While the Department of Education in the state of Attra suggests that high school students be assigned homework every day, the data from a recent statewide survey of high school math and science teachers give us reason to question the usefulness of daily homework. In the district of Sanlee, 86 percent of the teachers reported assigning homework three to five times a week, whereas in the district of Marlee, less than 25 percent of the teachers reported assigning homework three to five times a week. Yet the students in Marlee earn better grades overall and are less likely to be required to repeat a year of school than are the students in Sanlee. Therefore, we recommend that all teachers in our high schools should assign homework no more than twice a week.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The prompt presents a disagreement between author and the Department of education of state of Attra in the matter of giving homework to students. The Department of Education promotes that, students should be assigned homework every single day and whereas the author recommends that, homework should be given no more than twice a week. Author’s recommendation is based on a statewide survey which shows that, students with less homework assigned are likely to succeed more academically. The recommendation and the argument on which the recommendation is based seem reasonable at cursory glance. However, the argument stands seriously flawed after careful examination for below reasons.
Firstly, the author should address the question of comprehensiveness of survey. Normally schools will have other subjects like history, economics, computers, languages etc, and the survey overlooks this important fact and considers only math and science teachers, which makes the survey incomplete. Moreover, the survey fails to shed light on type and amount of homework given to students and intelligence levels of students. It is essential to consider all other subject teachers’ opinions before conclusion. What if the other subject teachers give homework more frequently and students get good grades in respective subjects? Also, what if students perform poorly when given less homework in subjects other than math and science. All these possibilities needs to be evaluated by the author to infer that his recommendation is correct. It is reasonable to think that students who are academically good need less home work compared to students who are challenged. If a school has all academically bright students, the frequency of homework does not contribute much to students’ grades and this could be the reason why students of Marlee get good grades with less homework. The author is very quick to jump into the conclusion that less frequency of homework leads to good grades by ignoring other reasons. Also, the grades obtained by the students in the state of Sanlee, where students are assigned homework more frequently is not given. It is probable that such students also get good grades perhaps, better grades than students of Marlee. The survey does not take this possibility into account and the recommendation based on such survey seems illogical.
Secondly, author should bother to answer, how the survey data of only two districts of the state can be applied to all other districts. Author does not mention about any other districts other than Sanlee or Marlee. So, there is no data about frequency of homework given in other school districts and the grades procured by students. There is a possibility that, all other school districts except Marlee, assign homework three to five times a week and because of this students are getting good grades. This possibility seriously undermines the author’s recommendation. If, the author can provide data about other school districts in the state of Attra, which strengthens data provided by the survey, then it can be concluded that the author’s recommendation is correct.
Thirdly, the author fails to establish a direct relationship between amount of homework given and the grades obtained by the students. There are other major factors which contribute good grades like, effective teaching, hard work and dedication by the student, availability of study materials, grading system etc. Just because the students of Marlee district obtained good grades despite of giving less homework, it cannot be concluded that, giving homework less frequently leads to good grades or vice versa. Given the different aptitude levels of students and other relevant factors, grades will vary accordingly. In fact, good grades can be because of lack of stringent examination techniques or cheating by students. If the author had taken account of all other elements, which contribute to the students’ grade, the recommendation would have been more pragmatic.
Because of the aforementioned reasons, the author fails to provide a cogent argument for his recommendation and thus, the recommendation seems true at first glace. Author should provide more convincing reasons to make his recommendation valid. Without more evidence it is difficult to prove the viability of the recommendation and hence the Department of Education should be careful while considering the author’s recommendation.
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Comments
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 277, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...le day and whereas the author recommends that, homework should be given no more ...
^^
Line 1, column 309, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...commends that, homework should be given no more than twice a week. Author’s reco...
^^
Line 1, column 469, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... homework assigned are likely to succeed more academically. The recommendation an...
^^
Line 1, column 553, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...the argument on which the recommendation is based seem reasonable at cursory glan...
^^
Line 5, column 463, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...ree to five times a week and because of this students are getting good grades. This ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, but, first, firstly, hence, however, if, look, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, thus, whereas, while, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 11.1786427146 197% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 90.0 55.5748502994 162% => OK
Nominalization: 32.0 16.3942115768 195% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3754.0 2260.96107784 166% => OK
No of words: 688.0 441.139720559 156% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.45639534884 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.12149920406 4.56307096286 112% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94835664781 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 281.0 204.123752495 138% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.408430232558 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1143.0 705.55239521 162% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 33.0 19.7664670659 167% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.1578296579 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.757575758 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.8484848485 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.51515151515 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.224387229293 0.218282227539 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0676228938467 0.0743258471296 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0515980097095 0.0701772020484 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.133595110935 0.128457276422 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0613510674754 0.0628817314937 98% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.39 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.8 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 138.0 98.500998004 140% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 277, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...le day and whereas the author recommends that, homework should be given no more ...
^^
Line 1, column 309, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...commends that, homework should be given no more than twice a week. Author’s reco...
^^
Line 1, column 469, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... homework assigned are likely to succeed more academically. The recommendation an...
^^
Line 1, column 553, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...the argument on which the recommendation is based seem reasonable at cursory glan...
^^
Line 5, column 463, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...ree to five times a week and because of this students are getting good grades. This ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, but, first, firstly, hence, however, if, look, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, thus, whereas, while, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 11.1786427146 197% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 90.0 55.5748502994 162% => OK
Nominalization: 32.0 16.3942115768 195% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3754.0 2260.96107784 166% => OK
No of words: 688.0 441.139720559 156% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.45639534884 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.12149920406 4.56307096286 112% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94835664781 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 281.0 204.123752495 138% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.408430232558 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1143.0 705.55239521 162% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 33.0 19.7664670659 167% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.1578296579 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.757575758 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.8484848485 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.51515151515 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.224387229293 0.218282227539 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0676228938467 0.0743258471296 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0515980097095 0.0701772020484 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.133595110935 0.128457276422 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0613510674754 0.0628817314937 98% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.39 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.8 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 138.0 98.500998004 140% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.