The following appeared in a letter to the school board in the town of Centerville.
"All students should be required to take the driver's education course at Centerville High School. In the past two years, several accidents in and around Centerville have involved teenage drivers. Since a number of parents in Centerville have complained that they are too busy to teach their teenagers to drive, some other instruction is necessary to ensure that these teenagers are safe drivers. Although there are two driving schools in Centerville, parents on a tight budget cannot afford to pay for driving instruction. Therefore an effective and mandatory program sponsored by the high school is the only solution to this serious problem."
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 argument with conclusion that an effective and mandatory program about driver'a education in the high school is the only solution is rather weak. It is based on the premises that several accidents in and around the town have involved teenage drivers, and that many parents have no time to teach their teenagers how to dirve so other instruction is necessary to assure the teenagers to be safe drivers, and that parents have no enough money to afford for driving instruction in the dirving school. However, there is still many missed assumptions needed to be stated, as explained in the following paragraphs.
First, the assumption that, in the accidents mentioned in the argument, it is the teenager drivers that should be blamed should be certified, regarding to the implication that the teenager drivers are likely to be unsafe drivers. Since there is some hidden intimate or, in fact, assumption, that the teenager drivers are not safe, the above assumption needed to be proved to be true. If it is, then the following discussion related to the carelessness and unqualified of teenager drivers in the argument will be sensible. On the contrary, if all the wrongdoers are the adults, it is the adults that should take the course other than the teenagers, leaving the concreteness of the argument in doubt.
Second, the assumption that, without any process of qualification or license, the teenagers can dive on the road has to be testified, regarding to the fact that they have high possibility to be untrained and if they don't take the further course, they will be not safe drivers. Since the assumption is lack in the argument, it is never known whether the teenagers can drive on the road without any training or test or not. If the answer is yes, then the claimed need may be urgent and exigent. On the contrary, if the teenagers driving without license will be punished, then the course should aim at remind them not to drive without license other than safety of driving, for if they drive on the road, they should be well-trained.
Furthermore, providing the above assumption is valid, the further assumption that the education claimed in the argument will work ought to be demonstrated still, regarding to the effectiveness of applying such a policy. If the driving course in the high school can make the teenagers really focus on how to be safe drivers, then it may be worth carrying out. On the other hand, if the teengers just neglect what is taught in the class and keep adopting their old, uncautious driving habits, then application of the policy may be fool. Dearth of any explanation about the assumption results in uncertainty and doubt, which worsen the conclusion.
In the end, the argument is rather weak. However, if the above assumptions are testified, it will be greatly reinforced. Therefore, there is no way to simply accept it. Don't adopt such a strategy before further examination.
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Sentence: It is based on the premises that several accidents in and around the town have involved teenage drivers, and that many parents have no time to teach their teenagers how to dirve so other instruction is necessary to assure the teenagers to be safe drivers, and that parents have no enough money to afford for driving instruction in the dirving school.
Error: dirve Suggestion: drive
Error: dirving Suggestion: driving
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 496 350
No. of Characters: 2358 1500
No. of Different Words: 200 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.719 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.754 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.666 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 172 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.105 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.845 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.737 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.329 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.549 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.078 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5