Section ⅡReading Comprehension
Part A
Directions:
Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1(40 points)
The story that traces life from sea to land then into the multiple niches that exist there for a great variety of living things is a fascinating one, but far too detailed for our purposes. One key point for us in that story is the emergence of the biological class of animals that are called mammals.
Mammals have a number of features that distinguish them from the reptiles from which they developed. They are warm blooded; that is, they have a system of temperature control that keeps the body at a constant temperature. Mammals have a set of teeth of different shapes that serve different functions such as cutting, gouging, and grinding. Young mammals spend their earliest days of development shielded within the mother’s body and are then born alive, rather than hatching from eggs. In addition, after birth they are nourished by milk provided by the mother’s mammary glands. The enforced association between mother and infant provides an opportunity for learning that does not exist for those kinds of creatures that are hatched from eggs long after their parents have departed from the scene. Young mammals playsomething that amphibians and reptiles never dowhich provides additional learning opportunities.
The foregoing list leaves little doubt that we are mammals. There are, of course, a great many kinds of mammals, most of which developed after the great extinction of dinosaurs and other reptiles about 65 million years ago that opened opportunities for the few small mammals that were already in existence. One of the groups of mammals that resulted was a biological order called Primates which includes monkeys, apes, humans, and some smaller creatures familiar only to ardent zoogoers. Primates share a number of behavioral features that have played important roles in their evolutionary development. Most primates are arboreal; that is, they spend their lives in and among trees. Their treeclimbing and treedwelling habits impose needs that are reflected in primate anatomy. Although diet varies from species to species, many primates are largely vegetarian. But they can eat and digest meat, and some species vary their diets of leaves, shoots, and fruits by eating insects, birds’ eggs, and even small animals. Primates are handfeeders, depending on their hands both to collect food and to get it into their mouths. Perhaps the most important feature of their behavior is that primates are social animals. Their genetics, habits, and even their survival are geared to living in groups. Although human beings have come to have a way of life very different from that of typical primates, the basic primate adaptation provided prehumans with capabilities that allowed them to become culturebuilders.
The anatomical features that separate primates from other kinds of animals relate clearly to the way primates behave.
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