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.
In the reading, the article introduces three surprising beliefs about elephant behaviors. However, in the listening, the professor gives out three reasons why these beliefs can’t stand. First, the reading says that elephants are aware of approaching death. Nevertheless, the listening points out that the true reason why an elephant may break away from the herd is that their teeth become worn out and the animal has to seek for softer plants as their food resources. Therefore, they would get close to the water where soft plants usually occur and finally die there. Second, the reading asserts that elephants have artistic ability and know how to represent objects through art.
However, the listening again rejects this statement. According to the lecture, in order to train elephants to paint, the painters will stroke elephant’s ears and help them to memorize certain patterns of paintbrush strokes. In this way, elephant would harness the capacity to draw lines that they are taught to paint. But the thing is that they are just programmed to draw these lines and don’t have any idea of what these lines represent. Third, the reading says that the elephants have a fear of mice. But the listening also disputes this because it supposes the reason why elephants try to avoid mice is that mice are unfamiliar to them not that they are afraid of them. Those elephants living in the zoo don’t show any fright of mice because mice are always around them and they get used to these small creatures very much.
In another word, once elephants are accustomed to mice, they wouldn’t mind if they are around or not. In a nutshell, by giving all these three reasons, the listening successfully goes against the reading article.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, nevertheless, second, so, therefore, third, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 10.4613686534 105% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 5.04856512141 99% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 7.30242825607 123% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 12.0772626932 83% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 22.412803532 143% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 37.0 30.3222958057 122% => 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: 1449.0 1373.03311258 106% => OK
No of words: 290.0 270.72406181 107% => OK
Chars per words: 4.99655172414 5.08290768461 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.12666770723 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.42310764391 2.5805825403 94% => OK
Unique words: 166.0 145.348785872 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.572413793103 0.540411800872 106% => OK
syllable_count: 430.2 419.366225166 103% => 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: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 2.5761589404 311% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 13.0662251656 115% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 21.2450331126 89% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.7953268477 49.2860985944 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.6 110.228320801 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.3333333333 21.698381199 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.26666666667 7.06452816374 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 3.0 4.09492273731 73% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 4.33554083885 115% => OK
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: 0.175778380109 0.272083759551 65% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0635129941818 0.0996497079465 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0488686541841 0.0662205650399 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.110471499018 0.162205337803 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.046829462124 0.0443174109184 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.8 13.3589403974 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
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: 11.72 12.2367328918 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.36 8.42419426049 87% => OK
difficult_words: 51.0 63.6247240618 80% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 10.7273730684 75% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 10.498013245 91% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Minimum four paragraphs wanted. The correct pattern:
para 1: introduction
para 2: doubt 1
para 3: doubt 2
para 4: doubt 3
Less contents wanted from the reading passages(25%), more content wanted from the lecture (75%).
Don't need a conclusion paragraph.
Read sample essays from ETS:
http://www.testbig.com/users/toeflwritingmaster
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.