The Plant

When I saw it first, it was a green and sleeping bud, raising itself toward the sun. Ants gathered aphids and sap around the unopened bloom. A few days later, it was a tender young flower with a pale green center, a troop of silver‑gray insects climbing up and down its stalk. Over the summer this sunflower became incredibly beautiful, subtly turning its face daily, always toward the sun, its black center alive with a deep blue light, as if flint had sparked an elemental fire there, in community with rain, mineral, mountain air, and sand.

As summer changed from green to yellow, new visitors came daily: lace‑winged flies, bees with legs fat with pollen, grasshoppers with clattering wings and desperate hunger, and other lives too small or hidden for me to see. This plant was a society undergoing constant change, great and diverse, depending on light and moisture.

Changes also occurred in the greater world of the plant. One day, rounding a bend in the road, I encountered the disturbing sight of a dead horse, black against a hillside, eyes rolled back. Another day I was nearly lifted by a sandstorm so fierce and hot that I had to wait for it to pass before I could return home. It swept away the faded dried petals of the sunflower. Then the birds arrived to carry the seeds to the future.

In one plant in one season a drama of need and survival was enacted. Hungers were filled; insects coupled; there was escape, exhaustion, and death. An outsider, I never learned the sunflower’s golden language. An old voice from gene or cell taught the plant to oppose the pull of gravity and find its way upward, to open. A certain knowing-instinct, intuition, necessity-directed the seed‑bearing birds to ancestral homelands they had never seen.

There are other summons, some even more mysterious than the survival journeys of birds and insects. Once a century, among their canopy of sunlit green, all bamboo plants of a certain kind flower on the same day. Not the plants’ location, in a steamy Malaysian jungle or a suburban garden in Pennsylvania, their age, nor their size matter. Some current we cannot explain passes through this primitive life. Each with a share of communal knowledge, all are somehow one plant.

Sometimes you can hear the language of the earth-in water, trees, emanating from mosses, seeping through the soil. Once, in the redwood forest, I felt something like a heartbeat, a hardly perceptible current that stirred a kinship and longing in me, a dream barely remembered. Once, on a calm beach, I heard an ocean storm booming from afar, revealing the disturbance at its center, telling about the rough water that would arrive.

Tonight I watch the sky, thinking of the people who came before me and their knowledge of the placement of stars, people who watched the sun long and carefully enough to witness the angle of light that touched a stone just once a year. Without written records, they registered the passage of the gods of night, noting fine details of the world around them and the immensity above them. Whichever road I follow, I walk in the land of many gods. Behind me, my ancestors say “Be still. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.”

The author seems to be trying to understand:

• a. the beliefs of primitive peoples from the perspective of an anthropologist.

• b. the interactive balance among species from the perspective of an ecologist.

• c. the orderly recurrence oof natural forces from the perspective of a poet.

• d. the genetic regulation of behavior from the perspective of a biologist.

Answer explanation

Solution: The correct answer is C.The beliefs of ancestors, although not necessarily primitive peoples (since the identity of the ancestors is not specified), are invoked only in the final paragraph, and poetically, in the form of deeply personal identification with them and their observations, rather than from the more analytical perspective of an anthropologist examining the beliefs of primitive peoples: “Tonight I watch the sky, thinking of the people who came before me and their knowledge of the placement of stars, people who watched the sun. . . . Whichever road I follow, I walk in the land of many gods. Behind me my ancestors say, ‘Be still. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.’”Despite the author’s “ecological imagination” and appreciation for the interrelationships within the natural world, the descriptions lack the scientific terminology and precise observations of an ecologist. See rationale C.The poetic qualities of the passage occur in the emphasis on vivid physical descriptions and imagery that appeal to the senses or the emotions rather than reflect scientific accuracy: “. . . this sunflower became incredibly beautiful, subtly turning its face daily, always toward the light, its black center alive with a deep blue light, as if flint had sparked an elemental fire there . . . ;” “. . . bees with legs fat with pollen, grasshoppers with clattering wings and desperate hunger . . . ;” “. . . I never learned the sunflower’s golden language. . . .” The author observes both changes and orderly occurrences, one example being the bamboo that flowers once a century on the same day no matter where they are located.While genetic regulation of behavior is suggested by the example of the bamboo as well as by the sunflower—“An old voice from a gene or cell taught the plant to oppose the pull of gravity,” the lack of the technical language of a professional biologist in favor of more poetic and evocative descriptions reflects a poet’s sensibility. See rationale C.

According to the author’s account, the regularity of biological cycles indicates:

• a. a response too the competition for resources among similar species.

• b.

  a special mode of communication among the members of each species.

• c. the adaptation of each species to a unique niche in its habitat.

• d. an inherent sensitivity to particular environmental changes.

Answer explanation

Solution: The correct answer is C.

The beliefs of ancestors, although not necessarily primitive peoples (since the identity of the ancestors is not specified), are invoked only in the final paragraph, and poetically, in the form of deeply personal identification with them and their observations, rather than from the more analytical perspective of an anthropologist examining the beliefs of primitive peoples: “Tonight I watch the sky, thinking of the people who came before me and their knowledge of the placement of stars, people who watched the sun. . . . Whichever road I follow, I walk in the land of many gods. Behind me my ancestors say, ‘Be still. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.’” Despite the author’s “ecological imagination” and appreciation for the interrelationships within the natural world, the descriptions lack the scientific terminology and precise observations of an ecologist. See rationale C. The poetic qualities of the passage occur in the emphasis on vivid physical descriptions and imagery that appeal to the senses or the emotions rather than reflect scientific accuracy: “. . . this sunflower became incredibly beautiful, subtly turning its face daily, always toward the light, its black center alive with a deep blue light, as if flint had sparked an elemental fire there . . . ;” “. . . bees with legs fat with pollen, grasshoppers with clattering wings and desperate hunger . . . ;” “. . . I never learned the sunflower’s golden language. . . .” The author observes both changes and orderly occurrences, one example being the bamboo that flowers once a century on the same day no matter where they are located. While genetic regulation of behavior is suggested by the example of the bamboo as well as by the sunflower—“An old voice from a gene or cell taught the plant to oppose the pull of gravity,” the lack of the technical language of a professional biologist in favor of more poetic and evocative descriptions reflects a poet’s sensibility. See rationale C.

According to the author’s account, the regularity of biological cycles indicates:

• a. a special mode of communication among the members of each species.

• b. a special mode of communication among the members of each species.

• c. the adaptation of each species to a unique niche in its habitat.

• d. an inherent sensitivity to particular environmental changes.

Answer explanation

Solution: The correct answer is B.The author emphasizes the symbiotic nature of relationships within nature, for example, birds arriving “to carry the seeds to the future,” and makes no reference to competition.One example in the passage where cyclical regularity occurs is with the bamboo that blooms once a century—all plants, no matter their location, bloom on the same day by some special hidden mode of communication. The author observes: “Some current we cannot explain passes through this primitive life. Each with a share of communal knowledge, all are somehow one plant.”The author does not discuss how each species has established an ecological niche, emphasizing instead direct observations of patterns in nature, especially the interrelationships between species, which views the sunflower as a society undergoing change by hosting different insect populations at different times of the year and within species such as the bamboo.The author does not discuss particular environmental changes so much as the response of different species to regular seasonal and cyclical changes such as how the unopened sunflower attracts aphids and ants and later in the summer attracts bees and grasshoppers, and even longer cycle changes such as the blooming of the bamboo once a century.

Which of the following ideas about humans is clearly NOT assumed in the passage?

• a. Humans lack the sensory means to detect some intraspecies messages.

• b. Humans have always attempted to understand natural occurrences.

• c. Humans are capable of existing in harmony with other species.

• d. Humans will eventually satisfy their curiousity about nature.

Answer explanation

Solution: The correct answer is D.The author strongly suggests that humans possess these sensory means through direct observation, especially in the passage about the bamboo blooming once a century.This idea is assumed in the last paragraph and throughout the passage, which emphasizes the author’s own efforts to attempt to understand nature’s occurrences. See rationale D.The entire passage is about the author finding harmony with nature. By discussing how the author’s ancestors were keenly observant and in tune with the natural world, the final paragraph reinforces this theme of living in harmony with the natural world.Nowhere does the passage suggest humans will satisfy their curiosity about nature. The tone of the passage reflects the author’s sense of wonder at the variety and tumult of life in its changing and recurring patterns, especially the more aware a person becomes. This is reflected in the following: “Sometimes you can hear the language of the earth. . . . Once, in the redwood forest, I felt something like a heartbeat, a hardly perceptible current that stirred kinship and longing in me. . . .” The final paragraph, especially, touches on the notion that human wonder and curiosity before the natural world will never cease, but is passed on though the ages: “Without written records, they registered the passage of the gods of night, noting the fine details of the world around them and the immensity above them.” The author shares this sense of wonder with ancestors: “Behind me, my ancestors say, ‘Be still. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.’”

The discussion suggests that the author considers the appropriate relationship of humans to other animals to be that of:

• a. benefactor to recipient.

• b. scientist to subject.

• c. student to teacher.

• d. parent to child.

Answer explanation

Solution: The correct answer is C.

This relationship is not present in the passage, because the author does not articulate how animals benefit from their mutual relationship, or what benefit the animals are receiving. See rationale C. While the author is studying nature and receiving knowledge in the manner of a scientist, the author, unlike the scientist, is the passive recipient of this knowledge and nature the active agent, passing knowledge on to the author. On the other hand, the scientist is the active seeker of knowledge, often acting upon nature (by means of methods such as dissection or the scientific method of experimentation). Nature is the passive subject, the object of the scientist’s inquiries. See rationale C. The major emphasis in the passage, especially in the tone and attitude, is the author observing and learning from nature, culminating in the final paragraph with the author participating in the collective knowledge and wisdom of previous generations: “Tonight I watch the sky, thinking of the people who came before me and their knowledge of the placement of stars. . . . Whichever road I follow, I walk in the land of many gods. Behind me my ancestors say, ‘Be still. Watch and listen. . . .’” The parent to child relationship makes the author the teacher and nature the learner that needs to be disciplined and taught in the ways of the world. The strong implication in the passage is that the author has nothing to teach and everything to learn in the author’s relationship to nature. See rationale C.