"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."
Although it seems true that there is a direct relationship between level of cortisol and the order of baby born, there are a plethora of flaws about the author's assumption that does not make an argument cogent and convincing.
First of all, the author used 18 samples in his experiment, while this number of samples does not seem to be enough for eventuating to the valid result. Moreover, the study used just one kind of monkey which makes it hard to expand it to other types of monkeys. It is also worth mentioning that there is no control group to evaluate the other factors' effects. For instance, it is possible that results stem from external elements and the author interprets them as an effect of order of baby born.
Furthermore, it is a troublesome analogy to compare human babies with monkey’s one since they are completely different in genetic level and even in their psychological manner. Thus, these variations may lead to different results. For example, a human child after born immediately starts to analyze the environment, however monkeys mostly are independent to their intrinsic feeling.
In addition, the author did not mention the feature of stimulating. It is possible that all monkeys did not depict a certain reaction to specific stimulating. Also, it does not mention the characteristics of monkeys such as their gender, age, healthy situation, environment where they grew up, etc. All aforementioned factors can alter the results. It tells nothing about their rule as parents, first child, second child or third one as well.
Last but not least, there is no clear relationship between the amounts of cortisol in a mother's body who is pregnant for the first time with the amounts of the same material in the body of the first child. Moreover, the author did not address the human mothers to compare their results with monkeys’ and suggest more treatable evidence.
By way of conclusion, although the author’s arguments seem right and logical, there are multitude drawbacks which must be addressed. The author should use more samples from different types of monkeys and include a control group to eliminate other effects which are not related to the experiment. Argument also should give more information about the condition of stimulation.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 375 350
No. of Characters: 1848 1500
No. of Different Words: 195 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.401 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.928 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.636 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 128 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 62 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 37 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.059 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.619 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.312 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.312 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.07 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 154, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...there are a plethora of flaws about the authors assumption that does not make an argume...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, second, so, third, thus, well, while, for example, for instance, in addition, kind of, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1905.0 2260.96107784 84% => OK
No of words: 375.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.08 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40055868397 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75551197098 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 198.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.528 0.468620217663 113% => OK
syllable_count: 585.9 705.55239521 83% => 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: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.4078608044 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.833333333 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.8333333333 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.27777777778 5.70786347227 163% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0750557812433 0.218282227539 34% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0231759555026 0.0743258471296 31% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0277083578496 0.0701772020484 39% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0404543305612 0.128457276422 31% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0214279575556 0.0628817314937 34% => 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: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.18 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.42 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.