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Reading Passage 7

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   In 1972, a century after the first national park in the United States was established at Yellowstone, legislation was passed to create the National Marine Sanctuaries Program. The intent of this legislation was to provide protection to selected coastal habitats similar To that existing for land areas designated as national parks. The designation of an areas a marine sanctuary indicates that it is a protected area, just as a national park is. People are permitted to visit and observe there, but living organisms and their environments may not be harmed or removed.    The National Marine Sanctuaries Program is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a branch of the United States Department of Commerce. Initially, 70 sites were proposed as candidates for sanctuary status. Two and a half decades later, only fifteen sanctuaries had been designated, with half of these established after 1978. They range in size from the very small (less than I...
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Reading Passage 6

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   Mesa Verde is the center of the prehistoric Anasazi culture. It is located in the high plateau lands near Four Corners, where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona come together. This high ground is majestic but not forbidding. The climate is dry but tiny streams trickle at the bottom of deeply cut canyons, where seeps and springs provided water for the Anasazi to irrigate their crops.Rich red soil provided fertile ground for their crops of corn, beans, squash, tobacco, and cotton. The Anasazi domesticated the wild turkey and hunted deer, rabbits, and mountain sheep.    For a thousand years the Anasazi lived around Mesa Verde. Although the Anasazi are not related to the Navajos, no one knows what these Indians called themselves, and so they are commonly referred to by their Navajo name, Anasazi, which means “ancient ones” in the Navajo language.    Around 550 A.D., early Anasazi—then a nomadic people archaeologists call the Basketmakers—began construct...
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Reading Passage 5

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   About fifty years ago, plant physiologists set out to grow roots by themselves in solutions in laboratory flasks. The scientists found that the nutrition of isolated roots was quite simple. They required sugar and the usual minerals and vitamins. However, they did not require organic nitrogen compounds. These roots got along fine on mineral inorganic nitrogen. Roots are capable of making their own proteins and other organic compounds. These activities by roots require energy, of course. The process of respiration uses sugar to make the high energy compound ATP, which drives the biochemical reactions. Respiration also requires oxygen. Highly active roots require a good deal of oxygen.    The study of isolated roots has provided an understanding of the relationship between shoots and roots in intact plants. The leaves of the shoots provide the roots with sugar and vitamins, and the roots provide the shoots with water and minerals. In addition, roots can provide the ...
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Reading Passage 4

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   Another critical factor that plays a part in susceptibility to colds is age. A study done by the University of Michigan School of Public Health revealed particulars that seem to hold true for the general population. Infants are the most cold-ridden group, averaging more than six colds in their first year. Boys have more colds than girls up to age three. After the age of three, girls are more susceptible than boys, and teenage girls average three colds a year to boys’ two. The general incidence of colds continues to decline into maturity. Elderly people who are in good health have as few as one or two colds annually. One exception is found among people in their twenties, especially women, who show a rise in cold infections, because people in this age group are most likely to have young children. Adults who delay having children until their thirties and forties experience the same sudden increase in cold infections.    The study also found that economics plays an im...
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Reading Passage 3

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       According to the best evidence gathered by space probes and astronomers, Mars is an inhospitable planet, more similar to Earth’s Moon than to Earth itself—a dry, stark, seemingly lifeless world. Mars’ air pressure is equal to Earth’s at an altitude of 100,000 feet. The air there is 95 percent carbon dioxide. Mars has no ozone layer to screen out the sun’s lethal radiation. Daytime temperatures may reach above freezing, but because the planet is blanketed by the mere wisp of an atmosphere, the heat radiates back into space. Even at the equator, the temperature drops to −50°C (−60°F) at night. Today there is no liquid water, although valleys and channels on the surface show evidence of having been carved by running water. The polar ice caps are made of frozen water and carbon dioxide, and water may be frozen in the ground as permafrost.    Despite these difficult conditions, certain scientists believe that there is a possibility of transforming Mars in...
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Reading Passage 2

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    The Peales were a distinguished family of American artists. Charles Willson Peale is best remembered for his portraits of leading figures of the American Revolution. He painted portraits of Franklin and Jefferson and over a dozen of George Washington. His life-size portrait of his sons Raphaelle and Titian was so realistic that George Washington reportedly once tipped his hat to the figures in the picture.    Charles Willson Peale gave up painting in his middle age and devoted his life to the Peale Museum, which he founded in Philadelphia. The world’s first popular museum of art and natural science, it featured paintings by Peale and his family as well as displays of animals in their natural settings. Peale found the animals himself and devised a method of taxidermy to make the exhibits more lifelike. The museum’s most popular display was the skeleton of a mastodon—a huge, extinct elephant—which Peale unearthed on a New York farm in 1801.    Three of Pe...
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Reading Passage 1

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   The technology of the North American colonies did not differ strikingly from that of Europe, but in one respect, the colonists enjoyed a great advantage. Especially by comparison with Britain, Americans had a wonderfully plentiful supply of wood.    The first colonists did not, as many people imagine, find an entire continent covered by a climax forest. Even along the Atlantic seaboard, the forest was broken at many points. Nevertheless, all sorts of fine trees abounded, and through the early colonial period, those who pushed westward encountered new forests.     By the end of the colonial era, the price of wood had risen slightly in eastern cities, but wood was still extremely abundant.   The availability of wood brought advantages that have seldom been appreciated. Wood was a foundation of the economy. Houses and all manner of buildings were made of wood to a degree unknown in Britain. Secondly, wood was used as fuel for heating and cooking. ...
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