Like many creatures, humpback whales migrate long distances for feeding and mating purposes. How animals manage to migrate long distances is often puzzling. In the case of humpback whales, we may have found the answer: they may be navigating by the stars,

Essay topics:

Like many creatures, humpback whales migrate long distances for feeding and mating purposes. How animals manage to migrate long distances is often puzzling. In the case of humpback whales, we may have found the answer: they may be navigating by the stars, much as early human sailors did. What we know about humpback whales makes this a distinct possibility.
First, humpback whales seem to be intelligent enough to use stars to navigate by. Whales' brains have a high degree of complexity'a common determiner of intelligence. This suggests that the whales' brain power far exceeds that of most other animals. The whales' well-developed cognitive ability seems to provide a sound basis for the ability to use a complex, abstract system of sensory stimuli such as the night sky for orientation.
Second, humpback whales migrate in straight lines. Animals can maintain movement in a straight direction for long distances only if they orient themselves by some external objects or forces. Many birds and other terrestrial creatures, for example, use physical landmarks to help them stay on track as they migrate. Whales, which swim in the open ocean, cannot rely on land features; they could, however, rely on stars at night to provide them with external signs by which to maintain direction over long distances.
Third, humpback whales exhibit an unusual behavior: they are sometimes observed floating straight up for minutes at a time, their heads above the water as though they were looking upward. The behavior is known as spy-hopping, and it is very rare among marine animals. One explanation for the function of spy-hopping is that the whales are looking at the stars, which are providing them with information to navigate by.

The reading and lecture are both about the humpback whale's migration theory, which states that these whales follow stars for their migration. While the reading passage states three explanations supporting this theory, lecturer believes that there is some flaws regarding those explanations and provide three reasons for support.

Firstly, the author points out that humpback whales are very intelligent to be guided by stars. It is mentioned that well developed whale's brain power exceed most of the other animals enabling it to follow stars. This point is challenged by the lecturer. He argues that there is no connection between whale's cognitive ability and its star's guided migration. Furthermore, he argues that even though some ducks follow stars for its migration, the connection cannot be made between their action and cognition, since ducks are not particularly intelligent.

Secondly, the author mentions that these whales are able to follow a straight line during its migration because of the stars guidance. The lecturer rebuts this argument. He suggest another explanation to this phenomenon that the whales have a magnetic substance in their brain called biomagnatite, which help them to migrate according to the earth's magnetic field in a straight line.

Finally,the author suggests that the unusual behavior of whale's floating on the water is a great explanation of it looking up the stars for direction . The lecture ,on the other hand, posits that this rare behavior called sky hooping is often illustrated by quite few animals including sharks to estimate the location of their prey. He puts forth the idea that this sky hooping connection with whale's star assisted migration is just a speculation.

Votes
Average: 7.6 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 242, Rule ID: THERE_S_MANY[4]
Message: Did you mean 'there are some flaws'?
Suggestion: there are some flaws
...ing this theory, lecturer believes that there is some flaws regarding those explanations and provid...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 120, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stars'' or 'star's'?
Suggestion: stars'; star's
...ine during its migration because of the stars guidance. The lecturer rebuts this argu...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 174, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[1]
Message: The pronoun 'He' must be used with a third-person verb: 'suggests'.
Suggestion: suggests
.... The lecturer rebuts this argument. He suggest another explanation to this phenomenon ...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 8, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , the
...tic field in a straight line. Finally,the author suggests that the unusual behavi...
^^^^
Line 7, column 150, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...of it looking up the stars for direction . The lecture ,on the other hand, posits ...
^^
Line 7, column 164, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...up the stars for direction . The lecture ,on the other hand, posits that this rare...
^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, look, regarding, second, secondly, so, well, while, on the other hand

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

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 10.4613686534 124% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 1.0 5.04856512141 20% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 7.30242825607 55% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 12.0772626932 108% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 22.412803532 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 28.0 30.3222958057 92% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 5.01324503311 359% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1454.0 1373.03311258 106% => OK
No of words: 271.0 270.72406181 100% => OK
Chars per words: 5.36531365314 5.08290768461 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.05734859645 4.04702891845 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.65911266973 2.5805825403 103% => OK
Unique words: 147.0 145.348785872 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.542435424354 0.540411800872 100% => OK
syllable_count: 436.5 419.366225166 104% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 3.25607064018 184% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.23620309051 85% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 1.25165562914 160% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 13.0662251656 99% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 21.2450331126 94% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.1960758441 49.2860985944 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.846153846 110.228320801 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.8461538462 21.698381199 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.61538461538 7.06452816374 122% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 4.19205298013 143% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 4.33554083885 161% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 4.45695364238 90% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.27373068433 47% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.135144368596 0.272083759551 50% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0526778906603 0.0996497079465 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0436246551555 0.0662205650399 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0849613464487 0.162205337803 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.00969154352347 0.0443174109184 22% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.3 13.3589403974 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 53.8541721854 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 11.0289183223 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.2367328918 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.42 8.42419426049 100% => OK
difficult_words: 65.0 63.6247240618 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 10.7273730684 75% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 10.498013245 95% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.2008830022 125% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 76.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 23.0 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.