Hail—pieces of ice that form and fall from clouds instead of snow or rain—has always been a problem for farmers in some areas of the United States. Hail pellets can fall with great force and destroy crops in the field. Over the last few decades, a method of reducing hail, called “cloud seeding,” has been tried. In cloud seeding, the chemical silver iodide is sprayed on storm clouds from an airplane. This makes the clouds produce harmless rain or snow instead of hail. Several pieces of evidence suggest that cloud seeding has been effective in protecting crops from hail.Laboratory experimentsExperiments in the laboratory support the idea that cloud seeding is effective. Hail usually forms in water vapor that is close to the freezing point. However, when experimenters added silver iodide to cold water vapor in the laboratory, they often observed light snow forming instead of hail pellets.Evidence from AsiaThere is evidence about the effectiveness of cloud seeding from several countries around the world. In some Asian countries, for example, cloud seeding has been successfully used to control precipitation in urban areas. These positive results suggest that cloud seeding should also be effective in protecting fields and farms in the United States.Local studiesA few local studies also support the value of cloud seeding. One study conducted in a farming region in the central United States, for example, directly monitored crop damage due to hail. The study found that in an area where cloud seeding was used there was reduced hail damage compared to previous years.
It’s not clear that cloud seeding is all that effective and there are reasons to question each of the arguments you just read.
First, it may be true that under laboratory conditions, silver iodide creates snow instead of hail. However, in real life, silver iodide can actually prevent any precipitation at all from forming in the clouds—snow, rain, or hail. This is a bad thing, because if you seed all the clouds in areas where it doesn’t rain very often, you run the risk of causing a drought. In this case the crops simply get damaged for a different reason—lack of water.
Second, it’s not clear that the positive results with cloud seeding in Asia can be repeated in the United States. The reason is that cloud seeding in Asia was tried in urban areas—in cities. And cities tend to have a high level of air pollution—from car traffic, industry, etc. Surprisingly, pollution particles can create favorable conditions for cloud seeding, because they interact with clouds and the seeding chemicals. Such favorable conditions for cloud seeding may not occur in an unpolluted area. This means that the cloud seeding method that works in polluted cities may not work in unpolluted farming regions in the United States.
Third, the local study mentioned in the passage isn’t very convincing either. That’s because the study found that hail damage decreased not just in the area where the cloud seeding actually took place, but also in many of the neighboring areas to the east, south, and north of that area. So, the fact that the whole region was experiencing a reduced number of hailstorms that particular year makes it more likely that this was a result of natural variation in local weather and had nothing to do with cloud seeding.
Whether the cloud seeding is an effective way to protect the crops is a focus of both the writer and the professor.
As opposed to the writer's view that some experiments made in the lab have demonstrated the cloud seeding is a good method, the professor says that this method will not efficient in the real life. In details, she points that in the places where there is little rain, the crops will be damaged because of the little water.
The professor continues to discredicts the writer's assertion that because the method succeed in Asia, it will also be efficient in the U.S., by examining that this phenomonno will not be the same in other area. She advances her theory by saying that because in the unpolluted area, there is no particle to provide good conditions for crops.
It is the professor's third assumption that it is not convincing and there is nothing to do with the cloud seeding. To explore deeper, she says that in the north or other area in the east, this method might not efficient.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, if, so, third
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 10.4613686534 105% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 5.04856512141 99% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 7.30242825607 41% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 12.0772626932 75% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 22.412803532 80% => OK
Preposition: 21.0 30.3222958057 69% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 5.01324503311 40% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 847.0 1373.03311258 62% => OK
No of words: 182.0 270.72406181 67% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.65384615385 5.08290768461 92% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.67297393991 4.04702891845 91% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.42932338813 2.5805825403 94% => OK
Unique words: 94.0 145.348785872 65% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.516483516484 0.540411800872 96% => OK
syllable_count: 256.5 419.366225166 61% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.55342163355 90% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 3.25607064018 184% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.23620309051 36% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 7.0 13.0662251656 54% => 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: 26.0 21.2450331126 122% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 41.3960463458 49.2860985944 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.0 110.228320801 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.0 21.698381199 120% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.71428571429 7.06452816374 38% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 4.45695364238 67% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.27373068433 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.073798717304 0.272083759551 27% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0383467168106 0.0996497079465 38% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0129931431881 0.0662205650399 20% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0493094260371 0.162205337803 30% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.00664515336317 0.0443174109184 15% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 13.3589403974 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 62.01 53.8541721854 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 11.0289183223 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.99 12.2367328918 82% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.4 8.42419426049 100% => OK
difficult_words: 40.0 63.6247240618 63% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 10.7273730684 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 10.498013245 118% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.2008830022 116% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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The correct pattern for TOEFL integrated essay writing :
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.
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See sample essays from ETS:
http://www.testbig.com/users/toeflwritingmaster
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Rates: 53.33333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 17 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.