In the United States, it had been common practice since the late 1960s no to suppress natural forest fires. The “let it burn” policy assumed that forest fire would burn themselves out quickly, without causing much damage. However, in the summer of 1988, forest fires in Yellowstone, the most famous national park in the country, burned for more than two months and spread over a huge area, encompassing more than 800,000 acres. Because of the large scale of the damage, many people called for replacing the “let it burn” policy with a policy of extinguishing forest fires as soon as they appeared. Three kinds of damage caused by the “let it burn” policy were emphasized by critics of the policy.
First, Yellowstone fires caused tremendous damage to the park’s trees and other vegetation. When the fires finally died out, nearly one third of Yellowstone’s land had been scorched. Trees were charred and blackened from flames and smoke. Smaller plants were entirely incinerated. What had been a national treasure now seemed like a devastated wasteland.
Second, the park wildlife was affected as well. Large animals like deer and elk were seen fleeing the fire. Many smaller species were probably unable to escape. There was also concern that the destruction of habitats and the disruption of food chains would make it impossible for the animals that survived the fire to return.
Third, the fires compromised the value of the park as a tourist attraction, which in turn had negative consequences for the local economy. With several thousand acres of the park engulfed in flames, the tourist season was cut short, and a large number of visitors decided to stay away. Of course, local businesses that depended on park visitors suffered as a result.
The reading asserts that the let it burn policy is not beneficial to the nature as it was proved in forest fires in yellow stone. On the other hand, the lecturer finds all the reasons unacceptable and provides some reasons to refute them all.
First, the reading argues that the fires that died out too late had damaged the park in the way that in turned into a devastated wasteland. However, the lecturer brings up the ideal that this fire caused a renewal in vegetation. New and certain plants had the chance to grow since they had unshaded space and the heat caused by the fire let them grow.
Second, the passage asserts that the fire made the condition impossible for the animals to continue their lives. On the contrary, the professor underlines the fact that this fire helped the animals to recover. New opportunities showed up. Ideal habitats for animals like rabbits became available. So new predators appeared and in this way food chain got stronger.
Third, the reading claims that the fire had negative effect on local businesses and tourism industry which relied on the park. On the other hand, the speaker finds this idea wrong and sheds light on the fact that the next year and later years after the fire, everything turned into normal conditions and again tourist came back to the park.
- Populations of the yellow cedar, a species of tree that is common in northwestern North America, have been steadily declining for more than a century now, since about 1880. Scientists have advanced several hypotheses explain this decline.One hypothesis is 75
- Ethanol fuel, made from plants such as corn and sugar cane, has been advocated by some people as an alternative to gasoline in the United States. However, many critics argue that ethanol is not a good replacement for gasoline for several reasons.First, th 76
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Telephone has greater influence on people’s lives than television has. 73
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement Most businesspeople are motivated only by the desire for more money 91
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The government should spend more money on improving access to the Internet than on public transportation. 90
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, second, so, third, on the contrary, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 2.0 10.4613686534 19% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 0.0 5.04856512141 0% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 7.30242825607 110% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 12.0772626932 83% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 22.412803532 85% => OK
Preposition: 27.0 30.3222958057 89% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 5.01324503311 40% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1085.0 1373.03311258 79% => OK
No of words: 227.0 270.72406181 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.77973568282 5.08290768461 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.88156143495 4.04702891845 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.27519286039 2.5805825403 88% => OK
Unique words: 131.0 145.348785872 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.577092511013 0.540411800872 107% => OK
syllable_count: 333.0 419.366225166 79% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 3.25607064018 0% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 21.2450331126 85% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 44.9839477542 49.2860985944 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 90.4166666667 110.228320801 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.9166666667 21.698381199 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.75 7.06452816374 81% => 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 : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.27373068433 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.149663693044 0.272083759551 55% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0518538327221 0.0996497079465 52% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0635137354351 0.0662205650399 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0885487111204 0.162205337803 55% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0603681850723 0.0443174109184 136% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.5 13.3589403974 79% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 53.8541721854 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 11.0289183223 83% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.44 12.2367328918 85% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.15 8.42419426049 97% => OK
difficult_words: 52.0 63.6247240618 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 10.498013245 88% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 76.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 23.0 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.