The following appeared as part of a letter to the editor of a scientific journal.
"A recent study of eighteen rhesus monkeys provides clues as to the effects of birth order on an individual's levels of stimulation. The study showed that in stimulating situations (such as an encounter with an unfamiliar monkey), firstborn infant monkeys produce up to twice as much of the hormone cortisol, which primes the body for increased activity levels, as do their younger siblings. Firstborn humans also produce relatively high levels of cortisol in stimulating situations (such as the return of a parent after an absence). The study also found that during pregnancy, first-time mother monkeys had higher levels of cortisol than did those who had had several offspring."
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
The letter to the editor descibres a study that shows the tendancy of firstborn infant monkeys to produce up to two times more cortison when compared with their yournger brothers. The same behavior could be visible on first-time mothers, who produced more homone than the experients parents.
In the first place, the study in rhesus monkeys seems to be taken by a serious institution, which show very contundent results and giving a strong theory of the behavior of firstborn infant monkeys and first-time mothers. Under those circuntances we can consider that the results are very fiable and further explanations might be provided with the information of the reader’s letter.
The study was made with non-domestic animals, so the instinct behavior of these animal could be the first explanation for the results. The firstborn baby monkeys are the first to came to the enviroment, beeing the first that could be attacked by predators. In that case, the bigger production of cortisol when they have an encounter with unfamiliar animals might be explained.
Furthermore, all the animal’s behaviors are generated by thousands of years of evolutionary selection. The Darwin’s theory is a very reliable explanation for the fact that first-time mothers and firstborns produce more cortisol. On the history of evolution, the monkey’s population that produces more homone are the most adapted and they had a rate of surviving bigger than the population that produces the same amount of cortisol.
Similarly, the letter also presents the information that first born humans also produce higher levels of cortison in dangerous situations. Under those circumstances, using the evolutionary theory, this phenomenon might be developed by the same ancient species that cames before humans and money. As we know, the homo-sapiens and the monkey share a lot of genetic information, so there is possible to find same behaviours on both species.
In conclusion, the fact that humans and monkeys have the same tendency to firstborns produce high level of cortisol in stimulating situations indicate that a common specie developed this characteristic during its evolutionary process. How the homo-sapiens is more developed, the cortison generation for firstborn are not so primordial as the monkeys, so the homone levels are smaller when compared with monkeys, showing that this evolutionary characteristic is becaming unecessary.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/story/gre-argument-essay-topic-2-outline
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 376 350
No. of Characters: 1997 1500
No. of Different Words: 178 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.403 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.311 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.877 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.067 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.132 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.533 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.342 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.342 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.087 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, similarly, so, in conclusion, in the first place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2059.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 376.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.47606382979 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40348946061 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.05927256929 2.78398813304 110% => OK
Unique words: 186.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.494680851064 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 647.1 705.55239521 92% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => 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: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.7521569933 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 137.266666667 119.503703932 115% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.0666666667 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.93333333333 5.70786347227 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.110612416701 0.218282227539 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0400763977503 0.0743258471296 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.041260861642 0.0701772020484 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.064139444399 0.128457276422 50% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0355252147336 0.0628817314937 56% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.9 14.3799401198 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 48.3550499002 78% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.8 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.29 8.32208582834 112% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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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.