Read the following passage.
A. Dinosaur Provincial Park lies in the valley of the Red Deer River in southeastern Alberta, 48 kilometres northeast of Brooks. It contains Canada's largest badlands, a landscape of bare hills, gullies and hoodoos. Three kinds of habitat sit side by side. Prairie grasses cover the land above the valley rim, cacti and sage survive in the hot, dry badlands, and tall cottonwood trees grow by the river, where water is plentiful. The riverside forest is the smallest habitat in the park, but it holds the greatest concentration of life, especially birds.
B. About 75 million years ago, this area was a subtropical coastal plain with lush forests. Rivers flowed east across the plain into a warm inland sea, and they left deposits of sand and mud. Those deposits buried the bones of the animals that lived here, including dinosaurs, and preserved them as fossils. When the last ice age ended, about 13,000 years ago, water from melting ice cut the valley. Wind and rain still wear away the soft rock, and this erosion keeps exposing new bone beds.
C. Since the 1880s, collectors have recovered more than 300 dinosaur skeletons of high quality from a 27 kilometre stretch of the river, and specimens from the park now sit in more than 30 major museums. Since 1985, the largest collection of the park's finds has been housed in the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller. UNESCO made the park a World Heritage Site in 1979. The park has also faced problems. In the past, illegal digging removed many bones from its most visited area, and five gas wells were drilled inside the park. Oil and gas still lie beneath it, and companies reach them by drilling at an angle from outside its boundaries.
D. Much of the park is now a Natural Preserve, which visitors may enter only on guided tours, and removing or disturbing any fossil is against the law. Every research or collecting project needs a permit, and the park works closely with the Royal Tyrrell Museum on research. On their own, visitors can drive, walk or cycle a 3.5 kilometre public loop road that passes two outdoor fossil displays. Park staff lead tours and hikes that visitors book in advance, and the visitor centre, which also serves as the museum's summer field station, has exhibits.
E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.
Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.
AI explanationShows the answer. Tap to open.
Correct Answer: A
Why this is correct: The first paragraph says the riverside forest is the smallest habitat in the park but holds the greatest concentration of life. Smallest means it takes up the least space. The greatest concentration of life means it is the most crowded with living things.
Passage Reference: The riverside forest is the smallest habitat in the park, but it holds the greatest concentration of life, especially birds.
Tips: Look for a place that is tiny but full of 'living things'. Check that both ideas sit in one sentence.
Why the other options are wrong:
- B: The second paragraph describes lush forests too, but they grew about 75 million years ago, and their size is never compared.
- C: Fossil collecting, museums, illegal digging and gas wells fill paragraph C. Where animals live today is not its topic.
- D: Notice that paragraph D explains the rules and activities for visitors. It does not compare the park's habitats.
- E: Notice that paragraph A makes this comparison: the forest by the river is the smallest habitat but has the most life.
Correct Answer: C
Passage Reference: Since 1985, the largest collection of the park's finds has been housed in the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller.
Why this is correct: Look at paragraph C: since 1985, the largest collection of the park's finds has been in the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. The year 1985 is the mid-1980s, and finds are discoveries.
Tips: The same museum appears in two places. Check which one talks about keeping the park's discoveries and gives a starting year.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: The first paragraph describes the landscape and habitats of the park. Museums and collections are not mentioned.
- B: Notice that paragraph B explains how the bones were buried and are still being exposed, but not where they are kept now.
- D: Paragraph D also names the Royal Tyrrell Museum. But it is only a research partner with a field station, not the home of the largest collection.
- E: Paragraph C gives the year 1985 and names the museum that holds the largest collection of the park's finds.
Correct Answer: D
Passage Reference: On their own, visitors can drive, walk or cycle a 3.5 kilometre public loop road that passes two outdoor fossil displays.
Why this is correct: Notice that paragraph D says that on their own, visitors can drive, walk or cycle a public loop road. On their own means without a guide, and to cycle means to ride a bicycle.
Tips: The passage describes guided visits and also things people can do alone. Ask which one matches getting around with no guide.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: Paragraph A describes what visitors see, such as badlands and cottonwood trees, but not how they can travel around.
- B: The second paragraph explains how the landscape formed over millions of years. Modern visitors are not part of it.
- C: The most visited area of the park does come up in paragraph C, but only to say that illegal digging happened there.
- E: Paragraph D says visitors can cycle the loop road on their own, which means by bicycle and without a guide.
Correct Answer: A
Passage Reference: Dinosaur Provincial Park lies in the valley of the Red Deer River in southeastern Alberta, 48 kilometres northeast of Brooks.
Why this is correct: The first paragraph says the park is 48 kilometres northeast of Brooks. Forty-eight kilometres is just under fifty, so the statement gives the same distance in rounder numbers.
Tips: Several paragraphs give kilometres. Find the one that measures the distance to a named place.
Why the other options are wrong:
- B: Paragraph B gives numbers of years, such as 75 million and 13,000, but no distance to Brooks or anywhere else.
- C: Look at paragraph C: it gives a 27 kilometre stretch of river where skeletons were found. That is a length, not the distance to Brooks.
- D: Notice that paragraph D mentions a 3.5 kilometre loop road inside the park, which is not the distance to Brooks.
- E: Paragraph A names Brooks and says the park is 48 kilometres from it.
Correct Answer: E
Passage Reference: Since the 1880s, collectors have recovered more than 300 dinosaur skeletons of high quality from a 27 kilometre stretch of the river, and specimens from the park now sit in more than 30 major museums.
Why this is correct: The third paragraph tells us that collectors have recovered skeletons here since the 1880s. It does not say who these first collectors were or who they worked for, so the government is never named.
Tips: Ask who the first diggers worked for. A paragraph must name their employer, not only say that digging happened.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: The valley, the badlands and the plants make up paragraph A, but nobody digs for bones in it.
- B: Paragraph B explains how the bones became fossils and how erosion exposes them. People are not mentioned.
- C: The third paragraph says when collecting began and how much was found, but it never says who the first collectors worked for.
- D: The fourth paragraph says research today needs a permit and involves the Royal Tyrrell Museum. It is about now, not the first diggers.
Correct Answer: D
Passage Reference: Every research or collecting project needs a permit, and the park works closely with the Royal Tyrrell Museum on research.
Why this is correct: Paragraph D says every research or collecting project needs a permit. A permit is official approval, and a research project is a study, so scientists need approval before they begin.
Tips: Find what scientists must get 'before they start any study or dig'. Check that it is 'official approval', and that every study must have it.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: In paragraph A we see the land and its habitats. It has no rules for scientists or anyone else.
- B: Notice that paragraph B tells how the fossils formed. It does not describe people studying or collecting them.
- C: Paragraph C talks about collectors since the 1880s and illegal digging, but it does not say that approval is required.
- E: The fourth paragraph states the rule clearly: every research or collecting project needs a permit.
Correct Answer: E
Passage Reference: It contains Canada's largest badlands, a landscape of bare hills, gullies and hoodoos.
Why this is correct: The park, in paragraph A, contains Canada's largest badlands. That compares it only with other places in Canada. The passage never compares it with badlands in the rest of North America.
Tips: Check the exact area in a comparison: largest in one country is not the same as largest on a whole continent.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: The first paragraph says these are Canada's largest badlands. But the statement makes a much wider claim that the passage does not support.
- B: Notice that paragraph B explains how the badlands are still being worn away, but it does not say anything about their size.
- C: The third paragraph gives the length of river where skeletons were found, not the size of the badlands compared with others.
- D: Look at paragraph D: it mentions a road through the park and its fossil displays, not how large the badlands are.
Correct Answer: B
Passage Reference: When the last ice age ended, about 13,000 years ago, water from melting ice cut the valley.
Why this is correct: When the last ice age ended, water from melting ice cut the valley, as paragraph B explains. Meltwater is water from melting ice, and the most recent glacial period is the last ice age.
Tips: Find where the passage explains how this land was formed over time. Ask what made the valley, and when that happened compared with the dinosaurs.
Why the other options are wrong:
- A: Notice that paragraph A places the park in the valley of the Red Deer River. How that valley formed is left to another paragraph.
- C: The third paragraph mentions a stretch of the river where skeletons were found, not how the valley was shaped.
- D: Paragraph D deals with what visitors and researchers do in the park now, not its geology.
- E: Notice that paragraph B explains that water from melting ice cut the valley when the last ice age ended.
Correct Answer: A
Passage Reference: Prairie grasses cover the land above the valley rim, cacti and sage survive in the hot, dry badlands, and tall cottonwood trees grow by the river, where water is plentiful.
Why this is correct: The first paragraph says cacti and sage survive in the hot, dry badlands. Cacti are cactus plants, and hot, dry land is parched land, so the statement matches.
Tips: Find where 'cactus plants' live in the park. Check that it is the 'parched parts' and not a wetter place.
Why the other options are wrong:
- B: The second paragraph describes lush forests from millions of years ago, which grew in a wet, subtropical climate, not in dry land.
- C: Notice that paragraph C covers fossil collecting and the problems the park has faced. Plants are not mentioned.
- D: The fourth paragraph lists what visitors can do and what rules they follow, but it does not describe plants.
- E: Which plants grow in the badlands? Paragraph A lists them, and cacti are among them.
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