Niger and Mauritania

In countries like Niger and Mauritania, the cultivation of land has changed little in the past several centuries. Additionally, these countries’ mono-modal rainfall pattern brings precipitation for only three months during the year. As a result, food production doesn’t nearly meet demand.

Several agencies and organizations have intensified their efforts to increase the productivity of land in these countries. They have introduced new strains of seed, improved irrigation techniques, and introduced new methods of fertilization and soil management. With ample sunlight for photosynthesis and modern irrigation techniques, sustainable farming techniques should allow farmers to boost aggregate production in order to meet demand.

Still, crop revitalization faces an unexpected adversary: institutional incompetence. Where crop specialists have convinced individual farmers to abandon old farming techniques in place of new, they can’t readily obtain the governmental cooperation they need. The biggest hurdles are political corruption, incompetence, and the absence of a marketing infrastructure.

Which sentence best expresses the information on the passage?

a. Rainfall patterns are mono-modal in Niger and Mauritania

b. In countries like Niger and Mauritania, food production is not enough to satisfy the countries need X

c. The government is not cooperating with the farmers

d. Farmers should change to new farming techniques

In the last paragraph, the word they refers to

a. crop specialists X

b. farmers

c. farming techniques

d. adversaries

In the last paragraph, the word hurdles is closest in meaning to

a. help

b. obstacles

c. incompetence x

d. dangers

Nature challenges humans in many ways, through disease, weather, and famine. For those living along the coast, one unusual phenomenon capable of catastrophic destruction is the tsunami. A tsunami is a series of waves generated in a body of water by an impulsive disturbance. Earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, explosions, and even the impact of meteorites can generate tsunamis. Starting at sea, a tsunami slowly approaches land, growing in height and losing energy through bottom friction and turbulence. Still, just like any other water waves, tsunamis unleash tremendous energy as they plunge onto the shore. They have great erosion potential, stripping beaches of sand, undermining trees, and flooding hundreds of meters inland. They can easily crush cars, homes, vegetation, and anything they collide with. To minimize the devastation of a tsunami, scientists are constantly trying to anticipate them more accurately and more quickly. Because many factors come together to produce a life-threatening tsunami, foreseeing them is not easy. Despite this, researchers in meteorology persevere in studying and predicting tsunami behavior.

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