In recent years, many frog species around the world have declined in numbers or even gone extinct due to changes in their environment. These population declines and extinctions have serious consequences for the ecosystems in which frogs live; for example, frogs help play a role in protecting humans by eating disease-carrying insects. Several methods have been proposed to solve the problem of declining frog populations.
First, frogs are being harmed by pesticides, which are chemicals used to prevent insects from damaging farm crops such as corn and sugarcane. Pesticides often spread from farmland into neighboring frog habitats. Once pesticides enter a frog’s body, they attack the nervous system, leading to severe breathing problems. If laws prohibited the farmers from using harmful pesticides near sensitive frog populations, it would significantly reduce the harm pesticides cause to frogs.
A second major factor in frog population decline is a fungus that has spread around the world with deadly effect. The fungus causes thickening of the skin, and since frogs use their skin to absorb water, infected frogs die of dehydration. Recently, researchers have discovered several ways to treat or prevent infection, including antifungal medication and treatments that kill the fungus with heat. Those treatments, if applied on a large scale, would protect sensitive frog populations from infection.
Third, in a great many cases, frog populations are in decline simply because their natural habitats are threatened. Since most frog species lay their eggs in water, they are dependent on water and wetland habitats. Many such habitats are threatened by human activities, including excessive water use or the draining of wetlands to make them suitable for development. If key water habitats such as lakes and marshes were better protected from excessive water use and development, many frog species would recover.
Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
None of the methods proposed in the reading offers a practical solution for slowing down the decline in frog populations. There are problems with each of the methods you read about.
First, seriously reducing pesticides in agricultural areas with threatened frog populations is not economically practical or fair. Farmers rely on pesticides to decrease crop losses and stay competitive in the market. If farmers in areas that are close to endangered frog populations have to follow stricter regulations regarding pesticide use, then those farmers would be at a severe disadvantage compared to farmers in other areas. They would likely lose more crops and have a lower yield than competing farms.
Second, the new treatments against the skin fungus you read about. Let me explain a couple of problems with this plan. The treatments must be applied individually to each frog, and so using them on a large scale is extremely difficult: it requires capturing and treating each individual frog in a population. Moreover, the treatments do not prevent the frogs from passing the fungus on to their offspring, so the treatments would have to be applied again and again to each new generation of frogs. So applying these treatments would be incredibly complicated and expensive.
Third, while it’s a good idea to protect lakes and marshes from excessive water use and development, that will not save frog populations. You see, water use and development are not the biggest threats to water and wetland habitats. The real threat is global warming. In recent decades, global warming has contributed to the disappearance of many water and wetland habitats, causing entire species to go extinct. Prohibiting humans from using water or building near frog habitats is unlikely to prevent the ongoing habitat changes caused by global warming.
The writer of the article pointed out that the populations of frogs are declining, and proposed three ways to stop the declination. The speaker, however, maintained that none of these methods work.
First, the writer advocated banning the usage of pesticides near the frog habitats, for pesticides could kill the frogs. The speaker disagreed with the proposal because it was not economically practical and fair. Not using pesticides would loose crops and therefore making it economically inpractical. Also, by disallowing some farmers to use pesticides, the farmers' yields would decrease while others remained the same, and such incompetitiveness was unfair.
The writer also suggested that some special treatments may help removing fungus that killed infected frogs. While the speaker agreed that the treatment could stop fungus from killing the frog, she did not think that this approach was scalable. It required the practitioners to capture each frog and apply the treatment one by one, and since it did not prevent the fungus from passing to the offsprings, the infected frogs' offsprings also need the treatments. Therefore, the speaker believed that this approach was too expensive and too complicated.
Finally, the writer proposed that preventing excessive use of water in the frogs' natural habitats may help stopping the declination. While the speaker was sympathetic to the suggestion, she objected that this would help. The speaker argued that excessive use of water was not a big threat in comparison with global warming. The frogs' population were much more heavily impacted by global warming. Forbidding excessive water use was not helpful if the global warming continued to worsen.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 240, Rule ID: LOOSE_LOSE[4]
Message: Did you mean 'lose' (= miss, waste, suffer the loss etc.)?
Suggestion: lose
...al and fair. Not using pesticides would loose crops and therefore making it economica...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 65, Rule ID: ADVISE_VBG[5]
Message: The verb 'help' is used with infinitive: 'to remove' or 'remove'.
Suggestion: to remove; remove
...d that some special treatments may help removing fungus that killed infected frogs. Whil...
^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 108, Rule ID: ADVISE_VBG[5]
Message: The verb 'help' is used with infinitive: 'to stop' or 'stop'.
Suggestion: to stop; stop
... in the frogs natural habitats may help stopping the declination. While the speaker was ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 328, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'frogs'' or 'frog's'?
Suggestion: frogs'; frog's
... in comparison with global warming. The frogs population were much more heavily impac...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, however, if, may, so, therefore, while, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 10.4613686534 86% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 5.04856512141 158% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 7.30242825607 96% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 12.0772626932 83% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 22.412803532 89% => OK
Preposition: 24.0 30.3222958057 79% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 5.01324503311 120% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1434.0 1373.03311258 104% => OK
No of words: 265.0 270.72406181 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.41132075472 5.08290768461 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.03470204552 4.04702891845 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79282506443 2.5805825403 108% => OK
Unique words: 142.0 145.348785872 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.535849056604 0.540411800872 99% => OK
syllable_count: 432.0 419.366225166 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.23620309051 134% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 1.25165562914 160% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.51434878587 198% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 2.5761589404 39% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
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: 36.9664111804 49.2860985944 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 95.6 110.228320801 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.6666666667 21.698381199 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.46666666667 7.06452816374 63% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 4.19205298013 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 4.45695364238 179% => 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: 0.0761178881872 0.272083759551 28% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0281264139491 0.0996497079465 28% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.03322020618 0.0662205650399 50% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0520408396878 0.162205337803 32% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0149827472583 0.0443174109184 34% => 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: 12.9 13.3589403974 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 53.8541721854 101% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 11.0289183223 90% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.8 12.2367328918 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.01 8.42419426049 107% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 63.6247240618 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 10.7273730684 98% => 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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It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 3.33333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.