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 cap

Essay topics:

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.

In this set of materials, the reading passage states that Pterosaurs, an ancient group of winged reptiles, were not capable of powered flight. However, the lecturer argues that based on recent studies, scientists express that they may be able to fly and refute all the reasons by offering several evidences.

First of all, it is mentioned in the article that since researchers consider Pterosaurs cold-blooded, they had slow metabolism and could not produce enough energy to fly. In contrast, the professor asserts that recent discoveries show that dense hair like feather covered the body of animal which means they were probably warm-blooded similar to birds. So, it was practical for them to generate the energy needed for flight. In fact, they are not in the category of reptiles.

Furthermore, the reading claims that heavy animals cannot fly and Pterosaurs are among huge animals. On the contrary, the professor explains that despite of large body, their weight were light because of hollow bones instead of dense ones. It allowed them to flap their wings fast and stay aloft for any length of time. Hence, the weight was not a big issue to prevent them from flying.

Finally, the passage believes that weak muscles in the back legs of Pterosaurs make it impossible for them to take off. Conversely, the professor contends that this type of animals are different with birds and use all four limbs to jump. Although birds just need to use their two legs to run to gain speed, Pterosaurs move their four limbs to push off the grounds and jump high enough to fly in the air. Therefore, this reason is not convincing to reject the idea of powered flight.

Votes
Average: 8 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 446, Rule ID: ALLOW_TO[1]
Message: Did you mean 'rejecting'? Or maybe you should add a pronoun? In active voice, 'convince' + 'to' takes an object, usually a pronoun.
Suggestion: rejecting
...herefore, this reason is not convincing to reject the idea of powered flight.
^^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
conversely, finally, first, furthermore, hence, however, if, may, so, therefore, in contrast, in fact, first of all, on the contrary

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 10.4613686534 105% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 5.04856512141 79% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 12.0772626932 91% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 22.412803532 129% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 45.0 30.3222958057 148% => OK
Nominalization: 0.0 5.01324503311 0% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1384.0 1373.03311258 101% => OK
No of words: 282.0 270.72406181 104% => OK
Chars per words: 4.90780141844 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.09790868904 4.04702891845 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.4544643308 2.5805825403 95% => OK
Unique words: 168.0 145.348785872 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.595744680851 0.540411800872 110% => OK
syllable_count: 414.9 419.366225166 99% => 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: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 21.2450331126 94% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.2135001136 49.2860985944 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.8571428571 110.228320801 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.1428571429 21.698381199 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.42857142857 7.06452816374 133% => 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 : 4.0 4.45695364238 90% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.27373068433 117% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.142872534235 0.272083759551 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0420366204751 0.0996497079465 42% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0443570422186 0.0662205650399 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0828003197425 0.162205337803 51% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.020464209366 0.0443174109184 46% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.8 13.3589403974 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 53.8541721854 111% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 11.0289183223 90% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.2 12.2367328918 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.21 8.42419426049 97% => OK
difficult_words: 64.0 63.6247240618 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 10.7273730684 126% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 10.498013245 95% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.2008830022 89% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 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.