Directions: There are 10 blanks in the following passage. For each blank there are four choices marked A, B, C, and D. Choose the ONE answer that best fits into the passage.
Antarctica is the continent which is the most southern area of land on the Earth and is mostly covered with ice. This is one of the driest and 1 in the world. But people from all over the world come to 2 there. Near the South Pole, three thousand people live together in a place 3 Amundsen-Scott Station.
The station has libraries, cinemas, shops, sports rooms, canteens and laboratories. There is electricity, and they have 4 —the system that they use to have a conversation with someone in another place. And they have 5 —electronic machines that store information and use programs to help them find, organize, or change the information. But the people here 6 travel by car, or train, or bus, because there aren’t any roads or railways near the station. They travel by ship, helicopter, planes, or snow tractors, or 7 dogs.
There aren’t 8 trees or flowers there, but there are hundreds of different birds and other animals. Most of the people here are 9 . They study plant and animal life and how ice moves. The ice can tell us about changes in climate. Ray Kingman is an expert at Amundsen-Scott station telling us on the phone, "This is my second year here. It’s very interesting and beautiful place, but life is very hard 10 . In the summer we can go swimming in hot pools of water. We welcome newcomers here for further study of the continent!"