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.
Both the reading passage and the lecture discuss reasons for the declination of yellow cedar populations. The author presents three possible causes for the decrease in the number of these tree species. The lecturer, however, believes there are flaws in the author’s position for the following reasons.
Firstly, the author mentions that an insect parasite called cedar bark beetle is the main cause of the trees population’s declination. The professor contends this by the fact that barks and leaves of a healthy yellow cedar produce powerful chemicals that are poisonous to insects and any other pests. He goes on and says that insects attack the already damaged trees that would probably die. Therefore, the claim of the author is not well-founded.
According to the writer, the author believes that brown bears could be one of the causes for tree populations’ declination. He states that clawing by bears to feed on tree barks will eventually damage the trees. On the other hand, the professor points out that the tree population already went down on the island as well where there are no bears. In fact, he rebuts that declination of the tree numbers happened with or without the bears around. Thus, the claim of the author that bears is one of the possible causes is not valid.
Also, the author mentions that climate change could contribute to the diminishing of tree populations. The professor refutes this and highlights that many more trees die at lower elevations where the weather is warm, not cold like high elevations.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 104, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'trees'' or 'tree's'?
Suggestion: trees'; tree's
...ar bark beetle is the main cause of the trees population’s declination. The professor...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, so, therefore, thus, well, in fact, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 10.4613686534 86% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 5.04856512141 79% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 12.0772626932 116% => OK
Pronoun: 18.0 22.412803532 80% => OK
Preposition: 30.0 30.3222958057 99% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 5.01324503311 120% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1288.0 1373.03311258 94% => OK
No of words: 255.0 270.72406181 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.05098039216 5.08290768461 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.99608801488 4.04702891845 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.61286557497 2.5805825403 101% => OK
Unique words: 138.0 145.348785872 95% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.541176470588 0.540411800872 100% => OK
syllable_count: 381.6 419.366225166 91% => 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: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 21.2450331126 85% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 27.7761643522 49.2860985944 56% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 92.0 110.228320801 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.2142857143 21.698381199 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.35714285714 7.06452816374 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 4.45695364238 67% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.27373068433 187% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.153657807128 0.272083759551 56% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0550088014064 0.0996497079465 55% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0364438861935 0.0662205650399 55% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0957108614758 0.162205337803 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0231800052577 0.0443174109184 52% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.5 13.3589403974 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 53.8541721854 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 11.0289183223 83% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.01 12.2367328918 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.0 8.42419426049 95% => OK
difficult_words: 56.0 63.6247240618 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 10.7273730684 75% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 10.498013245 88% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.2008830022 71% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 78.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 23.5 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.