Education stakeholder
Section A
The writer is an education stakeholder who has had an interest in questioning the significance of paying students for good grades. He happens to be an education columnist for The Washington Post.
The writer is addressing the issue of rewarding students for every good grade on Advanced Placement math, science and English tests. He is opposed to the fact that students should be awarded for every good grade they score on Advanced Placement math, science and English tests as a means of motivating them to work hard in the subjects.
The writer’s purpose for addressing the issue of rewarding students for good grades is to dissect the notion that to improve student’s performance in AP and IB, there is a need to reward them. He tends to agree with Tony Lewis’ sentiments that, “When students are provided rigorous, relevant, exciting curricula, that’s the motivator, not money.”
The writer conveys the idea in an informed manner citing various pieces of evidence, including his own experience as a student. For example, he says that his parents never paid him money for passing tests just as other students are being paid.
The audience is the education stakeholders in AP and IB; this is because; they are the ones that get involved in the program. As such, they are the ones being addressed. To be specific, they include stakeholders in the National Math and Science Initiative, schools: teachers and students and parents.
Section B
The overall claim of the article is that it is not a good idea to claim to be motivating students by rewarding them with money for every good grade. First, as evidenced by Kristin Klopfenstein, there has not been any proof that indeed the cash incentives work to motivate the students. Besides, as per Tony Lewis of the Donnell-Kay Foundation in Denver, “When students are provided rigorous, relevant, exciting curricula, that’s the motivator, not money.” Additionally, the article supports its claim by attaching it with the Harvard study that has cast doubt on the idea that more learning can be motivated by money. Consequently, the article draws its proof by quoting Alfie Kohn’s view that claiming to motivate students through monetary incentives “actually undermines the kind we want to promote: interest in the learning itself.” Therefore, we can conclude that the overall claim of the article is that giving money to students as motivational incentives is not a good idea.
The claim here is that the writer’s hesitation to embrace the idea of paying students for good grades are has to do with the way he was raised: his parents never paid him for good grades as the. It qualifies as a claim because, from his argument, maybe had he been raised differently; he would have embraced the idea. For instance, students at National Math and Science Initiative schools are rewarded $100 for every AP exam they pass. This data serves as data for the overall claim because it indicates that indeed students are given or rewarded with monetary incentives. The section where the writer says that it is okay for the teachers to be given the money incentives acts a warrant because, this section clearly shows that the writer is not tied to being against the idea of giving out money incentives in general but, it is only the money to the students that bother him.
Paragraphs 5 and 6 do offer support for paying students for scoring better grades. Indeed, I reason that paying students for achieving better grades is a good idea because it can act as a motivating factor among students to work hard. Indeed, who does not need to be motivated by being rewarded? Reward help encourages participants in any task. Money issued to students too is a reward. As such, yes, money power can work to motivate students. As such, it is not a bad idea. Therefore, the education stakeholders who are supporting this idea of paying students money for every exam passed can be justified.
Paragraphs 8, 10 and 11 do offer a counterargument to paying students for scoring better grades. For instance, in paragraph 8, Tony Lewis of the Donnell-Kay Foundation in Denver argues that “When students are provided rigorous, relevant, exciting curricula, that’s the motivator, not money.” Besides, Alfie Kohn says such type of motivation “actually undermines the kind we want to promote: interest in the learning itself.” Conversely, I think, besides the provision of rigorous, relevant, exciting curricula as suggested by Tony Lewis, motivating students through rewards such as money is essential. As such, it cannot be overlooked. Therefore, it is not a bad idea.
The qualifier in paragraph 11 is “most”. It is considered a qualifier in this case because it emphasizes on how successful AP and IB results in the country have been, and yet the kids are not being paid. Besides, it emphasizes on the massive number of students who do not need money in the country.
Section C
The overall article claims that in the unknown near future, autonomous vehicles will be will availed and widely used. For instance, Madrigal indicates that “Huge, huge, huge money is at stake in the race to build autonomous vehicles of all kinds.” Besides, he hints that “the field of real competitors has grown. More companies have attained the basic ability to run a self-driving car on the streets of California for fairly extended periods of time.” Therefore, it is evidenced from the article that with the so many trials that companies are carrying out, soon, the autonomous vehicles will be widely availed and used.
The claim in paragraph 3 and 4 is that Waymo, the self-driving-car project has been the leading in the autonomous vehicles testing and projects. For instance, Waymo drove a whopping 1.2 million miles in the state, which is not even close to its primary testing ground. This data services as data for the overall claim: that in the unknown near future, autonomous vehicles will be will availed and widely used because the data clearly shows positive progress toward achieving unveiling of the autonomous vehicles. Therefore the data is relevant and works to support this overall claim.
The qualifier in paragraph 10 is “most”. It qualifies as a qualifier because it gives emphasize on the advancement of companies and the ability that progress has in expanding the company’s driving greatly.
Nuro’s regulatory filing was also unusually detailed in its description of the problems that its vehicles encountered, making concrete the general issues that self-driving cars can encounter. Among them:
Cars can have trouble identifying objects.
The mapping information they rely on to function can be out-of-date or inaccurate.
- They can have problems with their sensor inputs.
And they can make bad decisions with the information they have; the filing includes entries such as “planned trajectory failed to leave adequate room for parked car on narrow road” and “planned trajectory resulted in erroneous sharp braking, recklessly tailgating motorist may have been unable to stop.”
Paragraph 13 does not support the overall claim: that in the unknown near future, autonomous vehicles will be will availed and widely used. This is because of the many project faults that have been indicated in this paragraph. For instance, Madrigal demonstrates that “the autonomous vehicles can simply make bad decisions with the information they have” Therefore there is a need to work to eliminate all those faults before the vehicles can be introduced. As such, this serves as a big blow to the overall claim because without solving the shortcomings. Then we may not have the vehicles soon as indicated by the overall claim.
Yes. The article offers some rebuttals. For instance, some of the rebuttals include when: the writer says that, “self-driven cars promise to change…” but again he says that, “the only problem is, no one knows quite when and how.” Another instance is when the writer says, “but until that day, we don’t know how far up the ladder toward true autonomy, their approach can take them.”