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.
The author of this prompt talks about the homework given to students. In the author's opinion, the teachers in high school must not assign homework more than twice a week to students. In my opinion, the author's claims are flawed and based on unsubstantiated assumptions. So I disagree with the author and to support my arguments I have listed the following reasons.
Firstly, in the prompt, the author states that the Department of Education in the state of Attra has postulated that the students should be assigned homework every day. However, the author mentions a survey that questions the Department of Education's policy. In my view, the survey which the author is mentions, does not have credibility in front of the Department of Education. The Department of Education thinks wisely before implementing any policies and these suggestions of the Department must be respected. The author did not mention when was the survey taken and how many teachers gave a response. A group of teachers from only one high school do not collectively represent the entire system. On the basis of a survey carried out at a single high school, we cannot question the Department's suggestion of everyday homework.
Furthermore, the author cites the example of Sanlee and Marlee school without any relevant information about the two. The cause of higher grades at Marlee school could be due to more efficient teaching ability, and high quality learning provided to the students. It may also be possible that teachers of Marlee school ensured that the students did their maximum work in the school itself resulting into very little work to do at home. So each and every student has to finish the work in the school itself and their chances to succeed increases. Moreover, no criterion is stated about the grading system. It is possible that the pass percentage required is less in case of schools in Marlee resulting in lesser incidents of the students repeating a year.
So due to the flawed and incogent reasons stated by the author the argument stands unpersuasive. Had the author provided more detailed information about the surveys and deeper study of the two schools, it would have bolstered the author's claims. It would also be more convincing and well-reasoned.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 374 350
No. of Characters: 1846 1500
No. of Different Words: 182 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.398 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.936 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.668 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 153 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 97 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.7 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.942 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.55 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.34 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.527 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.146 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 78, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... the homework given to students. In the authors opinion, the teachers in high school mu...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 45, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...hermore, the author cites the example of Sanlee and Marlee school without any rel...
^^
Line 7, column 299, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...o be more convincing and well-reasoned.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, furthermore, however, may, moreover, so, well, as to, in my opinion, in my view
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 19.6327345309 56% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1885.0 2260.96107784 83% => OK
No of words: 374.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.04010695187 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.3976220399 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73762452935 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 187.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.5 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 574.2 705.55239521 81% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 33.2857326793 57.8364921388 58% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 94.25 119.503703932 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.7 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.05 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 13.0 4.67664670659 278% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.327258066672 0.218282227539 150% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0991638388832 0.0743258471296 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0823007289934 0.0701772020484 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.180893413235 0.128457276422 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.125017823404 0.0628817314937 199% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.7 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.95 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.2 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.