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 writing discusses the possible reasons for a decline in otter population in the Alaskan coast as environment pollution or attack by predators. The writer believes that pollution is the primary reason for population reduction. The lecturer disagrees. She says, the reason for this decline in otter population is predators and attacks each of the claims made in the writing.
First, the author believes, since there are sources of pollution present around Alaskan coast such as oil rigs and industrial chemical pollutants; leading to increased level of chemicals in water samples from the area. She added, it causes otter’s resistance towards infections to be reduced, eventually resulting in their death. The author feels the argument in the writing is weakened by the fact that there are no dead bodies washed ashore- which would be the case if pollution was the cause of their dead. She goes on to say the more likely explanation for reduced Otter population is, getting killed by predators; leading to getting eaten immediately, so no dead body would be left behind, which is the case with Alaskan coast.
According to the writing, as predators such as Orcas prefer to hunt bigger animals, such as whales, hence the overall decline in the population of smaller animals such as sea lions and Otters cannot be explained by the theory that they are getting eaten by predators. However, the lecturer argues that due to the less availability of larger prey, Orcas have started to prey on smaller animals such as otters, which explains the declining population of several other varieties of smaller animals along with Otters in the Alaskan coast.
Also, the reading states that the pollution theory is valid, because there is an uneven pattern in declining population of otters. The writer says, if it was not the pollution that is responsible for this population decline, then the pattern would similar in other regions as well. The professor rebuts the argument by saying that predators such as Orcas cannot access shallow waters and rocky locations and therefore the decline is not observed in all such locations. She added that this is indeed the reason why otter population is declining in Alaskan region as this region is accessible for such predators.
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- TOEFL integrated writing communal online encyclopedia
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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 because of 73
- A recent study reveals that people especially young people are reading far less literature novels plays and poems than they used to This is troubling because the trend has unfortunate effects for the reading public for culture in general and for the futur 85
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 231, 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.
...rimary reason for population reduction. The lecturer disagrees. She believes that t...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, however, if, so, then, therefore, well, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 10.4613686534 201% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 5.04856512141 99% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 12.0772626932 99% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 22.412803532 98% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 30.3222958057 145% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 5.01324503311 419% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1904.0 1373.03311258 139% => OK
No of words: 373.0 270.72406181 138% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.10455764075 5.08290768461 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.39467950092 4.04702891845 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.57817421774 2.5805825403 100% => OK
Unique words: 181.0 145.348785872 125% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.485254691689 0.540411800872 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 592.2 419.366225166 141% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 3.25607064018 154% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 1.25165562914 320% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 21.2450331126 122% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 65.4169125607 49.2860985944 133% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.0 110.228320801 123% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.6428571429 21.698381199 123% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.14285714286 7.06452816374 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 4.33554083885 46% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 4.45695364238 179% => 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: 0.206128511876 0.272083759551 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0742077428764 0.0996497079465 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0536984738338 0.0662205650399 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.128940232689 0.162205337803 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0263221929103 0.0443174109184 59% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.9 13.3589403974 119% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 53.8541721854 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 11.0289183223 121% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.2367328918 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.65 8.42419426049 103% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 63.6247240618 138% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 10.7273730684 75% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 10.498013245 118% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.2008830022 116% => 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.