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 explores that there are three possible beliefs about surprising elephant behaviors. The professor deals with the same issue. However, she thinks that none of the beliefs listed in the reading is plausible, which contradicts what the reading states. Besides, in the lecture, she uses three specific points to support her idea.
First, even though the reading passage suggests that when elephants get old and weak, they are aware of approaching death, the professor argues in the lecture that it is not likely for elephants to sense their death. Because old elephants break away from their herds is their teeth would be worn down, and that will force them to eat some soft vegetations, which are easier for old elephants to digest. What’s more, the spot, which is near bodies of water, it is the place where elephants can find soft grass. Therefore, those old elephants will die here.
Moreover, contrary to the statement in the reading that elephants are able to draw, the professor contends that elephants can hold a paintbrush and use it to paint are trained by human beings. People can train the elephant to do this by touching its ears, which is the sensitive part of the elephant. In this case, certain types of graphs that are painted by elephants are the work of the manipulation of human beings. Thus, we have no idea whether those pictures are flowers or some other stuff.
Finally, the author of the reading explains that elephants have a fear of mice. The professor proves that this claim is indefensible by pointing out that the reason why elephants are afraid of mice is not that the mice put the threat on them but it is unknown for them. Comparing to the elephants in the wild, the elephants in the zoon do not have a fear to mice, because they are familiar to them
Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, but, finally, first, however, if, moreover, so, therefore, thus
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 10.4613686534 191% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 5.04856512141 119% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 7.30242825607 68% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 12.0772626932 149% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 22.412803532 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 39.0 30.3222958057 129% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 5.01324503311 40% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1494.0 1373.03311258 109% => OK
No of words: 314.0 270.72406181 116% => OK
Chars per words: 4.75796178344 5.08290768461 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.20951839842 4.04702891845 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.40791290237 2.5805825403 93% => OK
Unique words: 166.0 145.348785872 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.528662420382 0.540411800872 98% => OK
syllable_count: 450.0 419.366225166 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.55342163355 90% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 3.25607064018 184% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 1.25165562914 240% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 13.0662251656 115% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 21.2450331126 94% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.5811964701 49.2860985944 107% => OK
Chars per sentence: 99.6 110.228320801 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.9333333333 21.698381199 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.8 7.06452816374 68% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 4.45695364238 157% => 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: 0.158541599584 0.272083759551 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0586091841398 0.0996497079465 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0395701231187 0.0662205650399 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0947202626863 0.162205337803 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0423670614818 0.0443174109184 96% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.5 13.3589403974 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 68.1 53.8541721854 126% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 11.0289183223 79% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.33 12.2367328918 84% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.34 8.42419426049 87% => OK
difficult_words: 54.0 63.6247240618 85% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 10.7273730684 70% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 10.498013245 95% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.2008830022 71% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 78.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 23.5 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.