Growing vegetables is fun and easy. Many people think a lot of land is necessary to grow vegetables. This is not true. People in cities with patios and no lawn can also grow vegetables. Vegetables can grow just as well in containers as they do on a farm. Plants simply need a sunny place to grow and good soil.
Vegetables that grow well in containers include peppers and tomatoes. Herbs are also great to plant if all you have is a windowsill. Parsley, basil, and sage grow well in a sunny window.
Question
Which statement supports the idea that anyone can have a garden?
Answer options with 4 options
1.
"Growing vegetables is fun and easy."
2.
"Many people think a lot of land is necessary to grow vegetables."
3.
"Vegetables can grow just as well in containers as they do on a farm."
4.
"Vegetables that grow well in containers include peppers and tomatoes."
3. "Vegetables can grow just as well in containers as they do on a farm."
This passage focuses on the effect of human activities on bird species.,end italics,
Not all species are negatively affected by our impact on the environment. While warblers and thrushes breeding in forest interiors may decrease with increased forest fragmentation, edge species will take advantage of the more open habitat and increase. As towns form tree-dominated islands across the Great Plains, many eastern species like the Baltimore Oriole expanded their ranges westward. Feed-grains sustain larger numbers of blackbirds than would not have naturally survived the stress of winter before the development of a large cattle feedlot industry. Dredge spoil offers dependable nesting sites for terns along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Airports in the northeast provide perennial grasslands for Upland Sandpipers that traditionally had to rely on limited larger patches on the coastal plain or the ephemeral meadows of forest succession. Yet, the general trend of our effect on the environment is toward uniform sameness; we have reduced the ,begin underline,heterogeneity,end underline, of the landscape. This, in turn, reduces the richness of bird species we experience in our daily lives.
(from "Migration of Birds: Future Directions" published by the U.S. Geological Survey)
Question
The underlined word in the passage, ,begin emphasis,heterogeneity,end emphasis,, comes from the Greek root ,begin emphasis,hetero-,end emphasis,, meaning "other" or "different."
What is the meaning of ,begin emphasis,heterogeneity,end emphasis, as it is used in the passage?
Answer options with 4 options
1.
balance
2.
conflict
3.
desirability
4.
diversity
4. diversity
On December 6, 2011, the National Aeronautical Space Administration (NASA) announced that scientists had discovered a "habitable" planet, that is, a planet that is capable of sustaining life. The scientists named the planet Kepler-22b. It is more than twice the size of Earth. The discovery of Kepler-22b came about as a result of NASA's Kepler mission, a group of scientists that searches for planets that could possibly sustain life.
Like Earth, Kepler-22b orbits a star. Its star is similar to Earth's Sun. Kepler-22b's distance from its star is far enough away that the planet is not extremely hot. Kepler-22b is also close enough to the star that the planet is not incredibly cold. The average surface temperature is believed to be 72 °F (22 °C). Scientists say that Kepler-22b is within "The Goldilocks Zone." This means that it orbits at a distance from its star that allows its temperature and other conditions to be "just right" for supporting life.
There is much to learn about Kepler-22b. Scientists don't know what Kepler-22b is made of. They have not yet discovered if it is made mainly of rocks, gases, or liquids. Exploration of Kepler-22b is unlikely to happen any time in the near future. It would take 22 million years to get there because Kepler-22b is 600 light years away. Exploring Kepler-22b would be the greatest achievement in space science.
Question
Which sentence about Kepler-22b is ,begin emphasis,NOT,end emphasis, supported by facts in the passage?
Answer options with 4 options
1.
Kepler-22b's distance from its star is far enough away that the planet is not extremely hot.
2.
There is much to learn about Kepler-22b.
3.
Exploration of Kepler-22b is unlikely to happen any time in the near future.
4.
Exploring Kepler-22b would be the greatest achievement in space science.
4. Exploring Kepler-22b would be the greatest achievement in space science.
The human history of the Yellowstone region goes back more than 11,000 years. From about 11,000 years ago to the very recent past, many groups of Native Americans used the park as their homes, hunting grounds, and transportation routes. These traditional uses of Yellowstone lands continued until a little over 200 years ago when the first people of European descent found their way into the park. In 1872, a country that had not yet seen its first ,begin underline,centennial,end underline, established Yellowstone as the first national park in the world. A new concept was born and with it a new way for people to preserve and protect the best of what they had for the benefit and enjoyment of future generations.
,fill in the blank,
,begin bold,Glossary,end bold,
,begin bold,centennial,end bold, the hundredth anniversary
Question
What does the reference to the United States' ,begin emphasis,centennial,end emphasis, help the reader understand about the creation of Yellowstone National Park?
Answer options with 4 options
1.
Yellowstone National Park was established as a way of celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the United States.
2.
People had lived in the Yellowstone area of the United States for almost 100 years before it became the world's first national park.
3.
Other nations would follow the example set by the United States and establish their own national parks on their hundredth anniversaries.
4.
The United States government had the vision to create the world's first national park, even though the country was less than 100 years old.
4. The United States government had the vision to create the world's first national park, even though the country was less than 100 years old.
What is one purpose of stage directions in dramatic literature?
Answer options with 4 options
1.
to explain who is speaking in the play
2.
to tell which scene or act is taking place
3.
to tell who the characters are in the play
4.
to explain where the characters are located
4. to explain where the characters are located
The author is a biologist and college professor. He is considered one of the world's experts on snakes.,end italics,
from ,begin bold,Tracks and Shadows,end bold,
paragraph 1,Rainforests are dimly lit and exceptionally diverse—claustrophobically dark and fecund,superscript,1,baseline,—so no wonder tropical biologists end up puzzling over existential questions. At La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica, giant trees with buttressed trunks tower overhead, obscuring the sky, and every glimpse holds the vibrant greens and somber browns of plants and their decaying remnants. After a torrential shower the air reverberates with the buzzes, whines, and clicks of insects. Mantled howler monkeys sound off in the distance. All around us leaf litter reeks from the chemical adventures of microbes, and over the course of hours my puny primate nose wrinkles toward some collared peccaries,,superscript,2,baseline, then heaps of rotting fruit and a pile of cat droppings. Rounding a trail curve I'm baffled by a shimmering lavender stripe, dozens of yards long and a half-inch tall; then I drop to my knees and contemplate thousands of leaf-cutter ants, each carrying a single delicate flower petal. And from time to time, slogging along the muddy paths, I imagine being overgrown by mosses and fungi, or devoured by spike-headed katydids,superscript,3,baseline, the size of small mice.
paragraph 2,Setting aside matters of life and death for the moment, what do ecologists mean by "exceptionally diverse," and why might anyone care? A comparison among some familiar places illustrates how numbers of species increase toward the Equator, culminating in unparalleled tropical richness. California reaches from Death Valley's floor to Mount Whitney's summit, spans parched salt flats to drenched redwood groves, and yet across ten degrees of latitude boasts only thirty-five species of snakes. Almost twice that number occur in La Selva's five square miles, as if a house full of serpents were packed into a thimble, and there are nearly four hundredspecies of birds, more than half as many as in the continental United States. Tropical faunas encompass more lifestyles too, thanks to rampant adaptive diversification; most temperate bats feed on insects, for example, whereas some of their hothouse relatives specialize on fruit, nectar, fish, frogs, or birds.
paragraph 3,This dramatic global variation has long intrigued naturalists, and its causes are partly understood. Rainforests usually occupy middle latitudes, so Earth's most biologically opulent regions are hot and wet. Some of them have been that way for millions of years, during which rising seas and tectonic events fragmented landscapes, catalyzing the origin of new species. More land, more sun, and more rain, coupled with geographical isolation and geological time, have fostered plant evolution—and thereby more plant-eating insects, insect-eating frogs, frog-eating snakes, and birds and mammals that eat them all. At local scales earthquakes, volcanoes, and windstorms annihilate chunks of habitat, which are then colonized by species that live in the resulting light gaps. Those sun-loving newcomers are eventually replaced by shade-tolerantspecies, so that natural disturbances further increase diversity by generating patchworks of succession in what at first glance appears to be unbroken forest.
paragraph 4,Tropical biotas,superscript,4,baseline, are also among the most endangered anywhere, their most charismatic inhabitants often difficult to find. Ecotourists adore emerald-and-redquetzals,superscript,5,baseline, and iridescent blue morphos,,superscript,6,baseline, and with coaching they might tolerate the jararaca pitvipers whose venom chemistry inspired a popular blood pressure drug. Predators are usually tough to see, though. Whereas in an hour a person might find dozens of snakes on a Missouri hillside, I averaged one a day at La Selva, and after twelve months of fieldwork I still hadn't seen all the species at that serpent-rich locale. Because rainforests don't offer Serengeti-like vistas, we can't drive folks through them in a safari van, striped like a baby tapir instead of a zebra, to show off the big cats. Instead, advocates need to cultivate perspectives that make those places ,begin italics,feel,end italics, wild, even if one doesn't see much that day. We should teach neophytes to flare their nostrils at unfamiliar odors, differentiate splayed tracks of jaguars from parallel-sided prints of mountain lions, and distinguish among the sounds of frogs and birds. With luck, visitors might overtake a white hawk, as I once did, so close on an overhanging limb that the immaculate bird seemed at first illusory.
paragraph 5,My fascination with steamy venues began on a childhood sojourn in the Philippines, enhanced by reading Raymond Ditmars's melodramatic tales of bushmasters and vampire bats. Years later, as a soldier I requested assignment to Panama, hoping to find exotic creatures and avoid combat, but was stationed in Germany instead. So my first tastes of the tropics came on grad school trips to Mexico and Guatemala. I've since enjoyed a decade of visits to La Selva and sporadic stints elsewhere in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Studying feeding and defense in snakes justifies my travels, with diversity an overriding concern: How can so many species fit into hot wet places? Along the way I've also been enchanted with other predators, as well as impressed by how local peoples' lives play out and dismayed by the loss of tropical habitats. Just as deserts afford simplicity and clarity, I've learned, rainforests exemplify complexity and obscurity.
(Republished with permission of University of California Press - Books, from ,begin underline,Tracks and Shadows,end underline, by Harry W. Greene, copyright © 2013; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.)
_________________________
,begin bold,,superscript,1,baseline, fecund ,end bold, extremely fertile
,begin bold,,superscript,2,baseline,peccaries,end bold, piglike animals that are also known as javalinas
,begin bold,,superscript,3,baseline,katydids ,end bold,insects related to crickets and grasshoppers
,begin bold,,superscript,4,baseline, biotas ,end bold,the plants and animals found in particular areas
,begin bold,,superscript,5,baseline, quetzals ,end bold, colorful birds that are found in Central and South America
,begin bold,,superscript,6,baseline, morphos ,end bold, large butterflies with brilliant blue wings found in Central and South America
Question 1
This question has two parts. Answer Part A, and then answer Part B.
,begin emphasis,Part A,end emphasis,
What is the relationship between the structure of paragraph 3 and the structure of paragraph 4?
Question 1 Answer options with 4 options
1.
Paragraph 3 tells what rainforests look like to visitors, and paragraph 4 compares visits to rainforests with visits to other wild places.
2.
Paragraph 3 gives examples of the effect of natural events on rainforests, and paragraph 4 gives examples of the effect of human interference.
3.
Paragraph 3 gives reasons that rainforests have large numbers of animal species, and paragraph 4 explains how visitors can appreciate those species.
4.
Paragraph 3 focuses on what happened to rainforests over long periods of geological time, and paragraph 4 focuses on what is happening in the present day.
Question 2
,begin emphasis,Part B,end emphasis,
What is the irony suggested by the relationship in the correct answer from Part A?
Question 2 Answer options with 4 options
1.
Although rainforests have existed for millions of years, they are now threatened.
2.
Although rainforests contain many varieties of animal life, the animals can rarely be seen.
3.
Although the causes of rainforests' diversity are fascinating, rainforests themselves can be boring.
4.
Although visitors may understand rainforests' history, they may fail to see the surrounding beauty.