Question
This passage is adapted from Michelle Nijhuis, “To Conserve More Species, Act while Their Numbers Are High.” ©2021 by Scientific American.
1 November 30 is the Remembrance Day for Lost Species, an informal holiday established in 2011 by a U.K.-based coalition of artists, scientists and activists. The point of the day is political: to draw public attention to human-caused extinctions, in hopes of preventing more. But for many participants the day is also personal, an attempt to grasp the enormity of extinction.
2 Every year brings more species to memorialize, and this year is no exception. Among this year’s newcomers are 23 species of plants and animals that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared extinct at the end of September. Had you heard of the turgid-blossom pearly mussel, the flat pigtoe mussel or the stirrupshell mussel? What abo the Scioto madtom or the San Marcos gambusia, two freshwater fish? Me neither. These species, like so ma others, went extinct before most of us even knew their names.
3 We need a Remembrance Day for Lost Species. But if we want to protect life on a meaningful scale, we also need to remember the species we still have.
4 In the 1930s, when the suffragist and conservationist Rosalie Barrow Edge founded Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania, she observed that “the time to protect a species is while it is still common.” It’s far easier, and cheaper, to protect the health and habitat of a still-abundant species than one whose numbers have already been reduced to single digits. And by protecting a common species, we also protect its role in its ecosystem—its relationships with other species, including our own.
5 Yet in the decades since Edge successfully protected migrating hawks and other birds of prey from the hunters who believed they were pests, the attention of the conservation movement has turned away from protecting abundance and toward preventing extinction. That’s understandable, since the number of emergency cases increases every day. But as national and international conservation groups continue to rely on charismatic, highly endangered mammals to rally public support, and we journalists who cover conservation use the drama of endangerment to pique reader interest, conservation is increasingly seen as the business of extinction prevention.
6 In reality, preventing extinction is only the beginning of conservation. The point of conservation is to protect the ecosystems that support life on Earth, and the only way to do that is to protect species in abundance, in perpetuity and in their own habitats.
7 While climate change is a menace to all species, most species are more immediately endangered by long-standing threats like illegal hunting and habitat destruction. The good news is that we know how to counter these threats: traditional societies have been protecting species and habitats on a local level for millennia, and over the past century and a half the modern conservation movement has built international institutions capable of protecting species and their habitats across borders. Thanks to the fields of ecology and conservation biolog conservationists have also learned a great deal about what is needed for ecosystems to survive over the long term.
8 The bad news is that for conservation to be truly effective, it must follow Rosalie Edge’s advice and start early, well before species are in crisis. That takes prescience, persistence and often a willingness to work on behalf of species most people take for granted—if they know them at all...
9 So on...Remembrance Day for Lost Species, take a moment to honor the southern acornshell mussel, which no longer helps clean Alabama’s Cahaba River; the little Mariana fruit bat, a fox-faced bat not seen on its native island of Guam since the 1970s; and the hundreds of other species humans are known to have driven to extinction. Tomorrow, and all the days after, remember the many species that still surround and sustain you, and support those who work to keep them common.
1.
In paragraph 2 (“Every...names”), the author most likely lists various animals in order to -
A.argue that some species are more important than others.
B.explain the effect of mass extinctions on the environment.
C.suggest that these species might not be extinct if they were more well-known.
D.convey the extent of human-caused extinctions.
2.
In paragraph 3 (“We...have”), the author most likely repeats “Remembrance” and “remember” in order to -
A.express the opinion that both extinct and non-endangered species deserve a special holiday.
B.emphasize that protecting non-endangered species is as important as honoring extinct ones.
C.highlight the idea that the public often forgets about certain rare extinct species.
D.indicate that we do not have the resources to protect both endangered and non-endangered species.
3.
The author’s main purpose in paragraph 5 (“Yet in...prevention”) is to -
A.explain why animals in danger of extinction should be the priority of conservationists.
B.instruct conservationists on how to capture the public’s attention.
C.point out a potentially problematic shift in the focus of conservation efforts.
D.celebrate conservationist Rosalie Edge’s success in protecting birds at the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary.
4.
In paragraph 7 (“While...term”), “long-standing” most nearly means -
A.inevitable.
B.carefully regulated.
C.unchanging.
D.persistent.
1 November 30 is the Remembrance Day for Lost Species, an informal holiday established in 2011 by a U.K.-based coalition of artists, scientists and activists. The point of the day is political: to draw public attention to human-caused extinctions, in hopes of preventing more. But for many participants the day is also personal, an attempt to grasp the enormity of extinction.
2 Every year brings more species to memorialize, and this year is no exception. Among this year’s newcomers are 23 species of plants and animals that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared extinct at the end of September. Had you heard of the turgid-blossom pearly mussel, the flat pigtoe mussel or the stirrupshell mussel? What abo the Scioto madtom or the San Marcos gambusia, two freshwater fish? Me neither. These species, like so ma others, went extinct before most of us even knew their names.
3 We need a Remembrance Day for Lost Species. But if we want to protect life on a meaningful scale, we also need to remember the species we still have.
4 In the 1930s, when the suffragist and conservationist Rosalie Barrow Edge founded Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania, she observed that “the time to protect a species is while it is still common.” It’s far easier, and cheaper, to protect the health and habitat of a still-abundant species than one whose numbers have already been reduced to single digits. And by protecting a common species, we also protect its role in its ecosystem—its relationships with other species, including our own.
5 Yet in the decades since Edge successfully protected migrating hawks and other birds of prey from the hunters who believed they were pests, the attention of the conservation movement has turned away from protecting abundance and toward preventing extinction. That’s understandable, since the number of emergency cases increases every day. But as national and international conservation groups continue to rely on charismatic, highly endangered mammals to rally public support, and we journalists who cover conservation use the drama of endangerment to pique reader interest, conservation is increasingly seen as the business of extinction prevention.
6 In reality, preventing extinction is only the beginning of conservation. The point of conservation is to protect the ecosystems that support life on Earth, and the only way to do that is to protect species in abundance, in perpetuity and in their own habitats.
7 While climate change is a menace to all species, most species are more immediately endangered by long-standing threats like illegal hunting and habitat destruction. The good news is that we know how to counter these threats: traditional societies have been protecting species and habitats on a local level for millennia, and over the past century and a half the modern conservation movement has built international institutions capable of protecting species and their habitats across borders. Thanks to the fields of ecology and conservation biolog conservationists have also learned a great deal about what is needed for ecosystems to survive over the long term.
8 The bad news is that for conservation to be truly effective, it must follow Rosalie Edge’s advice and start early, well before species are in crisis. That takes prescience, persistence and often a willingness to work on behalf of species most people take for granted—if they know them at all...
9 So on...Remembrance Day for Lost Species, take a moment to honor the southern acornshell mussel, which no longer helps clean Alabama’s Cahaba River; the little Mariana fruit bat, a fox-faced bat not seen on its native island of Guam since the 1970s; and the hundreds of other species humans are known to have driven to extinction. Tomorrow, and all the days after, remember the many species that still surround and sustain you, and support those who work to keep them common.
1.
In paragraph 2 (“Every...names”), the author most likely lists various animals in order to -
A.argue that some species are more important than others.
B.explain the effect of mass extinctions on the environment.
C.suggest that these species might not be extinct if they were more well-known.
D.convey the extent of human-caused extinctions.
2.
In paragraph 3 (“We...have”), the author most likely repeats “Remembrance” and “remember” in order to -
A.express the opinion that both extinct and non-endangered species deserve a special holiday.
B.emphasize that protecting non-endangered species is as important as honoring extinct ones.
C.highlight the idea that the public often forgets about certain rare extinct species.
D.indicate that we do not have the resources to protect both endangered and non-endangered species.
3.
The author’s main purpose in paragraph 5 (“Yet in...prevention”) is to -
A.explain why animals in danger of extinction should be the priority of conservationists.
B.instruct conservationists on how to capture the public’s attention.
C.point out a potentially problematic shift in the focus of conservation efforts.
D.celebrate conservationist Rosalie Edge’s success in protecting birds at the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary.
4.
In paragraph 7 (“While...term”), “long-standing” most nearly means -
A.inevitable.
B.carefully regulated.
C.unchanging.
D.persistent.
Answers
Answered by
GPT-4o mini
1. In paragraph 2 (“Every...names”), the author most likely lists various animals in order to -
**D. convey the extent of human-caused extinctions.**
2. In paragraph 3 (“We...have”), the author most likely repeats “Remembrance” and “remember” in order to -
**B. emphasize that protecting non-endangered species is as important as honoring extinct ones.**
3. The author’s main purpose in paragraph 5 (“Yet in...prevention”) is to -
**C. point out a potentially problematic shift in the focus of conservation efforts.**
4. In paragraph 7 (“While...term”), “long-standing” most nearly means -
**D. persistent.**
**D. convey the extent of human-caused extinctions.**
2. In paragraph 3 (“We...have”), the author most likely repeats “Remembrance” and “remember” in order to -
**B. emphasize that protecting non-endangered species is as important as honoring extinct ones.**
3. The author’s main purpose in paragraph 5 (“Yet in...prevention”) is to -
**C. point out a potentially problematic shift in the focus of conservation efforts.**
4. In paragraph 7 (“While...term”), “long-standing” most nearly means -
**D. persistent.**
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