Integrated Writing A-Answer Key

Homework (Integrated Writing Task)

The author gives an overview of the study of animal intelligence and points out that there is a lot of controversy around such research. Likewise, the speaker discusses research on animal intelligence and also mentions that not all scientists agree with interpretations of the results.

The author especially mentions emotions and self-recognition as evidence when studying animal intelligence. She describes a particular study with dolphins. After scientists placed marks on the dolphins’ bodies, the dolphins rushed to the mirror to look at the marks. Therefore, scientists indicate that these animals have the ability of recognizing themselves in the mirror. The author adds that there are a lot of disagreements among scientists researching animal intelligence, including disagreements about how results should be interpreted.

The speaker describes specific research on animal intelligence as well. She talks in more details about how studies are done with mirrors. Certain animals react to their reflection in a mirror. For example, in a self-recognition test, a mark was painted on the animal’s face. When the animal looked in the mirror, it might try to wipe the mark off its face. According to some scientists, this means that it recognizes itself in the mirror. However, not all scientists agree with the findings. The animal might be interested in the mark but that doesn’t mean it connects the mirror image with itself.

(227 words)