Integrated test.
Toward the end of his life, the Chevalier de Seingalt (1725-1798) wrote a long memoir recounting his life and adventures. The Chevalier was a somewhat controversial figure, but since he met many famous people, including kings and writers, his memoir has become a valuable historical source about European society in the eighteenth century. However, some critics have raised doubts about the accuracy of the memoir. They claim that the Chevalier distorted or invented many events in the memoir to make his life seem more exciting and glamorous than it really was.
For example, in his memoir the Chevalier claims that while living in Switzerland, he was very wealthy, and it is known that he spent a great deal of money there on parties and gambling. However, evidence has recently surfaced that the Chevalier borrowed considerable sums of money from a Swiss merchant. Critics thus argue that if the Chevalier had really been very rich, he would not have needed to borrow money.
Critics are also skeptical about the accuracy of the conversations that the Chevalier records in the memoir between himself and the famous writer Voltaire. No one doubts that the Chevalier and Voltaire met and conversed. However, critics complain that the memoir cannot possibly capture these conversations accurately, because it was written many years after the conversations occurred. Critics point out that it is impossible to remember exact phrases from extended conversations held many years earlier.
Critics have also questioned the memoir's account of the Chevalier's escape from a notorious prison in Venice, Italy. He claims to have escaped the Venetian prison by using a piece of metal to make a hole in the ceiling and climbing through the roof. Critics claim that while such a daring escape makes for enjoyable reading, it is more likely that the Chevaliers jailers were bribed to free him. They point out that the Chevalier had a number of politically well-connected friends in Venice who could have offered a bribe.
The speaker refuted the argument that the accuracy of the memoir is worthy of doubt, mainly by given counter explanation of the three points stated in the passage.
First, even though Chevalier did borrow from local merchant, he was really very rich and spent a lot of money on parties and gambling. He owned a great amount of wealth, but turning it into cash took time. That was the reason why he had to borrow from some rich man in order to live such a luxury life.
Second, despite the fact that holding memories about conversations years before exactly is very hard, nearly impossible actuall...
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 29 in 30
Category: Excellent Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 12 12
No. of Words: 245 250
No. of Characters: 1157 1200
No. of Different Words: 146 150
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 3.956 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.722 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.305 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 82 80
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 51 60
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 29 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 13 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.417 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.103 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.417 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.648 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.115 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 4