The Salton Sea in California is actually a salty inland lake. The level of salt in the lake's water—what scientists call its salinity—has been increasing steadily for years because the lake's water is evaporating faster than it is being replaced by rainfall or rivers. If the trend continues, the lake's water will soon become so salty that the lake will be unable to support fish and bird populations. The lake would then become essentially a dead zone. Fortunately, there are several ways to reverse the trend that is threatening the lake's health.
One option is direct removal of salt from the lake's water in special desalination facilities. Water from the lake would be pumped into the facilities and heated. This would cause the water to evaporate into steam, while salt and other materials dissolved in the water would be left behind. The steam would then be cooled down and returned to the lake as salt-free water. Gradually, the high salt levels would be reduced and the lake’s overall health would be restored.
Another possible solution is to dilute the salt level in the lake with water from the ocean. Since water in the Pacific Ocean is 20 percent less salty than water in the lake, bringing ocean water into the lake would decrease the lake’s salinity. The ocean water could be delivered through pipelines or canals.
Yet another solution would be to control the lake's salinity by constructing walls to divide the lake into several sections. In the smaller sections, salinity would be allowed to increase. However, in the main and largest section, salinity would be reduced and controlled by, among other things, directing all the freshwater from small rivers in the area to flow into that main section of the lake.
Word Count: 286
The reading passage proposes three plans to prevent the Salton lake from becoming a dead zone, which is an area of very high salinity that is no longer able to support any kind of fish or birds. However, the lecturer casts doubt on the solutions suggested in the article. She mentions that the proposals are unrealistic and impractical.
First of all, the author claims that the salt level in the lake could be decreased by using desalination facilities, which work by heating water to convert it to steam leaving behind any salt or other minerals as a deposit. The steam could then be cooled down and returned to the lake as water free of salt. The lecturer, on the other hand, challenges this idea. She argues that this will help reduce the salinity but will also cause serious problems. She elaborates that the residue left after water evaporation is not only salt but also contains other minerals. One of those minerals is selenium, which could pose a major health risk. According to the lecturer, the wind could carry selenium into the air, which would further be breathed in by some people and this would be dangerous to their health.
Second, the author believes that this problem could be solved by constructing pipelines and canals to let less salty water from the ocean flow into the lake. Nonetheless, the lecturer holds that this would be too costly for the local government, especially that the nearest shoreline to the lake is a hundred kilometers away.
Finally, the writer assumes that building walls to divide the lake into sections could help resolve this issue. In contrast, the lecturer points out that the region is known for geological instability and earthquakes. She explains that although erecting these walls could have a short-term benefits but they would collapse on the long-term due to the shaking as a result of earthquakes.
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 804, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...his would be dangerous to their health. Second, the author believes that this pr...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 291, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'benefit'?
Suggestion: benefit
...ing these walls could have a short-term benefits but they would collapse on the long-ter...
^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 388, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...the shaking as a result of earthquakes.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, nonetheless, second, so, then, in contrast, kind of, as a result, first of all, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 10.4613686534 124% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 5.04856512141 257% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 10.0 7.30242825607 137% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 12.0772626932 124% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 22.412803532 116% => OK
Preposition: 37.0 30.3222958057 122% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1559.0 1373.03311258 114% => OK
No of words: 315.0 270.72406181 116% => OK
Chars per words: 4.94920634921 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.21286593061 4.04702891845 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.51260565963 2.5805825403 97% => OK
Unique words: 180.0 145.348785872 124% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.571428571429 0.540411800872 106% => OK
syllable_count: 469.8 419.366225166 112% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 3.25607064018 123% => OK
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: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 13.0662251656 115% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 21.2450331126 99% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.6015370869 49.2860985944 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.933333333 110.228320801 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0 21.698381199 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.86666666667 7.06452816374 126% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 4.19205298013 72% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
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: 0.199809239791 0.272083759551 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0629892786209 0.0996497079465 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0649290788469 0.0662205650399 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.112625088232 0.162205337803 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.055365118561 0.0443174109184 125% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 13.3589403974 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 53.8541721854 109% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 11.0289183223 93% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.43 12.2367328918 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.59 8.42419426049 102% => OK
difficult_words: 78.0 63.6247240618 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 10.7273730684 131% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 10.498013245 99% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 70.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 21.0 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.