Question: Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge the specific points made in the reading passage.
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 DeathOne 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 ArtAdditionally, 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 MiceFinally, 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 speaker and the author hold divergent attitude towards whether elephants can be aware of approaching death, whether they have artistic abilities, and whether they fear of mice. The writer puts forward that these are popular beliefs and some of them are justified by scientific evidence, however, the professor in the lecture presents her refutation in the lecture by saying that these are misunderstandings.
First, it is said that in the reading material that old elephants tend to break away from their herds and go off alone to certain locations near water to die alone. To rebut this idea, the lecture suggests that when elephants get older, their teeth are no longer hard enough to eat hard vegetation, thus they have to go to the river bank to find the soft vegetation, and then graze the water and die there. The reason for moving away from their herds, therefore, is not that they are aware of approaching death, but is that they have to find more suitable food to eat.
Second, even though the reading material proposes that elephants can be taught to hold a paintbrush in their trunks and then can paint drawings, the professor maintains that the elephants are trained to paint intentionally. Human may grasp their ears which are very sensitive to encourage them to repeat the strokes and thus finish a painting. They might even not know the flowers and animals what they are painting represent. Thus, the assumption of the author is severely weakened.
Third, the author of the reading indicates that a scientist once wrote that small mammals like mice can hurt elephant than big brutal carnivores like lions and tigers, and a recent experiment also testifies that elephants backed away from mice to avoid them. However, the lecturer contends that elephants' backing away from mice is not because of fear but because of cautiousness. On the contrary, elephants in zoo have no reaction when they meet mice because they are familiar with mice and know that mice have no threat to them.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 569, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... have to find more suitable food to eat. Second, even though the reading material...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, therefore, third, thus, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 10.4613686534 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 5.04856512141 119% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 7.30242825607 192% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 12.0772626932 141% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 22.412803532 165% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 41.0 30.3222958057 135% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 5.01324503311 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1672.0 1373.03311258 122% => OK
No of words: 339.0 270.72406181 125% => OK
Chars per words: 4.93215339233 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.29091512845 4.04702891845 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.52127329582 2.5805825403 98% => OK
Unique words: 174.0 145.348785872 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.513274336283 0.540411800872 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 505.8 419.366225166 121% => 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: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.51434878587 264% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 11.0 13.0662251656 84% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 30.0 21.2450331126 141% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 90.4109991114 49.2860985944 183% => OK
Chars per sentence: 152.0 110.228320801 138% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.8181818182 21.698381199 142% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.45454545455 7.06452816374 120% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 4.45695364238 157% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.27373068433 23% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.143267516426 0.272083759551 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0557114562823 0.0996497079465 56% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0316469143487 0.0662205650399 48% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0869660509733 0.162205337803 54% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.00784678655925 0.0443174109184 18% => 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: 17.2 13.3589403974 129% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.49 53.8541721854 92% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 11.0289183223 125% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.91 12.2367328918 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.29 8.42419426049 98% => OK
difficult_words: 68.0 63.6247240618 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 10.7273730684 126% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.0 10.498013245 133% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.2008830022 125% => 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.