Humans have long been fascinated by elephants, the largest land animal in the modern world. Social animals that live in herds, elephants are native to both Africa and Asia. Their large ears, long trunk, and long life span have made elephants one of the mo

Essay topics:

Humans have long been fascinated by elephants, the largest land animal in the modern world. Social animals that live in herds, elephants are native to both Africa and Asia. Their large ears, long trunk, and long life span have made elephants one of the most captivating creatures on Earth. Our long-standing interest in elephants has led to several beliefs about surprising elephant behaviors.

Elephants Are Aware of Approaching Death

One of the popular beliefs is that when elephants become old and weak, they know that they are nearing the end of their lives. They demonstrate this by breaking away from their herds and going off alone to certain locations often found near bodies of water—so called “elephant graveyards”—to die alone. The idea that old elephants seem aware that they will die soon is supported by the discovery of many sites containing bones exclusively of elderly elephants.

Representing Objects through Art

Additionally, elephants seem to have artistic ability. Elephants can be taught to hold a paintbrush in their trunk and use it to paint on a canvas. Some elephants have been known to paint drawings that represent recognizable things: flowers, other elephants, even themselves. This talent makes elephants the only animal other than humans to produce art representing the world around them.

Fear of Mice

Finally, it has long been believed that elephants have a fear of mice. In 77 C.E., the Roman philosopher and scientist Pliny the Elder wrote that elephants are more afraid of mice, small mammals that can do elephants no harm, than of the much more dangerous animals with which elephants normally share an environment, such as lions or tigers. In a recent scientific experiment in which a herd of elephants was confronted with several mice, the elephants backed away from the mice and left the area to avoid them.

The reading passage states some beliefes about elephants' behaviors. However, the professor in the lecture casts doubt on the points presented in the reading passage and think of them as misunderstandings.

First, considering the reading passage, elephants get aware of the time they are going to die when they get old because they leave the herds and go to to similar locations near water that bones of many other elephants have been found, like graveyards to the humans. In contrast, the professor in lecture contradicts the idea and further explains that there is another reason for leaving the herd. when elephants get old, they can not chew regular vegetations easily and they look for softer ones which are located mstly near bodies of water. Thus, this is likely for them to die in those places because they feed there.

Second, the reading claims that elephants have artistic abilities sine they could paint recognizable things when they were taught how to hold a brush and use it. On the contrary, the professor in the lecture refutes the information presented by the reading passage and makes the point that elephants have sensitive ears and they can be trained with touching the ears. So it is possible that they do not have any idea of the thing they are painting but they are just remembering what they have been trained.

Finally, the author in the reading passage puts forward the idea that elephants are fearful of mice, even more than animals which can be actually dangerous for them. In contrast, the speaker in the lecture contradicts the idea and adds that elephants are afraid of mice because they are unfamiliar with them which is a common behavior in animals. In places with many mice living near elephants, they are not afraid of mice anymore because they understand mice are not harmful to them.

Votes
Average: 8 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 149, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: to
...old because they leave the herds and go to to similar locations near water that bones...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 398, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: When
...is another reason for leaving the herd. when elephants get old, they can not chew re...
^^^^
Line 13, column 57, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'abilities'' or 'ability's'?
Suggestion: abilities'; ability's
...ing claims that elephants have artistic abilities sine they could paint recognizable thin...
^^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, however, look, second, so, thus, in contrast, on the contrary

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

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 10.4613686534 172% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 5.04856512141 79% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 7.30242825607 123% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 12.0772626932 108% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 22.412803532 143% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 38.0 30.3222958057 125% => OK
Nominalization: 1.0 5.01324503311 20% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1534.0 1373.03311258 112% => OK
No of words: 310.0 270.72406181 115% => OK
Chars per words: 4.94838709677 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.19604776685 4.04702891845 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.45937015532 2.5805825403 95% => OK
Unique words: 157.0 145.348785872 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.506451612903 0.540411800872 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 469.8 419.366225166 112% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.23620309051 85% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 2.5761589404 233% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 21.2450331126 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.544466122 49.2860985944 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.833333333 110.228320801 116% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.8333333333 21.698381199 119% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.66666666667 7.06452816374 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 4.19205298013 72% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 4.33554083885 46% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.27373068433 94% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.108019831913 0.272083759551 40% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0463963538353 0.0996497079465 47% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0314368020402 0.0662205650399 47% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0673914782921 0.162205337803 42% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0261735545806 0.0443174109184 59% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 13.3589403974 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 53.8541721854 101% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 11.0289183223 108% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.73 12.2367328918 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.58 8.42419426049 90% => OK
difficult_words: 53.0 63.6247240618 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 10.7273730684 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 10.498013245 114% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 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.