Altruism is a type of behavior in which an animal sacrifices its own interest for that of another animal or group of animals. Altruism is the opposite of selfishness; individuals performing altruistic acts gain nothing for themselves.
Examples of altruism abound, both among humans and among other mammals. Unselfish acts among humans range from the sharing of food with strangers to the donation of body organs to family members, and even to strangers. Such acts are altruistic in that they benefit another, yet provide little reward to the one performing the act.In fact, many species of animals appear willing to sacrifice food, or even their life, to assist other members of their group.
The meerkat, which is a mammal that dwells in burrows in grassland areas of Africa, is often cited as an example. In groups of meerkats, an individual acts as a sentinel, standing guard and looking out for predators while the others hunt for food or eat food they have obtained. If the sentinel meerkat sees a predator such as a hawk approaching the group, it gives an alarm cry alerting the other meerkats to run and seek shelter. By standing guard,the sentinel meerkat gains nothing—it goes without food while the others eat, and it places itself in grave danger. After it issues an alarm, it has to flee alone, which might make it more at risk to a predator, since animals in groups are often able to work together to fend off a predator. So the altruistic sentinel behavior helps ensure the survival of other members of the meerkat’s group.
Listening Script:
You know, often in science, new findings force us to re-examine earlier beliefs and assumptions.
And a recent study of meerkats is having exactly this effect. The study examined the meerkat’s behavior quite closely, much more closely than had ever been done before. And some interesting things were found . . . like about eating habits . . . it showed that typically meerkats eat before they stand guard—so the ones standing guard had a full stomach! And the study also found that since the sentinel is the first to see a predator coming, it’s the most likely to escape . . . because it often stands guard near a burrow, so it can run immediately into the burrow after giving the alarm.
The other meerkats, the ones scattered about looking for food, are actually in greater danger. And in fact, other studies have suggested that when an animal creates an alarm,the alarm call might cause the other group members either to gather together or else to move about very quickly, behaviors that might actually draw the predator’s attention away from the caller, increasing that animal’s own chances of survival.
And what about people—what about some human acts that might be considered altruistic? Let’s take an extreme case, uh, suppose a person donates a kidney to a relative, or even to a complete stranger. A selfless act, right? But . . . doesn’t the donor receive appreciation and approval from the stranger and from society? Doesn’t the donor gain an increased sense of self-worth? Couldn’t such non-material rewards be considered very valuable to some people?
Que: Summarize the points made in the lecture you just heard, being sure to specifically explain how they cast doubt on points made in the reading.
The passage is discussion about altruism. Passage is stating that altruism is a selfless, whereas the lecture cast doubt on it based upon new studies and examples. For studying the altruism, the passage is talking about a African animal named meerkat.
First, the passage states that one meerkat stand guard to look for the predator, whereas other are having food together, so this is something that meerkat is doing for other members of the group. But, lecture states that meerkat, who is standing is already full and had food before standing for guard, which seriously refutes the passage that standing guard without having food is altruism, whereas new studies mentioned in the lecture completely rejects this claim.
Secondly, passage states that whenever the meerkat guard sees some predator coming, it informs the other members so that they can go and take shelter, whereas it run alone after he has informed others.
Lecture cast doubts on this behavior, it states that whenever meerkat guards inform the other members, other members gather together, which may take attention of the predator away from guard and towards the other members of meerkat group and also meerkat guard stands near the shelter, so it completely rejects the passage belief the meerkat guard is showing act of altruism.
Third example of altruism is about human being, some human being donate organs and food to other people, which passage states is a completely selfless act. Whereas lecture cast doubts on this by stating that, whenever a human donates some organ, for example kidney to other unknown person or his/her relatives, donor receive appreciation, increase sense of self-worth, which may mean a lot to the donor. Hence donor is not doing this act just based on altruism, there is self-interest of the donor in this act.
Hence, lecture rejects all the three examples of altruism provided in the essay by providing more information and also by going in depth to look what is really happening and based upon new scientific information.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 221, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... altruism, the passage is talking about a African animal named meerkat. First...
^
Line 5, column 164, Rule ID: IT_VBZ[1]
Message: Did you mean 'runs'?
Suggestion: runs
...hey can go and take shelter, whereas it run alone after he has informed others. ...
^^^
Line 9, column 405, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...rth, which may mean a lot to the donor. Hence donor is not doing this act just based ...
^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'but', 'first', 'hence', 'if', 'look', 'may', 'really', 'second', 'secondly', 'so', 'third', 'whereas', 'for example', 'talking about']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.265582655827 0.261695866417 101% => OK
Verbs: 0.186991869919 0.158904122519 118% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0785907859079 0.0723426182421 109% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0406504065041 0.0435111971325 93% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0189701897019 0.0277247811725 68% => OK
Prepositions: 0.130081300813 0.128828473217 101% => OK
Participles: 0.0677506775068 0.0370669169778 183% => Less participles wanted.
Conjunctions: 2.39331615054 2.5805825403 93% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0135501355014 0.0208969081088 65% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.00154638098197 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.0948509485095 0.128158765124 74% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.00813008130081 0.0158828679856 51% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0271002710027 0.0114777025283 236% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2037.0 1645.83664459 124% => OK
No of words: 333.0 271.125827815 123% => OK
Chars per words: 6.11711711712 6.08160592843 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.27180144563 4.04852973271 106% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.402402402402 0.374372842146 107% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.315315315315 0.287516216867 110% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.153153153153 0.187439937562 82% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.0870870870871 0.113142543107 77% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.39331615054 2.5805825403 93% => OK
Unique words: 157.0 145.348785872 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.471471471471 0.539623497131 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
Word variations: 47.7110612066 53.8517498576 89% => OK
How many sentences: 11.0 13.0529801325 84% => OK
Sentence length: 30.2727272727 21.7502111507 139% => OK
Sentence length SD: 90.3398541962 49.3711431718 183% => The lengths of sentences changed so frequently.
Chars per sentence: 185.181818182 132.220823453 140% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.2727272727 21.7502111507 139% => OK
Discourse Markers: 1.36363636364 0.878197800319 155% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 4.09492273731 147% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 3.39072847682 88% => OK
Readability: 61.8042588043 50.5018328374 122% => OK
Elegance: 1.87912087912 1.90840788429 98% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.316455627457 0.549887131256 58% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.220340250906 0.142949733639 154% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0806520747784 0.0787303798458 102% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.782029773166 0.631733273073 124% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.153956765167 0.139662658121 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.166779773366 0.266732575781 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0502539097014 0.103435571967 49% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.315142288838 0.414875509568 76% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0950258181214 0.0530846634433 179% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.18904483026 0.40443939384 47% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0709658396313 0.0528353158467 134% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 4.33554083885 23% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.26048565121 117% => OK
Positive topic words: 1.0 3.49668874172 29% => More positive topic words wanted.
Negative topic words: 5.0 3.62251655629 138% => OK
Neutral topic words: 4.0 3.1766004415 126% => OK
Total topic words: 10.0 10.2958057395 97% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Not in a correct format.
The correct pattern:
para 1: introduction
para 2: doubt 1
para 3: doubt 2
para 4: doubt 3
Less contents wanted from the reading passages(25%) but more content wanted from the lecture (75%).
Don't need a conclusion paragraph.
Read sample essays from ETS:
http://www.testbig.com/users/toeflwritingmaster
Rates: 63.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 19.0 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.