Question

Read the rough draft of a student’s conclusion to an argumentative editorial. (1) Year-round schooling would help student achievement. (2) Not so much information would have to be crammed into nine months. (3) Furthermore, the elimination of long breaks, particularly summer break, would significantly reduce "learning loss” and the additional time wasted at the beginning of each academic year to reteach previously learned material. (4) It is clear that year-round schooling helps students learn and retain more. (5) The United States is not the only country to experiment with a year-round school schedule. (6) Although many still claim that evidence about year-round school and its link to higher achievement is inconclusive, these people need to open their eyes and see that students in these schools consistently score higher on certain assessments than students who attend schools with traditional nine-month calendars. (7) It is about time that we replaced our outdated and inefficient school calendars. Which revision would most improve sentence 7?

Answer 1

Since it is an argumentative editorial, the correct answer to which revision would most improve sentence 7 (It is about time that we replaced our outdated and inefficient school calendars) is the revision upon the presence of the first person in its plural form, expressed by the pronoun "we".

An argumentative essay has as characteristic a neutral tone. It consists of a text written in the third person, and not in the first person, which would bring a personal tone to the text. The pronoun "we" gives the reader the impression that the speaker is representing a specific group of people with his speech, and not providing an argumentative opinion based on facts and data. The third person conveys an objective opinion based on arguments, and not a personal opinion that can cause mistrust on the reader because it can imply a lack of knowledge.

Therefore, the revision that would most improve sentence 7 is the replacement of the first person "we", in the sentence, by the third person, which would give a neutral tone to the argumentative editorial.