Cenni Demo Test Reading 2

The study of living things on earth has a long history. Because of the incredible richness and diversity of life, most of the effort in biology and its predecessor, natural history, has been expanded in an attempt to describe what there is ―simple exploration and cataloguing. The classical sciences of descriptive botany and zoology, with their emphasis on classification, are examples of this sort of work. The division of living things into the plant kingdom and animal kingdom (plus three more kingdoms added by modern scientists to describe microscopic organisms and fungi), and the collection of all living things into a coherent classification scheme, are the fruit of this work. During the past century and a half, however, two important discoveries have changed the face of the life sciences. The first of these was the development of the Theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin and others. The mechanism of natural selection gave naturalists for the first time a way of answering questions about how life came to have the forms it has, rather than just questions about what those forms are. The great social and intellectual turmoil triggered by Darwin’s work is interesting, of course, but is not relevant from a purely scientific standpoint. What does matter is that we can now understand how the observed diversity of living things could have arisen through the action of a simple and easily comprehended mechanism. The original Darwinian notions have been modified and expanded since his time, of course, and there is still debate about the pace at which species evolve. Nevertheless, the main principle of Darwinism ―that living things change and adapt in response to their environment― has been incorporated as one of the pillars of the modern life sciences.  What is the topic of this passage?  

The study of living things on earth has a long history. Because of the incredible richness and diversity of life, most of the effort in biology and its predecessor, natural history, has been expanded in an attempt to describe what there is ―simple exploration and cataloguing. The classical sciences of descriptive botany and zoology, with their emphasis on classification, are examples of this sort of work. The division of living things into the plant kingdom and animal kingdom (plus three more kingdoms added by modern scientists to describe microscopic organisms and fungi), and the collection of all living things into a coherent classification scheme, are the fruit of this work. During the past century and a half, however, two important discoveries have changed the face of the life sciences. The first of these was the development of the Theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin and others. The mechanism of natural selection gave naturalists for the first time a way of answering questions about how life came to have the forms it has, rather than just questions about what those forms are. The great social and intellectual turmoil triggered by Darwin’s work is interesting, of course, but is not relevant from a purely scientific standpoint. What does matter is that we can now understand how the observed diversity of living things could have arisen through the action of a simple and easily comprehended mechanism. The original Darwinian notions have been modified and expanded since his time, of course, and there is still debate about the pace at which species evolve. Nevertheless, the main principle of Darwinism ―that living things change and adapt in response to their environment― has been incorporated as one of the pillars of the modern life sciences.  The word "its" in line 2 (bold and underline) refers to

The study of living things on earth has a long history. Because of the incredible richness and diversity of life, most of the effort in biology and its predecessor, natural history, has been expanded in an attempt to describe what there is ―simple exploration and cataloguing. The classical sciences of descriptive botany and zoology, with their emphasis on classification, are examples of this sort of work. The division of living things into the plant kingdom and animal kingdom (plus three more kingdoms added by modern scientists to describe microscopic organisms and fungi), and the collection of all living things into a coherent classification scheme, are the fruit of this work. During the past century and a half, however, two important discoveries have changed the face of the life sciences. The first of these was the development of the Theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin and others. The mechanism of natural selection gave naturalists for the first time a way of answering questions about how life came to have the forms it has, rather than just questions about what those forms are. The great social and intellectual turmoil triggered by Darwin’s work is interesting, of course, but is not relevant from a purely scientific standpoint. What does matter is that we can now understand how the observed diversity of living things could have arisen through the action of a simple and easily comprehended mechanism. The original Darwinian notions have been modified and expanded since his time, of course, and there is still debate about the pace at which species evolve. Nevertheless, the main principle of Darwinism ―that living things change and adapt in response to their environment― has been incorporated as one of the pillars of the modern life sciences.   All of the following can be classified into the kingdoms mentioned above EXCEPT

The study of living things on earth has a long history. Because of the incredible richness and diversity of life, most of the effort in biology and its predecessor, natural history, has been expanded in an attempt to describe what there is ―simple exploration and cataloguing. The classical sciences of descriptive botany and zoology, with their emphasis on classification, are examples of this sort of work. The division of living things into the plant kingdom and animal kingdom (plus three more kingdoms added by modern scientists to describe microscopic organisms and fungi), and the collection of all living things into a coherent classification scheme, are the fruit of this work. During the past century and a half, however, two important discoveries have changed the face of the life sciences. The first of these was the development of the Theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin and others. The mechanism of natural selection gave naturalists for the first time a way of answering questions about how life came to have the forms it has, rather than just questions about what those forms are. The great social and intellectual turmoil triggered by Darwin’s work is interesting, of course, but is not relevant from a purely scientific standpoint. What does matter is that we can now understand how the observed diversity of living things could have arisen through the action of a simple and easily comprehended mechanism. The original Darwinian notions have been modified and expanded since his time, of course, and there is still debate about the pace at which species evolve. Nevertheless, the main principle of Darwinism ―that living things change and adapt in response to their environment― has been incorporated as one of the pillars of the modern life sciences.  The word "turmoil" (bold and underline) is closest in meaning to  

The study of living things on earth has a long history. Because of the incredible richness and diversity of life, most of the effort in biology and its predecessor, natural history, has been expanded in an attempt to describe what there is ―simple exploration and cataloguing. The classical sciences of descriptive botany and zoology, with their emphasis on classification, are examples of this sort of work. The division of living things into the plant kingdom and animal kingdom (plus three more kingdoms added by modern scientists to describe microscopic organisms and fungi), and the collection of all living things into a coherent classification scheme, are the fruit of this work. During the past century and a half, however, two important discoveries have changed the face of the life sciences. The first of these was the development of the Theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin and others. The mechanism of natural selection gave naturalists for the first time a way of answering questions about how life came to have the forms it has, rather than just questions about what those forms are. The great social and intellectual turmoil triggered by Darwin’s work is interesting, of course, but is not relevant from a purely scientific standpoint. What does matter is that we can now understand how the observed diversity of living things could have arisen through the action of a simple and easily comprehended mechanism. The original Darwinian notions have been modified and expanded since his time, of course, and there is still debate about the pace at which species evolve. Nevertheless, the main principle of Darwinism ―that living things change and adapt in response to their environment― has been incorporated as one of the pillars of the modern life sciences.  The passage following this one will most likely discuss