Essay topics:
Passage:
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 abound, both among humans and among other mammals. Unselfish acts among humans range from the sharing of food with strangers to the donation of body organs to family members, and even to strangers. Such acts are altruistic in that they benefit another, yet provide little reward to the one performing the act.In fact, many species of animals appear willing to sacrifice food, or even their life, to assist other members of their group.
The meerkat, which is a mammal that dwells in burrows in grassland areas of Africa, is often cited as an example. In groups of meerkats, an individual acts as a sentinel, standing guard and looking out for predators while the others hunt for food or eat food they have obtained. If the sentinel meerkat sees a predator such as a hawk approaching the group, it gives an alarm cry alerting the other meerkats to run and seek shelter. By standing guard,the sentinel meerkat gains nothing—it goes without food while the others eat, and it places itself in grave danger. After it issues an alarm, it has to flee alone, which might make it more at risk to a predator, since animals in groups are often able to work together to fend off a predator. So the altruistic sentinel behavior helps ensure the survival of other members of the meerkat’s group.
Listening Script:
You know, often in science, new findings force us to re-examine earlier beliefs and assumptions.
And a recent study of meerkats is having exactly this effect. The study examined the meerkat’s behavior quite closely, much more closely than had ever been done before. And some interesting things were found . . . like about eating habits . . . it showed that typically meerkats eat before they stand guard—so the ones standing guard had a full stomach! And the study also found that since the sentinel is the first to see a predator coming, it’s the most likely to escape . . . because it often stands guard near a burrow, so it can run immediately into the burrow after giving the alarm.
The other meerkats, the ones scattered about looking for food, are actually in greater danger. And in fact, other studies have suggested that when an animal creates an alarm, the alarm call might cause the other group members either to gather together or else to move about very quickly, behaviors that might actually draw the predator’s attention away from the caller, increasing that animal’s own chances of survival.
And what about people—what about some human acts that might be considered altruistic? Let’s take an extreme case, uh, suppose a person donates a kidney to a relative, or even to a complete stranger. A selfless act, right? But . . . doesn’t the donor receive appreciation and approval from the stranger and from society? Doesn’t the donor gain an increased sense of self-worth? Couldn’t such non-material rewards be considered very valuable to some people?
Que: Summarize the points made in the lecture you just heard, being sure to specifically explain how they cast doubt on points made in the reading.
The listening content totally contradicts the reading passage on the concept of altruism from humans and animals.
To begin with, the reading says that meerkats eat nothing while standing guard. But the speaker argues that meerkats eat before standing guard and are full of stomachs when they are on duty for their group. Besides, the reading talks about the fact that the sentinel meerkats put themselves in danger because of giving alarms and running alone without protection. However, the lecturer defends that they are close to burrows, they can escape and hide in the burrows faster than other meerkats as soon as they see the predators, so they are actually safe.
Moreover, they are also safer when they give out the alarm cry because other meerkats will get together or move quickly. This will draw the predator’s attention and increase the caller’s chance to survive. In other words, sentinel meerkats will not jeopardize themselves in such behavior; in turn, they are increasing their survival chances on the whole.
Lastly, the reading mentions that humans can share food with or even donate their organs to strangers without anything in return. Yet the lecturer disputes that people who do these still gain some non-material rewards, such as appreciation from society. Whatever they do can increase their own degree of self-worth. Therefore, the passage and the lecture are controversial on the issue of altruism.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, besides, but, however, lastly, moreover, so, still, therefore, while, such as, in other words, on the whole, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 7.0 10.4613686534 67% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 5.04856512141 119% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 7.30242825607 137% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 12.0772626932 75% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 22.412803532 103% => OK
Preposition: 29.0 30.3222958057 96% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1208.0 1373.03311258 88% => OK
No of words: 231.0 270.72406181 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.22943722944 5.08290768461 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.89854898053 4.04702891845 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.50343741495 2.5805825403 97% => OK
Unique words: 139.0 145.348785872 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.601731601732 0.540411800872 111% => OK
syllable_count: 355.5 419.366225166 85% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 3.25607064018 123% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.23620309051 73% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 21.2450331126 89% => OK
Sentence length SD: 35.0391645956 49.2860985944 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.666666667 110.228320801 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.25 21.698381199 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 11.5 7.06452816374 163% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.27373068433 23% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0709841655677 0.272083759551 26% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.032419292534 0.0996497079465 33% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0342462308179 0.0662205650399 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0491575967954 0.162205337803 30% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0211184676538 0.0443174109184 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: 12.8 13.3589403974 96% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 53.8541721854 113% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 11.0289183223 86% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.05 12.2367328918 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.41 8.42419426049 100% => OK
difficult_words: 56.0 63.6247240618 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 10.7273730684 84% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 10.498013245 91% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.2008830022 89% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 3.33333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 Out of 30
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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.