Directions: ​Read the passage carefully to answer the given questions. Each question will have five alternatives as its answer, choose the correct option as your answer.

If you could visit Earth as it was millions of years ago, it would look very different. The continents have not always been where they are today. About 480 million years ago, most continents were scattered chunks of land lying along or south of the Equator. Millions of years of continuous tectonic activity changed their positions, and by 240 million years ago, almost all of the world’s land was joined in a single, huge continent. Geologists call this supercontinent Pangaea, which means “all lands” in Greek.

North America, the third-largest continent, extends from the tiny Aleutian Islands in the northwest to the Isthmus of Panama in the south. The continent includes the ______ island of Greenland in the northeast. In the far north, the continent stretches halfway around the world, from Greenland to the Aleutians. North America contains a variety of natural wonders. Landforms and all types of vegetation can be found within its boundaries. North America has deep canyons, such as Copper Canyon in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Yellowstone National Park, in the U.S. state of Wyoming, has some of the world’s most active geysers. South America is connected to North America by the narrow Isthmus of Panama. The central-southern area of South America has pampas, or plains. These rich areas are ideal for agriculture. The growing of wheat is a major industry in the pampas. Grazing animals, such as cattle and sheep, are also raised in the pampas region.South American rainforests contain an enormous wealth of animal and plant life. More than 15,000 species of plants and animals are found only in the Amazon River basin. Many Amazonian plant species are sources of food and medicine for the rest of the world. Scientists are trying to find ways to preserve this precious and fragile environment as people move into the Amazon basin and clear land for settlements and agriculture.

Asia, the largest continent, stretches from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the western Pacific Ocean. There are more than 40 countries in Asia. Some are among the most-populated countries in the world, including China, India, and Indonesia. Sixty percent of Earth’s population lives in Asia. More than a third of the world’s people live in China and India alone. Asia accounts for almost a third of the world’s land. The continent has a wide range of climate regions, from polar in the Siberian Arctic to tropical in equatorial Indonesia. Parts of Central Asia, including the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia, are dry year-round. Southeast Asia, on the other hand, depends on the annual monsoons, which bring rain and make agriculture possible. Monsoon rains and snowmelt feed Asian rivers such as the Ganges, the Yellow, the Mekong, the Indus, and the Yangtze. The rich valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in western Asia is called the “Fertile Crescent” for its place in the development of agriculture and human civilization. Asia contains, not only, Earth’s highest elevation, but also its lowest place on land: the shores of the Dead Sea in the countries of Israel and Jordan.