READING
In the United States, employees typically work five days a week for eight hours each day. However, many employees want to work a four-day week and are willing to accept less pay in order to do so. A mandatory policy requiring companies to offer their employees the option of working a four-day workweek for four-fifths (80 percent) of their normal pay would benefit the economy as a whole as well as the individual companies and the employees who decided to take the option.
The shortened workweek would increase company profits because employees would feel more rested and alert, and as a result, they would make fewer costly errors in their work. Hiring more staff to ensure that the same amount of work would be accomplished would not result in additional payroll costs because four-day employees would only be paid 80 percent of the normal rate. In the end, companies would have fewer overworked and error-prone employees for the same money, which would increase company profits.
For the country as a whole, one of the primary benefits of offering this option to employees is that it would reduce unemployment rates. If many full-time employees started working fewer hours, some of their workload would have to be shifted to others. Thus, for every four employees who went on an 80 percent week, a new employee could be hired at the 80 percent rate.
Finally, the option of a four-day workweek would be better for individual employees. Employees who could afford a lower salary in exchange for more free time could improve the quality of their lives by spending the extra time with their families, pursuing private interests, or enjoying leisure activities.
LECTURE NOTES
Offering employees the option of a four-day workweek won't affect the company profits, economic conditions or the lives of employees in the ways the reading suggests.First, offering a four-day workweek will probably force companies to spend more, possibly a lot more. Adding new workers means putting much more money into providing training and medical benefits. Remember the costs of things like health benefits can be the same whether an employee works four days or five. And having more employees also requires more office space and more computers. These additional costs would quickly cut into company profits.Second, with respect to overall employment, it doesn't follow that once some employees choose a four-day work week, many more jobs will become available. Hiring new workers is costly, as I argued a moment ago. And companies have other options. They might just choose to ask their employees to work overtime to make up the difference. Worse, companies might raise expectations. They might start to expect that their four-dayemployees can do the same amount of work they used to do in five days. If this happens, then no additional jobs will be created and current jobs will become more unpleasant.Finally, while a four-day workweek offers employees more free time to invest in their personal lives, it also presents some risks that could end up reducing their quality of life. Working a shorter week can decrease employees' job stability and harm their chances for advancing their careers. Four-day employees are likely to be the first to lose their jobs during an economic downturn. They may also be passed over for promotions because companies might prefer to have five-day employees in management positions to ensure continuous coverage and consistent supervision for the entire workweek.
Question:
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt on specific points made in the reading passage.
The reading and the lecture are both about working four days a week. The author of the reading believes that this can benefit company, economy and individual as a whole. The lecturer casts doubt on the claims made in the article. He thinks that four-day work week does not affect employee as the reading suggests.
To begin with, the writer claims that offices are gained by condensed work week. In addition, he notes that sharing same amount of work between workers results in more relaxed environment and few costly errors. The professor challenges this point. He says that firm has to spend a lot more reducing its profits. Furthermore, he points out that when paying medical benefits, they remain same for laborers irrespective of the length of working days.
Secondly, the scriptwriter states that countries economy can be profited by the shortened work week. Besides, he argues that if four employees accept to work at 80 percent per week, one new work man will be hired decreasing unemployment rate. The speaker rebuts this argument. He suggests that companies may have other options providing no new jobs and making current jobs more unpleasant. Also, he elaborates on this by mentioning that they may start to expect staff to finish their workload in 4 days instead of 5 days.
Finally, the author mentions that reduced work week tends to improve the quality of staff members. He is of the opinion that workers can have more down time so that they can spend time with their families and concentrate on their interests. The lecturer, on the other hand, feels that such work week can reduce the quality of employee life yet making it more harmful. Therefore, he puts forth the idea that just because they work 4 days a week, they will be more likely to lose jobs when there is economic downturn. Moreover, they will not be considered for promotions as employers prefer members of staff who works 5 days a week.
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| 2020-01-06 | Sally Bassem | 78 | view |
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 171, 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.
...any, economy and individual as a whole. The lecturer casts doubt on the claims made...
^^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...fect employee as the reading suggests. To begin with, the writer claims that of...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...pective of the length of working days. Secondly, the scriptwriter states that c...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 66, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'countries'' or 'country's'?
Suggestion: countries'; country's
... Secondly, the scriptwriter states that countries economy can be profited by the shortene...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...workload in 4 days instead of 5 days. Finally, the author mentions that reduce...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, finally, furthermore, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, therefore, as to, in addition, to begin with, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 8.0 10.4613686534 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 5.04856512141 198% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 12.0772626932 149% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 22.412803532 174% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 34.0 30.3222958057 112% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 5.01324503311 80% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1593.0 1373.03311258 116% => OK
No of words: 330.0 270.72406181 122% => OK
Chars per words: 4.82727272727 5.08290768461 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.26214759535 4.04702891845 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.45084831924 2.5805825403 95% => OK
Unique words: 185.0 145.348785872 127% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.560606060606 0.540411800872 104% => OK
syllable_count: 469.8 419.366225166 112% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.55342163355 90% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 3.25607064018 369% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 13.0662251656 145% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 21.2450331126 80% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 34.7662554897 49.2860985944 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 83.8421052632 110.228320801 76% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.3684210526 21.698381199 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.68421052632 7.06452816374 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 4.19205298013 119% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 4.33554083885 231% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.27373068433 94% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.275975875318 0.272083759551 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0930139403383 0.0996497079465 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0920793292101 0.0662205650399 139% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.182180675405 0.162205337803 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0531470836137 0.0443174109184 120% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.0 13.3589403974 75% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 71.14 53.8541721854 132% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 7.6 11.0289183223 69% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.44 12.2367328918 85% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.36 8.42419426049 99% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 63.6247240618 127% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 5.5 10.7273730684 51% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.8 10.498013245 84% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.2008830022 89% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 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.