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 all about some findings of elephant's behaviors, which include the awareness of nearing death, the ability of art and fear of mice. However, the lecturer casts doubt on the reasons given in the reading passage. And the lecture will give three reasons as follows.
First, the author of reading believes that when elephants get old, they are aware of approaching death. Because they will leave their herds and go to the place which is close to water. But the lecturer opposes her point. She thinks that the reason why elephants will choose to go to the place near water is not that they are breaking away from their herds but they have to eat some soft vegetation due to their aging teeth which is not able to eat some rough materials. And those soft grass or plants are growing near water. That is, the elephant will choose these areas and die here, which found to be "elephant graveyards".
Second, the reading passage shows that elephants have some kind of artistic ability which can paint some flowers or animals that can be recognized by people. Nevertheless, the lecturer does not agree with her. She mentions that the reason why elephants can draw is there are trainers to conduct them by touching their ears. Since elephants' ears are quite sensitive, trainers will touch them and let elephants to hold paintbrush in their trunk. Therefore, under the conduction of the trainer, elephants draw some understandable images.
Third, in the reading passage, elephants are afraid of mice. On the other hand, the lecturer refutes that. She maintains that elephants are not fear of mice but they are not familiar fo
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| 2020-01-12 | sandeshbhandari2 | 70 | view |
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| 2019-12-23 | wacklol | 71 | view |
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- At the end of the Triassic period 200 million years ago, there was a mass-extinction event that caused the extinction of more than half of all living species. It was this extinction event that allowed dinosaurs to become the dominant species for the next 71
- 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 mo 78
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Leadership comes naturally: one cannot learn to be a leader. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. 70
- At the end of the Triassic period 200 million years ago, there was a mass-extinction event that caused the extinction of more than half of all living species. It was this extinction event that allowed dinosaurs to become the dominant species for the next 60
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?The ability to maintain friendships with a small number of people over a long period of time is more important for happiness than the ability to make many new friends easily.Use specific reasons and ex 70
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, nevertheless, second, so, therefore, third, kind of, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 10.4613686534 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 5.04856512141 158% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 7.30242825607 164% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 12.0772626932 124% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 22.412803532 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 34.0 30.3222958057 112% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 5.01324503311 40% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1388.0 1373.03311258 101% => OK
No of words: 283.0 270.72406181 105% => OK
Chars per words: 4.90459363958 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.10153676581 4.04702891845 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.47647977799 2.5805825403 96% => OK
Unique words: 147.0 145.348785872 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.519434628975 0.540411800872 96% => OK
syllable_count: 415.8 419.366225166 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 3.25607064018 154% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 1.25165562914 160% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.51434878587 198% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 13.0662251656 130% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 21.2450331126 75% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 52.9873001694 49.2860985944 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 81.6470588235 110.228320801 74% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.6470588235 21.698381199 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.35294117647 7.06452816374 76% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.27373068433 164% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.137854131829 0.272083759551 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0442630077815 0.0996497079465 44% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0399580414341 0.0662205650399 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0832229860569 0.162205337803 51% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0464390028391 0.0443174109184 105% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.0 13.3589403974 75% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 63.7 53.8541721854 118% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.4 11.0289183223 76% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.84 12.2367328918 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.22 8.42419426049 86% => OK
difficult_words: 50.0 63.6247240618 79% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 10.7273730684 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 10.498013245 80% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.2008830022 71% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 78.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 23.5 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.