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 mentions three common beliefs about elephants. Yet, the professor debunks these beliefs by providing several correct explanations about elephants.
First, the reading passage mentions that elephants are aware of their own death, so they tend to leave their herd, approach specific locations such as water, and die there. However, the professor disagrees with the lecture. To be more specific, she states that the real reason why elephants stay away from their herd is because their teeth are worn down as they grew older. That is, elephants need to look for vegetations that are softer, and these plants are commonly found near water. Thus, the concept of "elephant graveyards" is the result of searching food that are easier do chew, rather than consciousness about their own death.
Secondly, the passage states that elephants are the only animal besides human beings that are able to perform artistic behaviors, and this is because human can teach elephants how to hold paintbrushes and paint art on a canvas. Unfortunately, the lecturer argues that the reason why elephants can paint is because human stroke their ears. To elaborate, she mentions that elephants' ear are quite sensitive, so if human wants to train them, they can encourage elephants to repeat their action by caressing their ear as a reward. In other words, elephants' artistic behavior is the direct result of human training instead of its innate artistic ability.
Last but not least, the reading states that elephants are afraid of small animals that seem to do no harm to them, such as mice. That is, they tend to avoid small mammals that are apparently less harmful. Yet the lecturer disagrees with the passage by stating that it is just their natural instinct to avoid species that they are unfamiliar with. For example, she states that if elephants do not recognize mice, they will definitely avoid them because they don't know whether these tiny creature will pose a great threat to them or not. However, for the ones who are familiar with mice, they tend to neglect them because they understand that these creatures do no harm to them.
To conclude, the lecturer thinks that all beliefs mentioned in the reading are based on several misunderstandings about elephants.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 304, Rule ID: REASON_IS_BECAUSE[1]
Message: Probably an incorrect phrase. Use 'the reason 'is that''.
Suggestion: is that
...that the reason why elephants can paint is because human stroke their ears. To elaborate, ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 372, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'elephants'' or 'elephant's'?
Suggestion: elephants'; elephant's
...r ears. To elaborate, she mentions that elephants ear are quite sensitive, so if human wa...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 458, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...will definitely avoid them because they dont know whether these tiny creature will p...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
apparently, besides, but, first, however, if, look, second, secondly, so, thus, for example, such as, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 10.4613686534 210% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 5.04856512141 119% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 7.30242825607 96% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 12.0772626932 157% => OK
Pronoun: 52.0 22.412803532 232% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 41.0 30.3222958057 135% => OK
Nominalization: 0.0 5.01324503311 0% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1913.0 1373.03311258 139% => OK
No of words: 374.0 270.72406181 138% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.11497326203 5.08290768461 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.3976220399 4.04702891845 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.58701550123 2.5805825403 100% => OK
Unique words: 193.0 145.348785872 133% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.516042780749 0.540411800872 95% => OK
syllable_count: 574.2 419.366225166 137% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 3.25607064018 276% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.51434878587 264% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 13.0662251656 130% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 21.2450331126 104% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.9261601029 49.2860985944 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.529411765 110.228320801 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0 21.698381199 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.82352941176 7.06452816374 97% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 4.19205298013 72% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 4.45695364238 202% => 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: 0.175175004913 0.272083759551 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.060330453993 0.0996497079465 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0557853878192 0.0662205650399 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0837564842362 0.162205337803 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0854281433705 0.0443174109184 193% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.6 13.3589403974 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 53.8541721854 107% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 11.0289183223 97% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.36 12.2367328918 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.42419426049 94% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 63.6247240618 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 10.7273730684 70% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 10.498013245 103% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => 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.