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.
The article and the lecture both discuss the probable reason of declining in the otter population along the north-west coastline of North America. While the lecture enumerates environmental pollution as the main cause for this phenomenon, the professor believes that predation of otter by large whale specifically orca is the main reason of this decline.
First, the reading material claims the main source of oil rigs and industrial chemical pollutants in this area caused this declining of population because the increasing of concentration of water pollutants decrease resistance of not only otter but also other mammals to infection diseases which lead to their death. On the other hand, the lecturer challenges this opinion by explaining that there is no washed out the otter. She adds that if infection is the reason of otters’ death, we should see the remaining of its body. But predator can kill them and washed out of them.
Second, the author asserts that population of not only otter but also other mammal such as lions and seals have decreased as a sign of environmental disaster in that area which affected the entire ecosystem. However, the professor rebuts this argue and mentions that whales are disappeared by human hunting. Then, orca has become the main predator of the otter. It has changed its eating habit from other whales to otter. Hence, the otter population decreased a lot in recent years.
Third, the writer of the article posits that the uneven and dispersed population of the otter could be explained better with the environmental theory. The scientists consider the different concentration of pollutants as the reason of this declining pattern. Conversely, the speaker repudiates this idea by saying that uneven population of otter could be explained better by the predation hypothesis. Since, the orca could not access some shallow and rocky section of the coastline the otter which live in these areas are safer and live in a larger group.
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Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, conversely, first, hence, however, if, second, so, then, third, while, such as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 7.0 10.4613686534 67% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 5.04856512141 99% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 7.30242825607 151% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 12.0772626932 91% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 22.412803532 112% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 30.3222958057 132% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 5.01324503311 299% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1656.0 1373.03311258 121% => OK
No of words: 322.0 270.72406181 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.14285714286 5.08290768461 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.23607819155 4.04702891845 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70554471841 2.5805825403 105% => OK
Unique words: 166.0 145.348785872 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.515527950311 0.540411800872 95% => OK
syllable_count: 517.5 419.366225166 123% => 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: 11.0 8.23620309051 134% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 2.5761589404 39% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 13.0662251656 115% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 21.2450331126 99% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.7307838922 49.2860985944 141% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.4 110.228320801 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4666666667 21.698381199 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.2 7.06452816374 102% => 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 : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.27373068433 140% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.180037894009 0.272083759551 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0667443380518 0.0996497079465 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0439069745999 0.0662205650399 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.118940656488 0.162205337803 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0114407708645 0.0443174109184 26% => 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: 13.5 13.3589403974 101% => 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: 12.53 12.2367328918 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.6 8.42419426049 102% => OK
difficult_words: 80.0 63.6247240618 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.5 10.7273730684 182% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 10.498013245 99% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 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.