Humans have long been fascinated by elephants because of their surprising behaviors. The reading has explained their behaviors of breaking away from their herds, their artistic ability and their fear of mice, while the professor in listening part said that humans are misunderstanding their behaviors.

Firstly, the reading tells that elephants break away from their herds before they die because they know that they are nearing the end of their lives. However, the professor argues that elephants leaving their herds is because that they have difficulty to chew and need to find some softer vegetation near the water away from their herds. The place where they died near the water become the so-called “elephant graveyard”.

Secondly, the reading thinks that elephants have artistic ability. The professor finds that the trainer that trains the elephants stroke the elephants’ ears, the most sensitive part of an elephant, when they are drawing, reminding them where to draw and how to draw.

Thirdly, the reading suggests that elephants are most afraid of mice. However, the professor disagree with this statement. She thinks that elephants are afraid of mice because they have never seen any mice. Experiments have shown that the elephants that have seen mice in the wild are not afraid of them at all.

As a conclusion, the reading suggests that humans think that elephants have surprising behaviors, but the professor thinks that people have misunderstood the behaviors of the elephants of breaking away from their herds, their artistic abilities and their fear of mice.

Independent Writing

With the acceleration of technology development in our society, almost every young people watch movies and television. They rely more and more on these multimedia and and some cannot depart from it. Some people believe that movies and television can bring positive effects on the way young people behave, while some believe that they bring more negative effects. To a large extent, I think that movies and television affect young people positively in their behavior.

To begin with, watching movies and television means better knowing which things are right and which are wrong. This is because that young people see, and experience more things in the television and movies. This could have far-reaching positive effects on their behavior. For example, they might start to know the consequences of bullying–people that are bullied will get hurt mentally. If these young people are bullies, they might start to reflect on themselves and maybe stop bullying. If they are not bullies, they probably would not become bullies in the future and would know the best way to deal with being bullied.

Secondly, watching movies and television develops young people’s knowledge of the world around them. They would get to see some things they have never seen before, for instance, global issues like the melting of glaciers in the Artics. They would know the causes and consequences of climate change, and would probably try to do something to stop it: recycle, reduce and reuse, things they could do everyday to make some changes to the environment. Maybe some young people will not have any reactions after knowing the issues, but people are rarely not worried when facing the consequences of life risks.

Undeniably, some movies and television might be bad examples for young people, for example, pornographics, but I think parents should all supervise their children when they are watching television so they can teach young people that do not have the ability to differ things they are not supposed to do from the right things the right things to do. With the supervision of parents, young people can be truly benefitted from watching television and movies.

In conclusion, combining all the reasons and details that have been mentioned above, I think that movies and television can bring lots of positive effects to young people in their behavior to a large extent.