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 reading and the lecture are both about the possible reasons for the decline in the Sea Otter population along the western coast of North America. The author of the reading claims that pollution is the most possible hypothesis that could explain this. The lecturer challenges the claims made by the author. She is of the opinion that the predators could be most likely cause of population decline in Sea Otters.
To begin with, the author argues that there were many known sources of pollution near the coast which could be the potential polluters of the ocean. The article mentions an increase in the chemical levels were found in the water samples and are the cause of this. This specific argument is challenged by the lecturer. He says no dead Sea Otters were found along the shore and this contradicts the pollution hypothesis according to which dead bodies should be found. Additionally, he says that the predation hypothesis can only explain this lack of dead otters as predators usually eat the entire animal.
Secondly, the author suggests that pollution is causing a decline in other sea mammals too. In the article, it is stated that predation by larger animals like the Orca whale is definetily not a reason for this as such animals only prey on larger animals(whales). However, the author rebuts this mentioning that the whales are disappeared because of human hunting and eventually Orca has to shift its diet to much smaller animals. To elaborate on this, he brings up the point that this shift in the diet of larger animals like Orca is the reason for a decline in animals like Sea Otters and other similar animals.
Finally, the author posits that the uneven pattern of Sea Otters population can be explained by the pollution hypothesis, the pollutants were spread out in the uneven pattern in the water. Moreover, in the article, it is said that ocean currents have brought the pollutants into this irregular pattern. In contrast, the lecturer position is that the inaccessibility of the Sea Otters location is the reason for the uneven pattern. He notes that shallow or rock bottoms are hard to access by Orcas and thus have a high number of Otters compared to easily accessible places.
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| 2023-04-24 | sonyeoso | 70 | view |
| 2022-10-29 | Sumilak | 70 | view |
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 256, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ble hypothesis that could explain this. The lecturer challenges the claims made by ...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, however, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, thus, as to, in contrast, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 10.4613686534 210% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 5.04856512141 119% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 7.30242825607 96% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 12.0772626932 124% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 22.412803532 138% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 50.0 30.3222958057 165% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 5.01324503311 259% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1835.0 1373.03311258 134% => OK
No of words: 376.0 270.72406181 139% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.88031914894 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40348946061 4.04702891845 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.52726055083 2.5805825403 98% => OK
Unique words: 174.0 145.348785872 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.462765957447 0.540411800872 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 580.5 419.366225166 138% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 3.25607064018 246% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 2.5761589404 194% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 13.0662251656 130% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 21.2450331126 104% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.3866686778 49.2860985944 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.941176471 110.228320801 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.1176470588 21.698381199 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.76470588235 7.06452816374 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 4.33554083885 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.27373068433 164% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.21038841959 0.272083759551 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0769928421571 0.0996497079465 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0863829174685 0.0662205650399 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.139458914177 0.162205337803 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0541057290221 0.0443174109184 122% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 13.3589403974 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 53.8541721854 107% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 11.0289183223 97% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.02 12.2367328918 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.34 8.42419426049 99% => OK
difficult_words: 86.0 63.6247240618 135% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 10.7273730684 75% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 10.498013245 103% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => 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.