Sea otters are a small mammal that lives in the waters along North America s west coast from California to Alaska A few years ago some of the sea otter populations off of the Alaskan coast started to decline rapidly and raised several concerns because of | TOEFL IELTS GMAT GRE SAT ACT PTE ESL

Essay topics:

Sea otters are a small mammal that lives in the waters along North America's west coast from California to Alaska. A few years ago some of the sea otter populations off of the Alaskan coast started to decline rapidly and raised several concerns because of their important role in the coastal ecosystem. Experts began investigating and came up with two possible explanations. One explanation was environmental pollution and the second was attacks by predators.

At first it seemed as if the pollution was the most likely cause for the population decline. One reason pollution was more likely was because of the known pollution sources along the Alaskan coast such as oil rigs. Also water samples taken in the area showed increased levels of chemicals that could decrease the otters' immune systems and indirectly result in their deaths.

Another thing that pointed to pollution as the culprit was the decline of other sea mammals such as seals in the same areas. This indicated that whatever was affecting the otters was also affecting the other sea mammals. Environmental pollution usually affects an entire ecosystem instead of just one species. Only predators that occurred in a large area, such as orcas (a large predatory whale), could cause the same effect, but they usually hunt larger prey.

Finally, scientists believed the pollution hypothesis would also explain the uneven pattern of otter decline. In some Alaskan locations the otter population declined greatly while other populations remained stable. Some experts suggested this could be explained by ocean currents, or other environmental factor, might have created uneven concentrations of pollutants along the coast.

Both the lecture and the reading discuss about declination of sea otters population in recent years. The passage suggests that these sea creatures play a key role in our costal ecosystem, and provides three possible explanation of support, but the latter challenges each of these points.

First of all, the author of the passage states that pollution along the Alaskan coast could be the reason due to the presence of oil rigs and water samples taken from the coast having increased level of chemicals, which in turn decrease the immunity of the otters. In contrast, the lecture argues that, pollution more likely do not make dead bodies of dead otter disappear. Point out that predator's would likely be the cause as they would feed on the bodies making them disappear.

Second of all, the passage claims that environmental pollution usually affects entire ecosystem and points out that the orcas could only hunt larger prey making them less likely to hunt otters. On the other hand, the professor in the lecture agrees with the author about the hunting habit of the orcas but states that declination of whales which are usually hunted by orcas would make orcas feed on different species which are available to them.

Finally, the author states that uneven pattern of otter decline could happen due to the ocean currents and other environmental factors which might make uneven concentrations of pollutants along coast. Unlike, the lecture which states that predation could happen due to more accessibility of otters in some locations. Lecture also proclaims that rocky location make it difficult for predation to happen due to inaccessibility.

Votes

Essay Categories

Integrated TOEFL Writing

Comments

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 67, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'otters'' or 'otter's'?
Suggestion: otters'; otter's
...eading discuss about declination of sea otters population in recent years. The passage...
^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, if, second, so, in contrast, first of all, on the other hand

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 4.0 10.4613686534 38% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 5.04856512141 158% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 7.30242825607 96% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 12.0772626932 124% => OK
Pronoun: 18.0 22.412803532 80% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 30.3222958057 132% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 5.01324503311 219% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1384.0 1373.03311258 101% => OK
No of words: 269.0 270.72406181 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.14498141264 5.08290768461 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.0498419064 4.04702891845 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.54497826316 2.5805825403 99% => OK
Unique words: 143.0 145.348785872 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.531598513011 0.540411800872 98% => OK
syllable_count: 426.6 419.366225166 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 3.25607064018 0% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.23620309051 85% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 10.0 13.0662251656 77% => 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: 60.2618453086 49.2860985944 122% => OK
Chars per sentence: 138.4 110.228320801 126% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.9 21.698381199 124% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.7 7.06452816374 123% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 4.45695364238 45% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.132915937859 0.272083759551 49% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0591313412228 0.0996497079465 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0600421497954 0.0662205650399 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0843730980999 0.162205337803 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0446696181786 0.0443174109184 101% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.2 13.3589403974 121% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 53.8541721854 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 11.0289183223 121% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.83 12.2367328918 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.68 8.42419426049 103% => OK
difficult_words: 64.0 63.6247240618 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 10.7273730684 131% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 10.498013245 118% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.2008830022 116% => OK
What are above readability scores?

---------------------

Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 Out of 30
---------------------
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.

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, if, second, so, in contrast, first of all, on the other hand

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments