Because of climate change, more and more land that was once used to grow crops or provide food for animals is turning to dry, unusable desert land. There are many proposals about how to stop this process, known as desertification. A number of proposals involve growing trees, because trees can help protect soil and provide many other benefits to fight against desertification. Some scientists have proposed that the best way to grow trees in dry areas in danger of desertification is by using a box-shaped device surrounding the young tree. The device collects water that condenses from vapor in the atmosphere and helps the tree to grow. However, other scientists believe that this device will not be successful in fighting against desertification for the following reasons.
First, at a cost of 25 U S. dollars each, the device would make growing trees a prohibitively expensive process. Meaningful efforts to fight desertification involve growing millions of trees. Some countries most affected by desertification cannot afford to buy devices for millions of trees
Second, plans for fighting desertification involve asking local people to install and maintain the devices. People living in some of the areas most affected by desertification work long days in harsh conditions: sometimes barely managing to provide food for their families. It would be difficult to motivate these people to look after trees that cannot serve as a source of food for them.
Third, the device's ability to collect and conserve water is limited. Each one provides only enough water to keep a small tree alive. Trees that have outgrown the device have to deal with unforgiving environmental conditions on their own. In some places where the devices are being tried, six months can pass without a drop of rain. Once the trees become too big for the device, they may not be able to survive in such a harsh environment.
The passage and lecture both talk about whether using the devices to protect desertification is worthy. The passage states that it will not be successful. However, the lecture counters this statement.
Firstly, the passage indicates that buying such kind of device is too costly so that not every country could afford it. While the professor points out that the device is reusable and can be used by more than 20 times. In other words, it is a very cost-effective way.
In addition, the passage suggests that installing and maintaining devices affects people's life a lot and may not help supply food for the local people. Nevertheless, the professor mentions that these devices are more advantageous to local people's life instead of doing harm to them. For instance, the devices could also collect water for other plants. As a result, people could grow more food. Also, the trees can provide firewood, which is also indispensable for producing food.
Last but not least, the passage says that the capability of the device is too limited to support grown threes to live without the rain. On the contrary, the professor argues that big trees have long roots to get water from the areas ever very far away. Consequently, 90％ trees could survive for at least 2 years in a dry environment after the devices removed.
To sum up, in the professor's view, the devices are effective tools to help prevent desertification because they could be reused, bring benefits for providing local people food and sustainable advantages for trees to grow.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, first, firstly, however, if, may, nevertheless, so, while, at least, for instance, in addition, kind of, as a result, in other words, on the contrary, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 10.4613686534 105% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 5.04856512141 178% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 12.0772626932 75% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 15.0 22.412803532 67% => OK
Preposition: 25.0 30.3222958057 82% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 5.01324503311 120% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1291.0 1373.03311258 94% => OK
No of words: 257.0 270.72406181 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.0233463035 5.08290768461 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.00390054096 4.04702891845 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66378719817 2.5805825403 103% => OK
Unique words: 153.0 145.348785872 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.5953307393 0.540411800872 110% => OK
syllable_count: 391.5 419.366225166 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 3.25607064018 31% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.23620309051 134% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 1.25165562914 160% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 2.5761589404 194% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 13.0662251656 115% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 21.2450331126 80% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 46.9082319239 49.2860985944 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 86.0666666667 110.228320801 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.1333333333 21.698381199 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 12.3333333333 7.06452816374 175% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.27373068433 164% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.132386768955 0.272083759551 49% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0490364352777 0.0996497079465 49% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0463012458999 0.0662205650399 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0755807571367 0.162205337803 47% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0399207599734 0.0443174109184 90% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.8 13.3589403974 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 62.68 53.8541721854 116% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 11.0289183223 79% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.54 12.2367328918 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.23 8.42419426049 98% => OK
difficult_words: 61.0 63.6247240618 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 10.7273730684 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 10.498013245 84% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.