Question

read the passage. there are several questions about this passage.
from settled in the wild
1
it is a rainy morning, the first week of may, good weather to plant nasturtiums. i sit on the porch steps with rubber boots on, a baseball cap, and a slicker, holding the packages of seeds i bought at the feed store in town yesterday. the rain is steady and cold, the light is steel gray, and nothing is patchy and wet. but in the pictures of packages vibrant with color, the packaging looks as good as these nasturtium flowers right now: deep red, eye - jabbing orange, electric yellow.
2
absentmindedly, i begin to recite william wordsworth’s “i wandered lonely as a cloud” to myself. i have known the poem by heart ever since my father taught it to me when i was a child:
for oft, when on my couch i lie
in vacant or in pensive mood,
they flash upon that inward eye
which is the bliss of solitude;
and then my heart with pleasure fills,
and dances with the daffodils.
3
wordsworth’s nouns are too definite, i say the poem and see hummingbirds. the image i see are for them, and planting the flowers is my gesture of faith that they will come back to me i know them. as i rip open the packages and push the seeds into the dirt i imagine the bright - colored four - or five birds, each of whom weighs only a few grams—about the weight of a dime or three of these seeds—whirring in erratic circles across five hundred miles of open water, running the gulf of mexico in a twenty - four hour.
4
hummers do exactly what physicists once insisted they could not do, a bird that weighs so little, cannot, once in the yucatan to the mouth of the rio grande, without a refueling stop: a day of a bird cannot carry enough fat to fuel it to get across all that water, and, of course, the birds should starve if it meets a storm and feel like a cloud of enders. but now we know that they can carry burn up they fuel, and they do. instead of burning up, they land in the delirious gardens of the south, poised, drowned, and alive. and
reset
this question has two parts. answer part a and then answer part b.
part a
according to paragraph 2, what is the main result of torpor in hummingbirds?

1. the birds become cold blooded.
2. the birds retain daytime warmth.
3. the birds use up very little energy.
4. the birds lose most of their appetite.

part b
which detail from paragraph 8 best supports the correct answer from part a?

1. “reptilian adaptation”
2. “little motors idle”
3. “hanging upside down”
4. “toes locked to thin branchlets”

Explanation:

Part A

To solve Part A, we analyze each option:

• Option 1: Hummingbirds are not cold - blooded; they are warm - blooded, so this is incorrect.
• Option 2: The question is about torpor. Torpor in hummingbirds is a state where they lower their metabolic rate. When they come out of torpor, they need to retain the warmth they gain during the day. This option aligns with the effects of torpor.
• Option 3: In torpor, hummingbirds actually lower their energy use, but the question is about the result of torpor. The main result related to their physiology after torpor is about retaining warmth, not just low energy use. So this is not the main result.
• Option 4: There is no indication that torpor causes them to lose most of their appetite. This is not related to the effects of torpor.

We need to find the detail from paragraph 8 (assuming there is a paragraph 8, but from the given text, let's assume the relevant part) that supports the answer in Part A. Let's analyze each option:

• Option 1: "Reptilian adaptation" - Reptiles are cold - blooded, and this has no direct relation to hummingbirds retaining daytime warmth.
• Option 2: "little motors idle" - This might refer to their metabolic rate being low during torpor, but not directly to retaining warmth.
• Option 3: "hanging upside down" - This is a physical position and not related to retaining warmth.
• Option 4: "toes locked to thin branchlets" - This is about how they perch and is not related to retaining warmth. Wait, maybe there is a mis - numbering. Let's re - evaluate. If the correct answer in Part A is that they retain daytime warmth, and if "little motors idle" is about their low metabolic rate during torpor, but actually, when they come out of torpor, the process of warming up is related to their ability to retain the warmth. Wait, maybe the correct supporting detail is related to their physiological mechanisms. If we assume that "little motors idle" is about their metabolic rate being low in torpor, and when they are out of torpor, they can retain the warmth. But maybe the intended answer is Option 2. Wait, maybe I made a mistake. Let's re - check. The main result in Part A is about retaining daytime warmth. The process of torpor is a state where they conserve energy, and when they are active, they need to retain the warmth. The "little motors idle" (their metabolic engines being idle during torpor) allows them to conserve energy so that they can retain the warmth when they are active. So Option 2 supports the idea that during torpor they use less energy (idle motors) so that they can retain the daytime warmth.

Answer:

1. The birds retain daytime warmth.

Part B