【1010G8月AW小组】【我们的小组】ARGUMENT126 by【❀雨】

verydarkUID: 2765585

TOPIC: ARGUMENT126 - The following appeared in a health magazine.

"It has long been believed that getting at least eight hours of sleep a night is good for health. But a recent six-year study of adult sleeping habits found that people who reported sleeping eight or more hours a night had a higher rate of certain health problems than did those who reported sleeping seven hours a night. People who reported sleeping five hours a night also had an increased rate of the health problems, but this increase was slight compared to that for people who reported sleeping eight or more hours a night. Clearly, people should try to get seven hours of sleep, and they should worry more about getting too much sleep than too little."
WORDS: 492
TIME: 00:30:00
DATE: 2010/7/26 23:21:50

In this argument, the arguer recommends that people should try to get seven hours of sleep, and they should not get too much sleep than too little. To support this recommendation, the arguer cites a recent six-year study of adult sleeping habits, which found that people who reported seven hours at night have a lowest certain health problems, while people who sleep five hours a night have a increased rate, but slight compared to that for people who reported sleeping eight or more hours. Although the argument is well-presented, it is not well-reasoned from my perspective. Close scrutiny reveals that it is logically flawed in several aspects.

A threshold problem with this argument involves a study itself. First, the statistical reliability of the study is questionable. Namely, the arguer provides no evidence that the number of sample in the study is statistically significant or that the sample were representative of all the adults in general. What's more, we are told nothing about the way the study was conducted and how well it represented the actual condition. In addition, a six year length of study may not consist a reasonable time to well evaluate the effects of different hours of sleep every day, because six years is not sufficient for some potential health problems to emerge. It's quite possible that people who sleep five hours a night in the study may suffer more health problems after six years.

Moreover, the arguer fails to give information about the severity of health problems of adults who sleep different lengths. Perhaps people who reported sleeping eight or more hours suffer from much slighter health problems than people who sleep less hours. The arguer's failure to give detailed information about the conditions of people's health in the study renders the conclusion highly suspected.

Even assuming that the people who sleep seven hours a day enjoy the best health conditions comparing with people sleep eight or more and people sleep five, the arguer too hastily assumes that seven hours is the best among all lengths of sleeping. Common sense informs me that required length of sleeping varies with age, and different people may require different time to sleep. It is quite possible that some old just need six hours' sleep per day to keep healthy. Without ruling out other possible sleeping length which may appropriate for various people, I cannot take the arguer's recommendation seriously.

To sum up, the argument is not persuasive as it stands. To make it more logically acceptable, the arguer would have to provide the way by which the study be conducted, and how many people are involved, with their ages and detailed health conditions along the study. The arguer should also substantiate that six year is a reasonable length to reflect people's most health problems which affected by sleeping. To better assess the recommendation, the arguer should also give clear evidence that seven hours is the best sleeping length that recommended for all people.

huajun15868UID: 2635461

看一下寄托上的6分作文评奖~那个东西十分有用，你现在是在一个ETS的低分模板中徘徊（诚然，攻击点都很到位，而且语言也很好）因为ETS一看到这种模式就会反感，而且他们比谁都清楚新东方课堂上面讲了什么~