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 moist- 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.

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

The author mentions all the following as examples of the behavior of desert animals EXCEPT ..........

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• Nowadays there are ____________.

• Which of the following is NOT true about the tea production process?

• In order to show that learning to write requires effort, the author gives the example of ............

ZUNIA12

• Which of the following was NOT mentioned in the passage as a source of information for The Sea Around Us?

• The underlined pronoun “they”refers to ...............

• When education first reached women, they were ..............

• How did Juliette Davidson benefit from the experience of her first job?

• The word “wink” in the second paragraph means most nearly the same as ............

• The author mentions all of the following as concerns of telecommuting, EXCEPT ___________ .

• The passage supports which of the following conclusions?

• It can be inferred from the passage that the Puritans who traveled to the Massachusetts colony were ............

• The word “they” in the last paragraph refers to ............

• The word "them" refers to __________

• The expression “readministration” in this passage refers to ................

• It can be inferred from the passage that the countries which are mainly responsible for global warming are ____.

• The phrase “this trend” in paragraph 4 refers to ............

• The word ”them” in line 12 refers to _________ .

• What can be inferred from the passage about the adult parents of the young great horned owls?

• What does this paragraph mainly discuss?

• The word “sustain” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to__________.