341. Its peoples became great traders, bartering jewellery, pottery, animal pelts, tools, and other goods along extensive trading networks that stretched up and down eastern North America and as far west as the Rocky Mountains.

　　The word "bartering" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) producing

　　(B) exchanging

　　(C) transporting

　　(D) loading

　　342. Over the next centuries, it was supplanted by another culture, the Mississippian, named after the river along which many of its earliest villages were located.

　　The word "supplanted" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) conquered

　　(B) preceded

　　(C) replaced

　　(D) imitated

　　343. Most of these towns boasted at least one major flat-topped mound on which stood a temple that contained a sacred flame. Only priests and those charged with guarding the flame could enter the temples.

　　The phrase "charged with" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) passed on

　　(B) experienced at

　　(C) interested in

　　(D) assigned to

　　344. Printmaking is the generic term for a number of processes, of which woodcut and engraving are two prime examples.

　　The word "prime" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) principal

　　(B) complex

　　(C) general

　　(D) recent

　　345. Engraving, which grew out of the goldsmith's art, originated in Germany and northern Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. It is an intaglio process (from Italian intagliare, "to carve") . The image is incised into a highly polished metal plate, usually copper, with a cutting instrument, or burin.

　　The word "incised" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) burned

　　(B) cut

　　(C) framed

　　(D) baked

346. Both woodcut and engraving have distinctive characteristics. Engraving lends itself to subtle modeling and shading through the use of fine lines.

　　The word "distinctive" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) unique

　　(B) accurate

　　(C) irregular

　　(D) similar

　　347. Both methods can yield several hundred good-quality prints before the original block or plate begins to show signs of wear.

　　The word "yield" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) imitate

　　(B) produce

　　(C) revise

　　(D) contrast

　　348. But not all animal parents, even those that tend their offspring to the point of hatching or birth, feed their young.

　　The word "tend" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) sit on

　　(B) move

　　(C) notice

　　(D) care for

　　349. Few insects feed their young after hatching, but some make other arrangement,provisioning their cells and nests with caterpillars and spiders that they have paralyzed with their venom and stored in a state of suspended animation so that their larvae might have a supply of fresh food when they hatch.

　　The word "provisioning" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) supplying

　　(B) preparing

　　(C) building

　　(D) expanding

　　350. For animals other than mammals, then, feeding is not intrinsic to parental care. Animals add it to their reproductive strategies to give them an edge in their lifelong quest for descendants.

　　The word "edge" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) opportunity

　　(B) advantage

　　(C) purpose

　　(D) rest

351. Young that are fed by their parents become nutritionally independent at a much greater fraction of their full adult size. And in the meantime those young are shielded against the vagaries of fluctuating of difficult-to-find supplies.

　　The word "shielded" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) raised

　　(B) protected

　　(C) hatched

　　(D) valued

　　352. A second, more dense atmosphere, however, gradually enveloped Earth as gasses from molten rocks within its hot interior escaped through volcanoes and steam vents.

　　The word "enveloped" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) surrounded

　　(B) changed

　　(C) escaped

　　(D) characterized

　　353. With much of the water vapor already condensed into water and the concentration of carbon dioxide dwindling, the atmosphere gradually became rich nitrogen.

　　The word "gradually" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) accidentally

　　(B) quickly

　　(C) in the end

　　(D) by degrees

　　354. At any rate, plant growth greatly enriched our atmosphere with oxygen. The reason for this enrichment is that plants, in the presence of sunlight, process carbon dioxide and water to produce oxygen.

　　The word "At any rate" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) regardless

　　(B) in addition

　　(C) although unlikely

　　(D) fortunately

　　355. Over 25,000 islands are scattered across the surface of the Pacific, more than in all the other oceans combined, but their land area adds up to little more than 125,000 square kilometers, about the size of New York State, and their inhabitants total less than two million people, about a quarter of the number that live in New York City.

　　The word "scattered" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) widely known

　　(B) usually estimated

　　(C) rarely inhabited

　　(D) irregularly distributed

356. Many are uninhabitable, by virtue of their small size and particular characteristics, but even the most favored are very isolated fragments of land, strictly circumscribed by the ocean, strictly limited in terms of the numbers of people they can support.

　　The phrase "by virtue of" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) regarding

　　(B) because of

　　(C) taking advantage of

　　(D) in place of

　　The word "circumscribed" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) located

　　(B) flooded

　　(C) restricted

　　(D) pushed

　　357. Simply surviving those ocean crossings of indeterminatelength, in open canoes, to arrive on the shores of uninhabited and hitherto unknown islands, was a formidable achievement.

　　The word "indeterminate" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) undecided

　　(B) uncertain

　　(C) unacceptable

　　(D) increasing

　　358. The Rosetta stone thwarted scholars' efforts for several decades until the early nineteenth century when several key hieroglyphic phrases were decoded using the Greek inscriptions.

　　The word "thwarted" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) continued

　　(B) influenced

　　(C) encouraged

　　(D) frustrated

　　359. Lichens, probably the hardiest of all plants, live where virtually nothing else can--- not just on rugged mountain peaks but also on sunbaked desert rocks.

　　The word "hardest" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) most unusual

　　(B) most basic

　　(C) most abundant

　　(D) most vigorous

　　360. Unlike other members of the plant kingdom, lichens are actually a partnership between two plants. The framework of a lichen is usually a network of minute hairlike fungus that anchors the plant.

　　The word "framework" is closest in meaning to which of following?

　　(A) structure

　　(B) continued

　　(C) condition

　　(D) environment