Easter Island, located in the Pacific Ocean about 4000 miles from the coast of Chile, is one of the most isolated places in the world. It is best known for the Moai, monolithic statues of human figures carved from volcanic rock and located around the island. While today the Moai are a great source of revenue from tourists who flock to the island, research suggests that their construction actually led to the decline and eventual collapse of the island’s culture.
First of all, evidence suggests that the obsession which the people of Easter Island had with building the Moai led to non-productive use of natural resources, specifically of the island’s forests. The Moai were huge, with some weighing nearly eighty tons. Moving them from the quarries where they were carved to their intended resting spots required the use of wooden tracks equipped with log rollers. The islanders cut down vast amounts of valuable trees for no other purpose that to move the statues across their island.
Moai construction continued for centuries and eventually every single tree on the island was cut down to build the aforementioned tracks. This complete deforestation had disastrous effects on the island. Migratory birds, which had been a big part of the islander’s diet stopped coming to Easter Island. Meanwhile, the fishing industry on the island collapsed because the leaves of the island’s palm trees had been used to construct fishing boats. In addition, soil erosion caused by the lack of trees made it difficult to even grown food.
Finally, the above issues lead to a major population decline. From a high of twenty thousand people at the peak of its civilization, only two thousand people remained when European explorers first reached Easter Island in the eighteenth century. This mass die-off was clearly a result of the food shortage described above. Human remains from the period suggest that the population descended into cannibalism as things got progressively worse over the years.
The lecture talks about the findings from recent research on the Moai, a popular tourist attraction in Easter Island located 4000 miles from Chile. While the passage argues that the construction of Moai led to the collapse of the island’s culture, the speaker explains evidence that suggests otherwise.
First, the humongous Moai statues were not rolled over logs to move them from the place of construction to the place of installation. They were in fact moved by tilting them using a series of ropes with dozens of men wrapping the rope around them at either ends of the ropes and then pulling the Moai statues. This evidence from the recent research contradicts what the author states that they were rolled on logs and tracks made of wood.
Second, the palm seeds excavated from the island suggest that there were rats in abundance on the island. In fact, the first people to visit the island brought back rats as food. Theorists suggest that these rats had a deadly impact on the palm trees - feeding on palm trees leading to the decline in their population and eventually causing extinction of the palm trees. This opposes the author who states that due to prolonged deforestation and soil erosion, the folks on the island could not grow even food and the collapse of the fishing industry due to lack of palm trees whose leaves were used to build fishing boats.
Third, the claim that the population had declined from 20,000 in 400 A.D to 2000 in the eighteenth century sounds faulty. The findings from carbon dating analysis show that the civilisation had only started in 1200 A.D. As a result, it is spurious to believe that the island had a maximum population of 20,000. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the island cannot support no more than 2000 population which was present when the European explorers visited the island in the eighteenth century. This rebuts the passage which argues deforestation, inability to grow food, and cannibalism lead to the collapse of the island's culture.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-09-23 | moogii58 | 75 | view |
| 2022-01-25 | Pema_Norzang | 3 | view |
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 192, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... moved by tilting them using a series of ropes with dozens of men wrapping the ro...
^^
Line 3, column 228, Rule ID: NOUN_AROUND_IT[1]
Message: Consider using 'the surrounding rope'?
Suggestion: the surrounding rope
...s of ropes with dozens of men wrapping the rope around them at either ends of the ropes and then pu...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 72, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: D
...ation had declined from 20,000 in 400 A.D to 2000 in the eighteenth century sound...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, second, so, then, third, while, in fact, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 7.0 10.4613686534 67% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 2.0 5.04856512141 40% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 12.0772626932 124% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 22.412803532 94% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 30.3222958057 175% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 5.01324503311 319% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1678.0 1373.03311258 122% => OK
No of words: 339.0 270.72406181 125% => OK
Chars per words: 4.94985250737 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.29091512845 4.04702891845 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.47799310471 2.5805825403 96% => OK
Unique words: 181.0 145.348785872 125% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.533923303835 0.540411800872 99% => OK
syllable_count: 487.8 419.366225166 116% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.55342163355 90% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 3.25607064018 154% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 1.25165562914 160% => 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: 13.0 13.0662251656 99% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 21.2450331126 122% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 43.9745757638 49.2860985944 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.076923077 110.228320801 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.0769230769 21.698381199 120% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.92307692308 7.06452816374 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 4.19205298013 72% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 4.33554083885 23% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => 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: 0.223247733737 0.272083759551 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0876760133855 0.0996497079465 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0885323744108 0.0662205650399 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.147280562395 0.162205337803 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0891676812912 0.0443174109184 201% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 13.3589403974 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 62.01 53.8541721854 115% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 11.0289183223 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.73 12.2367328918 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.84 8.42419426049 105% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 63.6247240618 132% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 10.7273730684 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 10.498013245 118% => 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: 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.