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Recent studies of ancient Maya water management have found that the urban architecture of some cities was used to divert rainfall runoff into gravity-fed systems of interconnected reservoirs. In the central and southern May Lowlands, this kind of water control was necessary to support large populations throughout the year due to the scarcity of perennial surface water and the seasonal availability of rainfall. Some scholars argue that the concentration of water within the urban core of these sites provided a centralized source of political authority for Maya elites based largely on controlled water access. Such an argument is plausible; however, it is less useful for understanding the sociopolitical implications of water use and control in other, water-rich parts of the Maya region.
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The author of the passage implies which of the following about the political importance of the type of urban water management system described in the passage?
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According to the passage, which of the following is true of the water management systems in the central and southern Maya Lowlands?
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It can be inferred that the author mentions Ellison`s apprenticeship with Richmond Barthe primarily in order to
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Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about the "tension"?
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Our terrestrial food supply comes from ecosystems transformed to produce a few comestible species through the removal of competitors, predators, and pests, but marine capture fisheries depend on the overall productivity of natural ecosystems. There is, however, increasing concern about the impact of fishing and other human activities on marine ecosystems, which are now far from pristine. One option for moving toward both biodiversity and terrestrial food supply goals is to produce greater yields from less land, thereby freeing land for conservation purposes. By contrast, the objective of maintaining or resorting the biodiversity of marine ecosystems may conflict with the objective of maintaining or increasing our food supply from the sea, since the level of fishing required to achieve the latter may compromise the former.
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The primary purpose of the passage is to
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The primary purpose of the passage is to
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In The Life of Charlotte Bronte(1857), the first and the most celebrated biography of novelist Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell promoted the long-persisting romantic view of Bronte as having no connection with the rest of English society at a time when industrialization was causing much turbulence, but as having sprung naturally, like so much purple heather, out of the English countryside. Gaskell also portrayed Bronte as irreproachably proper, incapable of "unladylike" feelings or dangerous views; this was at variance with the subversive spirit Matthew Arnold accurately discerned, albeit with distance, deep within Bronte` s fiction. While correcting many of Gaskell` s errors and omissions at last, even Winifred Gerin` s Charlotte Bronte: The Evolution of Genius (1967) failed to discard Gaskell` s viewpoint. Feminists have introduced new interpretations of Bronte` s life, but it is primarily Juliet Barker who takes into account the larger world that impinged on that life-- the changing England in which old divisions of class and gender were under pressure.
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The primary purpose of the passage is to
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