The following appeared in a memo from a budget planner for the city of Grandview.
"It is time for the city of Grandview to stop funding the Grandview Symphony Orchestra. It is true that the symphony struggled financially for many years, but last year private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent and attendance at the symphony's concerts-in-the-park series doubled. In addition, the symphony has just announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. For these reasons, we recommend that the city eliminate funding for the Grandview Symphony Orchestra from next year's budget. We predict that the symphony will flourish in the years to come even without funding from the city."
Grounding on the increased private contribution, doubled attendance of symphony's series and higher ticket prices in the coming year, the budget planner comes to a conclusion that Grandview Symphony Orchestra do not need further funding from the government since it will no longer face financial problem. However, to make this argument more convincing, several questions want answers.
To begin with, by citing the contribution record last year, the author stated that the private donation was enough or can sustain for some time. Admittedly, that big amount of donation may serve a crucial role in solving the Symphony Orchestra's financial problem, no sufficient evidence is given to show whether the donation will be continued or how much is enough. It is possible that the private contributor did not want to see the orchestra go bankruptcy last year, and the amount of money was just enough to made end meets. Funding from the government is still necessary and urgent.
Furthermore, the author also says that increased revenue can be expected from more attendance at the orchestra’s concerts-in-the-park series last year. However, record from last year is far from a sound evidence to predict a positive trend of attendance this year. Perhaps the government has helped advertising the orchestra last year to prevent its closing down. Or, maybe the orchestra cooperated with another famous one to produced attractive programs last year. More details are needed to answer the question of why the attendance increased last year in order to make the assumption more compelling.
On the other hand, the approach of increasing ticket price can be a two-edged weapon. It is true that it will bring more revenue if the audiences accept to pay more money for the same show, but there is a good chance that the audiences simply choose to attend other cheaper performance. Before making the ticket price higher, the company may need to ask how current audiences think about their price for preventing a dramatic loss of customers.
In conclusion, the decision of not funding the orchestra may be a risky one based on current assumptions. The author needs to answer the above questions to strengthen the argument.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-07-16 | scatri5113 | 78 | view |
| 2022-07-02 | iGeni | 58 | view |
| 2021-02-09 | lydia05025137 | 78 | view |
| 2020-07-03 | AdmiralMadingo | 80 | view |
| 2020-05-12 | jenniferjack07 | 68 | view |
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 360 350
No. of Characters: 1811 1500
No. of Different Words: 193 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.356 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.031 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.685 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 101 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.124 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.333 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.591 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.067 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, furthermore, however, if, may, so, still, then, in conclusion, it is true, to begin with, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 15.0 28.8173652695 52% => OK
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1862.0 2260.96107784 82% => OK
No of words: 359.0 441.139720559 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.18662952646 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.35284910392 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82069154173 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 194.0 204.123752495 95% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.540389972145 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 563.4 705.55239521 80% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 61.4600670659 57.8364921388 106% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.375 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.4375 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.375 5.70786347227 129% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.273212941287 0.218282227539 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0802016304067 0.0743258471296 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0631573002269 0.0701772020484 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.134276208697 0.128457276422 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0703715446992 0.0628817314937 112% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.12 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.69 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.