TPO 51
Essay topics:
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 and the listening section are both discussing elephant behaviors. The article proposes some reasonable arguments, however, the speaker casts doubt with it and delves into reasons and examples to refute it.
First of all, the article mentions that elephants have ability to know the approaching death. Therefore, they will stay away from herds and die alone to certain locations. Nevertheless, the speaker disagrees with this idea. The elder elephants' teeth are difficult to chewy so they have to live somewhere easier to find the food such as the place near the water. As a result, the speaker says this argument is not a good assumption.
Secondly, the article indicates that elephants are able to paint. Some elephants can hold a paintbrush to paint on a canvas for some special things, such as flower. Nonetheless, the speaker disapproves this statement. Because elephants' ears are sense people probe their ear to force the elephants to do the certain pattern. Consequently, elephants are not able to recognize what is the drawing meaning.
Last but not least, the speakers disagrees with that elephants are afraid of mice, which is proposed by the article. The elephants are not familiar with mice when the elephants see the mice first time. But when the elephants understand the mice behavior, the elephants not fear the mice at all.
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 20 in 30
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 15 12
No. of Words: 223 250
No. of Characters: 1105 1200
No. of Different Words: 130 150
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 3.864 4.2
Average Word Length: 4.955 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.548 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 74 80
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 65 60
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 44 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 34 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 14.867 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.226 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.867 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.342 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.557 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.087 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 4