While the Department of Education in the state of Attra suggests that high school students be assigned homework every day, the data from a recent statewide survey of high school math and science teachers give us reason to question the usefulness of daily homework. In the district of Sanlee, 86 percent of the teachers reported assigning homework three to five times a week, whereas in the district of Marlee, less than 25 percent of the teachers reported assigning homework three to five times a week. Yet the students in Marlee earn better grades overall and are less likely to be required to repeat a year of school than are the students in Sanlee. Therefore, we recommend that all teachers in our high schools should assign homework no more than twice a week.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In the above memo, the author argues that all teachers in the high schools of Sanlee should assign homework no more than twice a week. The author supports his claim based on the survey that though fewer teachers in Marlee than in Sanlee reported assigning homework 3 to 5 times a week, students in the high school of Marlee earn better grades than students in Sanlee. Thus ostensively, implementing a similar strategy of assigning less homework as Marlee, students’ performance at the high school in Sanlee will be better. However, before evaluating the author’s argument three questions need to be answered.
Firstly, the author argues that by implementing a similar strategy as the high schools of Marlee, the performance of the students in high schools in Sanlee will improve without providing any justifiable evidence regarding the high schools in the two regions. One may raise questions like are high schools in these two regions similar? In other words, is the strategy of using circumstances from one thing to predict and generalize another authentic? There is a possibility that teachers in Manlee are more capable of teaching than teachers in Sanlee. If the above situations is true then the author’s argument is built unreliably. The author does not provide any admissible evidence regarding the students and teachers of high schools in both regions. If the author is able to provide more evidence perhaps in the form of a statistical data chart about the students and teachers, then it will be possible to evaluate the author’s argument to a certain extent.
Secondly, the author supports his claim based on the survey report of teachers from both regions without sufficient information about the responses. Percentage is a tricky situation, without an absolute number given one can not use percentage as a measure. Is using only percentages without absolute numbers to determine something veritable? Maybe there are only 12 teachers from Manlee who responded to the survey whereas 1000 teachers from Sanlee responded to the survey. In this case, one can not argue that the survey is representative. The author does not provide any data regarding the survey and uses only percentages to determine the outcome of the survey. The author has to give legitimate data perhaps in a form of a statistical data chart regarding the number of teachers from both districts, who responded to the survey to rectify his argument, otherwise, the author’s argument is seriously unwarranted.
Thirdly, the author argues that students’ performances from the Manlee district are better than students’ performances from Sanlee since they are getting less homework per week. Is less homework the only reason for better performance? Maybe most of the students in Sanlee have to do part-time jobs after their school to support their family which significantly affect their performances whereas most students from Sanlee belong to more wealthy household and their primary focus is only on education. Even if this is not the case maybe most of the students in Marlee go to private tutors after school and there they are getting more than twice a week homework whereas most of the students from Sanlee only depend on teachers from their school. If any one of the above situations is true then the author’s argument holds no water. The author has to provide more genuine data perhaps in a form of a systematic research study regarding the conditions of students of schools from both regions to strengthen his argument.
In conclusion, the author’s argument stands now is seriously flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author can answer the three questions above and offers more evidence perhaps in the form of a systematic research study then it will be possible to evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation that in order to improve the students’ performances teachers from Sanlee district should not assign homework more than twice per week.
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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: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 648 350
No. of Characters: 3274 1500
No. of Different Words: 223 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.045 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.052 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.672 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 264 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 191 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 140 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.923 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.422 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.731 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.353 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.52 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.145 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 552, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...le of teaching than teachers in Sanlee. If the above situations is true then the ...
^^
Line 1, column 554, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... of teaching than teachers in Sanlee. If the above situations is true then the au...
^^
Line 5, column 744, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...y depend on teachers from their school. If any one of the above situations is true...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, whereas, as to, in conclusion, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 91.0 55.5748502994 164% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2845.0 2260.96107784 126% => OK
No of words: 547.0 441.139720559 124% => OK
Chars per words: 5.20109689214 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.83611736076 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81671896565 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 210.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.383912248629 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 880.2 705.55239521 125% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 76.8361598113 57.8364921388 133% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.318181818 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.8636363636 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.68181818182 5.70786347227 100% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.248981861432 0.218282227539 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0822152393995 0.0743258471296 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0586341763979 0.0701772020484 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.155903957111 0.128457276422 121% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0507915236772 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.18 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.71 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.