The zebra mussel, a freshwater shellfish native to Eastern Europe, has long been spreading out from its original habitats and has now reached parts of North America. There are reasons to believe that this invasion cannot be stopped and that it poses a serious threat to freshwater fish populations in all of North America.
First, the history of the zebra mussel's spread suggests that the invasion might be unstoppable. It is a prime example of an invasion made possible by human transportation. From the zebra mussel，s original habitats in Eastern Europe, ships helped spread it out along new canals built to connect Europe’s waterways. The mussel can attach itself to a ship’ s bottom or can survive in the water—called "ballast water"—that the ship needs to take on to properly balance its cargo. By the early nineteenth century, the mussel had spread to the whole of Europe. It was later carried to the east coast of North America in the ballast water of ships traveling from Europe. The way ships have spread the zebra mussel inthe past strongly suggests that the species will soon colonize all of North America.
Moreover, once zebra mussels are carried to a new habitat, theycan dominate it. They are a hardy species that does well under a variety of conditions, and they have a high rate of reproduction. Most important, however, zebra mussels often have no predators in their new habitats, and species without natural predators are likely to dominate their habitats.
Finally, zebra mussels are likely to cause a decline in the overall fish population in habitats where they become dominant. The mussels are plankton eaters, which means that they compete for food with many freshwater fish species.
The reading and the lecture are both about the zebra mussel animal that is threatening and dominating the North American habitats. The author provides three reasons for the threat of shellfish, while the lecturer believes that it is not a serious problem.
First of all, the author of the reading passage claims that the zebra mussel's rapid expansion is the main cause for the threat since it was transported by transportation ships and also it can survive the ballast water. The professor, however, disagrees. He suggests that there was no decent knowledge in the past for using ballast water. He goes on to say that there are effective ways to cross the ocean, which includes the replacement of ballast water with seawater that will eventually kill the shellfish.
Secondly, according to the reading passage, these shellfish populations can dominate their new habitat, because they can adapt to different conditions of the surrounding. The lecturer rebuts this argument by saying that they have no predators only in the beginning, but when birds from the local area see the new species of the fish, they will switch whatever they were eating into the zebra mussel.
Finally, the author posits that these animals are competitors of the fish population since they both feed on one-celled organisms. The lecturer contends that this process has positive effects. He says that this will increase the population of the bottom-feeding fish population of freshwater.
As you can see, the reading and the lecture both have conflicting views about the zebra mussel expansion.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, second, secondly, so, while, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 10.4613686534 86% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 5.04856512141 139% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 7.30242825607 68% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 12.0772626932 99% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 22.412803532 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 27.0 30.3222958057 89% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 5.01324503311 120% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1325.0 1373.03311258 97% => OK
No of words: 255.0 270.72406181 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.19607843137 5.08290768461 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.99608801488 4.04702891845 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66234944648 2.5805825403 103% => OK
Unique words: 146.0 145.348785872 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.572549019608 0.540411800872 106% => OK
syllable_count: 395.1 419.366225166 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 3.25607064018 154% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 1.25165562914 240% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 2.5761589404 39% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 21.2450331126 99% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.5321933847 49.2860985944 115% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.416666667 110.228320801 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.25 21.698381199 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.75 7.06452816374 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 4.33554083885 46% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 4.45695364238 202% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.27373068433 23% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.105136972005 0.272083759551 39% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0392832589897 0.0996497079465 39% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0303884036755 0.0662205650399 46% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0633819889829 0.162205337803 39% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0346254534728 0.0443174109184 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 13.3589403974 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 53.8541721854 109% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 11.0289183223 93% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.88 12.2367328918 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.14 8.42419426049 108% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 63.6247240618 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 10.7273730684 98% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 10.498013245 99% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.