Ethanol fuel, made from plants such as corn and sugar cane, has been advocated by some people as an alternative to gasoline in the United States. However, many critics argue that ethanol is not a good replacement for gasoline for several reasons.
First, the increased use of ethanol fuel would not help tosolve one of the biggest environmental problems caused by gasoline use: global warming. Like gasoline, ethanol releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when it is burned for fuel and carbon dioxide is greenhouse gas: it helps trap heat in the atmosphere. Thus, ethanol offers no environmental advantage over gasoline.
Second, the production of significant amounts of ethanol would dramatically reduce the amount of plants available for uses other fuel. For example, much of the corn now grown in the United States is used to feed farm animals such as cows and chickens. It is estimated that if ethanol were used to satisfy just 10 percent of the fuel needs in the United States, more than 60 percent of the corn currently grown in the united stated would have to be used to produce ethanol. If most of the corn were used to produce ethanol, a substantial source of food for animals would disappear.
Third, ethanol fuel will never be able to compete with gasoline on price. Although the prices of ethanol and gasoline for the consumer are currently about the same, this is only because of the help in the form of tax subsidies given to ethanol producers by the United States government. These tax subsidies have cost the United States government over $11 billion in the past 30 years. If the United States government were to stop helping producers in this way, the price of ethanol would increase greatly.
The reading and listening materials hold contradictory views about the use of ethanol as a subsitutute to gasoline. The reading believes that ethanol is not a good option, while the professor asserts that the reasons from passage are not convincing. He justifies his conclusion with three compelling arguments.
First of all, the reading passage claims that widespread use of ethanol contributes little to solve global warming, whereas the lecture views this issue from an opposite angle. According to him, it is true that burning process will release abundant carbon dioxide, but it will not add to environmental problem. He points out that ethanol is made of plants like corn, which will absorb and remove carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. And this process definitely can counteract the effect.
Moreover, the brief reading states that large production of ethanol may well reduce available plants for other use. However, the professor' talk refutes that this will not happen. To contrast the example mentioned in the reading, the professor argues that raw material for ethanol actually is not eaten by animals. In this sense, the amount for food will not drop.
Finally, the author contends that ethanol price does not have competitiveness comparing with gas price. By contrast, in accordance with professor, this opinion does not hold water. It is because that the need for new source will increase as the time goes by. Producer will no doubt produce more ethanol to meet the demand. The price is bound to decrease as the production increase. One study has estimated that cost of ethanol will become 40 percent lower as production become three times.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, however, if, may, moreover, so, well, whereas, while, no doubt, first of all, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 7.0 10.4613686534 67% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 5.04856512141 218% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 4.0 7.30242825607 55% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 12.0 12.0772626932 99% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 22.412803532 103% => OK
Preposition: 29.0 30.3222958057 96% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 5.01324503311 80% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1399.0 1373.03311258 102% => OK
No of words: 268.0 270.72406181 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.22014925373 5.08290768461 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.04607285448 4.04702891845 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.63781163731 2.5805825403 102% => OK
Unique words: 161.0 145.348785872 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.600746268657 0.540411800872 111% => OK
syllable_count: 429.3 419.366225166 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 3.25607064018 154% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 2.5761589404 194% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 13.0662251656 130% => OK
Sentence length: 15.0 21.2450331126 71% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 35.9082837837 49.2860985944 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 82.2941176471 110.228320801 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 15.7647058824 21.698381199 73% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.0 7.06452816374 99% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 4.33554083885 161% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 4.45695364238 157% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.27373068433 70% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.181406397027 0.272083759551 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0543362259786 0.0996497079465 55% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0449475200461 0.0662205650399 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.111953207885 0.162205337803 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0347024880167 0.0443174109184 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.0 13.3589403974 82% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.25 53.8541721854 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 11.0289183223 83% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.7 12.2367328918 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.8 8.42419426049 104% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 63.6247240618 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.0 10.498013245 76% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 25.0 Out of 30
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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.