"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.
There are three main alternative explanations that could explain the results presented in the study. First, firstborn infants are accustomed to less familiar faces than their younger brothers: this might explain the high levels of cortisol in encounters with an unfamiliar monkey, and not necessarily the birth order. When a firstborn is born, his family is only his father and mother, while younger offspring are born to a family with father, mother, and older siblings. This might adjust younger offspring organisms, making them less prone to release cortisol in their bloodstream when encountering unfamiliar monkeys. To verify this, we suggest an experiment in which young siblings are removed from their families just after birth, and put in other setup with only father and mother.
Second, human parents might demonstrate more affection and concern in returning and re-encountering their firstborn babies, as they are first-time fathers, thus stimulating their children more severely. As they become accustomed to fatherhood, when they re-encounter their children after a while, they might show less emotions, stimulating less younger children. This could explain the high level of cortisol observed in firstborn human babies instead of birth order. To check this, we suggest testing young children put up for adoption, not firstborn babies, with first-time fathers.
Finally, the high level of cortisol observed in first-time mother monkeys might be related to the effect of being pregnant and having to look out for baby monkeys at the same time. The stress of being pregnant and having to feed a large offspring might change mother monkeys' hormonal response. To verify this, we suggest an additional experiment in which we remove young offspring from a pregnant mother monkey.
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: 12 15
No. of Words: 278 350
No. of Characters: 1474 1500
No. of Different Words: 135 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.083 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.302 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.606 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 113 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 84 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 58 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 35 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.167 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.942 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.417 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.394 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.562 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.17 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 3 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 314, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun emotions is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...children after a while, they might show less emotions, stimulating less younger chil...
^^^^
Line 3, column 341, Rule ID: LESS_COMPARATIVE[1]
Message: Non-standard use of the comparative or superlative. Did you mean 'less young'?
Suggestion: less young
...y might show less emotions, stimulating less younger children. This could explain the high l...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, if, look, second, so, thus, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 19.6327345309 51% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 36.0 55.5748502994 65% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1517.0 2260.96107784 67% => OK
No of words: 278.0 441.139720559 63% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.45683453237 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.08329915638 4.56307096286 89% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66994933857 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 143.0 204.123752495 70% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.514388489209 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 437.4 705.55239521 62% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 19.7664670659 61% => 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: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 37.1419013155 57.8364921388 64% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.416666667 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.1666666667 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.08333333333 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 3.0 5.15768463074 58% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.20758483034 24% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => 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: 0.083910471912 0.218282227539 38% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0365056817299 0.0743258471296 49% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0350225350647 0.0701772020484 50% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0613903433984 0.128457276422 48% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0103871432098 0.0628817314937 17% => 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: 15.9 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.68 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.75 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 70.0 98.500998004 71% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Minimum four paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.