SHSAT English Language Arts Quiz
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ELA: READING COMPREHENSION
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PASSAGE
(1) The Atacama Desert, a plateau in South America, is widely considered the driest nonpolar desert in the world. Stretching along the coast of Chile, its landscape is often compared to that of Mars. The extreme aridity is primarily caused by a double rain shadow effect. To the east, the towering Andes Mountains block precipitation from the Amazon basin, while to the west, the Chilean Coast Range prevents moisture from the Pacific Ocean from reaching the desert interior. Furthermore, a cold offshore ocean current called the Humboldt Current creates a coastal inversion layer of cool air, which inhibits the formation of rain-producing clouds.
(2) For years, scientists believed that complex life could not survive in the Atacama's hyper-arid core. It was thought that the combination of intense ultraviolet (UV) radiation, high soil salinity, and near-total lack of water made the environment sterile. However, recent discoveries have challenged this assumption. Researchers have found pockets of microbial life, such as bacteria and archaea, living within rocks (endoliths) and deep beneath the salty soil. These resilient organisms have developed unique strategies to conserve water and protect themselves from UV radiation, offering clues as to how life might exist on other planets.
(3) The same conditions that make the Atacama inhospitable to most life forms make it one of the premier locations on Earth for astronomical observation. The high altitude, clear skies, and lack of light pollution create exceptionally transparent atmospheric conditions. Major international observatories, such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), are situated here. These telescopes can peer deep into the universe, studying the birth of stars and galaxies with a clarity that is impossible to achieve in most other parts of the world. The Atacama, therefore, serves as a natural laboratory for studying both the limits of life on Earth and the vastness of the cosmos beyond.
Which of the following is presented in the passage as a feature of the Atacama Desert?
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