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 ab

Essay topics:

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.....

Question-->Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to specifically explain how they cast doubt on points made in the reading passage.....

The passage goes into a ton of detail regarding altruism and its examples relating to animals and human beings. The lecturer opposes these ideas and provides a very complete reasoning on her thoughts.

Firstly, according to the passage, altruism is a type of behaviour in which someone sacrifices their own interests for others. Altruism means selflessness and it is a trait of both, animals and human beings. The passage states an example of a meerkat, which is a mammal in the grassland areas of Africa. It states that, an individual meerkat acts as a sentinel and looks out for predators such as hawks while the other meerkats of the group look for food and shelter. According to the passage, the sentinel goes without food and shelter and gains nothing. But the lecturer opposes this statement by positing that the sentinel eats and satiates itself before starting to guard its group from predators. So it is not like the meerkat is deprived of food.

In addition to that, the passage states that if the sentinel sees a predator, it alerts its group to find food and seek shelter and hence, it places itself in grave danger by being alone. But this statement is proved wrong by the lecturer when she says that it is actually easy to hide and find shelter just for one meerkat as compared to a group of meerkats. So even if this sentinel is deemed as altruistic, its act does not have many selfless deeds.

Other than that, another example given in the passage is that of a human being donating his or her body organs to others in need and states that the individual does not gain any benefits from that. But the lecturer denies this statement by postulating that the individual which donates his or her organs to a stranger or a family member in need gains their respect and appreciation. These are non-materialistic rewards which are equally important as compared to materialistic rewards. The lecturer believes that by performing such an act, the individual gains happiness and hence, it is not altrustic.

Votes
Average: 7.3 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 555, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'gains'' or 'gain's'?
Suggestion: gains'; gain's
... performing such an act, the individual gains happiness and hence, it is not altrusti...
^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, firstly, hence, if, look, regarding, so, while, in addition, such as

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 10.4613686534 134% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 2.0 5.04856512141 40% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 7.30242825607 301% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 16.0 12.0772626932 132% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 22.412803532 170% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 40.0 30.3222958057 132% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1673.0 1373.03311258 122% => OK
No of words: 348.0 270.72406181 129% => OK
Chars per words: 4.80747126437 5.08290768461 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.31911543099 4.04702891845 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.62233230179 2.5805825403 102% => OK
Unique words: 166.0 145.348785872 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.477011494253 0.540411800872 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 514.8 419.366225166 123% => 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: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.51434878587 198% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 13.0662251656 122% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 21.2450331126 99% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.1363662557 49.2860985944 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.5625 110.228320801 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.75 21.698381199 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.625 7.06452816374 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 4.33554083885 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 4.45695364238 90% => 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: 0.274410317646 0.272083759551 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0856208685173 0.0996497079465 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0777931288334 0.0662205650399 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.154895419602 0.162205337803 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.076774971881 0.0443174109184 173% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 13.3589403974 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 53.8541721854 109% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 11.0289183223 93% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.62 12.2367328918 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.08 8.42419426049 96% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 63.6247240618 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 10.7273730684 70% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 10.498013245 99% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Write the essay in 20 minutes.

Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 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.