Reading:
Many countries require cigarette smokers to pay particularly high taxes on their purchases of cigarettes; similar taxes are being considered for unhealthy foods. The policy of imposing high taxes on cigarettes and other unhealthy products has a number of social benefits.
First of all, the taxes discourage people from indulging in unhealthy behaviors. Raising taxes on cigarettes, for instance, leads people to buy fewer of them. Smoking has declined as taxes on tobacco have risen, showing that these taxes do work to make society healthier. It can be expected that imposing similar taxes on unhealthy food and beverages would help reduce obesity rates.
Second, taxes of this kind are financially fair. When people get sick as a result of their smoking or eating unhealthy foods, they create medical costs. It is unfair that everyone in the society—including nonsmokers and people who follow a healthy diet—should contribute equally to covering these costs. Taxing people who engage in unhealthy behaviors creates extra income that can be used to cover the medical costs. In this way, some of the financial burden is shifted from all of society to just those who choose to participate in the unhealthy activities.
Finally, the high rate of taxation on cigarettes significantly increases revenue for the government. In addition to using this tax revenue on medical assistance, governments often use the revenue for other projects that benefit public welfare, such as building stadiums or creating public parks. Even basic government-supported services like public education benefit from these taxes. Thus, the taxes on cigarettes—and the proposed taxes on unhealthy foods—benefit everyone.
Listening:
Each of the arguments about the benefits of cigarette and other such taxes can be challenged. First, these taxes don’t necessarily lead to healthier behavior. For instance, high cigarette taxes have led some smokers to buy cheaper, lower-quality cigarettes. Such cigarettes typically contain even more harmful substances than better-quality cigarettes and present even greater health risks. Similarly, imagine how some consumers might react to higher taxes on unhealthy foods. They might continue buying the unhealthy foods they prefer even if they’re more expensive, and as a result have less money left to spend on healthy foods. That certainly wouldn’t benefit their health.
Second, there’re different ways of thinking about fairness. It might seem fair for people indulging in unhealthy behaviors to pay for the consequences of those behaviors through high taxes. But some people would argue that these taxes are unfair because they don’t take into account people’s incomes. If a high-earning person and a lower-earning person are addicted to cigarettes and each smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, paying the tax will be a greater expense for the low earner relative to his or her income. The same argument applies to the food taxes. So, many people believe that these taxes are not fair because they create a much greater burden for those with smaller incomes than for those with higher incomes.
Finally, the fact that governments can use this tax revenue for various projects has a downside. This income represents millions and millions of dollars, and governments become dependent on it and don’t want to lose it. In consequence, the governments might not be forceful enough pursuing policies and implementing laws that might eliminate unhealthy habits altogether. For example, they’re unlikely to adopt radical measures such as not allowing smoking in outdoor public areas such as parks, or even banning smoking in all outdoor areas, public or private, because they don’t want to lose this income.
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt on the specific points made in the reading passage.
In the set of materials, the reading passage claims that imposing high taxes on unhealthy products will have benefits on society. however, the listening material raise doubt on the reading's assertion by giving several reasons.
Firstly, the reading passage suggests that charging higher taxes on unhealthy products can discourage people having unhealty behaviors. With the example of declining smoking rate result from higher tobacco taxes, the reading indicates that charging high taxes on unhealthy foods can also reduce obesity rates. In contrast, the lecturer points out that higher taxes may eventually not lead to healther behaviors, for example, smoking people may tend to buy cheaper but more harmful cigerettes, and people who continue to buy unhealthy foods will have less money to spend on healthy foods.
Secondly, the reading mentions that because it is unfair to let people who have healthy behavior to pay for the medical cost result from those who behave unhealthily, it is better to remove financial burden on those who have unhealthy behaviors by imposing higher taxes. However, the lecturer highlights that higher taxes will create much burden on those low earners instead of high earners, which is unfair.
Lastly, the reading claims that higher taxes can create more revenue for the government, which can be used in medical assistance or other public welfare, therefore higher taxes will eventually benefits the whole society. However, the lecturer argues that those revenue from taxes will lead the govenment became dependent on taxes, which means the govenment may not want to take more radical policies such as banning smoking in dealing with unhealthy behaviors, because they do not want to lose the income created by imposing high taxes on unhealthy products.
- Reading Many countries require cigarette smokers to pay particularly high taxes on their purchases of cigarettes similar taxes are being considered for unhealthy foods The policy of imposing high taxes on cigarettes and other unhealthy products has a numb 81
- Reading In recent years many frog species around the world have declined in numbers or even gone extinct due to changes in their environment These population declines and extinctions have serious consequences for the ecosystems in which frogs live for exa 80
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 131, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: However
...products will have benefits on society. however, the listening material raise doubt on ...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 182, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'readings'' or 'reading's'?
Suggestion: readings'; reading's
...e listening material raise doubt on the readings assertion by giving several reasons. ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 194, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'will' requires the base form of the verb: 'benefit'
Suggestion: benefit
... therefore higher taxes will eventually benefits the whole society. However, the lecture...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 256, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this revenue' or 'those revenues'?
Suggestion: this revenue; those revenues
...iety. However, the lecturer argues that those revenue from taxes will lead the govenment beca...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, therefore, for example, in contrast, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 4.0 10.4613686534 38% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 5.04856512141 238% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 3.0 7.30242825607 41% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 12.0772626932 124% => OK
Pronoun: 15.0 22.412803532 67% => OK
Preposition: 35.0 30.3222958057 115% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1513.0 1373.03311258 110% => OK
No of words: 282.0 270.72406181 104% => OK
Chars per words: 5.36524822695 5.08290768461 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.09790868904 4.04702891845 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.41275772281 2.5805825403 93% => OK
Unique words: 143.0 145.348785872 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.507092198582 0.540411800872 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 462.6 419.366225166 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 3.25607064018 31% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 9.0 13.0662251656 69% => 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: 31.0 21.2450331126 146% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 77.9621623958 49.2860985944 158% => OK
Chars per sentence: 168.111111111 110.228320801 153% => OK
Words per sentence: 31.3333333333 21.698381199 144% => OK
Discourse Markers: 12.7777777778 7.06452816374 181% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 4.19205298013 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 4.33554083885 23% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 4.45695364238 179% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.27373068433 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.272654226854 0.272083759551 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.134472432681 0.0996497079465 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.065099121622 0.0662205650399 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.184641052544 0.162205337803 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0417517401366 0.0443174109184 94% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 19.5 13.3589403974 146% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.01 53.8541721854 74% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.4 11.0289183223 140% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.46 12.2367328918 118% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.04 8.42419426049 107% => OK
difficult_words: 69.0 63.6247240618 108% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 10.7273730684 98% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.4 10.498013245 137% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.2008830022 134% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 81.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.5 Out of 30
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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.