As early as the twelfth century A.D., the settlements of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico in the American Southwest were notable for their "great houses," massive stone buildings that contain hundreds of rooms and often stand three or four stories high. Archaeologists have been trying to determine how the buildings were used. While there is still no universally agreed upon explanation, there are three competing theories.
One theory holds that the Chaco structures were purely residential, with each housing hundreds of people. Supporters of this theory have interpreted Chaco great houses as earlier versions of the architecture seen in more recent Southwest societies. In particular, the Chaco houses appear strikingly similar to the large, well-known "apartment buildings" at Taos, New Mexico, in which many people have been living for centuries.
A second theory contends that the Chaco structures were used to store food supplies. One of the main crops of the Chaco people was grain maize, which could be stored for long periods of time without spoiling and could serve as a long-lasting supply of food. The supplies of maize had to be stored somewhere, and the size of the great houses would make them very suitable for the purpose.
A third theory proposes that houses were used as ceremonial centers. Close to one house, called Pueblo Alto, archaeologists identified an enormous mound formed by a pile of old material. Excavations of the mound revealed deposits containing a surprisingly large number of broken pots. This finding has been interpreted as evidence that people gathered at Pueblo Alto for special ceremonies. At the ceremonies, they ate festive meals and then discarded the pots in which the meals had been prepared or served. Such ceremonies have been documented for other Native American cultures.
The reading passage suggests three theories of how Chaco Canyon had been used: a residence, a food supply storage, and a ceremonial center. However, the lecturer insists that none of those theories in the reading passage is convincing.
Firstly, the lecturer states that it is doubtful to believe that many people were lived there, due to the lack of fire stations. To be specific, the number of fire stations seems they might have been able to support only 10 families. This contradicts the reading passage’s statement that Chaco Canyon may have been used for purely residential, considering its structures.
Secondly, the lecturer insists that the Chaco structures were not food storage. This is because the place was not greatly covered by maize. In order to consider it was used as food storage, more maize has had to found in the place. It counterargues the reading passage’s point that the possible purpose of Chaco Canyon is for storing food supplies.
Thirdly, the lecturer mentions that the mound is not good evidence to consider that the structures were used for ceremonial purposes. This is because the mound seems like a pile of construction trash with many building materials. Although it contained broken pots, it might have been regular trash. Thus, it disputes the reading passage’s statement that the houses could have been used for ceremonies.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, third, thirdly, thus
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 10.4613686534 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 5.04856512141 79% => OK
Conjunction : 1.0 7.30242825607 14% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 12.0772626932 75% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 22.412803532 94% => OK
Preposition: 20.0 30.3222958057 66% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1153.0 1373.03311258 84% => OK
No of words: 223.0 270.72406181 82% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.17040358744 5.08290768461 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.86434787811 4.04702891845 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6615775875 2.5805825403 103% => OK
Unique words: 119.0 145.348785872 82% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.533632286996 0.540411800872 99% => OK
syllable_count: 349.2 419.366225166 83% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 3.25607064018 184% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.23620309051 85% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 13.0662251656 99% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 21.2450331126 80% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 25.3286095461 49.2860985944 51% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 88.6923076923 110.228320801 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.1538461538 21.698381199 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.53846153846 7.06452816374 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.27373068433 117% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.108364330883 0.272083759551 40% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0419051002963 0.0996497079465 42% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0296335201284 0.0662205650399 45% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.068190751409 0.162205337803 42% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.014583122954 0.0443174109184 33% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.5 13.3589403974 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 53.8541721854 101% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 11.0289183223 90% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.41 12.2367328918 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.23 8.42419426049 98% => OK
difficult_words: 53.0 63.6247240618 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 10.7273730684 98% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 10.498013245 84% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 20.0 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.