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 argument that social dancing can prevent or delay the onset of dementia and hence GoldenAge must establish a dance studio to limit certain cases may seem logical at first glance. The writer makes a valid argument one that would have been tenable if all its premises were correct. However the final conclusion is based on a large number of assumptions for which the evidence may seem weak.
Firstly the writer cites the study carried out by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine which states that only social dancing prevents onset of dementia. While the duration of the study does a...
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- People's behavior is largely determined by forces not of their own making 80
- Educational institutions have a responsibility to dissuade students from pursuing fields of study in which they are unlikely to succeed." 90
- "A nation should require all of its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college." 79
- A true university education encompasses far more than the narrow, specialized study of a single discipline. Only through exploring the broad spectrum of liberal arts courses can students become truly learned. 76
flaws:
No. of Words: 616 350 (write the essay in half an hour)
For issue essays, around 450+ words, for argument essays, around 400+ words.
Always put a space after punctuation marks. E-rater is sensitive.
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 616 350
No. of Characters: 3025 1500
No. of Different Words: 233 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.982 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.911 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.452 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 233 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 168 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 104 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.64 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.423 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.358 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.522 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.108 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5