Arctic deer live on islands in Canada's arctic regions. They search for food by moving over ice from island to island during the course of the year. Their habitat is limited to areas warm enough to sustain the plants on which they feed and cold enough, at least some of the year, for the ice to cover the sea separating the islands, allowing the deer to travel over it. Unfortunately, according to reports from local hunters, the deer populations are declining. Since these reports coincide with recent global warming trends that have caused the sea ice to melt, we can conclude that the purported decline in deer populations is the result of the deer's being unable to follow their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
To conclude the argument is valid we must ensure the Arctic deers declining population is due to their inability to follow their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea because the ice is melting. Also, we must check whether global warming is in fact affecting Canada's arctic regions.
First, we must check whether deers are traveling or trapped in islands. That is because even with global warming, deers might have found other ways to move over ice from island to island. This can be achieved by analyzing aerial photographs of Canada's arctic regions, or visiting different islands to inspect whether the population is spread or in fact concentrated in specific islands.
Deers might be confined in certain areas with abundant food. Therefore, the inability to travel over ice due to global warming might not explain the decrease in population. If that is the case, other reasons must explain their population reduction. Two hypotheses worth checking are an increase in hunting activity, or an increase in their predators' population over these areas.
We also must evaluate whether global warming is in fact melting ice that connects islands in Canada's arctic regions. This is important because global warming impacts distinct regions of the globe differently. It might be the case that, although global warming is indeed melting more ice globally, it is not actually impacting the Arctic region. Again, aerial photographs of the region would generate data that could confirm or refute this hypothesis. Other ways to validate this would be checking whether sea levels are increasing in Canada's arctic regions.
Finally, after evaluating the previously stated data, we should also check for any other change that might have caused deaths of deers and other animals in the region. An unfortunate example of another possible cause for the reduction of wildlife population is the increased pollution in the arctic sea, which might impair their ability not only to find food but also to reproduce.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 322 350
No. of Characters: 1653 1500
No. of Different Words: 157 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.236 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.134 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.464 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 137 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 61 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 33 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.125 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.656 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.562 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.366 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.59 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.131 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, first, if, so, therefore, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 55.5748502994 70% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1696.0 2260.96107784 75% => OK
No of words: 322.0 441.139720559 73% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.26708074534 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.23607819155 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.52419334114 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 163.0 204.123752495 80% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.506211180124 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 526.5 705.55239521 75% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.5805753507 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.0 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.125 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.9375 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.229388110716 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0833526117935 0.0743258471296 112% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0552478383209 0.0701772020484 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.137446064843 0.128457276422 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0432167496581 0.0628817314937 69% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.29 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.09 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 Out of 6
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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.