friends can u plz suggest where to practice rcs??
Guys i have a doubt in the Tone of the passage.
What is the difference between a factual passage and a narrative passage?
What is the tone of this passage? Is it factual or narrative ?
Kindly explain.
It is one of the seven wonders of the world, but the precious objects the Great Pyramid was built of to shelter for all eternity - the mummified remains of King Cheops or Khufu - have never been found, and are presumed to have been stolen by tomb robbers. Now, 4,500 years after it was completed, this semi-mythical structure may be about to reveal its greatest secret: the true resting place of the pharaoh. Using architectural analysis and ground-penetrating radar, two amateur French Egyptologists claim to have discovered a previously unknown corridor inside the pyramid. They believe it leads directly to Khufu's burial chamber, a room which - if it exists - is unlikely ever to have been violated, and probably still contains the king's remains.But Gilles Dormion, an architect, and Jean-Yves Verd'hurt, a retired property agent, have so far been refused permission by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities to follow up their findings and, they hope, prove the room's existence. ”To do so, one would simply have to pass a fibre optic cable down through existing holes in the stone, to see if there are portcullis blocks in the corridor below,” said Mr. Verd'hurt. “Then it will be necessary to enter the front part of the corridor and penetrate the room, taking all precautions to ensure that it is not contaminated.” The portcullis blocks were large granite slabs that the ancient Egyptians lowered into the corridor leading to the king's funeral chamber, via a system of cords descending from above, to seal it after his burial. Until these procedures have been carried out, the two are at pains to stress that the room has not been discovered. However, they have been working in the pyramids for 20 years, and their radar analyses in another pyramid, at Meidum, led in 2000 to the discovery of two previously undetected rooms. One respected Egyptologist, Jean-Pierre Corteggiani, of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo, was impressed by their work from the start. What first struck him, he said, was that the georadar images were collected and interpreted by a non-Egyptologist, Jean-Pierre Baron, of Safege, a French company that specialises in georadar. ”This specialist works for a company, one of whose main projects is to lay out the future TGV [express train] route from Paris to Strasbourg,” said Mr. Corteggiani. “If he says it is safe to lay the rails here, because there is no cavity under the ground here, he'd better be right. If not, the death toll will be very high.”
With only 3 months to go...i jst want 2 know hw mch avg reading i must do on daily basis to improve my RC skills...nt being n gud reader...plzz suggest n wat kind of stuff sud b included n from where??
hey can any one tell me what are the various kind of "tones" that majorly used in rc passages?
Please save the attachment on your system and answer the question below.
The comparison with the soda bottle suggests
0 answers 1) suggests the inevitability of accidents
4 answers 2) is used to bring out the need for caution during the exercise of sea drilling
1 answer 3) is to help readers understand the nature of drilling
7 answers 4) points to the fact that undersea drilling has all the ingredients of a blowout
—Can anybody explain why the Answer is 2 for this Question? I have marked 4 as my answer. pls do explain.
The following is an exchange between two art historians over the recent restoration of the Sistine Chapel.
Scholar A
I shudder to think what Michelangelo's reaction would be if he were to gaze up today at the famous frescoes he painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel over four centuries ago. He was a practical man and would not have been surprised by the effects of time and environment on his masterpiece. He would have been philosophical about the damage wrought by mineral salts left behind when rainwater leaked through the roof. He would also probably have taken in stride the layers of dirt and soot from the coal braziers that heated the chapel—if that dirt had not been removed during the restoration.
Scholar B
The armament of the restorer is no longer limited to artistic sensibility and historical knowledge. A chemist on the Vatican restoration team identified the composition of the layers swathing Michelangelo's primary hues. Since there was a stratum of dirt between the painting and the first layer of glaze, it was clear that several decades had elapsed between the completion of the ceiling and the application of the glaze. This justified the use of cleaning solvents that would lift off all but that final layer of dirt, which was kept for the sake of protection of the frescoes.
Scholar A
The Vatican restoration team revelled in inducing a colourful transformation in the frescoes with their special cleaning solvents and computerized analysis equipment. But he would have been appalled at the ravages inflicted on his work by the restorers.This effect was not, as they claim, achieved merely by removing the dirt and animal glue (which was, by the way, employed by earlier restorers to revive muted colours). They removed Michelangelo's final touches as well. The ceiling no longer has its essential quality of suppressed anger and thunderous pessimism. That quality was not an artefact of grime, not a misleading monochrome imposed on the ceiling by time. Michelangelo himself applied a veil of glaze to the frescoes to darken them after he had deemed his work too bright. I think the master would have felt compelled to add a few more layers of glaze had the ceiling radiated forth as it does now. It is clear that the solvents of the restorers did not just strip away the shadows. They also reacted chemically with Michelangelo's pigments to produce hues the painter himself never beheld.
Scholar B
The particular solvent they employed, AB 57, was chosen because of the overall neutral action of its two chemicals on pigments: one temporarily tones them down, but the other livens them up to the same degree. Thus, the colours that emerged from the shadows are truly what Michelangelo intended to be seen.The luminous figures are without doubt the work of a master craftsman who executed typical Renaissance painting techniques to perfection. This is the source of the difficulty you have with the restoration: the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel no longer seems to be the fruit of the wayward genius, defiant of Renaissance fresco-painting protocol, that you always thought Michelangelo was. You don't like the fact that the painter seems, like a vagabond given a good scrubbing, to be a complete stranger, rational and traditional and devoid of fearfulness and anger. But the veil that led to the misperceptions of Michelangelo has now been lifted, and we may better acquaint ourselves with him.
Scholar A
Of course, the restorers left open an avenue for the reversal of their own ―lifting of the veil.‖ Since the layers of animal glue are no longer there to serve as protection, the atmospheric pollutants from the city of Rome now have direct access to the frescoes. In fact, we've already noticed significant darkening in some of the restored work, and it's only been four years since the restoration was completed. It remains to be seen whether the measure introduced to arrest this process—an extensive climate-control system—will itself have any long-term effect on the chapel's ceiling.
1. Scholar B's argument that the presence of dirt between the painting and the first layer of glaze justified the use of cleaning solvents to remove the glaze assumes that:
A. the dirt was laid down several decades after the painting's completion.
B. the cleaning solvents would never actually touch the frescoes.
C. Michelangelo intended the glaze to be relatively temporary.
D. Michelangelo could not have applied glaze to the ceiling decades after painting it.
E. dirt is not actually making the painting look more beautiful
2. Based on Scholar B's claim that Scholar A is unhappy because the ceiling ―no longer seems to be the fruit of [a] wayward genius, defiant of Renaissance-painting protocol,‖ it is reasonable to conclude that:
A. Michelangelo was not a fiercely independent thinker.
B. the restoration has jeopardized Michelangelo's position in history as a great artist.
C. darkening colours to produce a gloomy effect was characteristic of Michelangelo's time.
D. historical conceptions of Michelangelo overestimated his negative traits.
E. Scholar A is not aware of all the aspects of Michaelangelo's personality.
3. In arguing that some of the restored work has already been darkened by pollution, which of the following assumptions did Scholar A make?
I. Nothing except pollution could have caused the darkening.
II. The darkening indicates that irreversible damage has been done.
III. The atmospheric pollutants are more abundant now than they were before the restoration.
A. I only
B. I and II
C. II and III
D. I, II and III
E. None of the above
George Orwell (June 25, 1903– January 21, 1950) was the pen-name of Eric Arthur Blair, a British author and journalist best known for his allegorical political novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty- Four. The latter, which describes a futuristic dystopian society, led to the use of the adjective 'Orwellian' to describe totalitarian mechanisms of thought-control.
Upon completing his studies at Eton, having no prospect of gaining a university scholarship and his
family's means being insufficient to pay for his tuition, Eric joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma in 1922. He resigned and returned to England in 1928 having grown to hate imperialism (as evidenced by first novel Burmese Days, published in 1934, and by such notable essays as 'A Hanging', and 'Shooting an Elephant'). He adopted his pen name in 1933, while writing for the New Adelphi. Perhaps surprisingly for a writer with progressive, socialist views, he chose a pen name that stressed his deep and life-long affection for the English tradition and countryside: George is the patron saint of England, while the River Orwell in Suffolk was one of his most beloved English sites.
Blair lived for several years in poverty, sometimes homeless, sometimes doing itinerant work, as he recalled
in the book Down and Out in Paris and London. He eventually found work as a schoolteacher until ill health
forced him to give this up to work part-time as an assistant in a secondhand bookshop in Hampstead
During most of his professional life time Orwell was best known for his journalism, both in the British press and in books of reportage such as Homage to Catalonia (describing his activities during the Spanish Civil War), Down and Out in Paris and London (describing a period of poverty in these cities), and The Road to Wigan Pier (which described the living conditions of poor miners in northern England). According to Newsweek, Orwell “was the finest journalist of his day and the foremost architect of the English essay since Hazlitt.”
Orwell is, however, most remembered today for two of his novels: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The former is an allegory of the corruption of the socialist ideals of the Russian Revolution by Stalinism, and the latter is Orwell's prophetic vision of the results of totalitarianism. Nineteen Eighty-Four also presents Orwell's philosophy reguarding metaphysical objectivism. Orwell had returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-Stalinist and anti-Communist, but he remained to the end a man of the left and, in his own words, a 'democratic socialist'.
Another widely known work of Orwell is his classic essay “Politics and the English Language”, in which he decries the effects of political propaganda, official language, and superficial thinking on literary styles, vocabulary, and ultimately on thought itself. Orwell's concern over the declining power of language to capture and express reality with honesty is also reflected in his invention of “Newspeak”, the language of the imaginary country of Oceania in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Newspeak is a variant of English in which vocabulary is strictly limited by government fiat. The goal is to make it increasingly difficult to express ideas that contradict the official line - and, in time, even to conceive such ideas. (cf. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis).
Orwell's literary and political career was dominated by the tension between his desire for greater equality and social justice, and his ambivalent attitude towards his own middle-class background. “You have nothing to lose but your aitches” as he once said in mocking of middleclass taboos about pronunciation.
Q.1> According to the author Eric Blair's choice of pen name is odd because
(a) the name does not align well with Blair's progressive views on society and politics.
(b) a person of Blair's politico-social ideology is unlikely to have a name rooted in English tradition.
(c) a person of Blair's beliefs isn't assumed to be appreciative of English tradition.
(d) although Blair was a person of progressive, socialist views, his pen name does not express his
indifference towards English tradition and countryside.
Q.2> Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
(a) Orwell was a better journalist than novelist.
(b) Orwell is the best exponent of the English essay.
(c) Orwell considers imperialism and communism equally unacceptable.
(d) None of these.
@scrabbler Sir plz have a look..i have doubt in 1st question.
guys ! even after doin alot off reading !rc passages are tough ! i understand the content in passage ! but when it comes to answering questions ! i am gone ~! all options look similar! i feel all the 4 options are equally gud ! finnnally i end up markin the wrong answer ! i need sum serious help guys ! any suggestions ?
😟
It may help you to improve your RC speed....
Can someone clarify the difference between Analytical and Argumentative styles in RCs? I know both contains arguments and counter arguments..
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According to the influential mid-19th-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt, the Renaissance was the moment when the modern notion of 'individuality', indeed, the very concept of the self as an autonomous entity, first fully manifested itself, eventually giving rise to an ideal, multi-talented 'Renaissance man' or uomo universale. Since the publication of Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy in 1860, scholars have vigorously debated the merit of such broad and sweeping claims and have pointed out that well-rounded, self-aware individuals can be found in earlier periods as well. Although it is notoriously difficult to prove or disprove theories about a paradigm shift in the Weltanshauung, or 'world view', of a particular age, there is no doubt that the Renaissance did see an explosion in the production of painted and sculpted portraits of recognizable individuals. Of course, independent painted portraits of a very small number of kings and pontiffs had existed long before the Renaissance, with even some slightly lowerranked members of the elite, such as bishops or high nobles, portrayed in effigy on their tombs. Likewise, donor portraits, in which the wealthy and powerful patron of a work, such as an altarpiece, would be depicted within or at the edge of a sacred scene, had also existed since the Middle Ages .Similar portrayals of the sacred and secular elite certainly continued to be produced throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. But beginning in the early 1400s, other categories of sitters, such as women, well-to-do merchants, and even artists, also began to be represented in ever-greater numbers in independent portraits. And even in portraits of the traditional elite, a growing interest in individual psychology and physiology is evident, thereby reflecting the period's new approaches to depicting space, nature, and human anatomy increasingly naturalistically. The very interest in individual portraiture also reflected the Renaissance revival of Classical
antiquity, since ancient writers had focused on the biographies of famous individuals, while ancient coins and marble busts of Roman emperors and their less exalted citizen-subjects still existed to be studied, admired, and used as models for new commissions by Renaissance patrons, collectors, and artists.
Q. 1. What is the primary purpose of the author in the passage?
(a) To show that it is difficult to prove or disprove theories about a shift in the world view of a particular age.
(b) To compare the renaissance period with the pre Renaissance period.
(c) To trace the revival of classical antiquity during the Renaissance period.
(d) To discuss how the concept of individuality manifested itself in Renaissance art.
Q. 2.
Jacob Buckhardt's theory that Renaissance gave rise to the multi talented Renaissance Man is best supported by which of the following?
(a) A Renaissance portrait, assiduously considered for their visual and symbolic significance, is a straightforward depiction of what the person portrayed really looked like. (b) In a Renaissance portrait of a Duke, his steady, steely gaze peering out from a light-coloured face that stands out against a generally dark background is clearly meant to attest to his courage and determination. (c) In a Renaissance portrait Isabella d'Este, a 60 year old patron and collector, was depicted as a teenage girl. (d) Art should strive to show the 'movements of the soul' through the 'movements of the body'.
—
1:a,2:b
Please share the links of good RC Passages and RC Passage websites [for example http://www.rcprep.com/index.php]
Every four years voters across the United States elect a president. Various factors such as choices in campaign locations, the candidates' adherence to polling data and use of the Internet by candidates to reach potential voters all influence the preference of those voters, but perhaps none of these is so persuasive as a candidate's performance on nationally televised debates just prior to the election. Newspapers and television news programs generally attempt to provide thorough coverage of the debates, further augmenting the effect of good or bad candidate performances.
In this way, the news media fulfil the traditional role of educating the public and enabling voters to make better informed decisions about elected officials. However, the same technology which brings live debates into millions of living rooms across the nation also limits the availability of debate coverage by use of ―pool‖ coverage, the sharing of news coverage with other news organizations. The alternative is unilateral coverage, in which each news organization covers the event independently. Most events subject to pool coverage are so planned by the sponsors because of space limitations or safety concerns for prominent people attending or participating in the events. Since the television media require more people and equipment than their print counterparts, television usually is affected more frequently.
The pool system, when employed to cover debates between presidential nominees of the major political parties, violates the first amendment. The Constitution's mandate for a free press allows restrictions on press coverage only when there is a compelling governmental interest at stake. Presidential debates involve no interest sufficient to justify the admission of one news organization to the exclusion of all others.
Pool coverage of a presidential debate means that individual broadcasters are unable to cover the event in their own way and, consequently, to convey a unique account to their viewers; they must purchase and use coverage provided by the pool representative or have no coverage at all. The networks participate reluctantly. Pool coverage denies an opportunity to gain maximum insight from the debate. Indeed, the first amendment freedoms afforded the press exist largely to ensure that the public benefits from the free flow of information. The Supreme Court has noted that ―it is the right of viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.‖
To overcome the problem of restricted access, television news media could be divided into four categories: domestic networks, foreign news services, domestic news services, and independent broadcasters. Some broadcasters would be denied access, but the critical point is that in the end, the viewers will benefit, for they will have seen different debate coverage and, ultimately, will be better informed.
1. What is the author of the passage primarily concerned with?
A. Arguing in favour of giving more rights to individual broadcasters
B. Describing the pool system of coverage of events
C. Asserting that the first Amendment needs to be amended
D. Describing a problem with media coverage of certain events and suggesting a solution
E. Criticising the American Presidential election system
2. Which of the following claims does the passage provide some support for?
A. News organizations tend not to cooperate with each other unless they are forced to do so.
B. Most presidential candidates fare poorly in televised debates because they are not good public speakers.
C. Current news coverage of presidential debates limits the information available to the public.
D. Foreign news organizations have generally been uninterested in American presidential debates.
E. The pool system also has its positive points
3. The author of this passage would probably give his greatest support to which of the following actions?
A. A decision to allow more news services to cover presidential debates
B. A decision to allow fewer news services to cover presidential debates
C. A decision to ban presidential debates until more news services are allowed to cover them
D. A decision to ban presidential debates until fewer news services are allowed to cover them
E. A decision to change the first amendment
4. What role does the last paragraph play in the passage?
A. It provides a general conclusion to the passage
B. It suggests a solution to a problem discussed in the passage
C. It provides specific guidelines that need to be followed in future
D. It describes an action that the author opposes
E. It provides support for the main conclusion of the passage
Psychology has reflected and contributed to the cultural bias of exalting motherhood at the expense of fatherhood. Sigmund Freud considered the mother, but not the father, to have a prominent role in infant development. Gadpaille argues that maternalism is instinctual to females, not only in the species but in mammals generally. He warns that anyone advocating ―male mothering may bring harm to everyone concerned.‖ Strongly influenced by such psychological theory, our culture has been taken in by the ―superiority of mother‖ theory.
Benjamin Spock, in a six-hundred-page book on child care, devotes just three pages to the role of fathers. While he admits that a man does not sacrifice his masculinity, Spock thinks child care is something the father should do only occasionally—just to help the mother out. Fathers who win custody of children in divorce proceedings are often advised that they should immediately hire full-time housekeepers to function as surrogate mothers.
But, alas, mothers who win custody are not told to provide surrogate fathers for them. Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist, once remarked that ―fathers are a biological necessity but a social accident.‖ Throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century, our culture has been quite comfortable with this stereotypical view of fathers. ―Less than ten percent of the scientific studies of parents have taken the father's role into account, in spite of the fact that half of all parents are fathers.‖ Society has not yet changed in any major ways with regard to fathers as nonparents. However, researchers have finally realized that ―the motherhood role is not an inherited behaviour pattern, but a learned set of social skills.‖
Female children begin learning these social skills at a very early age; society makes no effort to see that boys learn these same social skills. Theories of ―maternal instinct‖ and attachment or bonding as being exclusively maternal are now being called into question. Infants bond with both the mother and the father. A growing body of literature now reveals that fathers do have potential nurturance just as mothers do. Men are increasingly demanding to be accepted as nurturant parents rather than just the provider and protector.
Young men are beginning to reject the models of parenting provided by their fathers and are searching for ways to become parents as well as fathers. A radical restructuring of maleness and fatherhood is currently under way. Fathering and mothering are two distinct parental roles. When a male is nurturant, he is fathering, not mothering. Both mothering and fathering are valid roles, but they are by no means identical.
1. Fathers who exhibit which of the following actions could count on the author of this passage to give them his greatest support?
A. Buying educational toys for their children
B. Reading bedtime stories to their children
C. Leaving their children with female babysitters
D. Working in order to pay for family expenses
E. Being nice to their wives
2. What is the primary aim of the passage?
A. To argue that women are more important than men
B. To assert that men lack in maternal instinct
C. To criticise men for neglecting their children
D. To describe the changing role of men in modern examples of parenthood
E. To decry the concept of motherhood
3. The existence of which of these findings would most strongly challenge Sigmund Freud's opinion as it is presented in the passage?
A. The personality of infants is strongly influenced by their mothers
B. The personality of infants is strongly influenced by their fathers
C. The personality of infants is weakly influenced by their siblings
D. The personality of infants is weakly influenced by their grandparents
E. The personality of infants is affected by many factors
4. Based on information provided by the author in the passage, which of the following statements is NOT true?
A. The author contends that both males and females should participate in raising children.
B. Gadpaille asserts that females do not have to learn about raising children.
C. Benjamin Spock argues that males should not be heavily involved in raising children.
D. Margaret Mead believed that males have a major role to play in raising children.
E. Freud argues that women are more important than men when it comes to raising a child.
From time to time history and myth come peculiarly close to one another, casting a new light on old, and often largely dismissed tales. In various Eastern cultures the notion of the winged serpent and the dragon have come down from the ages, only to be cast aside by modern society as fantastic, mythological creations of someone's overactive ancient imagination. Now, it seems, this supernatural beast might have some historical antecedents.
Archaeopteryx lithographica lived during the latter part of the Jurassic period, approximately 150 million years ago, just south of what today is central Germany. This ancient creature combined a reptilian body and tail with bird-like wings and feathers. This strange amalgamation of traits seems like something out of ancient mysticism of the Far East.
This beast has provided a wealth of information about the evolution of flight in birds. However, fossil and skeletal studies indicate that it was not capable of flight. None of the Archaeopteryx fossils discovered to date, including the most mature specimens, exhibit an ossified or bony sternum, the wide bone that extends from the chest to the pelvic area in most modern birds. The main purposes of this structure are to protect internal organs during flight and to act as a sturdy anchoring point for the enormous pectoral muscles necessary for flight. There is no indication that Archaeopteryx ever developed strong pectoral muscles, and perhaps this is one reason why it never developed a sternum. Instead, it retained reptilian gastral ribs, thin braces in the abdominal region, which were not attached to the skeleton and which served only to support and protect internal organs. Researchers believe that flight would have been highly unlikely in an animal with such skeletal characteristics.
Furthermore, the bones in the manus of Archaeopteryx do not seem to have been fused. In modern birds, these bones are fused in order to support the wing. In addition, the ulna of modern birds is marked with small knobs where feathers are anchored firmly to the bone by ligaments. The ulna in Archaeopteryx, however, is smooth, indicating that its feathers were not firmly anchored into the skeleton.
Finally, the skeletal characteristics of Archaeopteryx seem to indicate that this animal was most adapted to terrestrial movement. Its hind legs and pelvis closely resemble those of bipedal theropods and dinosaurs, suggesting that, like these other bipeds, it was adept at running along the ground. In contrast to the posture of modern birds, whose bodies are suspended at the pelvis like a seesaw with the thighbones horizontal, it stood up on its hind legs with its long reptilian tail serving to balance it as well as enhance its ability to coordinate abrupt changes of direction while running. In modern birds all that remains of the tail is a shrunken, fused structure called a pygostyle. Although the foot of Archaeopteryx was bird-like, with fused metatarsals, it was also adapted to running. By way of its peculiar mix of features, it seems to represent a kind of transitionary phase,illustrating an evolutionary leap from reptile to bird and providing insight into the development of flight.
1. Suppose that scientists have recently found the skeleton of a bird capable of flight embedded in pre-Jurassic period rock. What effect would this discovery most likely have on their thinking about Archaeopteryx lithographica?
A. It would support the view that Archaeopteryx lithographica represented a transitionary species between reptiles and birds.
B. It would undermine the view that Archaeopteryx lithographica represented a transitionary species between reptiles and birds.
C. It would neither support nor undermine the view that Archaeopteryx lithographica represented a transitionary species between reptiles and birds.
D. It would support the view that Archaeopteryx lithographica failed to develop the pectoral muscles necessary for flight.
E. It would prove beyond doubt that Archaeopteryx lithographica was actually a bird
2. Based on information in the passage, which of the following statements is NOT true?
A. Archaeopteryx lithographica's skeleton is similar to the skeleton of a modern bird.
B. Archaeopteryx lithographica's tail played a larger role in its daily life than the tail of a modern bird plays in its daily life.
C. Scientists have studied Archaeopteryx lithographica in order to learn about the development of flight.
D. Archaeopteryx lithographica shared some characteristics in common with dinosaurs.
E. Archaeopteryx lithographica lived in what is now Germany
3. Researchers believe that Archaeopteryx differs from modern birds for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:
A. a lack of feathers.
B. pectoral muscle development.
C. ossification of the sternum.
D. knobs found on the ulna. E. Fused bones in the manus
4. The passage is primarily concerned with
A. analysing the factors that led to the extinction of dinosaurs
B. describing the similarities between Archaeopteryx lithographica and modern birds
C. explaining how birds are able to fly
D. discussing how Archaeopteryx lithographica could be an evolutionary link between reptiles and birds
E. state that bones in the manus of Archaeopteryx lithographica were different from those of modern birds
Far from being fixed on Earth, scientists now know that Australia has wandered over the face of the planet for billions of years, sometimes lying in the northern hemisphere, sometimes in the south. For 40 million years, after finally cutting the umbilicus with Antarctica, it slowly drifted northwards, in isolation, at about half the rate at which a human hair grows.
Now that the sheep has faltered, Australians ride more and more upon the marsupial's back. To a large extent, but more difficult to quantify, Australia's fauna and flora are being used as a unique resource. In scientific disciplines from reproductive physiology and evolutionary biology to medicine, Australia's native species are hailed as a unique and priceless heritage. They are providing insights into the way the world, and humans themselves, work.
Australia's rainforests—those ―unimportant appendages‖—are now widely acknowledged as being the most ancient of humanity's land-based ecosystems, which gave rise to most others. Botanical discoveries of worldwide importance are being made in them every year. Australian botanists have recently completed a catalogue of Australian plants, in which they list 18,000 species. Their taxonomic work over recent years has resulted in a 50 percent increase in the number of species in the groups examined. Yet they estimate that about 7,000 undiscovered plant species still exist in Australia. Many surely inhabit Australian rainforests and are members of ancient and bizarre families, like the southern pine (Podocarpus species) recently found growing in a steep valley in Arnhem Land, thousands of kilometres distant from its nearest relatives.
Research on newly discovered Australian dinosaur faunas is challenging previous conceptions of what dinosaurs were like. So important are these discoveries that an Australian dinosaur recently made it onto the cover of a major international magazine. It was discovered in one of only two deposits in the world which was laid down near the South Pole during the age of dinosaurs. The chicken-sized species survived three months of darkness each year in a refrigerated world.
Scientists are finally understanding that evolution in Australia, in contrast to evolution on some other continents, is not driven solely by nature ―red in tooth and claw.‖ Here, a more gentle force—that of coadaptation—is important. This is because harsh conditions force individuals to cooperate to minimize the loss of nutrients, and to keep them cycling through the ecosystem as rapidly as possible.
1. Based on information in the passage, which of the following is NOT true?
A. Australia has moved from one hemisphere to the other over time.
B. Most Australian plant species remain undiscovered.
C. Important information is being gathered by studying Australian plants.
D. Australian rainforests are different from other rainforests.
E. Dinosaurs had once existed in what is now Australia.
2. Suppose that a previously unknown species of plant that is capable of producing medicine is found in an Australian rainforest. How would this information affect the author's opinion of Australian rainforests?
A. It would support the author's opinion.
B. It would contradict the author's opinion.
C. It would neither support nor contradict the author's opinion.
D. It would contradict the author's opinion only if this species of plant cannot be found anywhere else.
E. It would weaken the argument that Australian ecosystem is unique.
3. According to the passage, all of the following are considered benefits of studying Australian ecosystems EXCEPT:
A. increasing knowledge of reproductive physiology and medicine.
B. gaining information concerning evolutionary trends.
C. furthering the understanding of the uses of hydroelectric power and solar energy.
D. providing insight into ancient ecosystems
E. providing an insight into the way humans work.
4. What is the main purpose of the author in writing the passage?
A. to state that dinosaurs originated in what is now Australia
B. to criticise modern scientists for not understanding the unique importance of Australia
C. to discuss some unique ecological features of Australia
D. to assert that Australian rainforests are the oldest of them all
E. Australian flora and fauna are not found anywhere else in the world.