Ethanol fuel, made from plants such as corn and sugar cane, has been advocated by some people as an alternative to gasoline in the United States. However, many critics argue that ethanol is not a good replacement for gasoline for several reasons.
First, the increased use of ethanol fuel would not help tosolve one of the biggest environmental problems caused by gasoline use: global warming. Like gasoline, ethanol releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when it is burned for fuel and carbon dioxide is greenhouse gas: it helps trap heat in the atmosphere. Thus, ethanol offers no environmental advantage over gasoline.
Second, the production of significant amounts of ethanol would dramatically reduce the amount of plants available for uses other fuel. For example, much of the corn now grown in the United States is used to feed farm animals such as cows and chickens. It is estimated that if ethanol were used to satisfy just 10 percent of the fuel needs in the United States, more than 60 percent of the corn currently grown in the united stated would have to be used to produce ethanol. If most of the corn were used to produce ethanol, a substantial source of food for animals would disappear.
Third, ethanol fuel will never be able to compete with gasoline on price. Although the prices of ethanol and gasoline for the consumer are currently about the same, this is only because of the help in the form of tax subsidies given to ethanol producers by the United States government. These tax subsidies have cost the United States government over $11 billion in the past 30 years. If the United States government were to stop helping producers in this way, the price of ethanol would increase greatly.
The reading claims that ethanol fuel made from plants is not a good replacement for gasoline. However, the lecturer finds all the ideas dubious and presents some evidence to refute them all.
The author argues that ethanol offers no environmental advantage over gasoline since when this fuel is burned, it releases carbon dioxide which helps trap heat in the atmosphere. Conversely, the lecturer brings up the idea that ethanol fuel would not add global warming since it is produced by plants such as corn and during this process, the plants would absorb the carbon dioxide available in the air as nutrition. So the whole cycle of producing and burning ethanol fuel would not add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Furthermore, the reading passage holds the view that producing ethanol by using plants such as corn, would reduce the amount of source food for animals. On the contrary, the professor underlines the fact that ethanol is produced from parts of plants such as cellulose which are not eaten by animals and are not their food.
Finally, the reading asserts that in case the government were to stop giving subsidies to producers of ethanol, this fuel price would increase and not be able to compete with gasoline on price. In contrast, the speaker dismisses this issue due to the fact that in future the capacity of producing ethanol will be 3 times more than today and it will lead to a 40 percent drop in price. Besides, the government’s support would not be cut down. Even if customers stop buying ethanol, producers would increase the amount of producing ethanol, consequently, its price would decrease and could compete with gasoline.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, consequently, conversely, finally, furthermore, however, if, so, in contrast, such as, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 10.4613686534 96% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 5.04856512141 218% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 7.0 7.30242825607 96% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 12.0772626932 83% => OK
Pronoun: 17.0 22.412803532 76% => OK
Preposition: 34.0 30.3222958057 112% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1387.0 1373.03311258 101% => OK
No of words: 277.0 270.72406181 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.00722021661 5.08290768461 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.07962216107 4.04702891845 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.55738400662 2.5805825403 99% => OK
Unique words: 147.0 145.348785872 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.530685920578 0.540411800872 98% => OK
syllable_count: 424.8 419.366225166 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
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: 25.0 21.2450331126 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.0664774972 49.2860985944 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.090909091 110.228320801 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.1818181818 21.698381199 116% => OK
Discourse Markers: 10.0909090909 7.06452816374 143% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => 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: 3.0 4.27373068433 70% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.238555676993 0.272083759551 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.106112468129 0.0996497079465 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0858643147243 0.0662205650399 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.16498977694 0.162205337803 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0585337067692 0.0443174109184 132% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 13.3589403974 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 53.8541721854 101% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 11.0289183223 108% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.07 12.2367328918 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.3 8.42419426049 99% => OK
difficult_words: 60.0 63.6247240618 94% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 10.7273730684 126% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 10.498013245 114% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 76.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 23.0 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.