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.
First, 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 fire would have to be several meters wide. Moreover, the mirror would have to have a very precise parabolic curvature (a curvature derived from a geometric shape known as the parabola). The technology for manufacturing a large sheet of copper with such specifications did not exist in the ancient world.
Second, the burning mirror would have taken a long time to set the ships on fire. In an experiment conducted to determine whether a burning mirror was feasible, a device concentrating the Sun's rays on a wooden object 30 meters away took ten minutes to set the object on fire; and during that time, the object had to be unmoving. It is unlikely that the Roman ships stayed perfectly still for that much time. Such a weapon would therefore have been very impractical and ineffective.
Third, a burning mirror does not seem like an improvement on a weapon that the Greeks already had: flaming arrows. Shooting at an enemy's ships with flaming arrows was a common way of setting the ships on fire. The burning mirror and flaming arrows would have been effective at about the same distance. So the Greeks had no reason to build a weapon like a burning mirror.
In the reading passage, the author raises three strong arguments to cast doubts on the existence of a burning mirror in the Ancient Greek port city to defend themselves from the Roman navy. However, the professor refutes all the author’s reasons, saying they are unconvincing.
First, the author argues that it was technologically impossible for the ancient Greeks to manufacture such an enormous mirror from a single sheet of copper. Yet, the professor asserts the Greek mathematicians knew how to assemble many small pieces of polished copper to form a big parabolic sheet that made a long burning mirror.
Second, the author claims the burning mirror would take a long time to set unmoving wooden ships on fire, making it impractical to attack the moving Roman ships. Nevertheless, the professor points out that the Romans used a sticky material called a pitch with wood to build their ships. Pitch could catch fire quickly in just a few seconds. Thus, a burning mirror would make a practical weapon.
Third, the author posits that ancient Greeks used flaming arrows as practical weapons. So, it is unreasonable to build burning mirrors with not much improvement. In contrast, the professor opposes that point by explaining that the Roman soldiers were familiar with the flaming arrows. They could easily watch the flaming arrows, get ready for them, and put the fire out immediately. However, Roman soldiers cannot see the rays of the mirrors that cause the fire. So, the fire took them by surprise in any part of their ships, which made the burning mirrors more effective than flaming arrows.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, nevertheless, second, so, third, thus, in contrast
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 4.0 15.1003584229 26% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 9.8082437276 51% => OK
Conjunction : 1.0 13.8261648746 7% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 8.0 11.0286738351 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 17.0 43.0788530466 39% => OK
Preposition: 30.0 52.1666666667 58% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 2.0 8.0752688172 25% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1348.0 1977.66487455 68% => OK
No of words: 265.0 407.700716846 65% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.08679245283 4.8611393121 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.03470204552 4.48103885553 90% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.56008187836 2.67179642975 96% => OK
Unique words: 155.0 212.727598566 73% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.584905660377 0.524837075471 111% => OK
syllable_count: 392.4 618.680645161 63% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.51630824373 99% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 9.59856630824 21% => OK
Article: 10.0 3.08781362007 324% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 0.0 3.51792114695 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.86738351254 54% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.94265232975 40% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 20.6003584229 68% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 18.0 20.1344086022 89% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.5566249429 48.9658058833 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.2857142857 100.406767564 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.9285714286 20.6045352989 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.71428571429 5.45110844103 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.53405017921 88% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.5376344086 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 11.8709677419 17% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 3.85842293907 207% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.88709677419 82% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.238917358918 0.236089414692 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0804785221402 0.076458572812 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0618288530744 0.0737576698707 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.148307705733 0.150856017488 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0329749867847 0.0645574589148 51% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.0 11.7677419355 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 58.1214874552 106% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 6.10430107527 51% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 10.1575268817 90% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.24 10.9000537634 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.81 8.01818996416 97% => OK
difficult_words: 55.0 86.8835125448 63% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 10.002688172 140% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 10.0537634409 92% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 10.247311828 117% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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We are expecting: No. of Words: 350 while No. of Different Words: 200
Better to have 5 paragraphs with 3 arguments. And try always support/against one side but compare two sides, like this:
para 1: introduction
para 2: reason 1. address both of the views presented for reason 1
para 3: reason 2. address both of the views presented for reason 2
para 4: reason 3. address both of the views presented for reason 3
para 5: conclusion.
So how to find out those reasons. There is a formula:
reasons == advantages or
reasons == disadvantages
for example, we can always apply 'save time', 'save/make money', 'find a job', 'make friends', 'get more information' as reasons to all essay/speaking topics.
or we can apply 'waste time', 'waste money', 'no job', 'make bad friends', 'get bad information' as reasons to all essay/speaking topics.
More content wanted.
Rates: 66.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 20.0 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.