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 attempts to make a case for the connection between birth order of rhesus monkeys and stimulation. They, however, many generalizations and fail to make some necessary connections, therefore weakening the argument and allowing for alternative reasonings. Such alternate reasonings for the observed phenomena is the difference in environmental stimulus as well as difference in the purpose of the hormone cortisol.
The author does not detail the stimulating situations in which the infant monkeys were exposed to, therefore allowing that the firstborn infants were perhaps exposed to more intense or greater quantity of stimulus than were later-born infants. For example, the firstborn infants may have had a greater number of humans handling them or could have undergone a moving of locations, causing the infant to need to adjust to a new environment. In contrast, the later-born infants may have had less people handling them and may have been confined to only a single enclosure their entire lives, therefore giving them less in the environment to be stimulated by. With such scenarios, the stimulation experienced by these monkeys is more related to the amount of environmental stimuli they are exposed to rather than the originally claimed birth order of the infant monkeys, a complete departure from the author’s argument.
The given argument also fails to describe how the hormone cortisol works within the monkeys’ bodies, allowing for the possibility that perhaps the amount of cortisol produced does not correlate with stimulation. Although the author mentions that cortisol is used to prime the body for increased activity, this does not necessarily indicate that the amount of this hormone is tied to the stimulation a monkey may experience. For example, a monkey may experienced increased activity levels if it is playing with another monkey, but another monkey may experience greater stimulation if it is being quietly passed around multiple handlers. The mention of production of cortisol in humans may also be explained with this discrepancy, as the given example of heightened cortisol levels of a child when a parent returns home may be due to a parent playing catch with their child upon returning home, in which the activity level of the child would be increased. The author also continues to state that a first-time mother experiences greater amounts of cortisol, but this can be explained by the greater amount of activity within the body while undergoing the changes necessary for pregnancy, changes that past mothers have already experienced and therefore require less activity of the body.
The hormone cortisol may not be necessarily related to an organism’s stimulus, and the study of infant monkeys described may attribute its results to the environmental stimuli of the monkeys rather than the birth order. This lack of the author’s detailing in the function of the hormone cortisol as well as the environmental conditions of the study surrounding the infant monkeys allows for explanations alternative to the author’s stated theory.
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: 14 15
No. of Words: 485 350
No. of Characters: 2551 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.693 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.26 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.846 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 211 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 168 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 114 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 72 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 34.643 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.925 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.857 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.382 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.603 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.156 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 489, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...st, the later-born infants may have had less people handling them and may have been ...
^^^^
Line 7, column 1, 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.
... require less activity of the body. The hormone cortisol may not be necessarily...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, so, therefore, well, while, for example, in contrast, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2624.0 2260.96107784 116% => OK
No of words: 485.0 441.139720559 110% => OK
Chars per words: 5.41030927835 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.69283662038 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.00667058721 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 216.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.445360824742 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 836.1 705.55239521 119% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => 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: 34.0 22.8473053892 149% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 57.2394273278 57.8364921388 99% => OK
Chars per sentence: 187.428571429 119.503703932 157% => OK
Words per sentence: 34.6428571429 23.324526521 149% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.14285714286 5.70786347227 125% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.105932949764 0.218282227539 49% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.049073425343 0.0743258471296 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0510409277443 0.0701772020484 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0763172694813 0.128457276422 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0301289311403 0.0628817314937 48% => 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: 21.4 14.3799401198 149% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 28.51 48.3550499002 59% => Flesch_reading_ease is low.
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 17.7 12.197005988 145% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.69 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.2 8.32208582834 111% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 15.6 11.1389221557 140% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.