A little over 2 200 years ago the Roman navy attached the Greek port city of Syracuse According to some ancient historians the Greeks defended themselves with an ingenious weapon called a burning mirror a polished copper surface curved to focus

The reading and the lecture are both about an ingenious weapon called a “burning mirror” in the ancient era of Greek that they used in defending themselves from Romans. There is a discussion between the author and lecturer. The author of the reading feels that the weapon is just a myth and did not actually exist. The lecturer challenges the claims made by the author. She is of the opinion that the weapon was real and made by the Greek people of the ancient era.

To begin with, the author argues that the ancient era of Greek did not have the technology to make such a weapon. To set the ships on fire, they should make the parabolic curvature in but they did not have the technology to manufacture this. This specific argument is challenged by the lecturer. She claims that the mirror were made of thousands of copper that were put together to make a parabolic curvature. Moreover, the Greeks know the properties of parabola, hence, they could make this shape of mirror.

Secondly, the writer suggests that it takes a long time to set the ships on fire. According to the experiment, it would take ten minutes to burn wood by sun rays. In addition, the wood must not be moving so this weapon would be not practical to use. The lecturer, however, rebuts this by mentioning that ships were not made of only wood. They were targeting the ships that were made of a material called pitch. Furthermore, this pitch catches fire promptly. So it is a good material to burn.

Finally, the author posits that the weapon is not higher quality than others. “Flaming arrows”, for example, has a better effect than “burning mirrors”. So there is no reason to make the weapon “burning mirrors”. In contrast, the lecturer’s position is that there is a difference between “flaming arrows” and “burning mirrors”. She notes that “flaming arrows” is visible. So it is easy to identify what weapon is used. Conversely, “burning mirror” is something like magic. It is invisible. It is hard to discover the weapon through the mirror. Hence, it is more effective than “flaming arrows’ to use as strategy.

Votes
Average: 8.4 (2 votes)
Essay Categories

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 134, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...”, for example, has a better effect than “burning mirrors”. So there is no reason...
^^
Line 7, column 579, Rule ID: EN_UNPAIRED_BRACKETS
Message: Unpaired symbol: '”' seems to be missing
...irror. Hence, it is more effective than “flaming arrows’ to use as strategy.
^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, conversely, finally, furthermore, hence, however, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, for example, in addition, in contrast, to begin with

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

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 10.4613686534 239% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 5.04856512141 99% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 12.0772626932 99% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 22.412803532 152% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 45.0 30.3222958057 148% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1768.0 1373.03311258 129% => OK
No of words: 365.0 270.72406181 135% => OK
Chars per words: 4.84383561644 5.08290768461 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.37092360658 4.04702891845 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67058509884 2.5805825403 103% => OK
Unique words: 172.0 145.348785872 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.471232876712 0.540411800872 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 533.7 419.366225166 127% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 3.25607064018 369% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 2.5761589404 194% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 13.0662251656 207% => Too many sentences.
Sentence length: 13.0 21.2450331126 61% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 32.6716213594 49.2860985944 66% => OK
Chars per sentence: 65.4814814815 110.228320801 59% => More chars_per_sentence wanted.
Words per sentence: 13.5185185185 21.698381199 62% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.66666666667 7.06452816374 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 4.19205298013 48% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 4.45695364238 269% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.27373068433 211% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.186481469644 0.272083759551 69% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0502085972456 0.0996497079465 50% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0626291315528 0.0662205650399 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.114834528676 0.162205337803 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0570363484136 0.0443174109184 129% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 8.1 13.3589403974 61% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 66.74 53.8541721854 124% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 7.2 11.0289183223 65% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.2 12.2367328918 83% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.61 8.42419426049 90% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 63.6247240618 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 10.7273730684 70% => OK
gunning_fog: 7.2 10.498013245 69% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.2008830022 71% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 68.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 20.5 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.