The sea otter is a small mammal that lives in waters along the western coast of North America from California to Alaska. When some sea otter populations off the Alaskan coast started rapidly declining a few years ago, it caused much concern because sea otters play an important ecological role in the coastal ecosystem. Experts started investigating the cause of the decline and quickly realized that there were two possible explanations: environmental pollution or attacks by predators. initially, the pollution hypothesis seemed the more likely of the two.
The first reason why pollution seemed the more likely cause was that there were known sources of it along the Alaskan coast, such as oil rigs and other sources of industrial chemical pollution. Water samples from the area revealed increased levels of chemicals that could decrease the otters' resistance to life-threatening infections and thus could indirectly cause their deaths.
Second, other sea mammals such as seals and sea lions along the Alaskan coast were also declining, indicating that whatever had endangered the otters was affecting other sea mammals as well. This fact again pointed to environmental pollution, since it usually affects the entire ecosystem rather than a single species. Only widely occurring predators, such as the orca (a large predatory whale), could have the same effect, but orcas prefer to hunt much larger prey, such as other whales.
Third, scientists believed that the pollution hypothesis could also explain the uneven pattern of otter decline: at some Alaskan locations, the otter populations declined greatly, while at others they remained stable. Some experts explained these observations by suggesting that ocean currents or other environmental factors may have created uneven concentrations of pollutants along the coast.
Both the reading passage and lecture discuss why the otter populations off the Alaska coast began to reduce a few years ago swiftly. The former argues that it was caused by environmental pollution, but the latter contradicts each of these points and suggests that it was because of the attacks by predators.
First of all, the author contends that oil rigs and other sources of chemical pollution from industrial factories contaminated the sea. Those chemicals could harm the otters and eventually lead to their deaths. In contrast, the professor in the lecture maintains that it was unlikely for pollution to cause the decline of the otters because no one could find any otters washed onshore. Moreover, no otters would be found on shore if they were hunted and eaten by predators.
Second of all, the passage opines that because other sea mammals such as seals and sea lions are also reduced, the cause would be likely to be sea pollution, which affects a whole ecosystem instead of only one species. However, the lecturer rebuts that although orcas normally hunted whales, most whales were hunted by humans, which left orcas no choice but to change their diets and hunt smaller species such as otters, seals, and sea lions for survival.
Finally, the text claims that uneven focuses of pollutants along the coast supported the pollution hypothesis, which explained the inconsistence of declines of different otter populations. On the other hand, the listening counters that the drop of an otter population relied on its location. The otter population would tremendously decline if it were easy for orcas to access. If it were a shallow or rocky location, the orcas would find it difficult to approach, which led to the stability of the otter population in that location.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-04-24 | sonyeoso | 70 | view |
| 2022-10-29 | Sumilak | 70 | view |
| 2022-08-27 | yxfets6 | 80 | view |
| 2022-08-27 | dnudlyjgtnudbphwev | 73 | view |
| 2022-03-19 | Sudan Devkota | 90 | view |
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, moreover, second, so, as to, in contrast, such as, first of all, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 10.4613686534 105% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 5.04856512141 119% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 7.30242825607 151% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 12.0772626932 108% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 22.412803532 94% => OK
Preposition: 33.0 30.3222958057 109% => 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: 1488.0 1373.03311258 108% => OK
No of words: 295.0 270.72406181 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.04406779661 5.08290768461 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.14434120667 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59529993053 2.5805825403 101% => OK
Unique words: 163.0 145.348785872 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.552542372881 0.540411800872 102% => OK
syllable_count: 457.2 419.366225166 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 3.25607064018 31% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 21.2450331126 113% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.1980766783 49.2860985944 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.0 110.228320801 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.5833333333 21.698381199 113% => OK
Discourse Markers: 10.1666666667 7.06452816374 144% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.27373068433 47% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.275208833436 0.272083759551 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.096216618274 0.0996497079465 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0570070803591 0.0662205650399 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.157798854652 0.162205337803 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0167116816659 0.0443174109184 38% => 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: 14.6 13.3589403974 109% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 53.8541721854 103% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 11.0289183223 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.25 12.2367328918 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.06 8.42419426049 108% => OK
difficult_words: 79.0 63.6247240618 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 10.498013245 110% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 85.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 25.5 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.