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.
In the arguments presented above, the writer tries to justify his point about the correlation between birth order of an individuals and their corresponding levels of stimulation. While the explanations offered above might seem valid at a first glance, I believe that there are alternative arguments that renders author’s claims invalid.
Firstly, the experiment that the writer used to justify his argument might not be enough to conclude the causation between ( the ) birth of order and level of stimulations within rhesus monkeys. In conducting experiments, one must not confuse correlations that they observe with causation, as there might be numerous confounding factors which causes the experiments to behave a certain way. As the number of rhesus monkey involved within the experiments is small, it might be the case that the firstborn produces more cortisol due to it’s gender, age, or experiment (experimental ) conditions. it is possible that the other monkeys have low cortisol due to their current age - they have not developed good eyesights, and thus unable to recognize unfamilliar monkeys clearly. Without taking into account the controls of the experiment, the conclusion from this experiment might be unjustifiable.
Secondly, the writer extrapolates the claim from the rhesus monkey experiment to human. He argued that firstborn humans are also stimulated when they encounter exciting situations. However, in the paragraph above, the level of stimulation on the younger ones are not specified. it might be the case that all humans stimulate the similar level of cortisol when they encounter these situations, regardless of their birth order. this will render the claim made by the writer invalid. it is also not shown how close does physical and psychological behaviour of the rhesus monkey in resembling human’s. even though both of them are mammals, it is well known that experiments done in an animal might not hold the same expected effects when it is done in human. Therefore, even though the order of birth do affect the level of stimulation in monkeys, the same situation might not hold true for an individual.
Lastly, the writer explains that first-time mother monkeys had higher levels of cortisol than those who had children before. I argue that this point might not explain writer’s claim well. During pregnancy, we do not know whether the level of hormones between the mother and the baby is correlated or not. If the increase of hormones in the mother does not induce the babies’ hormone, then the last statement has no impact on the writer’s argument
I believe that a more thorough study is needed to make the writer’s argument to be acceptable. Firstly, relationship between the physical condition of human and monkeys has to be well established. Secondly, the experiments performed on the rhesus monkey must result in causality conclusion. A mere observation from the experiment is not enough to be a compelling argument for the claim given by the writer.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 481 350
No. of Characters: 2453 1500
No. of Different Words: 224 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.683 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.1 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.742 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 183 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 97 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.316 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 17.765 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.323 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.551 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.112 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 123, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...enough to conclude the causation between the birth of order and level of stimula...
^^
Line 5, column 128, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...h to conclude the causation between the birth of order and level of stimulations...
^^
Line 5, column 582, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... gender, age, or experiment experimental conditions. it is possible that the othe...
^^
Line 5, column 596, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It
...or experiment experimental conditions. it is possible that the other monkeys have...
^^
Line 9, column 279, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It
... on the younger ones are not specified. it might be the case that all humans stimu...
^^
Line 9, column 427, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: This
...tions, regardless of their birth order. this will render the claim made by the write...
^^^^
Line 9, column 482, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It
...r the claim made by the writer invalid. it is also not shown how close does physic...
^^
Line 9, column 604, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Even
...esus monkey in resembling human's. even though both of them are mammals, it is ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, thus, well, while, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2561.0 2260.96107784 113% => OK
No of words: 481.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.32432432432 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68313059816 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95193149549 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 237.0 204.123752495 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.492723492723 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 791.1 705.55239521 112% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.9737659576 57.8364921388 85% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.409090909 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8636363636 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.81818181818 5.70786347227 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => 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: 0.202166306948 0.218282227539 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0619562173074 0.0743258471296 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0514257566146 0.0701772020484 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.109723427055 0.128457276422 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0571011221389 0.0628817314937 91% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.58 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.75 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 124.0 98.500998004 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.5 12.3882235529 125% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.