Burning coal in power plants produces a waste product called coal ash a material that contains small amounts of potentially harmful chemicals Environmentalists in the United States are concerned about the damage such harmful chemicals may be doing to the

Essay topics:

Burning coal in power plants produces a waste product called coal ash, a material that contains small amounts of potentially harmful chemicals. Environmentalists in the United States are concerned about the damage such harmful chemicals may be doing to the environment and suggest that the United States government should create new, much stricter regulations for handling and storing coal ash.

However, representatives of power companies take the opposite view: they argue that new regulations are unnecessary and might actually have negative consequences. They use the following arguments to support their position.

Regulations Exist

First, power company representatives point out that effective environmental regulations already exist. For example, one very important regulation requires companies to use liner—special material that prevents coal ash components from leaking into the soil and contaminating the surrounding environment. Companies that dispose of coal ash in disposal ponds or landfills must use liner in every new pond or landfill they build.

Concerns About Recycling Coal Ash

Second, some analysts predict that creating very strict rules for storing and handling coal ash might discourage the recycling of coal ash into other products. Currently, a large portion of coal ash generated by power plants is recycled: it is used, for example, in building materials such as concrete and bricks. Recycling coal ash reduces the need to dispose of it in other ways and presents no environmental danger. However, if new, stricter rules are adopted for handling coal ash, consumers may become concerned that recycled coal ash products are just too dangerous, and may stop buying the products.

Increased Cost

Finally, strict new regulations would result in a significant increase in disposal and handling costs for the power companies—perhaps as much as ten times the current costs Power companies would be forced to increase the price of electricity, which would not be welcomed by the general public.

The main topic of both reading and lecture is whether authorities must apply more stringent regulation on coal ash disposal or not. The reading points out the reasons why power administers thinks it is a bad idea, however the lecturer explains that new regulations would benefits people more.
Firstly, the power representator points out that strict regulations already exist. For instance, he mentions the liner, which is a material that prevent ash coal to leak to ponds or landfills. Secondly, according to the passage, a large part of coal ash disposal is being recycled and enacting more strict rules will be followed by people fear of buying recycled products from coal ash such as, concrete or bricks. At last, the author asserts that more rules will cause cost increase for power stations, therefore the price of power will raise and it will lead to people discontent.
On the other hand, the lecturer refutes the aforementioned reasons and insist on new regulations by citing three explanations. Firstly, she mentions that old rules are not efficient enough, for instance based on the old rules, liner must be used in new ponds or landfills, however this substance must be regularly used even on old storage fields to effectively prevent coal ash leakage to ground water. Plus, she alludes that more stringent rules won't necessarily cause decline in recycled products sales. To be more specific, she says that mercury, another dangerous material, is being recycled now and its products are being sold without significant problem, despite the strict rules on its disposal. At last, she agrees that more rules will lead to more costs for power station, however if this extra cost be shared among all house it will be only about one percent increase for each house, which totally worth it.

Votes
Average: 8.5 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 272, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'would' requires the base form of the verb: 'benefit'
Suggestion: benefit
...rer explains that new regulations would benefits people more. Firstly, the power repres...
^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, however, if, second, secondly, so, therefore, for instance, such as, on the other hand

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 10.4613686534 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 5.04856512141 198% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 7.30242825607 123% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 12.0772626932 83% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 22.412803532 94% => OK
Preposition: 31.0 30.3222958057 102% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1502.0 1373.03311258 109% => OK
No of words: 298.0 270.72406181 110% => OK
Chars per words: 5.04026845638 5.08290768461 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.15483772266 4.04702891845 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.53424809456 2.5805825403 98% => OK
Unique words: 163.0 145.348785872 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.546979865772 0.540411800872 101% => OK
syllable_count: 457.2 419.366225166 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 3.25607064018 154% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.23620309051 73% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 2.5761589404 233% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 11.0 13.0662251656 84% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 27.0 21.2450331126 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 56.5724869613 49.2860985944 115% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.545454545 110.228320801 124% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.0909090909 21.698381199 125% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.27272727273 7.06452816374 131% => OK
Paragraphs: 3.0 4.09492273731 73% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 4.45695364238 90% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.27373068433 70% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.138557523213 0.272083759551 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0574767301725 0.0996497079465 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0442082414878 0.0662205650399 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.100416898 0.162205337803 62% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0421349779554 0.0443174109184 95% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.9 13.3589403974 119% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.53 53.8541721854 98% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.6 11.0289183223 114% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.25 12.2367328918 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.79 8.42419426049 104% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 63.6247240618 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 10.498013245 122% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.2008830022 116% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Minimum four paragraphs wanted. The correct pattern:

para 1: introduction
para 2: doubt 1
para 3: doubt 2
para 4: doubt 3

Less contents wanted from the reading passages(25%), more content wanted from the lecture (75%).

Don't need a conclusion paragraph.

Read sample essays from ETS:
http://www.testbig.com/users/toeflwritingmaster


Rates: 85.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 25.5 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.