Sea otters are a small mammal that lives in the waters along North America's west coast from California to Alaska. A few years ago some of the sea otter populations off of the Alaskan coast started to decline rapidly and raised several concerns because of their important role in the coastal ecosystem. Experts began investigating and came up with two possible explanations. One explanation was environmental pollution and the second was attacks by predators.
At first it seemed as if the pollution was the most likely cause for the population decline. One reason pollution was more likely was because of the known pollution sources along the Alaskan coast such as oil rigs. Also water samples taken in the area showed increased levels of chemicals that could decrease the otters' immune systems and indirectly result in their deaths.
Another thing that pointed to pollution as the culprit was the decline of other sea mammals such as seals in the same areas. This indicated that whatever was affecting the otters was also affecting the other sea mammals. Environmental pollution usually affects an entire ecosystem instead of just one species. Only predators that occurred in a large area, such as orcas (a large predatory whale), could cause the same effect, but they usually hunt larger prey.
Finally, scientists believed the pollution hypothesis would also explain the uneven pattern of otter decline. In some Alaskan locations the otter population declined greatly while other populations remained stable. Some experts suggested this could be explained by ocean currents, or other environmental factor, might have created uneven concentrations of pollutants along the coast.
The lecture holds an opposite point of view to that of the reading passage on the topic of why the sea otter population declined off the Alaskan coast. According to the reading passage, the rapid decline in the sea otter numbers was because of water pollution in the area. However, the lecture points out that it's most likely due to predators.
First, the reading passage states that pollution is the reason behind the otter sea population decline especially that there are many sources of pollution in the area like oil rigs and other industrial and chemical pollutants. On the other hand, the lecture illustrates that although analysis revealed increased levels of chemicals in the area, this should not prove the pollution theory because if sea otters were killed by infections, their bodies would have washed up to the shore. Given that no washed-up sea otter bodies were found, we can conclude that it must be predators not pollution.
Second, the reading passage claims that if we take into consideration that other sea mammals are declining in numbers too, we can say with confidence that it's pollution because only pollution that could have an effect on the entire ecosystem, given that Orca whales, which could have a similar effect by predation, usually hunt larger prey like whales not small mammals like sea otter. The lecture refutes these claims mentioning that due to the fact that whales populations started to disappear in the area because of human hunters leading orcas to search for alternative diet in small mammals like sea otter, sea lion and others and this led to the decline of all these sea mammals.
Lastly, the lecture challenges the reading passage in explaining why sea otter numbers are declining faster in some areas while relatively stable in other areas. The reading passage argues that that happened because of uneven distribution of pollutants which are at high levels in some areas and at lower levels in other areas. In contrast, the professor in the lecture believes that it is because the nature of the location and how accessible it is to Orcas. The locations which are easily accessible to the orcas will not be safe for sea otters because they are going to be easy prey for the Orcas. However, shallow and rocky locations which are not accessible to Orcas will have larger number of sea otter.
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- Sea otters are a small mammal that lives in the waters along North America's west coast from California to Alaska. A few years ago some of the sea otter populations off of the Alaskan coast started to decline rapidly and raised several concerns beca 73
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, lastly, second, so, while, as to, in contrast, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 10.4613686534 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 5.04856512141 178% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 7.30242825607 96% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 12.0772626932 174% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 22.412803532 138% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 57.0 30.3222958057 188% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 5.01324503311 279% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1952.0 1373.03311258 142% => OK
No of words: 396.0 270.72406181 146% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.92929292929 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46091344257 4.04702891845 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.42854731412 2.5805825403 94% => OK
Unique words: 185.0 145.348785872 127% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.467171717172 0.540411800872 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 624.6 419.366225166 149% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 3.25607064018 123% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.23620309051 134% => 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: 13.0 13.0662251656 99% => OK
Sentence length: 30.0 21.2450331126 141% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 85.6285496824 49.2860985944 174% => OK
Chars per sentence: 150.153846154 110.228320801 136% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.4615384615 21.698381199 140% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.84615384615 7.06452816374 97% => 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 : 3.0 4.45695364238 67% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.27373068433 94% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.240616400037 0.272083759551 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.102647106587 0.0996497079465 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0731731745629 0.0662205650399 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.169198271581 0.162205337803 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0519923728629 0.0443174109184 117% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.0 13.3589403974 127% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.03 53.8541721854 76% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 11.0289183223 136% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.91 12.2367328918 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.87 8.42419426049 105% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 63.6247240618 148% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 10.7273730684 98% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.0 10.498013245 133% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 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.