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.
In the given statements, the author has tried to show a relationship about level of cortisol between firstborn human infants and firstborn monkeys. The author tell about the experiment on eighteen rhesus monkeys and shows the observations of that experiment. The experiment checks the levels of coristol in monkeys and observes that in stimulating situations, firstborn monkeys produces up to twice as much of cortisol than their younger siblings. Also there is a observation is firstborn humans also have high cortisol than their siblings. But the observations and assumptions given in statements are not satisfactory to conclude the relationship of high cortisol between firstborn humans and monkeys.
Beginning with, the experiment on eighteen monkeys there is no specified details about the monkeys. Eighteen is very small number to make conclusion for all monkeys. It may be possible that the result for eighteen monkeys may not be correct for another monkeys. There is also not mentioned about the age and sex of the monkeys. May be some monkeys are male, some are female. How can we conclude by using these limited number of monkeys and also without their specific details?
There is also another flaw in the statements about firstborn monkeys. But there is not mentioned about howmany monkeys out of eighteen are firstborn mnokeys. There is also an observation about the stimulation situations of monkeys. But there may be several stimulating situations possible in monkeys. There is n mention about the particular stimulating situation. How can we conclude about that? The firstborn infant monkeys have high cortisol than their younger siblings which is proved by experiment. But the experiment is only about eighteen monkeys. It may be possible that out of these eighteen monkeys, there exist firstborn monkeys which have low cortisol with compare to their younger siblings.
The another assumption is about the human firstborn children. The author says that the firstborn human infants also have the high level of cortisol with compare to their younger siblings. But this assumption is based on the experiment on eighteen monkeys. It seems ridicules. How can we conclude about the human infant’s cortisol level with an experiment on monkeys. For measuring the cortisol level of firstborn human infants, it is necessary to do the experiment on humans. There is also a mention about the stimulating situations of humans. How can author compare the stimulating situations of humans with monkeys? There may be several stimulating situations of humans.
There is also a mention about the level of cortisol of mother monkey during the pregnancy. But there is no evidence shown for level of cortisol between mother and her infant during pregnancy. The level of cortisol in infant monkey may be less than its mother. Also we can’t assume the level of cortisol of human mother by assumption of mother monkey.
Therefore, there are less evidences which supports the given assumptions of authors. The given observations and assumptions make the conclusion weak. If there are more evidences then the given conclusion may be true. But by observing given statement the conclusion does not seem true.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
flaws:
it is out of topic. it is different to normal GRE argument topics. look:
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.
---------------------
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: 37 15
No. of Words: 511 350
No. of Characters: 2638 1500
No. of Different Words: 152 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.755 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.162 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.698 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 198 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 165 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 112 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 71 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 13.811 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.321 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.622 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.53 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.189 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 378, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...timulating situations, firstborn monkeys produces up to twice as much of cortisol...
^^
Line 1, column 450, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...f cortisol than their younger siblings. Also there is a observation is firstborn hum...
^^^^
Line 1, column 464, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...n their younger siblings. Also there is a observation is firstborn humans also ha...
^
Line 3, column 333, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[8]
Message: The proper name in singular (May) must be used with a third-person verb: 'is'.
Suggestion: is
...out the age and sex of the monkeys. May be some monkeys are male, some are female....
^^
Line 9, column 261, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...ant monkey may be less than its mother. Also we can't assume the level of corti...
^^^^
Line 11, column 22, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun evidences is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
... mother monkey. Therefore, there are less evidences which supports the given assu...
^^^^
Line 11, column 151, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...d assumptions make the conclusion weak. If there are more evidences then the given...
^^
Line 11, column 179, Rule ID: LESS_MORE_THEN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'than'?
Suggestion: than
...usion weak. If there are more evidences then the given conclusion may be true. But b...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, may, so, then, therefore
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2713.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 511.0 441.139720559 116% => OK
Chars per words: 5.30919765166 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.75450408675 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79844949567 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 158.0 204.123752495 77% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.309197651663 0.468620217663 66% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 829.8 705.55239521 118% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 37.0 19.7664670659 187% => OK
Sentence length: 13.0 22.8473053892 57% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 34.6640561097 57.8364921388 60% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 73.3243243243 119.503703932 61% => OK
Words per sentence: 13.8108108108 23.324526521 59% => More words per sentence wanted.
Discourse Markers: 1.24324324324 5.70786347227 22% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 20.0 4.67664670659 428% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.230841272725 0.218282227539 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0749731625684 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0606940599165 0.0701772020484 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.137153112723 0.128457276422 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0656095488129 0.0628817314937 104% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.5 14.3799401198 73% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.28 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.4 12.197005988 69% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.93 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 6.54 8.32208582834 79% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 98.500998004 74% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 7.2 11.1389221557 65% => OK
text_standard: 7.0 11.9071856287 59% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.