Forget lions, tigers, and bears.

When it comes to the art of war, army ants are among the
most frightening creatures on earth. With powerful mouth parts, these fighters can skillfully cut
creatures much larger than themselves into pieces. Acting together in great number, army ant
colonies succeed at making tens of thousands of such kills each day. Their capabilities do have
limits, though. Contrary to popular belief, they almost never take down large animals or people.
One of the best places to observe army ants is Barro Colorado, an island in a lake creates by
Panama Canal. The island is home to as many as 50 colonies of Eciton burchellii, the most studied
army ant in world. It is one of 150 types of army ants in the New World; more 170 other types live
in Asia, Africa, and Australia.
The colonies of this army ant are huge, ranging from 300.000 to 700.000 ants. They never
stay in one place long, moving from nest site to nest site. Linking legs together, they use their own
bodies to form enormous nests called bivouacs, which they hang beneath a fallen tree. There they
stay for about 20 days as the queen lays as many as 300.00 eggs.
When the ants go hunting as many as 200.000 of them leave the nest in a group that
broadens into a fan as wide as 14 meters. This swarm raid takes a slightly different course each
day, allowing the hunter to cover fresh ground each time.
Protecting the ants wherever they go are soldiers, recognizable by their oversized jaws. If
their frightening looks do not scare enemies away, soldier also have a powerful bite and the attack
is often suicidal. Because their jaws are shaped like fishhooks, the soldiers cannot pull them out
again. Amazonian tribes have used soldier ants to close wounds, breaking of the bodies and leaving
the head in place.
Eciton burchellii are blind and cannot see what a head of them is, but they move together
in such great numbers that they can easily kill the non-army ants, insect and other small creatures
that constitute their prey. When the groups happen upon a break in the path, ants immediately
link legs together and form living bridges so that the groups can move forwards without any delay.
In Japanese the word ant is written by linking two character: one meaning “insect”, the other
meaning “loyalty”. Indeed, individual ants are completely loyal to their fellow ants. They display
many examples of selless cooperation that, while certainly extreme, cannot fail to win human
admiration.

1. How is the information in the last paragraph organized?

a. A statement is followed by examples and explanation.
b. A statement is followed by definition and explanation
c. A statement is followed by explanation organized from general to specifics.
d. A statement is followed by supporting ideas organized in cause and effect.

2. Which of the following statement about soldier ants is NOT true?

a. People can use them to close wounds.
b. They can see nothing a head of them.
c. They have powerful bites.
d. They lay many eggs.

3. The author’s purpose of writing the text is to ….

a. inform the readers about how army ants set up their life
b. demonstrate the strength of army ants compared to lions, tigers, and bears
c. analyze how soldier ants protect their colonies
d. make the readers aware of the use of army ants

4. In which paragraphs of the text author mention the sight of army ants?
a. 3
b. 4
c. 5
d. 6

5. The phrase “happen upon” (paragraph 6) is closest in meaning to ….

a. meet
b. find
c. avoid
d. need

6. It can be inferred from paragraph 1 that the author tells us to ignore lions, tigers, and bears
because ....
a. the text is not about those animals
b. they are much more dangerous than ants
c. army ants, in their own way, can be more fearsome than those animals
d. there are more ants than those animals
 When exploratory divers discovered the underwater Mexican cave site known as Hoyo
Negro, the conditions of the cave were so pristine and stable, but there was evidence that at least
one person had been inside the cave before the divers: A Paleoamerican girl nicknamed Naia, who
had fallen to her death while presumably collecting water from the cave during the late Pleistocene
era, between 13,000 and 12,000 years ago. The divers found her skeleton, as well as the remains
of several Ice Age animals, on the cave floor. According to Rissolo and project co-director, James
Chatters, it was like the La Brea tar pits without the tar.
This remarkable discovery represents the first and only example of human remains found
in direct association with extinct megafauna in the Americas, says Rissolo, who is a visiting scholar
at UC San Diego from the Waitt Institute and a research associate at the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography. The remains of two gomphotheres (extinct elephant-like creatures), two Shasta
ground sloths, a pair of saber-toothed cats and numerous other animals were also found with Naia
in the underwater pit, which measures 200 feet in diameter and is located in the far Southeast of
the country, on the Yucután Peninsula.
Computer science Ph.D. student Vid Petrovic – a member of the Center’s Integrative
Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program in cultural heritage diagnostics
– is using photos taken by the scientific dive team to create 3D structure-from-motion (SfM)
models of the cave site, and he has used the same technique to recreate Naia’s mandible.
SfM is an imaging technique that, in this case, uses two-dimensional photographs taken
underwater at the cave site. Petrovic tracks and aligns features in the photos (such as corner points)
to ‘stitch together’ and reconstruct the objects digitally in 3D.
Rissolo says that given the proper lighting, camera set-up and protocols, SfM is a relatively
straightforward and cost-effective imaging and visualization method, especially for documenting
archaeological sites that are not easily accessible or are threatened with destruction, either natural
or human-derived.

7. According to the text, what remains are not found in Hoyo Negro? The remains of…
a. gomphotheras
b. elephants
c. Shasta ground sloths
d. saber-toothed cats
e. Paleoamerican girl
 The study of songbirds has revealed a variety of fundamental properties of biological
systems. In particular, neurobiological studies carried out in songbirds have revealed the presence
of newly born neurons in the adult brain, how steroid hormones affect brain development, the
neural and mechanistic bases of vocalizations, and how experience modifies neuronal physiology.
More evidently, however, songbirds have been extensively used as a model for imitative vocal
learning, a behavior thought to be a substrate for speech acquisition in humans. Now an
international consortium has unveiled the genome of the zebra finch (Taeniopygia Guttata).
Sequencing the zebra finch genome was initiated in 2005 under the Large Scale Genome
Sequencing Program of the National Human Genome Research Institute. The prior work in the
research community characterizing the zebra finch brain transcriptase. These initiatives, along with
new zebra finch genome sequences, have resulted in the complete genome sequenced with 17,475
protein-coding genes identified, as well as regulatory regions and non-coding RNAs. The
annotation and sequence coverage of the zebra finch genome will certainly be refined in the years
to come, but the initial endeavor is expected to provide a unique platform for modern genomics
research in this organism. Furthermore, this initial snapshot of the songbird genome should provide
critical insights into fundamental scientific questions, including an array of physiological and
evolutionary processes.

8. From the sentence ‘… songbirds have been extensively used as a model for imitative vocal
learning, ….’ in paragraph 1, it can be stated that…
a. Songbirds are good models of vocal learning.
b. Human can practice vocal learning through songbird.
c. Songbirds are observed intensively by the scientist.
d. Songbirds imitate human’s speech.
e. Human speech acquisition in inspired by songbird.