TPO49 Humpback Whales
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December 19, 2019 at 4:27 pm
TPO49 Humpback Whales
In the lecture, the professor casts doubt on hump whales’ ability to migrate by being navigating by stars. The professor asserts that there is no convincing evidence to support this idea.
Firstly, contrary to the belief in the passage that the evidence of the whales’ complex brains shows they are able to sense stars and make use of stars for orientation, the professor insists that some other animals, for example ducks, also have brains with high complexity, but they are not intelligent, which disproves this idea.
Secondly, the author of the passage points out that since the whales can migrate straight, they must be guided by external forces, so stars are their guiders, while the lectures notes that some other explanations are also possible. For instance, the whales may sense the magnetic field of the Earth to find their way to move.
Lastly, opposing to the author’s view that an unusual behavior, spy-hopping, of the whales can be explained that they are observing the stars, the professor contends that sharks also do the spy-hopping, but they do this for hunting not migrating. What is more the whales do spy-hopping on the daytime when they can hardly find stars.
December 19, 2019 at 4:54 pmScore: 50.8
Issues:
- Numerous grammatical/syntactic errors;
- More than 40% of the sentences exceed 20 words. Shorten/split them.
I will send you screenshots to illustrate specific problems/errors.
December 20, 2019 at 5:26 pmIn the lecture, the professor casts doubt on hump whales’ ability to migrate by being navigating by stars. The professor asserts that there is no convincing evidence to support this idea.
Firstly, contrary to the belief in the passage that the evidence of the whales’ complex brains shows they can sense stars and make use of the brightness for orientation, the professor insists that some other animals, for example, ducks, also have brains with high complexity. However, they are not intelligent, which disproves this idea.
Secondly, the author of the passage points out that since the whales can migrate straight, they must be guided by external forces, so stars are their guiders, while the lecture notes that some other explanations are also possible. For instance, the whales may sense the magnetic field of the Earth to find their way to move.
Lastly, opposing to the author’s view that spy-hopping of the whales indicates that they are observing the stars, the professor contends that sharks also do the spy-hopping. Nevertheless, they do this for hunting not migrating. What is more, the whales do spy-hopping in the daytime when they can hardly find stars.
December 20, 2019 at 5:37 pmScore: 66.5 (Good job!)
In the lecture, the professor casts doubt on hump whales’ ability to migrate by
being navigating bythe stars. The professor asserts that there is no convincing evidence to support this idea.Firstly, contrary to the belief in the passage that the evidence of the whales’ complex brains shows they can sense stars and make use of the brightness for orientation, the professor insists that some other animals, for example, ducks, also have brains with high complexity. However, they are not intelligent, which disproves this idea [ unclear ].
Secondly, the author of the passage points out that since the whales can migrate straight, they must be guided by external forces, so stars are their guiders.
, while theThe lecture1, however, notes that some other explanations are also possible. For instance, the whales may sense the magnetic field of the Earth to find their way to move.- I am not sure to use ‘lecture’ or ‘lecturer’ here since I am unfamiliar with the audio content.
Lastly, opposing to the author’s view that spy-hopping of the whales indicates that they are observing the stars, the professor contends that sharks also do the spy-hopping. Nevertheless, they [ unclear pronoun/ can be either whales or sharks ] do this for hunting
not instead of migrating. What is more, the whales do spy-hopping in the daytime when they can hardly find stars.December 21, 2019 at 7:59 amIn the lecture, the professor casts doubt on the reading passage’s idea that hump whales can make use of stars to migrate. The professor asserts that the evidences are all unconvincing.
Firstly, contrary to the belief in the passage that because of high complexity of brains, the whales are intelligent enough to migrate by the stars, the professor insists that other animals, ducks in particular, are also guided by the stars. However, they are not of high intelligence, so there is clear connection between intelligence and the ability of navigation by the stars
Secondly, the author of the passage points out that the whales migrate in straight line, so they must rely on the stars, since no land feature exist in ocean. The lecture, however, notes that other external objects or forces other than the stars might pose an alternative explanation. Since a special substance in the whales’ brains can help them sense magnetic field, they may be guided by the Earth’s magnetic field.
Lastly, opposing the author’s view that when the whales spy-hop, they observe the stars on the sky, the professor contends that this behavior can be attributed to other explanation. The whales might spy-hop to looking for prey, like sharks, rather than gaze the stars or migrate. Moreover, the whales spy-hop in the daytime, when no star can be seen.
