A little over 2,200 years ago, the Roman navy attacked 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 Sun’s rays onto Roman ships, causing them to catch fire. However, we have several reasons to suspect that the story of the burning mirror is just a myth and the Greeks of Syracuse never really built such a device.
First, the ancient Greeks were not technologically advanced enough to make such a device. A mirror that would focus sunlight with sufficient intensity to set ships on fire would have to be several meters wide. Moreover, the mirror would have to have a very precise parabolic curvature (a curvature derived from a geometric shape known as the parabola). The technology for manufacturing a large sheet of copper with such specifications did not exist in the ancient world.
Second, the burning mirror would have taken a long time to set the ships on fire. In an experiment conducted to determine whether a burning mirror was feasible, a device concentrating the Sun’s rays on a wooden object 30 meters away took ten minutes to set the object on fire; and during that time, the object had to be unmoving. It is unlikely that Roman ships stayed perfectly still for that much time. Such a weapon would therefore have been very impractical and ineffective.
Third, a burning mirror does not seem like an improvement on a weapon that the Greeks already had: flaming arrows. Shooting at an enemy’s ships with flaming arrows was a common way of setting the ships on fire. The burning mirror and flaming arrows would have been effective at about the same distance. So the Greeks had no reason to build a weapon like a burning mirror.
The reading is about the doubt regarding the greek burning mirror. It provides three supporting ideas in order to bolster its position. However, the professor support the burning mirror hypothesis. She refutes each of the passage claim.
First, the article asserts that it was not possible for greek to build burning mirror because they were technologically inept. But, the speaker denies this claim. She describes, greek were advanced and knowledgeable about the parabolic curvature. And she says, they were constructed dozens of polished parabolic curvature to build the burning mirror.
Second, the reading states that the burning mirror were taking long time to set the fire. However, the professor refutes this proposition. She explains, greek were using pitch that enabled them to burn the ship fast. And she discloses that on that time roman ships were not waterproof. So, the practical and effectiveness of building greeks burning mirror was unquestionable.
Third, the written excerpt claims that the greek were not needed to build that weapon as they had another weapon like flaming arrow. This point is quite unconvincing with the lecturer point of view. She says, the constructed burning mirror were more effective than flaming arrow because it is not possible to see the burning mirror during flight of volleys.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, regarding, second, so, third
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 10.4613686534 124% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 0.0 5.04856512141 0% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 7.30242825607 55% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 7.0 12.0772626932 58% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 24.0 22.412803532 107% => OK
Preposition: 20.0 30.3222958057 66% => 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: 1126.0 1373.03311258 82% => OK
No of words: 210.0 270.72406181 78% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.3619047619 5.08290768461 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.80675409584 4.04702891845 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60557574123 2.5805825403 101% => OK
Unique words: 113.0 145.348785872 78% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.538095238095 0.540411800872 100% => OK
syllable_count: 328.5 419.366225166 78% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 3.25607064018 215% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 2.5761589404 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 13.0662251656 122% => OK
Sentence length: 13.0 21.2450331126 61% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 33.0281603333 49.2860985944 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 70.375 110.228320801 64% => OK
Words per sentence: 13.125 21.698381199 60% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.0625 7.06452816374 43% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => 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: 0.165500689972 0.272083759551 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0615238216341 0.0996497079465 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0465721502711 0.0662205650399 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.113793772189 0.162205337803 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.00687156453736 0.0443174109184 16% => 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: 10.4 13.3589403974 78% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.28 53.8541721854 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.4 11.0289183223 76% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.92 12.2367328918 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.42419426049 94% => OK
difficult_words: 48.0 63.6247240618 75% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 5.0 10.7273730684 47% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
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: 63.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 19.0 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.