In recent years, many frog species around the world have declined in numbers or even gone extinct due to changes in their environment. These population declines and extinctions have serious consequences for the ecosystems in which frogs live; for example, frogs help play a role in protecting humans by eating disease-carrying insects. Several methods have been proposed to solve the problem of declining frog populations. First, frogs are being harmed by pesticides, which are chemicals used to prevent insects from damaging farm crops such as corn and sugarcane. Pesticides often spread from farmland into neighboring frog habitats. Once pesticides enter a frog’s body, they attack the nervous system, leading to severe breathing problems. If laws prohibited the farmers from using harmful pesticides near sensitive frog populations, it would significantly reduce the harm pesticides cause to frogs. A second major factor in frog population decline is a fungus that has spread around the world with deadly effect. The fungus causes thickening of the skin, and since frogs use their skin to absorb water, infected frogs die of dehydration. Recently, researchers have discovered several ways to treat or prevent infection, including antifungal medication and treatments that kill the fungus with heat. Those treatments, if applied on a large scale, would protect sensitive frog populations from infection. Third, in a great many cases, frog populations are in decline simply because their natural habitats are threatened. Since most frog species lay their eggs in water, they are dependent on water and wetland habitats. Many such habitats are threatened by human activities, including excessive water use or the draining of wetlands to make them suitable for development. If key water habitats such as lakes and marshes were better protected from excessive water use and development, many frog species would recover.
The reading and passage and the lecture both discuss the decline in frog population in certain habitats. The article proposes three solutions to tackle this issue. However, the lecturer identifies several problems with all the methods mentioned in the reading passage.
To begin with, the lecturer argues that stricter regulations on pesticide use for farmers who are close to endangered frog population would put the farmers in a severe disadvantage economically. As pesticides are often used to decrease crop loss, limiting their use would make farmers lose more crops and have a lower yields than competing farms.
Moreover, the lecturer indicates that the new antifungal treatment must be applied to each individual frog. This would be obviously impractical if we tried to apply it on a large scale as catching each frog to apply the treatment is not possible. In addition, this treatment does not prevent the frogs from passing the infection to the offspring. As a result, the treatment would need to be applied to each new generation, which would be complicated and expensive.
Finally, the speaker holds that prohibiting humans from excessively using water or development is unlikely to prevent ongoing habitat destruction. The lecturer further elaborates that the real threat is climate change. According to the lecturer, climate change contributed to disappearance of many wetlands and habitats causing entire species to go extinct.
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| 2020-01-16 | Vishnupri | 3 | view |
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- tunguska 3
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- methane gas explosion vs asteroid 80
- Animal fossils usually provide very little opportunity to study the actual animal tissues, because in fossils the animals' living tissues have been largely replaced by minerals. Thus, scientists were very excited recently when it appeared that a 70-m 3
- Archaeologists have recently found a fossil of a 150-million-year-old mammalknown as Repenornamus robustus (R. robustus). Interestingly, the mammal'sstomach contained the remains of a psittacosaur dinosaur. Some researchers havetherefore suggested th 73
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, however, if, moreover, so, in addition, as a result, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 10.4613686534 86% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 5.04856512141 139% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 12.0772626932 50% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 10.0 22.412803532 45% => OK
Preposition: 26.0 30.3222958057 86% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 5.01324503311 239% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1234.0 1373.03311258 90% => OK
No of words: 226.0 270.72406181 83% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.46017699115 5.08290768461 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.87727950738 4.04702891845 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86458208593 2.5805825403 111% => OK
Unique words: 143.0 145.348785872 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.632743362832 0.540411800872 117% => OK
syllable_count: 379.8 419.366225166 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.55342163355 109% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 3.25607064018 61% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 1.25165562914 160% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 21.2450331126 85% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 35.4999021908 49.2860985944 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.833333333 110.228320801 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.8333333333 21.698381199 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.66666666667 7.06452816374 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 4.33554083885 46% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.27373068433 94% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.14071651883 0.272083759551 52% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0467366705083 0.0996497079465 47% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0466371409407 0.0662205650399 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0724811845653 0.162205337803 45% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.013064268828 0.0443174109184 29% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 13.3589403974 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 53.8541721854 83% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 11.0289183223 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.39 12.2367328918 118% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.7 8.42419426049 115% => OK
difficult_words: 74.0 63.6247240618 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 10.7273730684 84% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 10.498013245 88% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 86.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 26.0 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.