Private collectors have been selling and buying fossils, the petrified remains of ancient organisms, ever since the eighteenth century. In recent years, however, the sale of fossils, particularly of dinosaurs and other large vertebrates, has grown into a big business. Rare and important fossils are now being sold to private ownership for millions of dollars. This is an unfortunate development for both scientists and the general public. The public suffers because fossils that would otherwise be donated to museums where everyone can see them are sold to private collectors who do not allow the public to view their collections. Making it harder for the public to see fossils can lead to a decline in public interest in fossils, which would be a pity. More importantly, scientists are likely to lose access to some of the most important fossils and thereby miss out on potentially crucial discoveries about extinct life forms. Wealthy fossil buyers with a desire to own the rarest and most important fossils can spend virtually limitless amounts of money to acquire them. Scientists and the museums and universities they work for often cannot compete successfully for fossils against millionaire fossil buyers. Moreover, commercial fossil collectors often destroy valuable scientific evidence associated with the fossils they unearth. Most commercial fossil collectors are untrained or uninterested in carrying out the careful field work and documentation that reveal the most about animal life in the past. For example, scientists have learned about the biology of nest-building dinosaurs called oviraptors by carefully observing the exact position of oviraptor fossils in the ground and the presence of other fossils in the immediate surroundings. Commercial fossil collectors typically pay no attention to how fossils lie in the ground or to the smaller fossils that may surround bigger ones.
The reading passage argues that private ownership of fossils would be bad for both the public and the scientific community. However, the speaker in the lecture casts doubt on the claims made in the article. She mentions that the concerns in the passage are greatly exaggerated.
First and foremost, the author assumes that citizens would lose access to many fossils as private owners keep them out of public display. Also, people's interest in fossils might drop as well. Nevertheless, the lecturer indicates that the private sector would actually increase the public exposure to fossils. She further elaborates that the rife of excavated fossils would lead to affordable prices, even for the low level institutions, such as schools and libraries, which would routinely purchase these fossils for display. As a result, more individuals would encounter fossils during their visits to public places.
Secondly, the writer holds that scientists and researchers would miss out on many discoveries since the organizations they work for, such as universities, would not be able to compete with millionaires to acquire the unearthed fossils. In contrast, the professor in the lecture brings up the fact that only scientists could put value on the discovered fossils and all fossils have to go through the hands of academics before making their way to the market. Therefore, there would be no loss of data.
Lastly, the excerpt contends that commercial excavators are untrained and uncommitted to field work to document historical facts and they would not pay attention to immediate surroundings that constitutes valuable evidence. The lecture, on the other hand, states that if it were not for businessmen and companies, many fossils would have gone untapped. According to the lecture, it's better to bring more fossils to light than to leave them underground even though some scientifc data might get lost in the process of excavation.
- grain based food 83
- An international organization has started issuing certifications to wood companies who meet a high ecological standard by conserving resources and recycling materials in an effort to encourage ecological sustainable forestry practices. Certified companies 80
- Some people believe that the Earth is being harmed damaged by human activity Others feel that human activity makes the Earth a better place to live What is your opinion Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer 86
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? There is nothing that young people can teach older people. Use specific reasons and examples to support your position. 88
- How do movies or television influence people's behavior? use reasons and specific examples to support your answer. 70
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, however, if, lastly, nevertheless, second, secondly, so, therefore, well, in contrast, such as, as a result, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 6.0 10.4613686534 57% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 5.04856512141 277% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 8.0 7.30242825607 110% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 12.0772626932 91% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 22.412803532 94% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 30.3222958057 129% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 5.01324503311 80% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1642.0 1373.03311258 120% => OK
No of words: 307.0 270.72406181 113% => OK
Chars per words: 5.34853420195 5.08290768461 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.18585898806 4.04702891845 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.746961757 2.5805825403 106% => OK
Unique words: 180.0 145.348785872 124% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.586319218241 0.540411800872 108% => OK
syllable_count: 491.4 419.366225166 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 21.2450331126 99% => OK
Sentence length SD: 64.3647529986 49.2860985944 131% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.285714286 110.228320801 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.9285714286 21.698381199 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 10.6428571429 7.06452816374 151% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 4.45695364238 157% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.27373068433 23% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0547084859586 0.272083759551 20% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0217934045053 0.0996497079465 22% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.027789378618 0.0662205650399 42% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0359413552515 0.162205337803 22% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.00849385132335 0.0443174109184 19% => 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: 14.7 13.3589403974 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 53.8541721854 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 11.0289183223 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.75 12.2367328918 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.1 8.42419426049 108% => OK
difficult_words: 86.0 63.6247240618 135% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 10.7273730684 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 10.498013245 99% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.2008830022 89% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 3.33333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 Out of 30
---------------------
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.