Reading IBT

TOEFL iBT Reading. Questions 1-9 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 5) 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. 10) 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 square kilometer) Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary in American Samoa to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in California, extending over 15,744 square kilometers.
15) The National Marine Sanctuaries Program is a crucial part of new management practices in which whole communities of species, and not just individual species, are offered some degree of protection from habitat degradation and overexploitation. Only in this way can a reasonable degree of marine species diversity be maintained in a setting that also maintains the natural interrelationships that exist among these species. 20) Several other types of marine protected areas exist in the United States and other countries. The National Estuarine Research Reserve System, managed by the United States government, includes 23 designated and protected estuaries. Outside the United States, marine protected-area programs exist as marine parks, reserves, and preserves. Over 100 designated areas exist around the periphery of the Carbbean Sea. Others range 25) from the well-known Australian Great Barrer Reef Marine Park to lesser-known parks in countries such as Thailand and Indonesia, where tourism is placing growing pressures on fragile coral reef systems. As state, national, and international agencies come to recognize the importance of conserving marine biodiversity, marine projected areas, whether as sanctuaries, parks, or estuarine reserves, will play an increasingly important role in preserving that diversity.
1. What does the passage mainly discuss? (A) Differences among marine parks, sanctuaries, and reserves (B) Various marine conservation programs (C) International agreements on coastal protection  (D) Similarities between land and sea protected environments   2. The word “intent” in line 3 is closest in meaning to (A) repetition (B) approval (C) goal (D) revision
3. The word “administered” in line 8 is closest in meaning to (A) managed (B) recognized (C) opposed (D) justified  4. The word “these” in line 11 refers to (A) sites (B) candidates (C) decades (D) sanctuaries   5. The passage mentions the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (lines 13-14) as an example of a sanctuary that (A) is not well know (B) covers a large area (C) is smaller than the Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary (D) was not originally proposed for sanctuary status
6. According to the passage, when was the National Marine Sanctuaries Program established? (A) Before 1972 (B) After 1987 (C) One hundred years before national parks were established (D) One hundred years after Yellowstone National Park was established
7. According to the passage, all of the following are achievements of the National Marine Sanctuaries Program EXCEPT (A) the discovery of several new marine organisms (B) the preservation of connections between individual marine species (C) the protection of coastal habitats (D) the establishment of areas where the public can observe marine life  8. The word “periphery” in line 24 is closest in meaning to (A) depth (B) landmass C) warm habitat (D) outer edge  9. The passage mentions which of the following as a threat to marine areas outside the U.S? (A) Limitations in financial support (B) The use of marine species as food (C) Variability of the climate (D) Increases in tourism

Questions 10-17 From their inception, most rural neighborhoods in colonial North America included at least one carpenter, joiner, sawyer, and cooper in woodworking; a weaver and a tailor for clothing production; a tanner, currier, and cordwainer (shoemaker) for fabricating leather objects; and a blacksmith for metalwork, Where stone was the local building material, a 5) mason was sure to appear on the list of people who paid taxes. With only an apprentice as an assistant, the rural artisan provided the neighborhood with common goods from furniture to shoes to farm equipment in exchange for cash or for “goods in kind” from