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.
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?
The passage states that humans and animals show altrusitic behaviour and do not selfish perform selfish acts to gain something out of it and provides examples to support this claim. This is opposed by the woman in the lecture and she also opposes each of the supporting examples provided by the passage.
First, the passage provides an example of humans by stating that humans often perform altruistic activities by sharing food and donating organs to members of family or strangers. The woman contrasts this support by stating that in doing such activities humans do receive rewrads in the form of appreciation and approval. Such rewards are important for some people and increases their self-worth in society and connot be considered as an altruistic act.
The passage gives a second example by stating that animals also perform altruism by sacrificing food for their life and gives a scenario where meerkats have a sentinel watchs for predator while rest of the group hunt or eat food they have obtained. The woman in the lecture states that when this activity of meerkats was closely observed it seems that the guard or sentinel might actually be selfish and eats food before the guarding activity. She also provides the reason for this selfish act by stating that sentinel generally stand near burreal while others might be on open grounds so that on spoting a predator such as hawk, sentinel can be safe himself first by hiding into the burreal. Also, the act of alerting might cause confusion among the group which might actually catch predator's attention over the alert from sentinel which in turn saves the sentinel.
Thus, the lecture opposes the passage by giving reasons that the acts performed by humans as well as animals may not be completely altruistic in whole sense. She also provides possible explanation to these contrasting ideas and why they may not be true.
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Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, if, may, second, so, thus, well, while, such as, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 10.4613686534 86% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 5.04856512141 139% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 7.30242825607 192% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 12.0772626932 108% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 22.412803532 112% => OK
Preposition: 38.0 30.3222958057 125% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1581.0 1373.03311258 115% => OK
No of words: 315.0 270.72406181 116% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01904761905 5.08290768461 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.21286593061 4.04702891845 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.45307895753 2.5805825403 95% => OK
Unique words: 161.0 145.348785872 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.511111111111 0.540411800872 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 484.2 419.366225166 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.23620309051 85% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 2.5761589404 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 11.0 13.0662251656 84% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 28.0 21.2450331126 132% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 46.2150918072 49.2860985944 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 143.727272727 110.228320801 130% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.6363636364 21.698381199 132% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.45454545455 7.06452816374 106% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 4.45695364238 67% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.27373068433 47% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.167778133477 0.272083759551 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0679817222451 0.0996497079465 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0575558379531 0.0662205650399 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.101926252937 0.162205337803 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0156549745723 0.0443174109184 35% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.5 13.3589403974 124% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.52 53.8541721854 96% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 11.0289183223 118% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.43 12.2367328918 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.43 8.42419426049 100% => OK
difficult_words: 68.0 63.6247240618 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 10.7273730684 126% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 10.498013245 126% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.2008830022 116% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 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.