Directions:
You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically an effective response will be 150 to 225 words.
Question:
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt on the specific solutions presented in the reading passage.
Passage:
The cane toad is a large (1.8 kg) amphibian species native to Central and South America. It was deliberately introduced to Australia in 1935 with the expectation that it would protect farmers' crops by eating harmful insects. Unfortunately, the toad multiplied rapidly, and a large cane toad population now threatens small native animals that are not pests. Several measures have been proposed to stop the spread of the cane toad in Australia.
One way to prevent the spread of the toad would be to build a national fence. A fence that blocks the advance of the toads will prevent them from moving into those parts of Australia that they have not yet colonized. This approach has been used before: a national fence was erected in the early part of the twentieth century to prevent the spread of rabbits, another animal species that was introduced in Australia from abroad and had a harmful impact on its native ecosystems.
Second, the toads could be captured and destroyed by volunteers. Cane toads can easily be caught in simple traps and can even be captured by hand. Young toads and cane toad eggs are even easier to gather and destroy, since they are restricted to the water. If the Australian government were to organize a campaign among Australian citizens to join forces to destroy the toads, the collective effort might stop the toad from spreading.
Third, researchers are developing a disease-causing virus to control the cane toad populations. This virus will be specially designed: although it will be able to infect a number of reptile and amphibian species, it will not harm most of the infected species; it will specifically harm only the cane toads. The virus will control the population of cane toads by preventing them from maturing and reproducing.
According to the passage, three main strategies were proposed to stop the animal cane toads' threat to other animals in Australia, while the professor contradicts the statement with the argument that all of these three methods will be unsuccessful and impractical.
First and formost, in response to the assertion presented by the passage that the spread of the cane toads can be prevented by establishing a national fence, the listening material holds a completely different explanation that the widespread of the young toads and their eggs can not be prevented through this method. Thus, it is doubtless that the listening holds the antithetical angle to against the reading in the first standpoint. As a matter of fact, the young toads and their eggs are transferred to different places through the streams. Though the national fence can prevent the areas from adults toads, the youngs and the eggs will be carried to other sides. Hence, the stragegy of building a national fence can be inefficient.
Moreover, contradictory to the theory in the writting that the cane toads can be caught and killed through volunteer activities to reduce the amount of toads, the professor claims that it can cause other negative side effect through this approach. To be more specific, volunteers such as the youngs, who are not trained, might catch other native frogs, which are important part of local ecosystem. This could result in the damage to local ecosystem.
Last but not least, the speaker holds the opinion that developing a certain virus to stop the spread can be terrible, which is contrary to the passage. To state it more clearly, this approach might do harm to American ecosystem. Once the infected toads transfer to the America, it might cause disaster there since the cane toad is native there. As a result, the toads in America will be elliminated, and the whole ecosystem will suffer.
In conclusion, the professor clearly identifies the weaknesses in the reading passage and convincingly shows that the central argument in the passage is incorrect.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, hence, if, moreover, so, thus, while, in conclusion, such as, as a matter of fact, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 10.4613686534 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 5.04856512141 297% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 9.0 7.30242825607 123% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 12.0772626932 91% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 22.412803532 85% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 30.3222958057 139% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1734.0 1373.03311258 126% => OK
No of words: 338.0 270.72406181 125% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13017751479 5.08290768461 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.28774723029 4.04702891845 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7176259316 2.5805825403 105% => OK
Unique words: 167.0 145.348785872 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.494082840237 0.540411800872 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 514.8 419.366225166 123% => 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: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 1.25165562914 320% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 2.5761589404 194% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 21.2450331126 113% => OK
Sentence length SD: 75.7380016766 49.2860985944 154% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.857142857 110.228320801 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.1428571429 21.698381199 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.57142857143 7.06452816374 107% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 4.45695364238 157% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.27373068433 23% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0832785956637 0.272083759551 31% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0297786615198 0.0996497079465 30% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0283988020569 0.0662205650399 43% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0458517891246 0.162205337803 28% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0254994886469 0.0443174109184 58% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 13.3589403974 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 53.8541721854 103% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 11.0289183223 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.77 12.2367328918 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.56 8.42419426049 102% => OK
difficult_words: 80.0 63.6247240618 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 10.7273730684 172% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 10.498013245 110% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 20 minutes.
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 3.33333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.