Pterosaurs were an ancient group of winged reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs. Many pterosaurs were very large, some as large as a giraffe and with a wingspan of over 12 meters. Paleontologists have long wondered whether large pterosaurs were capable of powered flight (flying by flapping their wings) or whether they were able only to glide. Several arguments have been made against powered flight.
Doubters point out that since modern reptiles are cold-blooded, ancient reptiles such as pterosaurs were probably cold-blooded as well. Cold-blooded animals typically have a slow metabolism and are unable to produce a lot of energy. Powered flight is an activity requiring a lot of energy, which is why all modern vertebrates that fly are warm-blooded, not cold-blooded. It seemed unlikely that pterosaurs would have been able to generate the energy needed to fly.
Second, there is a limit to the weight of animals that can be kept airborne by powered flight. Pterosaurs that were as large as a giraffe were probably so heavy that they would not have been able to flap their wings fast enough to stay aloft for any length of time.
Third, all animals with powered flight are able to take off from the ground. For example, birds take off by jumping from their legs or running to gain speed and then jumping. But these methods would not have worked for large pterosaurs. Large pterosaurs would have needed big, powerful muscles in their back legs to launch themselves into the air, and we know from fossilized bones that their back leg muscles were too small and weak to allow the pterosaurs to run fast enough or jump high enough to launch themselves into the air.
The article states that pterosaurs were not able to fly and provide three reasons of support. However, the professor explains that there is some research which suggests that they might have the power of flight and refutes each of the author's reasons.
First, the reading claims that since the modern reptiles are cold-blooded, so the pterosaurs were cold-blooded too. The professor refutes this point by saying that reaserchers found that these animals had dense hair and fur covering on their body which is related to warm-blooded animals that help them to maintain warm in a low temporature place. He states that because they show that pterosaurs are warm-blooded, so they could have been able to generate enough energy to fly.
Second, the article avers that pterosaurs were heavy and so because of their weight they did not have the ability to flight. However, the professor says that the analytical feature of these animals were in such a way that they were light. According to professor there exist hollows in their bones that cause they had low weight despite their large size.
Third, the reading posits that pterosaurs needed powerful muscles to launch themselves into the air because their back leg muscles were too small and weak. The professor opposes this point by saying that they might not be like a bird and these animals used their four legs to jump and push their body off ground. We also learn that using four legs to run and push to launch prove that they probably had the ability to fly.
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Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'first', 'however', 'second', 'so', 'third']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.213768115942 0.261695866417 82% => OK
Verbs: 0.202898550725 0.158904122519 128% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0688405797101 0.0723426182421 95% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0398550724638 0.0435111971325 92% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0688405797101 0.0277247811725 248% => OK
Prepositions: 0.130434782609 0.128828473217 101% => OK
Participles: 0.0289855072464 0.0370669169778 78% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.30869840734 2.5805825403 89% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0434782608696 0.0208969081088 208% => Less infinitives wanted.
Particles: 0.0 0.00154638098197 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.0942028985507 0.128158765124 74% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0108695652174 0.0158828679856 68% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0144927536232 0.0114777025283 126% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 1515.0 1645.83664459 92% => OK
No of words: 258.0 271.125827815 95% => OK
Chars per words: 5.87209302326 6.08160592843 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.00778971557 4.04852973271 99% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.306201550388 0.374372842146 82% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.232558139535 0.287516216867 81% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.124031007752 0.187439937562 66% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.0736434108527 0.113142543107 65% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.30869840734 2.5805825403 89% => OK
Unique words: 135.0 145.348785872 93% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.523255813953 0.539623497131 97% => OK
Word variations: 50.3340285446 53.8517498576 93% => OK
How many sentences: 11.0 13.0529801325 84% => OK
Sentence length: 23.4545454545 21.7502111507 108% => OK
Sentence length SD: 36.1285583337 49.3711431718 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 137.727272727 132.220823453 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.4545454545 21.7502111507 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.545454545455 0.878197800319 62% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 3.39072847682 0% => OK
Readability: 46.710359408 50.5018328374 92% => OK
Elegance: 1.1976744186 1.90840788429 63% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.233393090236 0.549887131256 42% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.151724214055 0.142949733639 106% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0609277220843 0.0787303798458 77% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.654942035578 0.631733273073 104% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.0783760685364 0.139662658121 56% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.12572497311 0.266732575781 47% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0665981289392 0.103435571967 64% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.392976718727 0.414875509568 95% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0349701376786 0.0530846634433 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.181872249646 0.40443939384 45% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0572605251552 0.0528353158467 108% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 4.45695364238 90% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.26048565121 70% => OK
Positive topic words: 4.0 3.49668874172 114% => OK
Negative topic words: 3.0 3.62251655629 83% => OK
Neutral topic words: 3.0 3.1766004415 94% => OK
Total topic words: 10.0 10.2958057395 97% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 86.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 26.0 Out of 30
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.