Also in 2026 Practice Test B English, question 6.
Passage Excerpt from “The Past and the Future of the Earth’s Oldest Trees”
Excerpt from “The Past and the Future of the Earth’s Oldest Trees”
by Alex Ross
About forty-five hundred years ago, not long after the completion of the Great Pyramid at Giza, a seed of Pinus longaeva, the Great Basin bristlecone pine, landed on a steep slope in what are now known as the White Mountains, in eastern California. The seed may have travelled there on a gust of wind, its flight aided by a winglike attachment to the nut. Or it could have been planted by a bird known as the Clark’s nutcracker, which likes to hide pine seeds in caches; nutcrackers have phenomenal spatial1 memory and can recall thousands of such caches. This seed, however, lay undisturbed. On a moist day in fall, or in the wake of melting snows in spring, a seedling appeared above ground—a stubby one-inch stem with a tuft of bright-green shoots.
Most seedlings die within a year; the mortality rate is more than ninety-nine percent. The survivors are sometimes seen growing in the shadow of a fallen tree. The landscape of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, as this area of the White Mountains is called, is littered with fragments of dead trees—trunks, limbs, roots, and smaller chunks. Pinus longaeva grows exclusively in subalpine regions of the Great Basin, which stretches from the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada to the Wasatch Range, in Utah. Conditions are generally too arid for the dead wood to rot; instead, it erodes, sanded down like rock. The remnants may harbor nutrients and fungi that help new trees grow. Bristlecones rise from the bones of their ancestors—a city within a cemetery.
Coast redwoods and giant sequoias, California’s gargantuan world-record-holding trees, can grow fifty feet or more in their first twenty years. Bristlecones rise agonizingly slowly. After four or five years, the seedling on the steep slope would have been just a few inches higher, sprouting needles in place of the embryonic shoots. The needles are a deep green, tough, resinous, and closely bunched in groups of five. On a mature tree, they live for fifty years or more. Decades may have passed before the tree was human height, and decades more before it resembled a conventional pine. Bristlecone saplings grow straight up, with relatively sparse foliage, looking like undernourished Christmas trees. After a few hundred years—by which time the Old Kingdom of Egypt had fallen—it was probably forty or fifty feet in height.
Many tree species live for hundreds of years. A smaller but not inconsiderable number, including the sequoias and certain yews, oaks, cypresses, and junipers, survive for thousands. Once a bristlecone has established itself in the unforgiving conditions of the White Mountains, it can last almost indefinitely. The trees tend to grow some distance from one another, so fires almost never destroy an entire stand. Because only a few other plant species can handle the dry, cold climate, the bristlecones face little competition. Unlike most plants, they tolerate dolomite soil, which is composed of a chalky type of limestone that is heavily alkaline and low in nutrients. As for insect threats, bristlecone wood is so dense that mountain-pine beetles and other pests can rarely burrow their way into it.
Empires rose and fell; wars raged; . . . and the tree from 2500 B.C. continued its implacable slow-motion existence, adding about two-hundredths of an inch to the diameter of its trunk each year. Minute changes in the tree-ring record make bristlecones an exceptionally useful source of data about changing conditions on Earth. When rains are heavier than normal, the rings widen. When volcanic eruptions cause global cooling, frost rings make the anomaly2 visible. . . .
As the millennia go by, bristlecones become contorted and wraithlike.3 The main stem, or leader, dies back. Entire branches, even the trunk itself, become fossils. At first glance, the tree may look dead. Such is the case of the forty-five-hundred-year-old tree that clings to life near the tourist path that now runs through the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. Spears of dead wood jut into the air. The trunk is a marbled hulk stripped of bark, like driftwood thrown from a vanished ocean. A ribbon of live bark runs up one side, funneling water and nutrients to clumps of green needles high above. All told, the tree is an unprepossessing specimen; most people march past it without giving it a second glance. . . .
. . . No two super-elderly trees look alike, to the point where they have acquired the characteristics of individuals. Trees are prone to anthropomorphism; we project our dreams and our anxieties onto them. Bristlecones have been called elders, sentinels, sages. The possibility that climate change will cause their extinction has inspired a spate4 of alarmed news stories, although tree scientists tend to discount the idea that the bristlecones are in immediate danger. They have survived any number of catastrophes in the past; they may survive humanity.
From “The Past and the Future of the Earth’s Oldest Trees” by Alex Ross from THE NEW YORKER, January 20, 2020. Copyright © 2020 by Condé Nast. All rights reserved.
1spatial: relating to physical space
2anomaly: oddity
3wraithlike: ghostly
4spate: sudden abundance
Question
What is the best summary of the bristlecone pine’s life cycle?
- AThe bristlecone pine takes root as a stubby seedling in the mountains. Over time, it grows slowly in a hostile environment with alkaline soil that ensures little competition from other trees.
- BThe bristlecone pine grows up slowly from the fragments of its dead ancestors. Over time, it begins to become contorted in appearance but continues to funnel water and nutrients to its stem.
- CThe bristlecone pine grows slowly in an environment hostile to other trees. Over time, its trunk and some branches fossilize, but it funnels water and nutrients to other parts that are still alive.
- DThe bristlecone pine grows only in one location in the mountains. Over time, it develops sparse foliage that fossilizes slowly, but the trunk and branches stay alive, as revealed by ribbons of live bark.
Show the answer
Correct answer: C
The question asks for the best summary of the bristlecone pine’s life cycle.
A. Incorrect. Though the summary in this option covers key points in the life cycle, it focuses on minor details (“stubby seedling” and “alkaline soil”) while leaving out major details of the life cycle (for example, the fact that parts of the trees become fossilized over time).
B. Incorrect. This option addresses the unique quality of the pine growing from “fragments of its dead ancestors”; however, it does not address the fossilization phase, which is a major part of the life cycle. In addition, this option incorrectly states that the tree continues to funnel nutrients to its stem.
C. CORRECT. The option describes the key phases of the pine’s life cycle without focusing on minor details. The organization of the summary is chronological, and the information presented is accurate.
D. Incorrect. The option focuses more on the location and the appearance of the pine than on the phases of the pine’s life cycle. The option also describes the pine’s appearance inaccurately: it says that the foliage fossilizes and the trunk and branches stay alive, but paragraph 6 says that “entire branches, even the trunk itself, become fossils.” It provides little information about the main phases of the pine’s life cycle.
Question analysis
This summary question asks students to choose the best summary of the life cycle of the Great Basin bristlecone pine, as described across Alex Ross’s excerpt about the Earth’s oldest trees. Each choice is two sentences long and sounds accurate, and the differences lie in which stages of the tree’s long life each one includes and how faithfully it reports them.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Summarizing a process is regular grade 7 work, but this life cycle unfolds across six paragraphs of dense description, and each choice is a two-sentence summary with accurate-sounding details, so spotting small omissions and errors takes more than typical care.
- Estimated difficulty
- Hard: combines ideas, needs a plan, and has more than one tempting wrong answer.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 3, strategic thinking · mainly understand
- What makes it hard
- Every choice must be checked major
- Evidence in several places moderate
- A very close wrong answer moderate
- Evidence
- Answered from the whole text
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 8, 851 words; question and choices: about grade 9, 141 words.
- Corrected from the DOE handbook
- An inaccurate statement in the explanation was corrected.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
A good summary of this life cycle has to reach old age, when the trunk and branches turn to fossil while a strip of bark keeps the tree alive, and it has to get that stage right. One wrong choice never gets past youth, another reaches old age but keeps the wrong part alive, and a third mixes up which parts fossilize. Recalling paragraph 6 exactly, with every choice two sentences long, is what makes the question slow.
Every choice must be checked major Choosing the answer
Each two-sentence summary sounds accurate, and its flaw is an omission or a wrong detail, such as nutrients sent to a stem that dies back or foliage that fossilizes, so every clause must be checked. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987)
Evidence in several places moderate Working it out
The life cycle runs across six paragraphs: the seedling in paragraph 1, the dead ancestors in 2, slow growth in 3, harsh conditions in 4, and fossilized wood with a live ribbon of bark in 6. (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990; Gorin & Embretson, 2006)
A very close wrong answer moderate Choosing the answer
The ancestors-and-stem summary has the key’s shape, slow growth, then decline, then water and nutrients still funneled; it differs in where they go, the stem, which paragraph 6 says “dies back.” (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2006; Ascalon et al., 2007)
Strategy: Before reading the choices, list the stages of the tree’s life from seed to old age with one detail each, then check every sentence of each summary against the passage.
Traps
- Too narrow: A single detail offered as the central idea or a summary, or a summary that keeps minor details and leaves out an essential part.
- Twists what the text says: Uses the text's topic and ideas but changes what it says: who did it, how much, when, or why.
- Half right: One half of a two-part choice is right and the other is not.
The wrong answers, classified
A Too narrow (King et al., 2004)
Covers only the tree’s youth, the stubby seedling and slow growth in poor alkaline soil, and stops before the fossilizing and the live strip of bark that mark its old age.
B Half right (King et al., 2004; Thissen, Steinberg & Fitzpatrick, 1989)
Starts accurately with growth among dead ancestors and a contorted old age, but sends water and nutrients to the stem, which dies back, and leaves out fossilization.
D Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Assembles real words from the excerpt, sparse foliage, fossils and live bark, but swaps which parts fossilize and shrinks a range across the Great Basin to one location.
What was corrected from the DOE handbook, and why
- Explanation: The handbook says Option D “contains an accurate description of the pine’s appearance.” It does not: Option D says the foliage fossilizes and the trunk and branches stay alive, but paragraph 6 says that “entire branches, even the trunk itself, become fossils,” as the correct answer, Option C, also says. The site now says that the option describes the pine’s appearance inaccurately.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This asks for the best summary of the bristlecone’s life cycle. A life cycle is the stages of a living thing’s life, from its start to old age. A good summary covers the main stages in order and gets each one right.
List the stages from the excerpt
- Young: the seedling grows “agonizingly slowly” (paragraph 3).
- Settled: it lives where few plants “can handle the dry, cold climate” (paragraph 4).
- Old: “The main stem, or leader, dies back,” and “Entire branches, even the trunk itself, become fossils” (paragraph 6).
- Still alive: “A ribbon of live bark runs up one side, funneling water and nutrients to clumps of green needles high above” (paragraph 6).
Explain the hard words
Hostile means unfriendly or harsh. To fossilize here means to turn into hard, dead wood, almost like stone. To funnel is to carry something along a narrow path. Contorted means twisted out of shape. Nutrients are the things a plant needs to grow. Foliage means leaves, which for a pine are its needles.
Check each choice
- A does not fit. It stops while the tree is young. It never reaches old age, when parts of the tree turn to fossil.
- B does not fit. The main stem “dies back,” so water is not sent to the stem. B also leaves out the fossil stage.
- C fits. It gives slow growth in a harsh place, then a fossilized trunk and branches, with water still carried to the living parts.
- D does not fit. Paragraph 2 says bristlecones grow in high areas across the Great Basin, a region that stretches into Utah. That is not one location. D also mixes up the parts: the trunk and branches turn to fossil, not the foliage.
Choose the answer
Only one summary reaches old age and gets every stage right. So the answer is C.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
B looks the most like the right answer. Like C, it moves from young growth to old age and has water and nutrients still flowing. But it sends them to the stem, and paragraph 6 says the stem “dies back.” C sends them to the parts still alive, which matches the ribbon of live bark.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Excerpt from “The Past and the Future of the Earth’s Oldest Trees”” as printed (pages 193–194)
