Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, c, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.

     Desert tundra, or cold desert, occurs on the Arctic edges of North America, Europe, and Asia. The word tundra comes from a Finnish word tunturia, which means barren land. In the desert tundra, the temperatures are almost always freezing, and they cause an environment in which plant life is virtually impossible. Plant life is made impossible by two different extreme conditions, either a lack or an overabundance of water.

     During at least three quarters of the year, the Arctic is frozen. The Arctic is far from the equator. This means the sunlight reaching the soil contains less energy than at the equator. The existence of ice rather than water for the majority of the year means that vegetation does not have enough moisture for growth to take place.

     During the period of time when the temperature increases enough for ice to melt, there is generally a large volume of water. Too much water and not enough drainage through the frozen subsoil make it difficult for plants to grow. Despite this, about 1,700 kinds of plants grow on tundra, including reindeer mosses, liverworts, and grasses. The 400 varieties of flowers found add a wide range of colors.

Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

Mark the .letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.

They left their first temporary home last week when the overcrowded camp ran out of fresh water and space.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct word that best fits each of the numbered blanks.

     The largest lake in the western United States is the Great Salt Lake, an inland saltwater lake in northwestern Utah, just outside the state capital of Salt Lake City. Rivers and streams feed (23) ______the Great Salt Lake, but none drain out of it; this has a major influence on both the salt content and the size of the lake.

     Although the Great Salt Lake is fed by freshwater streams, it is (24) ______ saltier than the oceans of the world. The salt comes from the more than two million tons of minerals that (25) ______into the lake each year from the rivers and creeks that feed it. Sodium and chloride - the components of salt - comprise the large majority of the lake's mineral content.

     The Great Salt Lake can vary tremendously from its (26) ______size of 1,700

square miles, depending on long-term weather conditions. During periods of heavy rains, the size of the lake can swell tremendously from the huge amounts of water flowing into the lake from its feeder rivers and streams; in 1980 the lake even (27) ______a size of 2,400 square miles. During periods of dry weather, the size of the lake decreases, sometimes drastically, due to evaporation.

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.

For nearly a hundred years, the lake was present continually, and has appeared and disappeared again several times since.