Part 2. Questions 66 – 75

Read the passage below and choose the best answer to each question.

Certainly, no creature in the sea is odder than the common sea cucumber. All living

creature, especially human beings, have their peculiarities, but everything about the

little sea cucumber seems unusual. What else can be said about a bizarre animal that,

among other eccentricities, eats mud, feeds almost continuously day and night but can

(5) live without eating for long periods, and can be poisonous but is considered supremely

edible by gourmets?

For some fifty million years, despite all its eccentricities, the sea cucumber has

subsisted on its diet of mud. It is adaptable enough to live attached to rocks by its tube

feet, under rocks in shallow water, or on the surface of mud flats. Common in cool

(10) water on both Atlantic and Pacific shores, it has the ability to such up mud or sand and

digest whatever nutrients are present.

Sea cucumbers come in a variety of colors, ranging from black to reddish-brown

to sand-color and nearly white. One form even has vivid purple tentacle. Usually the

creatures are cucumber-shaped-hence their name-and because they are typically

(15) rock inhabitants, this shape, combine with flexibility, enables them to squeeze

into crevices where they are safe from predators and ocean currents.

Although they have voracious appetites, eating day and night, sea cucumbers have

the capacity to become quiescent and live at a low metabolic rate-feeding sparingly

or not at all for long periods, so that the marine organisms that provide their food have

(20) a chance to multiply. If it were not for this faculty, they would devour all the food

available in a short time and would probably starve themselves out of existence.

But the most spectacular thing about the sea cucumber is the way it defends itself.

Its major enemies are fish and crabs, when attacked, it squirts all its internal organs

into the water. It also casts off attached structures such as tentacles. The sea cucumber

(25) will eviscerate and regenerate itself if it is attached or even touched; it will do the same

if the surrounding water temperature is too high or if the water becomes too polluted.

One out of the every eight balloons in the world are launched in New Mexico.