TPO-10 - Integrated Writing Task
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 muchlarger 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.
The article states that more likely pollution is a reason for the declination of sea otter along the western coast of North America from California to Alaska and provides three reasons for support. However, the professor refutes each of an author's point and discusses why predation, mainly by orcas, is a better explanation of evidence presented in the reading passage.
First, the reading claims that increased level of pollution by oil rigs and factory chemicals, detected along the Alaskan coast could cause the deaths of sea otters by making them vulnerable to infections. The professor refutes this point by saying that no dead sea otters have been found washed up on the shore, this weakens the pollution theory but supports the predator theory, since the predators could eat the otters immediately as they caught them, leaving no remaining hence can’t washed up on shore.
Second, the article posits that the decline of other sea mammals like seals and sea lions indicates to a systemic cause such as environmental pollution. The orca, a predator that could conceivably hunt several sea mammal species, is not likely the cause as it prefers larger prey like whales. However, the professor says that whales have been disappeared from the coast because of human hunters, so orcas started hunting smaller prey such as sea lions, seals, and otters.
Third, the reading says that the decline of sea otter populations is greater in some locations than in other which seems consistent with the pollution theory since varying concentrations of pollutants may cause an uneven pattern. The professor opposes this point by explaining that the uneven pattern of sea otter decline can be understood by predation theory. According to this theory, some locations where sea otters live are available to orcas; there the number of sea otters has declined greatly and sea otters at shallow and rocky locations can’t be found by large orcas, hence here there populations have not been declined.
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Sentence: The professor refutes this point by saying that no dead sea otters have been found washed up on the shore, this weakens the pollution theory but supports the predator theory, since the predators could eat the otters immediately as they caught them, leaving no remaining hence can't washed up on shore.
Description: A modal auxillary is not usually followed by a verb, past participle
Suggestion: Refer to cannot and washed
since the predators could eat the otters immediately as they caught them,
Description: 'them', 'they' refers to what? Be sensitive to use pronouns.
flaws:
No. of Words: 324 250
Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 26 in 30
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 10 12
No. of Words: 324 250
No. of Characters: 1630 1200
No. of Different Words: 164 150
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.243 4.2
Average Word Length: 5.031 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.473 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 86 60
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 49 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 32.4 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.024 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.7 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.435 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.681 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.143 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 4