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 author recommends that high school teachers to assign homework less than twice a week in the state of Attra. The author downplays the suggestion of assigning homework everyday from the Department of Education of the state with the backing of a state-wide survey of high school math and science teachers. Students of a district who received homework twice a week have been reported to perform better than students of another district who got home assignments thrice to five times a week.
Firstly, the survey talks only about math and science teachers. Students study a gamut of other subjects like history,polity, geography, languages etc. We need inputs from a more diverse set of subject teachers. Furthermore, the survey does not talk of the kind of homework students get. It could be quite possible that students from Sanlee get rote home assignments, whereas the students of Marlee got interesting and practical assignments that make them understand concepts better. It could also be possible the load of homework is evenly spread across by the teachers of Sanlee, wherein the students get two huge lumps of assignments in a week.
Now, coming to the statistics quoted by the survey. Most importantly, It is stated that 25% of Marlee district math and science teachers give homework 3-5 times a week. It is equally likely that the rest give home assignments for the weekend as well. So, we need to know more about the distribution of homework by other teachers. Also, we do not know the demography of the two districts. It is quite possible that the strength of high school students not studying math and science in Marlee be much larger than that of Sanlee (25% of 4 teachers and 86% of 200 teachers does make a difference!). Hence, percentage is not a very concrete way of comparison. Furthermore, we have been provided with the data of only two districts. If there are many more districts in the state, the sample space is very small. So, total districts in the state and the numbers from them would help us reach a sound conclusion.
To conclude, the author’s arguments are not convincing enough to wholeheartedly accept the conclusion. In order to make a well deliberated decision, we need a holistic survey which goes into detail about various subjects and also about the kind of homework students receive. Also, we need more empirical data about home assignments in the stated districts as well as other districts in the state.
Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
---|---|---|---|
2020-01-03 | stevewang1007 | 69 | view |
2019-12-06 | harshit kukreja | 53 | view |
2019-11-25 | Yann | 63 | view |
2019-11-18 | ifxcuo | 43 | view |
2019-10-30 | orlando23 | 82 | view |
- Tradition vs modernisation 62
- "Several recent surveys indicate that home owners are increasingly eager to conserve energy. At the same time, manufacturers are now marketing many home appliances, such as refrigerators and air conditioners, that are almost twice as energy efficient 55
- The following is an excerpt from a letter sent by the principal of Greenwood School to the parents of all incoming kindergartners."We have decided to institute a policy of all-day kindergarten, instead of half-day kindergarten, for all students at Greenwo 72
- The following appeared in a memo from the Board of Directors of Butler Manufacturing."During the past year, workers at Butler Manufacturing reported 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than workers at nearby Panoply Industries, where the work shifts 48
- The following appeared in the summary of a study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia."Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylat 32
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 21 15
No. of Words: 414 350
No. of Characters: 1983 1500
No. of Different Words: 180 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.511 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.79 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.619 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 139 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 86 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.714 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.407 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.619 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.325 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.473 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.161 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 172, Rule ID: EVERYDAY_EVERY_DAY[3]
Message: 'Everyday' is an adjective. Did you mean 'every day'?
Suggestion: every day
...ys the suggestion of assigning homework everyday from the Department of Education of the...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 118, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , polity
...y a gamut of other subjects like history,polity, geography, languages etc. We need inpu...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 194, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e need inputs from a more diverse set of subject teachers. Furthermore, the surve...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, if, so, well, whereas, kind of, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2045.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 413.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.95157384988 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50803742585 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77012817272 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 185.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.44794188862 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 612.9 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 49.9584331352 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 92.9545454545 119.503703932 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.7727272727 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.04545454545 5.70786347227 71% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.321754280564 0.218282227539 147% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0917676854634 0.0743258471296 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0957149885231 0.0701772020484 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.20451013193 0.128457276422 159% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0939915346382 0.0628817314937 149% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.3 14.3799401198 79% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.43 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.36 8.32208582834 88% => OK
difficult_words: 74.0 98.500998004 75% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.