The History of the Tortoise - Reading Test Answers

Paragraph 1 – We must not forget the vegetation, without whose pre-invaded land, no other migrations could have taken place.

Paragraph 2 – Turtles went to sea a long time ago, and like all vertebrates that return to the water, they breathe air.

Paragraph 2 – Yet, they are, in a way, less likely to return to the water than whales or dugongs because turtles still lay their eggs on the beaches.

The specific information is not found in the given reading passage.

Paragraph 3 - There is proof that all modern turtles are descended from a terrestrial ancestor who lived before most dinosaurs.

Paragraph 3 - From the earliest dinosaur times, there are two major fossils known as Proganochelys quenstedti and Palaeochersis talampayensis, all of which are closely related to the ancestry of modern turtles and tortoises.

Paragraph 3 - The fossils look like dolphins and they certainly lived in the water like dolphins. With turtles, it manifests a little less. One method is to measure the bones of their forearms.

Paragraph 4 - Walter Joyce and Jacques Gauthier of Yale University obtained three measurements on the specific bones of 71 species of living turtles and turtles.

Paragraph 4 - Of course, this amphibious species appears on the triangular graph almost halfway between the 'wet cluster' of sea turtles and the 'dry cluster' of land turtles.

C. aquatic

Paragraph 5 - But obviously not. If you draw the family tree of all current turtles and tortoises, almost all the branches are aquatic. Today's land turtles are a branch with deep nests built among the branches of aquatic turtles.

D. land

Paragraph 5 - Today's land turtles are a branch with deep nests built among the branches of aquatic turtles. This suggests that modern land turtles have not relied on the land continuously since the time of P. quenstedti and P. talampayensis.

B. sea turtles

Paragraph 6 - Later ancestors lived on the land and stayed there for many ages. Afterward, ancestors still turned into water and became sea turtles.