A. ARGUMENTATIVE B. PSYCHOLOGICAL C. CONTRIBUTORY D. HYPERSENSITIV...

10. a. argumentative b. psychological c. contributory d. hypersensitive

II. READING COMPREHENSION

Read the following passage and choose the best option to complete the

blank or answer the question.

Since water is the basis of life, composing the greatest 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 is 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. Nomoist-skinned, water-

loving animals can exist there. Few large animals are found: the giants of the

North American desert are 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 in the

world.

The secret of their adjustment lies in a 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.