Academic Reading Passage 3: open questions, TFNG, flowchart, Q40.
Learning point:
- knowing the fundamental theories of evolution and animal types will help you skim this difficult text
- you can still use simple location strategies to find answers, even when you don’t know what the words mean
- Q40: look for the synonym of significant (remarkable) in the last paragraph.
Cambridge Test Book 9 Test 1 Passage 3
I have broken up the text to help you read it more easily.
Look at each question and read the blue text taken from the original passage. Write down your answer, then check the answers below.
Open Questions
Questions 27-30
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer
27. What had to transfer from sea to land before any animals could migrate?
Para 1: In addition to the reptiles, birds, mammals and insects which we see all around us, other groups that have succeeded out of water include scorpions, snails, crustaceans such as woodlice and land crabs, millipedes and centipedes, spiders and various worms. And we mustn’t forget the plants, without whose prior invasion of the land none of the other migrations could have happened.
28. Which TWO processes are mentioned as those in which animals had to make big changes as they moved onto land?
Para 2: Moving from water to land involved a major redesign of every aspect of life, including breathing and reproduction.
29. Which physical feature, possessed by their ancestors, do whales lack?
Para 2: Whales (including the small whales we call dolphins) and dugongs, with their close cousins the manatees, ceased to be land creatures altogether and reverted to the full marine habits of their remote ancestors. They don‘t even come ashore to breed. They do, however, still breathe air, having never developed anything equivalent to the gills of their earlier marine incarnation.
30. Which animals might ichthyosaurs have resembled?
Para 3: You might wonder how we can tell whether fossil animals lived on land or in water, especially if only fragments are found. Sometimes it’s obvious. Ichthyosaurs were reptilian contemporaries of the dinosaurs, with fins and streamlined bodies. The fossils look like dolphins and they surely lived like dolphins, in the water. With turtles it is a little less obvious. One way to tell is by measuring the bones of their forelimbs.
True, False, Not Given
Questions 31-33
31.Turtles were among the first group of animals to migrate back to the sea.
Para 2: Turtles went back to the sea a very long time ago and, like all vertebrate returnees to the water, they breathe air. However, they are, in one respect, less fully given back to the water than whales or dugongs, for turtles still lay their eggs on beaches.
32. It is always difficult to determine where an animal lived when its fossilized remains are incomplete.
Para 3: You might wonder how we can tell whether fossil animals lived on land or in water, especially if only fragments are found. Sometimes it’s obvious.
33. The habitat of ichthyosaurs can be determined by the appearance of their fossilized remains.
Para 3: You might wonder how we can tell whether fossil animals lived on land or in water, especially if only fragments are found. Sometimes it’s obvious. Ichthyosaurs were reptilian contemporaries of the dinosaurs, with fins and streamlined bodies. The fossils look like dolphins and they surely lived like dolphins, in the water. With turtles it is a little less obvious. One way to tell is by measuring the bones of their forelimbs.
Flow Chart
Questions 34-39
Complete the flow-chart below:
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer
Method of determining where the ancestors of turtles and tortoises come from
Step 1:
71 species of living turtles and tortoises were examined and a total of
34 _______________________ were taken from the bones of their forelimbs.
Walter Joyce and Jacques Gauthier, at Yale University, obtained three measurements in these particular bones of 71 species of living turtles and tortoises.
Step 2:
The data was recorded on a 35 _________________________(necessary for comparing the information).
They used a kind of triangular graph paper to plot the three measurements against one another.
Outcome: Land tortoises were represented by a dense 36 _____________ of points towards the top. Sea turtles were grouped together in the bottom part.
All the land tortoise species formed a tight cluster of points in the upper part of the triangle; all the water turtles cluster in the lower part of the triangular graph.
Step 3:
The same data was collected from some living 37 ________________ species and added to the other results.
Outcome: The points for these species turned out to be positioned about 38 ________________ up the triangle between the land tortoises and the sea turtles.
There was no overlap, except when they added some species that spend time both in water and on land. Sure enough, these amphibious species show up on the triangular graph approximately halfway between the ‘wet cluster’ of sea turtles and the ‘dry cluster’ of land tortoises.
Step 4:
Bones of P quenstedti and P talampayensis were examined in a similar way and the results added.
Outcome: The position of the points indicated that both these ancient creatures were 39 _______________.
The next step was to determine where the fossil fell. The bones of P quenstedti and P. talampayensis leave us in no doubt. Their points on the graph are right in the thick of the dry cluster. Both these fossils were dry-land tortoises. They come from the era before our turtles returned to the water.
Question 40
According to the writer, the most significant thing about tortoises is that
a) they are able to adapt to life in extremely dry environments.
b) their original life form was a kind of primeval bacteria,
c) they have so much in common with sea turtles.
c) they have made the transition from sea to land more than once.
Para 6: Tortoises therefore represent a remarkable double return. In common with all mammals, reptiles and birds, their remote ancestors were marine fish and before that various more or less worm-like creatures stretching back, still in the sea, to the primeval bacteria. Later ancestors lived on land and stayed there for a very large number of generations. Later ancestors still evolved back into the water and became sea turtles. And finally, they returned yet again to the land as tortoises, some of which now live in the driest of deserts.
ANSWERS
- plant
- breathing, reproduction (In either order) (don’t put ‘and’)
- gills
- dolphins
- NOT GIVEN
- FALSE
- TRUE
- 3 measurements
- (triangular) graph
- cluster
- amphibious
- half way
- dry-land tortoises (words with hyphens ‘-‘ are ONE word)
- D
How many did you get right?
Did it make it so much easier just focusing on the sentence where the answers could be found?
Of course in the real test it’s not that easy, but this shows you that when you find the right place, you can find the right answer, even if you don’t know what it means!
Do you agree? Let me know in the comments.
Listen to the full podcast explanations here:
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