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.
In the announcement, it is mentioned that all students should take driving lessons provided by Centerville High School and the author presents several reasons why the course in this high school is the only reliable option for the juvenile drivers in the town. While the causes shown in the letter seem to plausible, they have explicit logical fallacies.
First of all, although some accidents related to teenage drivers have been reported, the letter does not mention about the proportion of this sort of accidents in the number of whole accidents that happened around Centerville. It is possible that those young drivers have generally been prudent drivers and generated a few minor accidents. It should be also noted that the statement briefly mentions that teenage drivers have been involved. It is probable that those drivers were not the immediate causes of the accidents. Therefore, several accidents associated with the young drivers cannot be an indicator that all teenage drivers have to be enrolled in a specific course to be careful drivers.
In addition, it is doubtful that taking an obligatory program supported by a specific high school would be the only effective way to learn how to drive properly. Although the letter points out that two driving schools in Centerville cannot be an option for the households with a tight budget, it does not mean that the only alternative should be taking a course provided by the high school. Instead, it is possible to patronize the parents directly so that they can pay for the bills of the private driving lessons. It is highly probable that the aforementioned driving schools have accumulated a lot of experiences and therefore it would be better to encourage the students to take their courses by giving financial support that to force them to register for a new course recently arranged by the high school.
Moreover, even though it is admissible that high schools can provide appropriate programs, it is not necessary that only one school has to provide all the lessons. In the letter, the writer does not mention why the Centerville High School is the only option for the teenage drivers. There may be other high schools relevant to organize similar driving courses and other sorts of institutions such as culture centers fit for providing driving lessons. Thus, it is not cogent that the high school mentioned in the passage should be the only place to learn driving.
Furthermore, there is no reason that all students have to take a driving lesson. Although mandatory driving courses would be beneficial for the future drivers, it is not reasonable to state that all students would tend to start driving. In contrast, a myriad of students may not be interested in driving. Those students may prefer using public transportation and it is not desirable that all students have to be required to take driving lessons regardless of their needs and interests.
Therefore, the main argument of the letter that the Centerville high school has to solely provide mandatory driving lessons does not sound reasonable for the aforementioned reasons. There are specific logical fallacies that have to be taken into consideration before espousing the idea.
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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: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 527 350
No. of Characters: 2635 1500
No. of Different Words: 212 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.791 4.7
Average Word Length: 5 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.636 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 214 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 164 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.095 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.885 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.357 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.357 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.112 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 442, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...hat teenage drivers have been involved. It is probable that those drivers were not...
^^
Line 4, column 554, Rule ID: AFFORD_VBG[1]
Message: This verb is used with infinitive: 'to drive'.
Suggestion: to drive
...ssage should be the only place to learn driving. Furthermore, there is no reason that ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, briefly, first, furthermore, if, may, moreover, so, therefore, thus, while, as to, in addition, in contrast, sort of, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 33.0 19.6327345309 168% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 45.0 28.8173652695 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2685.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 527.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.09487666034 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.79129216042 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71212131803 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 216.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.409867172676 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 827.1 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 13.0 4.96107784431 262% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.3800135123 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.857142857 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.0952380952 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.90476190476 5.70786347227 121% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.40199422745 0.218282227539 184% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.13000352327 0.0743258471296 175% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0811639250429 0.0701772020484 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.228743049405 0.128457276422 178% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0586624795857 0.0628817314937 93% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.1 14.3799401198 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.35 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.