Read the following passage and mark the letter A,B,C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
Legend has it that sometime toward the end of the Civil war (1861 – 1865) a government train carrying oxen travelling through the northern plains of eastern Wyoming was caught in a snowstorm and had to be abandoned. The diver returned the next spring to see what had become of his cargo. Instead of the skeletons he had expected to find, he saw his oxen, living, fat and healthy. How had they survived?
The answer lay in the resource that unknowing American lands trampled underfoot in their haste to cross the “Great American Desert” to reach lands that sometimes proved barren. In the eastern parts of the United States, the preferred grass for forage was a cultivated plant. It grew well with enough rain, then when cut and stored it would cure and become nourishing hay for winter feed. But in the dry grazing lands of the west that familiar bluejoint grass was often killed by drought. To cattle out there seemed risky or even hopeless.
Who could imagine a fairy-tail grass that required no rain and somehow made it possible for cattle to feed themselves all winter? But the surprising western wild grasses did just that. They had wonderfully convenient features that made them superior to the cultivated eastern grasses. Variously known as buffalo grass, grama grass, or mesquite grass, not only were they immune to drought; but they were actually preserved by the lack of summer and autumn rains. They were not juicy like the cultivated eastern grasses, but had short, hard stems. And they did not need to be cured in a barn, but dried right where they grew on the ground. When they dried in this way, they remained naturally sweet and nourishing through the winter. Cattle left outdoors to fend for themselves thrived on this hay. And the cattle themselves helped plant the fresh grass year after year for they trampled the natural seeds firmly into the soil to be watered by the melting snows of winter and the occasional rains of spring. The dry summer air cured them much as storing in a barn cured the cultivated grasses.
What can be inferred about the “Great American Desert” mentioned in paragraph 2?
A. Many had settled there by the 1860’s
B. It was not originally assumed to be a fertile area
C. It was a popular place to raise cattle before the Civil War
D. It was not discovered until the late 1800’s
Đáp án : D
suy ra từ câu: The answer lay in the resource that unknowing American lands trampled underfoot in their haste to cross the “Great American Desert” to reach lands that sometimes proved barren
Nghĩa là: khoảng những năm 1861 – 1865 khi bò bị bỏ lại vì bão tuyết, năm sau (hiểu là cuối những năm 1880) khi con người quay lại thì thấy chúng vẫn sống. Bằng cách nào? Câu trả lời nằm ở nguồn tài nguyên ở vùng đất chưa được biết đến mà họ đã vôi vã đi qua (vùng great American Desert) để đến những nơi mà thực chất lại là vùng cằn cỗi. -> Nghĩa là vùng đất này chưa được biết đến cho đến tận cuối những năm 1880.