TPO 30 Integrated Writing
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.
The reading discusses several theories to suspect the existence of the burning mirror, a weapon used by ancient Greeks to defend themselves. However, the lecturer finds the ideas dubious and casts doubts on the reasons provided by the reading passage.
First, the author argues that according to the size and precise geometric shape of burning mirrors, it was technologically impossible for ancient Greeks to manufacture such a device with a large sheet of copper. Conversely, the lecturer brings up the idea that it could have been possible for Greeks to build the device since many small sheets could have been merged in order to form a large sheet. Moreover, they had sufficient knowledge about the geometric shape of a parabola. Therefore, it seems possible that they could have formed the curvature by assembling small sheets.
Furthermore, the reading passage holds the view that based on an experiment's results, the burning mirror would have needed a long time to set the ships on fire and during the time the ships should have been stayed still. On the contrary, the professor holds the view that the experiment has been conducted on wood. However, other materials existed on the ships including a sticky substance which could catch fire in seconds and after being set on fire, it could spread the fire to other parts of the ship like woods. Therefore, the device could have been effective.
Finally, the reading asserts that other weapons including flaming arrows had the same functionality. So, building such a weapon would have had no more benefits. In contrast, the speaker dismisses the issue due to the fact that flaming arrows were visible from distance. Therefore, the soldiers could easily track them and extinguish them after they had been reached their ships. On the other hand, the burning mirror was more efficient since while being used, the only thing that was visible from distance was a mirror. Therefore, the fire could have been more surprising and thus the weapon would have been more effective.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
conversely, finally, first, furthermore, however, moreover, second, so, still, therefore, thus, while, in contrast, on the contrary, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 10.4613686534 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 5.04856512141 238% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 12.0772626932 75% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 22.412803532 85% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 30.3222958057 129% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1698.0 1373.03311258 124% => OK
No of words: 335.0 270.72406181 124% => OK
Chars per words: 5.06865671642 5.08290768461 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.27820116611 4.04702891845 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.47774500632 2.5805825403 96% => OK
Unique words: 168.0 145.348785872 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.501492537313 0.540411800872 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 507.6 419.366225166 121% => 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: 15.0 8.23620309051 182% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 13.0662251656 122% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 21.2450331126 94% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.4425878407 49.2860985944 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.125 110.228320801 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.9375 21.698381199 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.375 7.06452816374 133% => OK
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 : 7.0 4.45695364238 157% => 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: 0.465300862565 0.272083759551 171% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.138928363382 0.0996497079465 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0945671967971 0.0662205650399 143% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.257074634247 0.162205337803 158% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.055311401293 0.0443174109184 125% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 13.3589403974 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 53.8541721854 111% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 11.0289183223 90% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.13 12.2367328918 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.93 8.42419426049 94% => OK
difficult_words: 70.0 63.6247240618 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 10.7273730684 126% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 10.498013245 95% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.2008830022 89% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 20 minutes.
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.