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 and the lecture are both about elephants' surprising behaviors. The author of the article considers that humans have several beliefs about the behaviors. The lecturer disputes the claims made in the article. Her position is that these beliefs are due to misunderstandings.
According to the reading, one of the beliefs is that elephants are aware of approaching death. The article mentions that elephants will leave their herds and go to certain locations, elephant graveyards, often near water, to die alone. However, the lecturer challenges this specific argument. She claims that older elephants leave the herds because they have weak teeth and they simply want to find softer vegetation, which is usually near water. Thus, the so-called "elephant graveyards" are misunderstood: old elephants die near water just because they were looking for softer vegetation before they die.
Secondly, the author suggests that elephants seem to have artistic abilities. In the article, it expresses that elephants can be taught to paint on a canvas, and some elephants can even paint drawings that represent recognizable things. Nevertheless, the lecturer has different opinions. She mentions that elephants have sensitive ears, and they will be encouraged to learn tricks such as painting if trainers touch their ears. The fact is that elephants just memorize the strokes instead of understanding the meaning of their painting.
Finally, the author indicates that it has been believed that elephants have a fear of mice. They believe that elephants are more afraid of small mammals like mice than dangerous mammals that share an environment with elephants. The lecturer, however, says that such fear is only because elephants are not familiar with mice. This kind of fear is natural among animals when they encounter unfamiliar things or species. As a matter of fact, when elephants spend a lot of time with mice and realize that mice are no harm, they will not be afraid any more, like what is happening in zoos.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 166, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ve several beliefs about the behaviors. The lecturer disputes the claims made in th...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, however, if, look, nevertheless, second, secondly, so, thus, kind of, such as, as a matter of fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 10.4613686534 182% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 5.04856512141 99% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 7.30242825607 96% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 12.0772626932 157% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 22.412803532 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 34.0 30.3222958057 112% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1714.0 1373.03311258 125% => OK
No of words: 323.0 270.72406181 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.30650154799 5.08290768461 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.23936324884 4.04702891845 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79906639618 2.5805825403 108% => OK
Unique words: 178.0 145.348785872 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.551083591331 0.540411800872 102% => OK
syllable_count: 517.5 419.366225166 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 3.25607064018 215% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 11.0 8.23620309051 134% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 1.25165562914 160% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 13.0662251656 145% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 21.2450331126 80% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 38.7941509713 49.2860985944 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 90.2105263158 110.228320801 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.0 21.698381199 78% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.63157894737 7.06452816374 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 4.45695364238 224% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.27373068433 117% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.24422594979 0.272083759551 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0795777924554 0.0996497079465 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0496575796217 0.0662205650399 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.145558282646 0.162205337803 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0315564482072 0.0443174109184 71% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 13.3589403974 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 53.8541721854 101% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 11.0289183223 90% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.22 12.2367328918 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.1 8.42419426049 96% => OK
difficult_words: 74.0 63.6247240618 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 5.5 10.7273730684 51% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.8 10.498013245 84% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.2008830022 89% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 20 minutes.
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.