reading passage.题目原文:In 1938 an archaeologist in Iraq acquired a set of clay jars that had been excavated two years earlier by villagers constructing a railroad line. The vessel was about 2,200 years old. Each clay jay contained a copper cylinde

Essay topics:

reading passage.
题目原文:
In 1938 an archaeologist in Iraq acquired a set of clay jars that had been excavated two years earlier by villagers constructing a railroad line. The vessel was about 2,200 years old. Each clay jay contained a copper cylinder surrounding an iron rod. The archaeologist proposed that vessel were ancient electric batteries and even demonstrated that they can produce a small electric current when filled with some liquids. However, it is not likely that the vessels were actually used as electric batteries in ancient times.
First of all, if the vessels were used as batteries, they would probably have been attached to some electrical conductors such as metal wires. But there is no evidence that any metal wires were located near the vessels. All that has been excavated are the vessels themselves.
Second, the copper cylinders inside the jars look exactly like copper cylinders discovered in the ruins of Seleucia, an ancient city located nearby. We know that the copper cylinders from Seleucia were used for holding scrolls of sacred texts, not for generating electricity. Since the cylinders found with the jars have the same shape, it is very likely they were used for holding scrolls as well. That no scrolls were found inside the jars can be explained by the fact that the scrolls simply disintegrated over the centuries.
Finally, what could ancient people have done with the electricity that the vessels were supposed to have generated? They had no devices that replied on electricity. As batteries, the vessels would have been completely useless to them.

The reading and the lecture are about the ancient objects, clay jars, found in Iraq, which is supposed to generate electricity and have been a kind of battery. The author of the reading provides three reasons to refute this possibility. The lecturer, on the other hand, casts doubt on these claims and rebuts all the arguments which are mentioned in the passage.

First, the author asserts that there is no electricity conductor attached to the vessels to be used as a battery. It is mentioned that if the jar could be an electricity generator, it should have something like a metal wire. The lecturer, however, challenges this idea. She says that the mentioned objects have found by the local people so it would be plausible if they might overlook those attachments since they thought that those objects weren't valuable or even interesting.

Second, the writer states that the jar's copper cylinders are similar to some cylinders objects found in the ruined town nearby the place that the jar has found. As the copper objects in the ruined town were used to hold sacred text, the function of this recent jar might be the same. The professor, on the contrary, posits that this similarity doesn't prove anything since it would be possible that the ancient people changed their function later and used them as a device to generate electricity.

Third, the author contends that, in that time, there was no device working with electrical power so the battery was a useless object. The professor rejects this argument by saying that the ancient battery could generate a mild shock when someone touched it so it could be used as an invisible, magic power. Besides, the ancient doctors could use it to massage the muscles for different purposes.

Votes
Average: 0.3 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 238, 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.
...ree reasons to refute this possibility. The lecturer, on the other hand, casts doub...
^^^
Line 3, column 442, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: weren't
...s since they thought that those objects werent valuable or even interesting. Secon...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 36, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'jars'' or 'jar's'?
Suggestion: jars'; jar's
... Second, the writer states that the jars copper cylinders are similar to some cy...
^^^^
Line 5, column 345, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...e contrary, posits that this similarity doesnt prove anything since it would be possib...
^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, but, first, however, if, look, second, so, third, kind of, on the contrary, on the other hand

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

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 10.4613686534 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 5.04856512141 178% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 7.30242825607 68% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 12.0772626932 116% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 22.412803532 138% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 26.0 30.3222958057 86% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1451.0 1373.03311258 106% => OK
No of words: 295.0 270.72406181 109% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9186440678 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.14434120667 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.46714463356 2.5805825403 96% => OK
Unique words: 158.0 145.348785872 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.535593220339 0.540411800872 99% => OK
syllable_count: 450.9 419.366225166 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.23620309051 134% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 13.0662251656 99% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 21.2450331126 104% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.1879033742 49.2860985944 96% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.615384615 110.228320801 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.6923076923 21.698381199 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.84615384615 7.06452816374 111% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 4.19205298013 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.27373068433 94% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.098275088826 0.272083759551 36% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0364802677089 0.0996497079465 37% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0403150061008 0.0662205650399 61% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0622771926375 0.162205337803 38% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0355936579011 0.0443174109184 80% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 13.3589403974 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 53.8541721854 107% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 11.0289183223 97% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.55 12.2367328918 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.15 8.42419426049 97% => OK
difficult_words: 64.0 63.6247240618 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 10.498013245 103% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.

Rates: 3.33333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.