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       Geographers say that what defines a place are four properties: soil, climate, altitude, and aspect, or attitude to the Sun. Florida’s ancient scrub demonstrates this principle. Its soil is pure silica, so barren it supports only lichens as ground cover. (It does, however, sustain a sand- swimming lizard that cannot live where there is moisture or plant matter the soil.) Its climate, despite more than 50 inches of annual rainfall, is blistering desert plant life it can sustain is only the xerophytic, the quintessentially dry. Its altitude is a mere couple of hundred feet, but it is high ground on a peninsula elsewhere close to sea level, and its drainage is so critical that a difference of inches in elevation can bring major changes in its plant communities. Its aspect is flat, direct, brutal – and subtropical. Florida’s surrounding lushness cannot impinge on its desert scrubbiness.

       This does not sound like an attractive place. It does not look much like one either; Shrubby little oaks, clumps of scraggly bushes, prickly pear, thorns, and tangles. “It appear Said one early naturalist,” to desire to display the result of the misery through which it has Passed and is passing.” By our narrow standards, scrub is not beautiful; neither does it meet our selfish utilitarian needs. Even the name is an epithet, a synonym for the stunted, the scruffy, the insignificant, what is beautiful about such a place?

       The most important remaining patches of scrub lie along the Lake Wales Ridge, a chain of paleoislands running for a hundred miles down the center of Florida, in most places less than ten miles wide. It is relict seashore, tossed up millions of years ago when ocean levels were higher and the rest of the peninsula was submerged. That ancient emergence is precisely what makes Lake Wales Ridge so precious: it has remained unsubmerged, its ecosystems essentially undisturbed, since the Miocene era. As a result, it has gathered to itself one of the largest collections of rare organisms in the world. Only about 75 plant species survive there, but at least 30 of these are found nowhere else on Earth.

The author mentions the prickly pear (line 11) as an example of ______.

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Sharks can detect (A) minute electrical (B) discharges coming (C) from its prey. (D)

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The 1923 earthquake in Japan killed about 200,000 people and left countless wounded and homeless.

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He was one of the most outstanding performers at the live show last night

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Mold is extremely (A) destruction (B) to books (C) in  a library. (D)

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The Red Cross gives medical aid and other help to victims of major disasters such as floods, earthquakes, epidemics and famines.

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The disappearance of one or several species may result in the loss of ___.

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Ceramic can be harder, light (A), and more resistant (B) to heat (C) than metals. (D)

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He wanted to know where _____.

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What university will you take an _____ examination into?

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Childbearing is the women’s most wonderful role.

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It seems impossible to ____ terrorism in the world.

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      Most people can remember a phone number for up to thirty seconds. When this short amount of time elapses, however, the numbers are erased from the memory. How did the information get there in the first place? Information that makes its way to the short term memory (STM) does so via the sensory storage area. The brain has a filter which only allows stimuli that is of immediate interest to pass on to the STM, also known as the working memory.

      There is much debate about the capacity and duration of the short term memory. The most accepted theory comes from George A. Miller, a cognitive psychologist who suggested that humans can remember approximately seven chunks of information. A chunk is defined as a meaningful unit of information, such as a word or name rather than just a letter or number. Modern theorists suggest that one can increase the capacity of the short term memory by chunking, or classifying similar information together. By organizing information, one can optimize the STM, and improve the chances of a memory being passed on to long term storage.

          When making a conscious effort to memorize something, such as information for an exam, many people engage in "rote rehearsal". By repeating something over and over again, one is able to keep a memory alive. Unfortunately, this type of memory maintenance only succeeds if there are no interruptions. As soon as a person stops rehearsing the information, it has the tendency to disappear.

          When a pen and paper are not handy, people often attempt to remember a phone number by repeating it aloud. If the doorbell rings or the dog barks to come in before a person has the opportunity to make a phone call, he will likely forget the number instantly. Therefore, rote rehearsal is not an efficient way to pass information from the short term to long term memory. A better way is to practice "elaborate rehearsal". This involves assigning semantic meaning to a piece of information so that it can be filed along with other pre-existing long term memories.

      Encoding information semantically also makes it more retrievable. Retrieving information can be done by recognition or recall. Humans can easily recall memories that are stored in the long term memory and used often; however, if a memory seems to be forgotten, it may eventually be retrieved by prompting.

          The more cues a person is given (such as pictures), the more likely a memory can be retrieved. This is why multiple choice tests are often used for subjects that require a lot of memorization.

The word “it” in the last paragraph refers to______.

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A: “I regret ____ so much trouble.”  - B: “Well. Let’s forget all about that.”

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Mary cannot afford tuition ____ for studying abroad.

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She won the award for ____ her whole life to looking after the poor.