The following opinion was provided in a letter to the editor of a national aeronautics magazine:
“Manned space flight is costly and dangerous. Moreover, the recent success of a series of unmanned space probes and satellites has demonstrated that a great deal of useful information can be gathered without the costs and risks associated with sending men and women into space. Therefore, we should invest our resources in unmanned space flight."
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.
On the surface, the author presents a reasonable argument for investing future resources into unmanned space flight. He or she believes that manned space flight is costly and dangerous, and as a result of successful unmanned missions, future resources should be invested in unmanned space flight. However, this argument relies on several assumptions that, if proven unwarranted, cause the argument to fall apart.
First, the author writes about how manned space flight is more costly and dangerous than unmanned space flight. Unfortunately, the author fails to provide additional information to demonstrate how much more costly or in what terms manned missions may be more costly. It is not explicitely stated whether the author is referring to monetary costs or potential loss of life. Additional statistics would be useful to further evaluate this assumption. If shown that the financial cost of manned mission is double that of an unmanned mission, then perhaps the unmanned mission is more justifiable. However, if the manned mission only costs, say, ten percent more, and could lead to more useful research, then the manned mission may be more logical. Current NASA budget surpluses or deficits may be integral in this decision making as well.
Next, the author assumes that manned space flight is dangerous and may lead to loss of life. Additional data would be needed to back this up. One may think of examples like the Challenger explosion or the near-failure of Apollo 13 and conclude that manned space flight is too dangerous to ever justify. However, men and women are currently living safely on the International Space Station, demonstrating that human activities in space can be safe. If shown that scientists have learned from past mistakes and manned space flight is now much safer than it has been in the past, then the author's argument is weakened. However, if fatalities or near-fatalities have occurred in the recent past, then the author's conclusion is more valid.
The author also states that space probes and satellite have generated a significant amount of useful information. However, the author fails to compare or contrast the amount of information learned from unmanned versus manned missions in the past. The author seems to imply that unmanned missions produce sufficient information when compared to manned missions, but provides no additional support for this implication. In reality, if men being aboard a spacecraft allows much greater amounts of data to be collected or experimental procedures to be changed as needed, then manned space flight is more reasonable than unmanned space flight, and the author's argument is made invalid. If robots, however, can perform the same tasks and extract data the same way as a human would, then unmanned missions prove to be more reasonable, as the author believes.
All in all, the author's reasoning relies on several assumptions, namely that manned space flight is more expensive, dangerous, and not significantly more informative than unmanned missions. If any or all of these assumptions are shown to be untrue, then the argument falls apart, making manned space flight more attractive than unmanned space flight.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/gmatgre-essays/following-opinion-was-provided-l…
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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: 23 15
No. of Words: 510 350
No. of Characters: 2622 1500
No. of Different Words: 217 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.752 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.141 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.677 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 214 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 142 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 106 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.174 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.317 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.783 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.368 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.534 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.131 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ted, cause the argument to fall apart. First, the author writes about how manne...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...egral in this decision making as well. Next, the author assumes that manned spa...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 591, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... than it has been in the past, then the authors argument is weakened. However, if fatal...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 706, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...e occurred in the recent past, then the authors conclusion is more valid. The au...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...the authors conclusion is more valid. The author also states that space probes...
^^^^^
Line 4, column 653, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ble than unmanned space flight, and the authors argument is made invalid. If robots, ho...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...re reasonable, as the author believes. All in all, the authors reasoning relies...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, so, then, well, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 11.1786427146 197% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2684.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 510.0 441.139720559 116% => OK
Chars per words: 5.26274509804 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.75217629947 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75284900131 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 228.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.447058823529 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 837.0 705.55239521 119% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 9.0 2.70958083832 332% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.9810923458 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.695652174 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.1739130435 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.73913043478 5.70786347227 48% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => 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: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.250144642893 0.218282227539 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0931435932981 0.0743258471296 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0785871141869 0.0701772020484 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.176571603908 0.128457276422 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0279473480592 0.0628817314937 44% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.54 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 98.500998004 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.