Altruism is a type of behavior in which an animal sacrifices its own interest for that of another animal or group of animals. Altruism is the opposite of selfishness; individuals performing altruistic acts gain nothing for themselves.Examples of altruism

The reading states that altruism is opposite of selfishness and provides few examples to show it. Professor refutes this and believes that there is selfishness behind altruism based on an example of a human donating his kidney and a very close study about meerkats.

First, the reading states that many animals sacrifice themselves for the group and puts forth an example of Meerkat. Article states that sentinels in meerkats starve while other meerkats search for food. Professor discusses about a study which opposes this notion. Professor states that the meerkat which acts as an sentinel eats before standing guard. Hence its stomach will already be full while other meerkats search for food. This can not be considered as unselfishness.

Second, the reading posits that the sentinel meerkat is at most risk as he is standing above the grass and predators can easily spot it. The professor denies this by explaining that sentinels often stand closest to the burrow. Hence, as soon as predator is spotted it can easily return home safely. Also, as the sentinel is the first one to see the predator he will be safer as others would be gathering food and realize later. Sentinel meerkat's signal can either mean to gather together or scatter. Sentinel meerkat is thus at an advantage when a predator arrives.

Third, the reading states that humans too are unselfish when they are altruistic. However, professor gives an example of kidney donor to refute this misconception. The kidney donor do have to gain something by donating his kidney--praise. By donating kidney not only will he be praised but his self worth will also be increased. For some people this praise and increased self worth will be more valuable than material rewards. Thus, even a kidney donor has to gain something while being altruistic.

Hence, professor refutes the notion stated in the article by providing examples of meerkat and a human donating kidney.

Votes
Average: 7.3 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 314, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...r states that the meerkat which acts as an sentinel eats before standing guard. He...
^^
Line 3, column 354, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...an sentinel eats before standing guard. Hence its stomach will already be full while ...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 376, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[3]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...ne to see the predator he will be safer as others would be gathering food and real...
^^

Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'but', 'first', 'hence', 'however', 'if', 'second', 'so', 'third', 'thus', 'while', 'as to']

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.26 0.261695866417 99% => OK
Verbs: 0.191428571429 0.158904122519 120% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0542857142857 0.0723426182421 75% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0628571428571 0.0435111971325 144% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0371428571429 0.0277247811725 134% => OK
Prepositions: 0.117142857143 0.128828473217 91% => OK
Participles: 0.0485714285714 0.0370669169778 131% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.54584829482 2.5805825403 99% => OK
Infinitives: 0.02 0.0208969081088 96% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.00154638098197 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.0971428571429 0.128158765124 76% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0285714285714 0.0158828679856 180% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0114285714286 0.0114777025283 100% => OK

Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 1937.0 1645.83664459 118% => OK
No of words: 319.0 271.125827815 118% => OK
Chars per words: 6.07210031348 6.08160592843 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.22617688928 4.04852973271 104% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.398119122257 0.374372842146 106% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.28526645768 0.287516216867 99% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.197492163009 0.187439937562 105% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.0940438871473 0.113142543107 83% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.54584829482 2.5805825403 99% => OK
Unique words: 167.0 145.348785872 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.523510971787 0.539623497131 97% => OK
Word variations: 54.1874352905 53.8517498576 101% => OK
How many sentences: 21.0 13.0529801325 161% => OK
Sentence length: 15.1904761905 21.7502111507 70% => OK
Sentence length SD: 27.9951404918 49.3711431718 57% => OK
Chars per sentence: 92.2380952381 132.220823453 70% => OK
Words per sentence: 15.1904761905 21.7502111507 70% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.571428571429 0.878197800319 65% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 3.39072847682 88% => OK
Readability: 43.7171219585 50.5018328374 87% => OK
Elegance: 1.46078431373 1.90840788429 77% => OK

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.246225079655 0.549887131256 45% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.111969381531 0.142949733639 78% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0954232343201 0.0787303798458 121% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.481875237084 0.631733273073 76% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.18963926085 0.139662658121 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0811280762751 0.266732575781 30% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0787075090286 0.103435571967 76% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.216576363096 0.414875509568 52% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0515118223215 0.0530846634433 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.162879471599 0.40443939384 40% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0760514879313 0.0528353158467 144% => OK

Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 4.33554083885 185% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 4.45695364238 90% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.26048565121 211% => Less neutral sentences wanted.
Positive topic words: 3.0 3.49668874172 86% => OK
Negative topic words: 4.0 3.62251655629 110% => OK
Neutral topic words: 5.0 3.1766004415 157% => OK
Total topic words: 12.0 10.2958057395 117% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

---------------------
Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
---------------------
Note: This is not the final score. 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.