The following appeared as part of a letter to the editor of a scientific journal.
"A recent study of eighteen rhesus monkeys provides clues as to the effects of birth order on an individual's levels of stimulation. The study showed that in stimulating situations (such as an encounter with an unfamiliar monkey), firstborn infant monkeys produce up to twice as much of the hormone cortisol, which primes the body for increased activity levels, as do their younger siblings. Firstborn humans also produce relatively high levels of cortisol in stimulating situations (such as the return of a parent after an absence). The study also found that during pregnancy, first-time mother monkeys had higher levels of cortisol than did those who had had several offspring."
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
The study tried to support its conclusion that the individual’s levels of stimulation will be affected by birth order with some findings. But it failed to provide a more detailed and more reinforced explanation on presenting the effect in the following ways.
Initially, it failed to define the relationship between the hormone cortisol and body activities. It was said that cortisol primes the body for increased activity levels. But it is likely that the monkey will not conduct the behavior even with the cortisol in their body. For example, the cortisol only exists in their body transiently that monkeys’ behaviors as normal. Only after the cautious define on the causation that the proceeding study makes sense.
Secondly, the study tried to make the monkey study representative. But more monkeys as objects should be added in the study rather than a mere eighteen of them. A sample with such a limited number of objects will have difficulty in representing certain phenomena. For example, because of some genetic reasons, these eighteen monkeys are more possible to produce the hormone cortisol, so that the observation consequences were unreliable in the study.
Furthermore, the researchers tried to make an analogy between the monkeys and humans with a vague depiction of “relatively high level”, which is uncountable without further explanations on the reason of the analogy. For example, monkeys and humans have been confirmed to possess almost the same genetic materials so that they mostly act the same when stimulated. Such explanation will make the conversion to human more reasonable or rather it seems to present another study.
At last, The author offers the fact that first-time monkey mothers produce more cortisol than mothers who have had more babies. This fact could weaken the claim that first-born monkeys react to stimulating situations by producing more cortisol; they could have a higher base level to begin with. Furthermore, the amount of cortisol produced by the mother may not transfer to the baby monkey at all.
To sum up, the study needs to be complemented with more experiments and details to support the view.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-01-26 | ljh5034 | 62 | view |
| 2022-09-09 | Ayanokoji69 | 56 | view |
| 2022-06-01 | sefeliz | 73 | view |
| 2021-11-15 | jane227 | 47 | view |
| 2021-11-05 | ojehparvaz | 58 | view |
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 347 350
No. of Characters: 1762 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.316 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.078 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.69 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 131 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 99 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 62 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.278 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.714 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.317 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.317 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.096 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, if, may, second, secondly, so, for example, to begin with, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 19.6327345309 46% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1818.0 2260.96107784 80% => OK
No of words: 347.0 441.139720559 79% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.23919308357 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.31600926901 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81170850606 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 184.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.530259365994 0.468620217663 113% => OK
syllable_count: 568.8 705.55239521 81% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 38.7115400538 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 101.0 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.2777777778 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.16666666667 5.70786347227 91% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.180997584567 0.218282227539 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0612406154991 0.0743258471296 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0645009296897 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.101721841323 0.128457276422 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0708994515997 0.0628817314937 113% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.11 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.63 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 Out of 6
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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.