Question

[Lê Quỳnh Anh]

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 36 to 42.

Light from a living plant or animal is called bioluminescence, or cold light, to distinguish it from incandescence or heat-generating light. Life forms could not produce incandescent light without being burned. Their light is produced in chemicals combining in such a way that little or no measurable heat is produced, and the life forms generating it are unharmed. Although bioluminescence is a relatively complicated process, it can be reduced to simple terms. Living light occurs when luciferin and oxygen combine in the presence of luciferase. In a few cases, fireflies the most common, an additional compound called ATP is required.

The earliest recorded experiments with bioluminescence in the late 1800s are attributed to Raphael Dubois, who extracted a luminous fluid from a clam, observing that it continued to glow in the test tube for several minutes. He named the substance luciferin, which means “the bearer of life”. In further research, Dubois discovered that several chemicals were required for bioluminescence to occur. In his notes, it was recorded that a second important substance, which he called luciferase, was always present. In later study of small, luminous sea creatures, Newton Harley concluded that luciferin was composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, which are the building blocks of all living cells. He also proved that there are a variety of luciferin and luciferase, specific to the plants and animals that produce them.

Much remains unknown, but many scientists who are studying bioluminescence now believe that the origin of the phenomenon may be traced to a time when there was no oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere. When oxygen was gradually introduced to the atmosphere, it was actually poisonous to life forms, plants and animals produced light to use up the oxygen in a gradual but necessary adaptation. It is speculated that millions of years ago, all life may have produced light to survive. As the millennia passed, life forms on Earth became tolerant of, and finally dependent on oxygen, and the adaptation that produced bioluminescence was no longer necessary, but some primitive plants and animals continued to use the light for new functions such as mating or attracting prey.

Question 42: The paragraph following the passage most probably discuss ______.

A. incandescence in prehistoric plants and animals

B. incandescence in modern plants and animals

C. bioluminescence in prehistoric plants and animals

D. bioluminescence in modern plants and animals

Answer 1

[Dương Hoàn Anh]

Đáp án D

Dịch nghĩa: Đoạn văn tiếp theo bài viết có thể nói về

A. sự cháy trong động thực vật tiền sử

B. sự cháy trong động thực vật đương đại

C. sự phát quang sinh học trong động thực vật tiền sử

D. sự phát quang sinh học trong động thực vật đương đại

Giải thích: Câu cuối bài viết: “...but some primitive plants and animals continued to use the light for new functions such as mating or attracting prey” - “nhưng một số loài động thực vật nguyên thủy vẫn tiếp tục sử dụng ánh sáng với những chức năng mới như tìm bạn đời hay hấp dẫn con mồi.”

=> Có thể hiểu đoạn văn tiếp theo sẽ tiếp tục thảo luận về sự phát quang sinh học của những loài sinh vật này trong thời hiện đại.