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.
According to the given letter, it argues that Centerville High School has to provide the driver’s education course to all of its students as it is the only feasible solution for the facing situations. However, it seems the argument is based on several stated or unstated assumptions, which might make it unreliable if at least one of those is not true.
Firstly, it might assume that those who are involved in teenagers’ car accidents are attending Centerville High School. However, perhaps there are 5 different high schools in Centerville, and actually, the teenage drivers who made the accidents might not go to Centerville High School. If then, the teenage drivers’ accidents are irrelevant to Centerville High School and the driver’s education cannot be helpful to achieve its goal, to reduce the car accidents by teenagers. Thus, if the assumption is false, the argument is weakened.
Secondly, it seems it postulates that the number of students who drive at Centerville is significant. Perhaps only a few of them are driving a car, then, many of those who are taking the driver’s education will be those who do not drive a car. Since the driver’s education is aiming for reducing car accidents by teenage drivers, if then, the argument cannot be considered as a great solution. Hence, if the postulation is unwarranted, the argument cannot hold water.
Thirdly, the argument is based on the unstated assumption that Centerville High School can afford the price of conducting the driver’s education for all its students. The high expense of driving schools might indicate that providing the driver’s education is expensive. If the expense is unaffordable to the high school, the assertation cannot be a feasible idea. Thus, if the assumption is wrong, the argument cannot be accepted.
To sum up, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on unwarranted assumptions. If the writer cannot provide proper evidence to prove its stated or unstated assumptions mentioned above are true, the argument will not be persuasive.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 336 350
No. of Characters: 1674 1500
No. of Different Words: 141 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.281 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.982 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.81 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 130 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.237 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.875 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.381 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.381 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.135 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, first, firstly, hence, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, thus, as to, at least, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 30.0 55.5748502994 54% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1748.0 2260.96107784 77% => OK
No of words: 336.0 441.139720559 76% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.20238095238 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.28139028586 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.97175264373 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 150.0 204.123752495 73% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.446428571429 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 540.9 705.55239521 77% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 9.0 2.70958083832 332% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => 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: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.5101090918 57.8364921388 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.25 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.625 5.70786347227 134% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.322475617361 0.218282227539 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.120791949228 0.0743258471296 163% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.100962474297 0.0701772020484 144% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.192402989178 0.128457276422 150% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.106000570611 0.0628817314937 169% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.6 14.3799401198 95% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.88 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.01 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 71.0 98.500998004 72% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.