arguemnt 135

zhanghaolin

135. The data from a survey of high school math and science teachers show that in the district of Sanlee many of these teachers reported assigning daily homework, whereas in the district of Marlee, most science and math teachers reported assigning homework no more than two or three days per week. Despite receiving less frequent homework assignments, Marlee students earn better grades overall and are less likely to be required to repeat a year of school than are students in Sanlee. These results call into question the usefulness of frequent homework assignments. Most likely the Marlee students have more time to concentrate on individual assignments than do the Sanlee students who have homework every day. Therefore teachers in our high schools should assign homework no more than twice a week.

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

In the argument, the author recommends that teachers in our high schools should assign homework no more than twice a week based on the comparison of high schools between Sanlee and Marlee: comparing to Sanlee, teachers in Marlee assign less homework while students have better grades. However, even though confessing some rationality in author's argument, I am afraid it can hardly bear further consideration because several evidence about specific situations of two regions and are insufficient and unsound to support the argument.

First and foremost, the fact that better grades in Marlee cannot be sufficient evidence to support the advantage of less homework for that the author ignores to take account of other possible reasons in existence which can also influence the effective of learning. First, it is imprudent for the author to directly compare the grades of students in two regions without considering the educational level and development situation of the regions. For example, how can the author attribute worse grades to more homework in Sanlee when Marlee is a highly developed city, with advanced and complete teaching facilities and better teachers, while Sanlee is a small town with financial difficulties on education and mostly relied on the appropriation from federal government? In addition to this, the author does not mention a word about some factors as quality of source of students or quality of teachers. So, how can we make a conclusion about the advantage of less homework with so little information?

Furthermore, before the comparison, the author should provide more information of the specific situation of the homework in two regions. Considering that the author only mentions the times of homework assigned each week, neither does he cites the absolute quantity of homework in two regions nor he provide the data of length of schooling; so, it is reasonable to ask what quantity of work in two regions? It is possible that many teachers in Marlee like to assign more homework at one time and let the students to decide how to allocate time by themselves in two or three days to finish it. Or it might be possible that students in Marlee need to do more work at school than Sanlee. In cases above, even though frequency of assigning homework in Marlee is less than in Sanlee, the quantity of homework might overweighs the one in Sanlee.

Last but not the least, even though less homework has some advantages in somehow, for the implementation of such method in school, the author should provide persuasive evidence to prove that other subjects, such as art, literature, social science and ect, can benefits from this method too. As we know, there are some differences in teaching methods between subjects. Such as literature and science: literature needs students to read and practice more no matter how clear the students are; on the other hand, science needs students to think and summarize more. The homework of these subjects should be different because of the different nature. So, before making the recommendation, the author should conduct investigation among teachers and students to prove the feasibility of method in all subjects.

To sum up, after pointing out so many obvious flaws in the argument, we can say that the evidence cited by author is insufficient or unsound to support the argument. Before reaching a final conclusion and making recommendation, the author should provide the information of regional education level and the quality of homework in two regions; furthermore, more evidence is needed to support that method of less homework in science and math is effective in other subjects.

竹林中人

LZ的argument有很大进步，体现在推理分析具体了很多，坚持。另外有一点我比较糊涂的是，第一点和第二点之间，我感觉相似性很大啊，LZ是怎么个逻辑思路呢

zhanghaolin

竹林中人你指的是“First, it is imprudent for the author to directly compare the grades of students in two regions without considering the educational level and development situation of the regions.”和“In addition to this, the author does not mention a word about some factors as quality of source of students or quality of teachers.”吧？如果是这个的话，我想我是出现了一些问题，本来打算写一个“教育资源，比如学校硬件、资金状况什么的”，再写一个“软实力，就是生源质量、教师水平之类的”，结果写着写着因为语言不会表达，就悲剧了，写到一块里去了。