The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist. “Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village ra

Essay topics:

The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist.
“Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. However, my recent interviews with children living in the group of islands that includes Tertia show that these children spend much more
time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. This research of mine proves that Dr. Field's conclusion about Tertian village culture is invalid and thus that the observation-centered approach to studying cultures is invalid as well. The interview-centered method that my team of graduate students is currently using in Tertia will establish a much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions there and in other island cultures.”
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

In the given argument the author points out to the superiority of interview-centered approach to studying cultures rather than observation based approach citing an example.

The assertion hinges on the assumption that since the children were talking more about their biological parents hence they are reared primerily by them. The arguments looks convincing but has some hidden flaws. In the argument it was never made clear what kind of questions were asked while interviewing the children. If the questions were biased to reveal more inforation on biological parents then the response of the children will be affected.

Also the interview covers just one aspect of children-guardian relationship i.e. the children. The interviewer must also cover the adults of the village and evaluate the response before making a conclusion.

Child-rearing involves a spectum of activities. It may be possible that biological parents may be involved in certain specific activities like feeding providing shelter but there may be others like teaching and field or professional training which may be a community responsibility. The argument must incorporate more information on these and how much done by whom before concluding.

Hence we can effectively say that the argument presented here lies weak in the face of scruitny. The argument lack the data required to sufficiently establish that the children in the village were reared by the biological parents. Also the extrapolation of this specific example to prove inferiority of observation based approach is not tenable.

Votes
Average: 3 (1 vote)
This essay topic by users
Post date Users Rates Link to Content
2020-01-05 ali.rs 55 view
2019-11-24 amberk 69 view
2019-11-10 p2312vasant 50 view
2019-11-03 mehran_tgn 52 view
2015-08-09 bubble 30 view
Essay Categories
Essays by user bubble :

Comments

Sentence: The assertion hinges on the assumption that since the children were talking more about their biological parents hence they are reared primerily by them.
Error: primerily Suggestion: primarily

Sentence: If the questions were biased to reveal more inforation on biological parents then the response of the children will be affected.
Error: inforation Suggestion: information

Sentence: Child-rearing involves a spectum of activities.
Error: spectum Suggestion: spectrum

Sentence: Hence we can effectively say that the argument presented here lies weak in the face of scruitny.
Error: scruitny Suggestion: scrutiny

flaws:
No. of Words: 241 350

The essay is not right on the point. Read a sample:
http://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-essays/gre-argumentthe-following-appeare…

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: ? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 241 350
No. of Characters: 1303 1500
No. of Different Words: 148 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 3.94 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.407 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.107 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 97 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 80 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 66 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.538 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.228 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.337 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.617 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.09 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5