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 author mentions the following facts without brief explanation and the proposed facts do not have enough data to back them and hence this argument is rife with holes and assumptions, and thus, not strong enough to stand on the authors proposed explanations.
Firstly, the author doesn't mention the people behind the research, who are responsible for conducting the study. It is highly possible that the study was conducted by a group of amateurs, who are not well versed, particularly at this subject of focus. The results would have been different, if the research was conducted by a group of professionals. This completely eradicates the author's explanation on the eighteen rhesus monkey.
Secondly, the author claims that the study 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. This is the first fact that the author states, on which his entire explanation depends It is possible that, any amount of cortisol hormone increase the levels of activity in a monkey. Hence, the effect of twice the amount of the hormone is similar to that of any amounts of it and thus the theory which states that an encounter with unfamiliar monkey increases the activity levels of the firstborn and it's younger siblings is completely absurd.
Furthermore, the author mentions that, the firstborn humans also produce relatively high levels of cortisol in stimulating situations (such as the return of a parent after an absence). Here the author compares two different species at two completely different circumstances. Firstly the author compares an encounter between the Rhesus monkey to an unfamiliar monkey. Later he compares and infant to their parents and makes a statement relating to both the circumstances. It is possible that infants produce high levels of cortisol hormone after an encounter with their parent after a long time. This might be possible as both the individuals share the same blood and hence there might be some scientific reason behind the increase in hormonal levels. But relating this circumstance to the one with monkey seems no where close.
Finally, it is mentioned that, that during pregnancy, first-time mother monkeys had higher levels of cortisol than did those who had had several offspring. It is possible that higher levels of hormone was present in other monkey's, than the one on which the study was being conducted. The monkey considered for the study might have had some medical issues and due to this lower levels of cortisol was found in monkey's with several offspring.
The author states the facts without keen background research and in depth study on the subject of focus. The above alternative explanations prove that the author's claims were a result of incompetence and his explanations can be proved wrong.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/story/gre-argument-essay-topic-2-outline
-------------
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: 20 15
No. of Words: 481 350
No. of Characters: 2427 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.683 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.046 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.647 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 190 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.05 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.399 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.34 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.593 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.109 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 21, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...ed explanations. Firstly, the author doesnt mention the people behind the research,...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 382, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...sionals. This completely eradicates the authors explanation on the eighteen rhesus monk...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 38, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: study
... Secondly, the author claims that the study study showed that, in stimulating situations ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 810, Rule ID: NOW[2]
Message: Did you mean 'now' (=at this moment) instead of 'no' (negation)?
Suggestion: now
...rcumstance to the one with monkey seems no where close. Finally, it is mention...
^^
Line 9, column 130, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: had
...r levels of cortisol than did those who had had several offspring. It is possible that ...
^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 106, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...in depth study on the subject of focus. The above alternative explanations prove th...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, if, second, secondly, so, thus, well, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2483.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 480.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.17291666667 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68069463864 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71980822317 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 211.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.439583333333 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 757.8 705.55239521 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 61.3117240012 57.8364921388 106% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.15 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.0 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.05 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
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: 0.164477204055 0.218282227539 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0553890834862 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0497572869818 0.0701772020484 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0788067568582 0.128457276422 61% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0443408154114 0.0628817314937 71% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.08 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 99.0 98.500998004 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.