tpo 30
A little over 2200 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 and lecture are both about burning mirror which was a polished copper surface and reflects sunlight to produce fire. The author of the reading feels that it is not true instead it is an imaginary story. However, the lecturer challenged the claim made by the author. He is on the opinion that the several reasons present in the reading are impractical and unconvincing.
To begin with, the author argues that ancient Greeks was not so innovative that they could develop this kind of weapon. He also mentions that to burn the ship required particular specification for parabolic curvature which is not possible by the Greek. The specific argument is challenged by the lecturer. He states that the experiment shows many individual pieces of copper were found in that area and they did not need large copper sheet for that technology. He also elaborates the point by bringing that Greek scientist knew the technology to focus on a specific point by using several pieces of copper.
Second, the writer suggests that to set the fire at least need 10 minutes for the wooden ship and also ship must stay static. However, the lecturer rebuts this by mentioning that boats not only manufacture with wood other material also involves with it. He also claims that material like pitch which catches fire in a second even if the ship is moving.
Third, the author posits that Greek already had a weapon like flaming arrow then why they need it. Moreover, a flaming arrow is effective as a burning mirror for wide distance. In contrast, the author position is that Roman already knew about this technology so, they know the protection. He also mentions that when they saw the mirror but did not know the technology they never through that it was not a weapon. But, suddenly fire brust and it was more effective.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, moreover, second, so, then, third, at least, in contrast, kind of, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 10.4613686534 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 5.04856512141 99% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 7.30242825607 96% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 12.0772626932 166% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 22.412803532 165% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 30.0 30.3222958057 99% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 5.01324503311 120% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1503.0 1373.03311258 109% => OK
No of words: 312.0 270.72406181 115% => OK
Chars per words: 4.81730769231 5.08290768461 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.20279927342 4.04702891845 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.44165143616 2.5805825403 95% => OK
Unique words: 162.0 145.348785872 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.519230769231 0.540411800872 96% => OK
syllable_count: 463.5 419.366225166 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 3.25607064018 215% => 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: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 13.0662251656 130% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 21.2450331126 85% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 30.2568016889 49.2860985944 61% => OK
Chars per sentence: 88.4117647059 110.228320801 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.3529411765 21.698381199 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.11764705882 7.06452816374 87% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 4.33554083885 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.27373068433 140% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.303710875356 0.272083759551 112% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0963619331019 0.0996497079465 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.069515296968 0.0662205650399 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.174554389948 0.162205337803 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0355128005074 0.0443174109184 80% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.4 13.3589403974 78% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 53.8541721854 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 11.0289183223 83% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.68 12.2367328918 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.82 8.42419426049 93% => OK
difficult_words: 65.0 63.6247240618 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 10.7273730684 79% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 10.498013245 88% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 78.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 23.5 Out of 30
---------------------
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.