second, so, still, then, third, thirdly, thus, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 61.0 28.8173652695 212% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 74.0 55.5748502994 133% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3140.0 2260.96107784 139% => OK
No of words: 603.0 441.139720559 137% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.20729684909 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.9554069778 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.97382623637 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 296.0 204.123752495 145% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.49087893864 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 927.9 705.55239521 132% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 9.0 2.70958083832 332% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.4643305661 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.52173913 119.503703932 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.2173913043 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.91304347826 5.70786347227 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.24666671438 0.218282227539 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0788018902153 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0843267044457 0.0701772020484 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.132997592807 0.128457276422 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0758614756713 0.0628817314937 121% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.2 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.09 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => 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: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.