You will be given a passage to read and asked to write an essay analyzing it. As you write, be sure to show that you have read the passage closely. You will be graded on how well you have understood the passage, how clear your analysis is, and how well you express your ideas.
Your essay must be written on the lines in your answer booklet. Anything you write outside the lined space in your answer booklet will not be read by the essay graders. Be sure to write or print in such a way that it will be legible to readers not familiar with your handwriting. Additionally, be sure to address the passage directly. An off-topic essay will not be graded.
Adapted from Royal Dixon, The Human Side of Animals. © 1918 by Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.
| 1 |
The trouble with science is that too often it leaves out feeling. If you agree that we cannot treat men like machines, why should we put animals in that class? Why should we fall into the colossal ignorance and conceit of cataloging every human-like action of animals under the word “instinct”? Man had to battle with animals for untold ages before he domesticated and made servants of them. He is just beginning to learn that they were not created solely to furnish material for stories, or to serve mankind, but that they also have an existence, a life of their own. |
| 2 |
Man has long claimed dominion over animals and a right to assert that dominion without restraint. This anthropocentric conceit is the same thing that causes one nation to think it should rule the world, that the sun and moon were made only for the laudable purpose of giving light unto a chosen few, and that young lambs playing on a grassy hillside, near a cool spring, are just so much mutton allowed to wander over man’s domain until its flavor is improved. |
| 3 |
It is time to remove the barriers, once believed impassable, which man’s egotism has used as a screen to separate him from his lower brothers. Our physical bodies are very similar to theirs except that ours are almost always much inferior. Merely because we have a superior intellect which enables us to rule and enslave the animals, shall we deny them all intellect and all feeling? |
| 4 |
It is possible to explain away all the marvelous things the animals do, but after you have finished, there will still remain something over and above which quite defies all mechanistic interpretation. An old war horse, for instance, lives over and over his battles in his dreams. He neighs and paws, just as he did in real battle . . . This is only one of the plethora of animal phenomena which man does not understand. If you are able to explain these things to humanity, you will be classed as wise indeed. Yet the average scientist explains them away, with the ignorance and empty words of the unwise. |
| 5 |
By a thorough application of psychological principles, it is possible to show that man himself is merely a machine to be explained in terms of neurons and nervous impulses, heredity and environment and reactions to outside stimuli. But who is there who does not believe that there is more to a man than that? |
| 6 |
Animals have demonstrated long ago that they not only have as many talents as human beings but that, under the influence of the same environment, they form the same kinds of combinations to defend themselves against enemies, to shelter themselves against heat and cold, to build homes, to lay up a supply of food for the hard seasons. In fact, all through the ages man has been imitating the animals in burrowing through the earth, penetrating the waters, and now, at last, flying through the air. |
| 7 |
There are also numerous signs, sounds and motions by which animals communicate with each other, though to man these symbols of language may not always be understandable. Dogs give barks indicating surprise, pleasure and all other emotions. Cows will bellow for days when mourning for their dead. |
| 8 |
In their reading of the weather, animals undoubtedly possess superhuman powers. Even squirrels can predict an unusually long and severe winter and thus make adequate preparations. Some animals act as both barometers and thermometers. |
| 9 |
There is no limit to the marvelous things animals do. The ape or baboon who puts a stone in the open oyster to prevent it from closing, or lifts stones to crack nuts, or beats other apes with sticks . . . in all these actions is actual reasoning. Indeed, there is nothing which man makes with all his ingenious use of tools and instruments, of which some suggestion may not be seen in animal creation. |
Write an essay that analyzes the author’s approach in persuading his readers that animals and humans have much in common and humans should treat animals with more respect. Focus on specific features, such as the ones listed in the box above the passage, and explain how these features strengthen the author's argument. Your essay should discuss the most important rhetorical features of the passage.
Your essay should not focus on your own opinion of the author's conclusion, but rather on how the author persuades his readers.