TOEFL integrated writing: The sea otter

Sea otter are small mammals living along the western coast of North America. Their population has recently been declining in some locations of their habitat. The most popular theories addressing this problem are environmental pollution and mass killing by predators. In the passage emphasize is put on pollution due to oil or other industrial waste chemicals which enter the ocean. In order to reinforce this theory, the passage indicates that Orcas, which are huge whales and the main predator of sea otters, do not like such small meals very much. Moreover, it underlined that other small mammals are also disappearing in the same locations that may be due to similar exposure to environmental pollutions.

The lecturer opposed strongly with the environmental pollution theory. Three distinct reasons are provided to support this opinion. The first one is that as the population decline is occurred along the Alaskan coast, there should be some remains of intoxicated dead bodies of sea otters near the sea shore. However, such phenomenon has never happened. On the other hand, Orcas can predate a large number of sea otters without any footprint left.

The second reason is that whales have been killed by humans. Their population declined too; therefore, they try to find more accessible prays. Sea otters and other mammals which are disappearing at Alaskan coast are their new food resource.

The last reason is that whales cannot enter shallow waters and rocky locations. These are completely compatible with the locations in which sea otters have declined in number.

Votes
Average: 7.7 (6 votes)
Essay Categories

Sentence: In the passage emphasize is put on pollution due to oil or other industrial waste chemicals which enter the ocean.
Description: The fragment passage emphasize is is rare
Suggestion: Possible agreement error: Replace emphasize with None.

flaws:
You should not review the reading passage. The first paragraph can be removed. One sentence is enough for the first paragraph something like: The lecturer and the reading passage hold completely different views toward the....

Read the sample answer:
http://www.testbig.com/toefl-essays/toefl-sample-essay-integrated-essay…

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 24 in 30
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 9
No. of Words: 253 200
No. of Characters: 1293 1200
No. of Different Words: 150 150
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 3.988 4.3
Average Word Length: 5.111 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.547 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 92 80
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 70 60
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 46 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 32 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 15.812 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.966 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.375 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.305 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.495 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.019 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 4