TPO 51 Task 1 Integrated Writing

The reading passage focuses on some long-held beliefs of fascinating elephants’ behaviors. The professor’s lecture deals with the same topic. However, she thinks that those beliefs are actually rumors caused by misunderstandings, which contradicts the reading states. And in the lecture, she uses three specific points to support her idea.

First, even though the reading passage suggests that elephants can foresee approaching death because the elders will leave the herds in advance and eventually die in a place near the water called ‘elephants graveyard’, the professor argues in the lecture that elderly elephants wander away for their herd to forage. This is because as elephants grow old, their teeth wore out as well. When they have chewing problems, they have to find softer vegetation nearby water by themselves. In the end, many elder elephants die in the same area.

Moreover, contrary to the statement in the reading that elephants have artistic ability and are able to paint many objects, the professor contends that elephants don’t know the meaning of their own paint. Then she backs up this point with the fact that trainers stroke elephants’ sensitive ears to force them to remember how to use their noses to draw some combinations of lines. In other words, elephants that can paint are merely repeating a set moves to paint.

Finally, the professor asserts that elephants don’t afraid of mice whereas the author of the reading claims that they fear mice much more than other dangerous animals. The professor proves that this claim is indefensible by pointing out that elephants that live in environments where mice are common, like elephants in zoos, don’t react with fear to the mice.