Populations of the yellow cedar, a species of tree that is common in northwestern North America, have been steadily declining for more than a century now, since about 1880. Scientists have advanced several hypotheses explain this decline.
One hypothesis is that the yellow cedar decline may be caused by insect parasites, specifically the cedar bark beetle. This beetle is known to attack cedar trees; the beetle larvae eat the wood. There have been recorded instances of sustained beetle attacks overwhelming and killing yellow cedars, so this insectis a good candidate for the cause of the tree’s decline.
A second hypothesis attributes the decline to brown bears. Bears sometimes claw at the cedars in order to eat the tree bark, which has a high sugar content. In fact, the cedar bark can contain as much sugar as the wild berries that are a staple of the bears’ diet. Although the bears’ clawing is unlikely to destroy trees by itself, their aggressive feeding habits may critically weaken enough trees to be responsible for the decline.
The third hypothesis states that gradual changes of climate may be to blame. Over the last hundred years, the patterns of seasonal as well as day-to-day temperatures have changed in northwestern North America. These changes have affected the root systems of the yellow cedar trees: the fine surface roots now start growing in the late winter rather than in the early spring. The change in the timing of root growth may have significant consequences. Growing roots are sensitive and are therefore likely to suffer damage from partial freezing on cold winter nights. This frozen root damage may be capable of undermining the health of the whole tree, eventually killing it.
The reading passage and lecture have conflicting opinions about what has caused diminish yellow cedar which is a species of tree in northwestern North America. The article strongly postulates that there are three compelling explanations for this decrease. On the other hand, the listening adamantly delineates that none of these implications is sufficient to explain it.
Firs and foremost, according to the author of the excerpt, it may have caused by insect parasites particularly cedar bark beetle. According to the evidence, this is mainly due to the fact that their larvae digest the wood and led them to die. Nonetheless, the lecturer offsets these points by declaring that the wood's barks are resistant to pesticides and it has also powerful poisonous which can kill those beetle. Furthermore, she asserts that the beetles have attacked trees are maybe damaged or already died ones.
On top of this, the speaker further points out that even though it may true that bears claw trees to get its nutrition, it does not mean that trees have perished because of overall bears. To be more specific, the yellow cedar goes extinct both in main terrestrial and island, so regarding the evidence that bears do not live on the island, it certainly obvious that bear population does not play an important role to eliminate this tree population. These claims refute the writer's implications about brown bear usually eat yellow cedar trees bark, and thus their aggressive characters of prey have caused to decrease trees.
The article lastly insists that the global temperature is gradually altering in these days, and it may have seriously damaged trees' roots which are an essential part for them to live. The professor counters these indications by pointing out that the author forgot one crucial fact about their location. Moreover, the speaker elaborates that most of the decreased trees population are located in lower elevation where the climate is warmer than high elevation. Therefore, if the roots of trees are frosted throughout north america, there must be also its decline in high elevation, so the writer's explanations are not plausible.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, furthermore, if, lastly, may, moreover, nonetheless, regarding, so, therefore, thus, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 10.4613686534 134% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 5.04856512141 99% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 7.30242825607 110% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 12.0772626932 141% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 22.412803532 170% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 36.0 30.3222958057 119% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 5.01324503311 199% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1805.0 1373.03311258 131% => OK
No of words: 348.0 270.72406181 129% => OK
Chars per words: 5.1867816092 5.08290768461 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.31911543099 4.04702891845 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.63755381321 2.5805825403 102% => OK
Unique words: 200.0 145.348785872 138% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.574712643678 0.540411800872 106% => OK
syllable_count: 555.3 419.366225166 132% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 3.25607064018 184% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 2.5761589404 194% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 21.2450331126 113% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.7642445537 49.2860985944 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.928571429 110.228320801 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.8571428571 21.698381199 115% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.71428571429 7.06452816374 109% => 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 : 7.0 4.45695364238 157% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.27373068433 94% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.255872906103 0.272083759551 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0821776722771 0.0996497079465 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0597865307792 0.0662205650399 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.156044500779 0.162205337803 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0531895308875 0.0443174109184 120% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 13.3589403974 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 53.8541721854 87% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 11.0289183223 115% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.12 12.2367328918 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.09 8.42419426049 108% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 63.6247240618 148% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 10.7273730684 112% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 10.498013245 110% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 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.