The reading and the lecture are both about an ingenious weapon called a “burning mirror”. The author of the reading holds the opinion that the burning mirror was not a weapon that was really utilized back then. The lecturer challenges the claims made by the author. He feels that the burning mirror was a weapon the Greeks genuinely used to defend themselves from the Roman navy.
To begin with, the author argues that 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 sixty-seven fire would have to be several meters wide. The article mentions that the mirror would have to have a very precise parabolic curvature, and the technology for manufacturing a large sheet of copper with such specifications did not exist in the ancient world. This specific argument is challenged by the lecturer. He claims that dozens of copper sheets could have been utilized to create a parabola, instead of one big copper sheet. Additionally, he claims that mathematicians back then knew the properties of a parabola and did not need very advanced technology to make the burning mirror work.
Secondly, the writer claims that the burning mirror would have taken a long time to set the ships on fire according to an experiment they conducted on wood. The lecturer, however, rebuts this by mentioning that the Greeks did not have to target the wood of the ships, but the pitch. Pitch is a material that catches on fire way faster than wood.
Finally, the author posits that a burning mirror does not seem like an improvement on a weapon that the Greeks already had such as flaming arrows. In contrast, the lecturer’s stance is that it would have been more effective as the Romans were aware of flaming arrows, which is why they would have expected it. A burning mirror, on the other hand, would catch them by surprise. The Romans would not have strategies to counteract the fires of a burning mirror.
- 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 88
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- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement Universities should require every graduating students to take public speaking courses Give specific examples and details to support your answer 83
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- 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 jar contained a copper cylinder surrounding an iron rod The 73
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 212, 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.
...pon that was really utilized back then. The lecturer challenges the claims made by ...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, however, if, really, second, secondly, then, in contrast, such as, to begin with, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 10.4613686534 124% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 5.04856512141 198% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 7.30242825607 55% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 12.0772626932 124% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 22.412803532 112% => OK
Preposition: 38.0 30.3222958057 125% => 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: 1666.0 1373.03311258 121% => OK
No of words: 342.0 270.72406181 126% => OK
Chars per words: 4.87134502924 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.30037696126 4.04702891845 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59676122088 2.5805825403 101% => OK
Unique words: 171.0 145.348785872 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.5 0.540411800872 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 508.5 419.366225166 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: 12.0 8.23620309051 146% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 13.0662251656 130% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 21.2450331126 94% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.1560297823 49.2860985944 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.0 110.228320801 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.1176470588 21.698381199 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.64705882353 7.06452816374 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 4.33554083885 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 4.45695364238 202% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.27373068433 70% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.217924166888 0.272083759551 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0783541427872 0.0996497079465 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0659406264407 0.0662205650399 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.138688832299 0.162205337803 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0528692772331 0.0443174109184 119% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.6 13.3589403974 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 53.8541721854 111% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 11.0289183223 90% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.97 12.2367328918 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.09 8.42419426049 96% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 63.6247240618 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 10.7273730684 75% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 10.498013245 95% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.2008830022 89% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Rates: 83.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 25.0 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.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 212, 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.
...pon that was really utilized back then. The lecturer challenges the claims made by ...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, however, if, really, second, secondly, then, in contrast, such as, to begin with, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 10.4613686534 124% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 5.04856512141 198% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 7.30242825607 55% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 12.0772626932 124% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 22.412803532 112% => OK
Preposition: 38.0 30.3222958057 125% => 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: 1666.0 1373.03311258 121% => OK
No of words: 342.0 270.72406181 126% => OK
Chars per words: 4.87134502924 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.30037696126 4.04702891845 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59676122088 2.5805825403 101% => OK
Unique words: 171.0 145.348785872 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.5 0.540411800872 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 508.5 419.366225166 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: 12.0 8.23620309051 146% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 13.0662251656 130% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 21.2450331126 94% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.1560297823 49.2860985944 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.0 110.228320801 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.1176470588 21.698381199 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.64705882353 7.06452816374 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 4.33554083885 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 4.45695364238 202% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.27373068433 70% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.217924166888 0.272083759551 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0783541427872 0.0996497079465 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0659406264407 0.0662205650399 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.138688832299 0.162205337803 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0528692772331 0.0443174109184 119% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.6 13.3589403974 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 53.8541721854 111% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 11.0289183223 90% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.97 12.2367328918 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.09 8.42419426049 96% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 63.6247240618 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 10.7273730684 75% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 10.498013245 95% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.2008830022 89% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Rates: 83.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 25.0 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.