"To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current trends, will double over the next 50 years, thus making existing dormitory space inadequate. Moreover, the average rent for an apartment in our town has risen in recent years. Consequently, students will find it increasingly difficult to afford off-campus housing. Finally, attractive new dormitories would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham."
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.
The argument above asserts that Buckingham College should build new dormitories. There are three reasons provided in the passage. College’s enrollment is growing, the rent for apartment has risen, and new dormitories will be attractive to students. However, the three reasons are not strong enough to support the conclusion. In order to strengthen it, more evidence is needed.
First, although there will be more students in the future, but will the number of students keep grow at the current speed for 50 years? If the College don’t decide to enroll more students in the future, or there are not that much students can be enrolled at all, then growing students number in the past will not support the conclusion. Even if the number keep grow, as the passage says, it will take 50 years to double the enrollment. The College needs not to prepare so early for the slow growth of enrollment.
Second, the author asserts students will have trouble to afford off-campus housing. But this seems less relevant to the conclusion of the argument. Are the dormitories fee much less then houses outside campus? Do students have no chance to live in the College because of the lack of dormitories? If the dormitories fee is too high for students, the College may need to cut down budget in order to keep the fee down. If the dormitories are enough to accommodate all the students, then there is no need to build new dormitories.
Thirdly, the author asserts that new dormitories will attract more students. There is an unstated assumption that students will like the new dormitories more than old ones. However, it is not necessarily true. Maybe some famous people used to live in the dormitories, and students love to live in the old dormitories because they are attracted by the culture and history of the dormitories. In this case, new dormitories will not be more attractive to students. But if the old dormitories are so desolated and students will not have a convenient life living in the dormitories, then the author’s argument will be strengthened.
In sum, although it sounds reasonable that the College should build new dormitories, the argument above is not strong enough to support the conclusion.
- Some people believe that our ever increasing use of technology significantly reduces our opportunities for human interaction Other people believe that technology provides us with new and better ways to communicate and connect with one another Write a resp 66
- To serve the housing needs of our students Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories Buckingham s enrollment is growing and based on current trends will double over the next 50 years thus making existing dormitory space inadequate Moreov 60
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 372 350
No. of Characters: 1782 1500
No. of Different Words: 149 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.392 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.79 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.636 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 125 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 96 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 65 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.909 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.908 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.591 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.346 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.527 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.089 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 226, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
...ts in the future, or there are not that much students can be enrolled at all, then g...
^^^^
Line 7, column 183, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[2]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...ment. Are the dormitories fee much less then houses outside campus? Do students have...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, third, thirdly
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 12.0 28.8173652695 42% => OK
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1857.0 2260.96107784 82% => OK
No of words: 371.0 441.139720559 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.00539083558 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.38877662729 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77379314441 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 157.0 204.123752495 77% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.423180592992 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 558.0 705.55239521 79% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 43.4531190333 57.8364921388 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 84.4090909091 119.503703932 71% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.8636363636 23.324526521 72% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.81818181818 5.70786347227 49% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.324832115749 0.218282227539 149% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0991650559129 0.0743258471296 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0682475246702 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.177940419959 0.128457276422 139% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0506536697842 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.6 14.3799401198 74% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 63.7 48.3550499002 132% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.4 12.197005988 69% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.48 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 6.94 8.32208582834 83% => OK
difficult_words: 59.0 98.500998004 60% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 12.3882235529 52% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 7.0 11.9071856287 59% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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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.