Question

read the passage. there are several questions about this passage. 1 rainforests are dimly lit and exceptionally diverse—claustrophobically dark and fecund —so no wonder tropical biologists end up puzzling over existential questions. at la selva biological station in costa rica, giant trees with buttressed trunks tower overhead, obscuring the sky, and every glimpse holds the vibrant greens and somber browns of plants and their decaying remnants. after a torrential shower the air reverberates with the buzzes, whines, and clicks of insects. mantled howler monkeys sound off in the distance. all around us leaf litter reeks from the chemical adventures of microbes, and over the course of hours my puny primate nose wrinkles toward some collared peccaries, then heaps of rotting fruit and a pile of cat droppings. rounding a trail curve im baffled by a shimmering lavender stripe, dozens of yards long and a half - inch tall; then i drop to my knees and contemplate thousands of leaf - cutter ants, each carrying a single delicate flower petal. and from time to time, slogging along the muddy paths, i imagine being overgrown by mosses and fungi, or devoured by spike - headed katydids the size of small mice. 2 setting aside matters of life and death for the moment, what do ecologists mean by \exceptionally diverse,\ and why might anyone care? a comparison among some familiar places illustrates how numbers of species increase toward the equator, culminating in unparalleled tropical richness. california reaches from death valleys floor to mount whitneys summit, spans parched salt flats to drenched redwood groves, and yet across ten degrees of latitude boasts only thirty - five species of snakes. almost twice that number occur in la selvas five square miles, as if a house full of serpents were packed into a thimble, and there are nearly four hundred species of birds, more than half as many as in the continental united states. tropical faunas encompass more lifestyles too, thanks to rampant adaptive diversification; most temperate bats feed on insects, for example, whereas some of their hothouse relatives specialize on fruit, nectar, fish, frogs, or birds. part a what is the relationship between the structure of paragraph 3 and the structure of paragraph 4? 1. paragraph 3 tells what rainforests look like to visitors, and paragraph 4 compares visits to rainforests with visits to other wild places. 2. paragraph 3 gives examples of the effect of natural events on rainforests, and paragraph 4 gives examples of the effect of human interference. 3. paragraph 3 gives reasons that rainforests have large numbers of animal species, and paragraph 4 explains how visitors can appreciate those species. 4. paragraph 3 focuses on what happened to rainforests over long periods of geological time, and paragraph 4 focuses on what is happening in the present day. part b what is the irony suggested by the relationship in the correct answer from part a? 1. although rainforests have existed for millions of years, they are now threatened.

Explanation:

For Part A, paragraph 3 describes the immediate - sensory experience of what rainforests look, sound, and smell like to visitors. Paragraph 4 compares visits to rainforests with visits to other wild places. For Part B, if paragraph 3 is about the current experience of rainforests for visitors and paragraph 4 is about comparing rainforest visits to other wild - place visits, the irony could be that despite the long - standing existence of rainforests, they are now under threat.

Answer:

Part A: 1. Paragraph 3 tells what rainforests look like to visitors, and paragraph 4 compares visits to rainforests with visits to other wild places.
Part B: 1. Although rainforests have existed for millions of years, they are now threatened.