Carved stone balls are a curious type of artifact found at a number of locations in Scotland. They date from the late Neolithic period, around 4,000 years ago. They are round in shape; they were carved from several types of stone; most are about 70 mm in

The reading and the lecture discuss the past carved stone balls which were found in Scotland. The author believes that those carved stones did not have their now known purpose nor their meaning, but he highlights three new theories. The professor brings into question the claims made in the article. He considers that none of the theories proposed in the reading are reliable.

First, the author comes up with the idea that the carved stone balls were used as weapons in hunting. It is mentioned that the holes found in the stones allowed people to swing or throw them. However, the professor argues that the use of the holes had a wearing purpose because the stones were not easy to broke off, and they were well preserved.

Second, the author states that the carved stone balls were used in order to measure weights because of their almost uniform size -70mm of diameter. It represented a standard unit of measure for natural products such as grain. Meanwhile, the professor rebuts this argument by pointing out that although of the uniform size of these balls, there were different kinds of stones, with a different density each one. This explains that there was no standard measure because every stone had a different weight.

Finally, the author contends that the carved stone balls had not a utilitarian purpose, but a social purpose. The article notes that the elaborate designs of them marked an important status of who was wearing them. The professor, on the other hand, posits that not all the patterns were simple as status symbols, instead, there were lots of integrated patterns. Besides, none of the balls has been found in tombs, so those were not a status seel.

Votes
Average: 7.8 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 234, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
..., but he highlights three new theories. The professor brings into question the clai...
^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, but, finally, first, however, if, second, so, well, while, such as, on the other hand

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 10.4613686534 134% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 0.0 5.04856512141 0% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 12.0772626932 108% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 22.412803532 120% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 31.0 30.3222958057 102% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 5.01324503311 40% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1402.0 1373.03311258 102% => OK
No of words: 287.0 270.72406181 106% => OK
Chars per words: 4.8850174216 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.11595363751 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.27185716282 2.5805825403 88% => OK
Unique words: 156.0 145.348785872 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.543554006969 0.540411800872 101% => OK
syllable_count: 423.9 419.366225166 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 3.25607064018 123% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.51434878587 198% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 13.0662251656 115% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 21.2450331126 89% => OK
Sentence length SD: 33.5493003736 49.2860985944 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.4666666667 110.228320801 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.1333333333 21.698381199 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.26666666667 7.06452816374 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 4.45695364238 90% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.27373068433 187% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.199478592668 0.272083759551 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0685137772811 0.0996497079465 69% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0623908239938 0.0662205650399 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.125121590173 0.162205337803 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0441872836737 0.0443174109184 100% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.2 13.3589403974 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 53.8541721854 113% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 11.0289183223 86% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.08 12.2367328918 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.99 8.42419426049 95% => OK
difficult_words: 62.0 63.6247240618 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 10.7273730684 70% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 10.498013245 91% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.2008830022 71% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 78.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 23.5 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.