In 1957 a European silver coin dating to the eleventh century was discovered at a Native American archaeological site in the state of Maine in the United States. Many people believed the coin had been originally brought to North America by European explorers known as the Norse, who traveled across the Atlantic Ocean and came into contact with Native Americans almost a thousand years ago.
However, some archaeologists believe that the coin is not a genuine piece of historical evidence but a historical fake; they think that the coin was placed at the site recently by someone who wanted to mislead the public. There are three main reasons why some archaeologists believe that the coin is not genuine historical evidence.
Great Distance from Norse Settlements
First, the Native American site in Maine where the coin was discovered is located very far from other sites documenting a Norse presence in North America. Remains of Norse settlements have been discovered in far eastern Canada. The distance between the Maine site and the Norse settlements in Canada is more than a thousand kilometers, suggesting the coin has no real connection with the settlements.
No Other Coins Found
A second problem is that no other coins have been found at the Canadian sites that were inhabited by the Norse. This suggests that the Norse did not bring any silver coins with them to their North American settlements.
No Use for European Coins
Third, the Norse who traveled to North America would have understood that silver coins would most likely be useless to them. Silver coins may have been in wide use in Europe at the time, but the Norse, as experienced explorers, would have known that native North Americans did not recognize silver coins as money.
Both the reading and listening both discuss whether the coin discovered at a Native American archaeological site is a historical fake or not. The author proposes three reasons to support it is fake. However, the speaker holds these arguments questionable.
First of all, the article claims that the distance between the Norse settlements and the Native American site suggests that the coin has no real connection with the settlements. Nevertheless, the lecture points out that there are many other objects coming from the long-distance in the site. In other words, native people in American would travel thousands of kilometers to get the resource, which they are interested or need. Therefore, the native people have the possibility to reach so far away place to obtain the coin.
Secondly, the writer says no other coins have been found at the Canadian sites. On the other hand, the lecturer argues that the Norse might carry all the coins out when they leave the living place. According to documents, the Norse did not set a perennial settlement in America so that it is possible they pack up whole precious pieces of stuff when they back.
Furthermore, the author states that the coin would not be used in America at that time because it is useless to aboriginal people. However, the speaker contends that some rare and beautiful materials are valuable to Native American such as jewelry, or decorative tools. Thus, if the indigenous people are interested in the coin, the settler would trade it as goods with them.
To sum up, all the arguments mentioned in the reading passage are not plausible according to the speaker.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, furthermore, however, if, nevertheless, second, secondly, so, therefore, thus, such as, first of all, in other words, to sum up, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 10.4613686534 105% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 5.04856512141 99% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 12.0772626932 91% => OK
Pronoun: 18.0 22.412803532 80% => OK
Preposition: 31.0 30.3222958057 102% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 5.01324503311 80% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1367.0 1373.03311258 100% => OK
No of words: 272.0 270.72406181 100% => OK
Chars per words: 5.02573529412 5.08290768461 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.06108636974 4.04702891845 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64484946606 2.5805825403 102% => OK
Unique words: 156.0 145.348785872 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.573529411765 0.540411800872 106% => OK
syllable_count: 427.5 419.366225166 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 3.25607064018 0% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.23620309051 134% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 21.2450331126 89% => OK
Sentence length SD: 34.5076891757 49.2860985944 70% => OK
Chars per sentence: 97.6428571429 110.228320801 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.4285714286 21.698381199 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 10.9285714286 7.06452816374 155% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 4.45695364238 157% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.27373068433 23% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.220752725616 0.272083759551 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0709513200038 0.0996497079465 71% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0562543975787 0.0662205650399 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.108540146372 0.162205337803 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0608614919517 0.0443174109184 137% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.0 13.3589403974 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 53.8541721854 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 11.0289183223 97% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.89 12.2367328918 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.95 8.42419426049 94% => OK
difficult_words: 58.0 63.6247240618 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 10.7273730684 84% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 10.498013245 91% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 25.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.