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 lecture are both about certain behaviors of elephants. The author of the article claims that the patterns of behavior mentioned could be interpreted in specific ways. However, the speaker in the lecture casts doubt on the validity of these explanations stated in the writing.
First of all, the author believes that elephants are aware of approaching death and they usually break away from the herds to die alone, mostly close to water sources. Nevertheless, the lecturer refutes this argument. She holds that when elephants grow older, they develop a problem with chewing and as a result, they start to look for softer vegetation which are more abundant near bodies of water.
Secondly, the writer asserts that the animals have artistic abilities. According to the excerpt, they could hold a paintbrush in their trunk and paint identifiable objects on a canvas, making them the only species, besides humans, to be able to do that. Conversely, the lecturer points out that the elephants demonstrating this behavior are usually trained to do so. She further elaborates that the trainers stroke the elephant's sensitive ears to make it draw particular lines that the animal was previously trained to do.
Lastly, the article assumes that the elephants get scared of mice, which are small mammals that can do elephants no harm, more than other dangerous mammals, such as lions and tigers. The lecturer, on the other hand, challenges this point of view. She posits that only elephants which are unfamiliar to mice display this kind of behavior. However, elephants which became familiar with mice, such as the ones in a zoo, and realized that they pose no threat, do not show this reaction.
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| 2020-01-12 | sandeshbhandari2 | 70 | view |
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| 2019-12-23 | wacklol | 71 | view |
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 13, column 484, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e no threat, do not show this reaction.
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, conversely, first, however, if, lastly, look, nevertheless, second, secondly, so, kind of, such as, as a result, first of all, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 10.4613686534 86% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 3.0 5.04856512141 59% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 12.0772626932 141% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 22.412803532 129% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 35.0 30.3222958057 115% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1445.0 1373.03311258 105% => OK
No of words: 283.0 270.72406181 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10600706714 5.08290768461 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.10153676581 4.04702891845 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.56056749319 2.5805825403 99% => OK
Unique words: 168.0 145.348785872 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.593639575972 0.540411800872 110% => OK
syllable_count: 436.5 419.366225166 104% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 3.25607064018 184% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 21.2450331126 94% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.3744061635 49.2860985944 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.214285714 110.228320801 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.2142857143 21.698381199 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 10.9285714286 7.06452816374 155% => 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 : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
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: 0.119157145061 0.272083759551 44% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0411894543977 0.0996497079465 41% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0350249454814 0.0662205650399 53% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0655764845018 0.162205337803 40% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0360569892428 0.0443174109184 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 13.3589403974 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 53.8541721854 111% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 11.0289183223 90% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.36 12.2367328918 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.76 8.42419426049 104% => OK
difficult_words: 74.0 63.6247240618 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 10.7273730684 75% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 10.498013245 95% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.2008830022 89% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 86.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 26.0 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.