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Circulatory System

Your Pulse (Grades 3 and 4)

Your Pulse (Grades 3 and 4)
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 3 to 4
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   4.76

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    checkup, convenient, therefore, actually, adult, medical, rate, police, exact, ever, doing, wonder, officer, press, below, measure

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Your Pulse
By Jennifer Kenny 		  
1     Did you ever wonder why a police officer checks for a victim's pulse on a television drama? Why does a paramedic check the pulse of a person at the site of an accident? Why does the doctor or nurse check your pulse at your checkup?
 
2     Well, the pulse is actually the same as counting the number of heartbeats. Therefore, a pulse can tell a person how fast your heart is beating. It gives medical personnel a general idea of how the heart is doing. The pulse is a faint beating caused by the heart's pushing blood along the arteries. You can't feel a pulse in the veins of the body, only in the arteries.
 
3     The wrist is the most convenient place in the body to measure the pulse. You can also feel the pulse in other parts of the body, though, such as the carotid artery in the neck, the brachial artery in the crook of the elbow, and in the popliteal artery in the back of the knee.

Paragraphs 4 to 5:
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