Nokea
The Water Cycle
Water is needed to sustain practically all life functions on planet Earth. A single drop of this compound is composed of an oxygen atom that shares its electrons with each of the two hydrogen atoms.
The cycle starts when precipitation, such as rain, snow, sleet, or hail, descends from the sky onto the ground. Water that is not absorbed immediately from the precipitation is known as runoff. The runoff flows across the land and collects in groundwater reservoirs, rivers, streams, and oceans.
Evaporation takes place when liquid water changes into water vapor, which is a gas. Water vapor returns to the air from surface water and plants.
Ultimately, condensation happens when this water vapor cools and changes back into droplets of liquid. In fact, the puffy, cotton clouds that we observe are formed by condensation. When the clouds become heavily laden with liquid droplets, precipitation ensues.
What was the author's primary purpose for writing this essay?
- A. To persuade the reader to conserve water
- B. To persuade the reader that runoff is not the best way to collect water
- C. To analyze different types of runoff
- D. To inform the reader about the stages of the water cycle
Correct Answer: D
Rationale: The correct answer is D. The essay provides a detailed explanation of the stages of the water cycle, including precipitation, runoff, evaporation, and condensation. The author's primary purpose is to inform the reader about how water moves through the environment in a continuous cycle. This information helps readers understand the importance of water in sustaining life on Earth and how different processes contribute to the distribution and conservation of water resources.
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The ebb and flow of laughter and silence fills the room as four old friends gather to engage in a
round of Bridge playing. For the beginner, Bridge can be complicated, but with time, effort, and a good teacher, even the novice can become proficient. Composed of two main parts, bidding and playing, Bridge requires the player's undivided attention. The dealer deals the entire deck of playing cards evenly between the for players, with
each person receiving thirteen cards. In the bidding portion of the game, the four suits of cards in the deck are ranked highest to lowest as follows: spades, hearts, diamonds, and finally clubs. However, during play all the suits of cards are
considered equals, and they go from highest to lowest from the ace being high to the two cards
being low. The highest number of tricks wins. A trick is one card played by each player for a
total of four. After the lead player lays down his/her card, the other players follow suit, if
possible. The highest card within the four "same suit" cards played wins the trick and picks up all
four cards. If a player cannot follow suit, he/she plays any card, but to make the game more
interesting and challenging, one suit is named a trump suit which means that if a player plays a
card from the trump suit, it always wins the trick. If two cards from the trump suit are played, the
highest card within the trump suit wins the trick. Obviously, the team with the most tricks wins
the hand.
The author wants the reader to feel
- A. As though the game of Bridge is too hard for novices to learn.
- B. Frustrated and confused about playing Bridge.
- C. Confident and excited about learning the game of Bridge.
- D. Overwhelmed by all the rules for the game of Bridge.
Correct Answer: C
Rationale: The passage describes Bridge as a game that may seem complicated for beginners but can be learned with time, effort, and the guidance of a good teacher. The detailed explanation of the game rules and mechanics is aimed at providing a clear understanding and fostering confidence and excitement about learning Bridge. The mention of how even novices can become proficient with practice and the breakdown of the game's components in a structured manner suggests that the author's intention is to make the reader feel confident and enthusiastic about delving into the world of Bridge.
About 6% of the earth is covered by rainforests. The largest rainforest in the world is the
Amazon Basin, which stretches over 2.3 million square miles in nine different South American countries. This area is double the length of all the other remaining rainforests in the world. Brazil contains 60%of the Amazonian rainforest, since it lies at the mouth of the river Amazon. This river is the second largest in the world and contains more than one-fifth of the world's fresh water. The Amazon rainforest is a type of wet broadleaf forest. The weather there is very humid and warm as it rains quite a bit. Because of the high rainfall, the forest is very rich and green. The
tree leaves are pointed and narrow so that the raindrops can easily drop off wet plants. This
tropical rainforest has more living species than the entire European continent. There are over 400 types of insects living in one single rain forest tree for a total of 2.5 million species. One square kilometer of rainforest may contain over 75,000 types of trees and approximately 438,000
different kinds of plants, which comes to a total of 90,000 tons of greenery overall. The Amazon rainforest is home to 2,000 birds and mammals, with one in every five birds in the world living there. Local farmers have lived off this rich and diverse land for thousands of years. They have been able to find food and water here without destroying the land. The Kayapo people of Brazil
farm in an environmentally-friendly way. Instead of chemicals, they use burned wood to enrich the soil, and plant banana trees, which attract wasps. These wasps then feed on leafcutter ants and get rid of these harmful insects. The rainforest also offers a lot of tropical fruits, such as bananas and coconuts, as food.
Cinnamon is made from the bark of a rainforest tree. Amazonian Indians use the fruit and stem
of the Buruti plant as a drink, to make bread and to build houses. Many other plants are used as medicine. But the Amazon rainforest is in very big danger of disappearing. 9,169 square miles of
forest have been cut down in 2003 in Brazil alone. An area of the size of a football field is burned down basically every minute, which means that the rain forest may be gone by the year 2030.The dangers related to this type of activity are obvious. Trees take in poisonous carbon
dioxide from the air and give off oxygen. There is more oxygen and less carbon dioxide around a
rainforest. When trees are cut down, however, the amount of carbon dioxide increases, and the
air gets warmer. This leads to global warming, which is extremely harmful to the environment. It
is estimated that the burning of Brazilian rainforests alone produces 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide ayear. Another danger connected with destroying the rainforest is the disappearance of plants and animals. When trees are cut down, plants and animals have no more
food left and slowly die out. Killing wild animals is illegal in Brazil, but there is plenty of stealing going on. 38 million animals are stolen and sold illegally each year. The most hunted
animals are birds, especially parrots, followed by snakes and the jaguar.
What does the sentence ‘people of Brazil farm in an environmentally friendly way’ mean in paragraph 3?
- A. They do not poison the soil when farming.
- B. They use natural chemicals to make the soil rich.
- C. They plant and don't cut down banana trees.
- D. They do not kill insects even if they are harmful.
Correct Answer: A
Rationale: The sentence ‘people of Brazil farm in an environmentally friendly way’ in paragraph 3 implies that the farmers do not poison the soil when farming. This is supported by the information provided in the passage that the Kayapo people of Brazil use burned wood to enrich the soil instead of chemicals. By choosing this method, they maintain the fertility of the soil without causing harm to the environment. Options B, C, and D are not directly supported by the passage and do not align with the environmentally friendly farming practice described.
The Moon has been worshipped by primitive peoples and has inspired humans to create everything from lunar calendars to love sonnets. But what do we really know about it? The most accepted theory about the Moon's origin is that it was formed from the debris of a massive collision with the young Earth about 4.6 billion years ago. A huge body, perhaps the size of Mars, struck the Earth, throwing out an immense amount of debris that coalesced and cooled in orbit around the Earth. The development of Earth is inextricably linked to the Moon; the Moon's gravitational influence upon the Earth is the primary cause of ocean tides. In fact, the Moon has more than twice the effect on the tides than the Sun. The Moon makes one rotation and completes a revolution around the Earth every 27 days, 7 hours, and 43 minutes. This synchronous rotation is caused by an uneven distribution of mass in the Moon (essentially, it is heavier on one side than the other) and has allowed the Earth's gravity to keep one side of the Moon permanently facing Earth. The average distance from Earth to the Moon is about 384,403 km. The Moon has no atmosphere; without it, the Moon has no protection from meteorite impacts, resulting in a surface covered with impact craters, both large and small. The Moon also has no active tectonic or volcanic activity, so the erosive effects of atmospheric weathering, tectonic shifts, and volcanic upheavals that tend to erase and reform the Earth’s surface features are not at work on the Moon. In fact, even tiny surface features, such as the footprint left by an astronaut in the lunar soil, are likely to last for millions of years unless obliterated by a chance meteorite strike. The surface gravity of the Moon is about one-sixth that of Earth's. Therefore, a person weighing 82 kilograms on Earth would only weigh 14 kilograms on the Moon. The geographical features of the Earth most similar to those of the Moon are places such as the Hawaiian volcanic craters and the huge meteor crater in Arizona. However, the climate of the Moon is very different from either Hawaii or Arizona; in fact, the temperature on the Moon ranges from 123 degrees Celsius to -233 degrees Celsius.
In the provided text, the word 'massive' in line 4 is closest in meaning to
- A. Dense
- B. Impressive
- C. Huge
- D. Unavoidable
Correct Answer: C
Rationale: The word 'massive' in the context of the text is used to describe the size of the body that collided with the Earth to form the Moon. In this context, 'massive' means extremely large or enormous, which aligns most closely with the choice 'Huge.' The collision was not described as dense, impressive, or unavoidable in relation to its size, making 'Huge' the most appropriate synonym.
People of Hispanic origin were on the North American continent centuries before settlers arrived
from Europe in the early 1600s and the thirteen colonies joined together to form the United
States in the late 1700s. The first census of the new nation was conducted in 1790, and counted about four million people, most of whom were white. Of the white citizens, more than 80%
traced their ancestry back to England. There were close to 700,000 slaves and about 60,000 "free Negroes". Only a few Native American Indians who paid taxes were included in the census count, but the total Native American population was probably about one million. By 1815, the population of the United States was 8.4 million. Over the next 100 years, the
country took in about 35 million immigrants, with the greatest numbers coming in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1882, 40,000 Chinese arrived, and between 1900 and 1907, there were more
than 30,000 Japanese immigrants. But by far, the largest numbers of the new immigrants were
from central, eastern, and southern Europe. An enormous amount of racial and ethnic assimilation has taken place in the United States. In 1908, play-write Israel Zangwill first used the term "melting pot" to describe the concept of a place where many races melted in a crucible and re-formed to populate a new land. Some years during the first two decades of the 20th century, there were as many as one million new
immigrants per year, an astonishing 1 percent of the total population of the United States.
In 1921, however, the country began to limit immigration, and the Immigration Act of 1924
virtually closed the door. The total number of immigrants admitted per year dropped from as many as a million to only 150,000. A quota system was established that specified the number of
immigrants that could come from each country. It heavily favored immigrants from northern and western Europe and severely limited everyone else. This system remained in effect until 1965, although after World War II, several exceptions were made to the quota system to allow in
groups of refugees
According to the passage, which ancestry predominated at the time of the first census?
- A. Native Americans
- B. Negroes
- C. English
- D. Hispanic
Correct Answer: C
Rationale: At the time of the first census in 1790, the passage states that more than 80% of the white citizens traced their ancestry back to England. This indicates that English ancestry predominated at that time. The passage also mentions the presence of Native Americans, Negroes, and immigrants from various other regions, but in terms of predominant ancestry, it was the English.
Not only the students but also the professor___ stunned by the test results.
- A. Was
- B. Were
- C. Are
- D. Be
Correct Answer: A
Rationale: The correct answer is 'A: Was.' In this sentence, 'Not only the students but also the professor' is a compound subject. When there are two subjects joined by 'not only...but also,' the verb agrees with the subject closest to it. In this case, 'professor' is singular, so the correct verb form is 'was.' Therefore, the sentence should read, 'Not only the students but also the professor was stunned by the test results.'