Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
Since water is the basis of life, composing the greater part of the tissues of all living things, the crucial problem of desert animals is to survive in a world where sources of flowing water are rare. And since man’s inexorable necessity is to absorb large quantities of water at frequent intervals, he can scarcely comprehend that many creatures of the desert pass their entire lives without a single drop.
Uncompromising as it is, the desert has not eliminated life but only those forms unable to withstand its desiccating effects. No most skinned, water-loving animals can exist there. Few large animals are found. The giants of the North American desert are the deer, the coyote, and the bobcat. Since desert country is open, it holds more swift-footed running and leaping creatures than the tangled forest. Its population is largely nocturnal, silent, filled with reticence, and ruled by stealth. Yet they are not emaciated.
Having adapted to their austere environment, they are as healthy as animals anywhere else in the word. The secret of their adjustment lies in the combination of behavior and physiology. None could survive if, like mad dogs and Englishmen, they went out in the midday sun; many would die in a matter of minutes. So most of them pass the burning hours asleep in cool, humid burrows underneath the ground, emerging to hunt only by night. The surface of the sun-baked desert averages around 150 degrees, but 18 inches down the temperature is only 60 degrees.
The phrase “those forms” in the passage refers to all of the followings EXCEPT ___________.
A. water-loving animals
B. the coyote and the bobcat
C. most-skinned animals
D. many large animals
Đáp án B
Key words: those forms, refers, EXCEPT.
Clue:
- “The desert has not eliminated life but only those forms unable to withstand its desiccating effects”: sa mạc không triệt tiêu mọi sự sống mà chỉ loại bỏ những dạng sống nào không chịu được sự khô cằn nơi đây. Như vậy, “those forms” ám chỉ những sinh vật không sống được ở sa mạc, mà bài đọc đã chỉ ra cho ta thấy những loài sau không sống được ở sa mạc: A.water-loving animals: Các loài ưa nước; C. most-skinned animals: Các loài có da ẩm ướt; D. many large animals: Các loài có kích cỡ lớn.
- Bài đọc cũng chỉ ra rằng “coyote” (chó sói đồng cỏ) và “bobcat” (linh miêu) là những động vật sống được ở sa mạc. Vậy “those forms” không ám chỉ hai loài này. Đáp án đúng là B. The coyote and the bobcat.