Extinction and the Mammoth Steppe

During the Pleistocene Ice Age that ended 12,000 years ago, many large
mammals coexisted in an ecosystem that paleontologist Dale Guthrie dubbed
the “mammoth steppe,” an icy prairie too cold, windy, and dry to support more
than a few trees. When this ecosystem faded away at the end of the Ice
Age, many of its characteristic animals, like the mammoth, the woolly
rhino, and the short-faced bear, went extinct, while a new set of
megafauna – moose, elk, and bison – invaded Alaska and the Yukon. To
understand the varied fates of these big herbivores, Guthrie looks to their
digestive systems.

Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the
highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in
important ways or leave out essential information.

 A.Moose, elk, and bison replaced mammoths, woolly rhinos, and

short-faced bears as the ecosystem changed at the end of the Ice Age.

 B.Many of the animals of the Ice-Age ecosystem, including the

mammoth, the woolly rhino, and the short-faced bear, faded away
because a new set of megafauna invaded the area.

 C.Animals such as mammoth, the woolly rhino, and the short-faced

bear were replaced by animals such as moose, elk, and bison as the
characteristic megafauna of the Ice Age.

 D.When new megafauna species such as moose, elk, and bison

invaded Alaska and the Yukon, this ecosystem faded away.

Any creature that lives off leaves or stems must overcome an array
of defenses to absorb the nutrients inside. Many plants produce toxins
designed to discourage herbivores – and the longer the vegetation grows, the
more poisonous it gets. Even the youngest, freshest buds and leaves are full of
cellulose, the complex sugar that builds plants’ cell walls. Only bacteria are
able to break down cellulose, so every herbivore from rabbit to elephant has
evolved ways to nurture cellulose-digesting bacteria in its gut. Wild ruminants
like bison and moose ferment (breakdown) their food in a large forestomach
called the rumen. [▇] Inside this chamber, microbes tear apart plant cells and
reconstruct their contents into a complete nutritional package that includes
every B vitamin and every essential amino acid. [ ▇ ] Because they ferment
their food before it reaches their intestines, ruminants can eat toxic plants that
would sicken or kill a horse. [ ▇ ] However, their digestion is slow by
comparison – and because of the way their guts are designed, it cannot be
sped up. [▇]

The word “an array of” in the passage is closest in meaning to

 A.various

 B.strong

 C.tiny

 D.well-developed

According to paragraph 2, what do all herbivores have in common?

 A.They digest their food relatively slowly.

 B.They can eat plants that produce different kinds of toxins.

 C.They ferment their food before it reaches their intestines.

 D.They all need bacteria to break down cellulose.

According to paragraph 2, which of the following is true of how wild ruminants

get nutrients from their food?

 A.They digest food faster than herbivores that lack a forestomach.

 B.They can digest more types of nutrients than horses can.

 C.They can digest the complete nutritional package already present as

a whole in plant cells.
  D.Their bodies prepare food to be digested before it enters the
intestines.

Look at the four squares[▇] that indicate where the following sentence could
be added to the passage. Where would the sentence best fit?
The microbial activity reduces the amount of digestible energy in food,
but the rumen’s placement in the digestive tract does protect the animal.

Elephants and horses also ferment their food, not in a rumen but in a large
pouch called the cecum, a hindgut that lies between the small intestine and the
colon, after the stomach. The fermentation process is the same in both groups
of animals, yet their survival strategies are very different. Since a horse’s
fermentation chamber lies farther along in its digestive tract, it can absorb
proteins that would otherwise be broken down by microbes. Horses can make
do on tough, old grass – a diet that could never sustain a ruminant. If the
available food is poor, heavy on useless fiber and low on nutrients, horses
respond by eating constantly, running more and more food through their
systems. The dry, cold plains of the Pleistocene had a short growing season
but lots of grass. An ability to make it through long winters on tough, withered
stems gave hindgut fermenters, like the horse and mammoth, a major
advantage. As the Ice Age faded, willow trees began to colonize the banks of
newly forming streams. Other trees and shrubs followed, many of them heavily
armed with toxins only a ruminant could digest. In Guthrie’s view, these habitat
shifts drove the decline of the horse and mammoth.

According to paragraph 3, how are horses and elephants different from

ruminants?

 A.Horses and elephants need much more fiber.

 B.Horses and elephants ferment their food after it has gone through the
small intestine.

 C.Horses and elephants have a different type of microbe in their

fermentation chamber.

 D.Horses and elephants can digest toxins in plant cells.

It can be inferred from paragraph 3 that the change in vegetation at the end of
the Ice Age was due in large part to

 A.the decline in horse and mammoth populations

 B.a change in the amount of toxins in the soil

 C.the increased water supply in new streams

 D.the evolution of new plant defenses

Guthrie has gathered an impressive collection of old and new radiocarbon

dates on fossil mammoth, horse, bison, elk, and moose from Alaska and the
Yukon. The patterns of animal distribution in time and space show that the
transition from dry steppe to wet tundra kicked in between 14,000 and 15,000
years ago. The last of the region’s horse fossils date from that window of time,
a moment when bison, elk, and moose – all ruminants – exploded in numbers
and moved far into the north. Mammoths seem to have become less common
around the same time, and vanished by 13,000 years ago.

To further support his climate-related scenario. Guthrie has shown that

Alaskan horses began shrinking thousands of years before the first people
settled the region, continuing to grow steadily smaller until they disappeared.
That kind of pattern implies a gradual response to changing climate rather than
a sudden impact of human hunters. Guthrie bases his claim
on measurements of hundreds of Pleistocene horse metacarpals, foot
bones that are critical in carrying the animal’s weight and thus make a good
indicator of its body mass.

In paragraph 5, why does the author include the information about

Guthrie's“measurements of hundreds of Pleistocene horse metacarpals”?

 A.To give reasons why Alaskan horses began shrinking well before
people settled in the region

 B.To provide evidence supporting the claim that human hunters had a
major impact on horse populations
  C.To explain how Guthrie arrived at his conclusions about the rate at
which horses decreased in size

 D.To identify the most widely accepted data in studies of climate

change and megafauna during the Ice Age

According to paragraph 5, why did Guthrie believe that human hunting had a
lesser impact on horses than climate change did?

 A.Because the body size of Alaskan horses began to change before

humans settled on the steppe

 B.Because his evidence shows a change in the horse populations in a

short period of time

 C.Because bone evidence is inconsistent in showing that large animals

weighed less at the end of the Ice Age

 D.Because his research shows that humans did not start hunting horses
until after the climate stabilized

The data show that woolly mammoths and humans coexisted in Alaska for at
least a few hundred years, and Guthrie agrees that people may have helped
drive the mammoth into oblivion. If this happened, however, he emphasizes
that the giants’ condition had already been weakened, the result of a climate
change that degraded the environment in which hindgut fermenters had
thrived and roamed for so long.

The word “degraded” in the passage is closest in meaning to

 A.replaced

 B.cooled

 C.damaged

 D.affected
正确答案:AADDB BCCAC