Read the passage and choose the best answer from the four options marked A, B, C orD in the following questions. Identify your answer by writing the corresponding letterA, B, C or D on your answer sheet. Several hundred million years ago, plants similar to modern ferns covered vast stretches ofthe land. Some were as large as trees, with giant fronds bunched at the top of trunks as straight aspillars. Others were the size of bushes and formed thickets of undergrowth. Still others lived inthe shade of giant club mosses and horsetails along the edges of swampy lagoons where giantamphibians swam.A great number of these plants were true ferns, reproducing themselves without fruits or seeds. Others had only the appearance of ferns. Their leaves had organs of sexual reproductionand produced seeds. Although their “flowers” did not have corollas, these false ferns (todaycompletely extinct) ushered in the era of flowering plants. Traces of these floras of the earliesttimes have been preserved in the form of fossils. Such traces are most commonly found in shaleand sandstone rocks wedged between coal beds.Today only tropical forests bear living proof of the ancient greatness of ferns. The speciesthat grow there are no longer those of the Carboniferous period, but their variety and vastnumbers, and the great size of some, remind us of the time when ferns ruled the plant kingdom. The author states that fossils of early plant life are usually found in rocks located betweendeposits of............

Read the passage and choose the best answer from the four options marked A, B, C or D in the following questions. Identify your answer by writing the corresponding letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet.
 Several hundred million years ago, plants similar to modern ferns covered vast stretches of the land. Some were as large as trees, with giant fronds bunched at the top of trunks as straight as pillars. Others were the size of bushes and formed thickets of undergrowth. Still others lived in the shade of giant club mosses and horsetails along the edges of swampy lagoons where giant amphibians swam. A great number of these plants were true ferns, reproducing themselves without fruits or seeds. Others had only the appearance of ferns. Their leaves had organs of sexual reproduction and produced seeds. Although their “flowers” did not have corollas, these false ferns (today completely extinct) ushered in the era of flowering plants. Traces of these floras of the earliest times have been preserved in the form of fossils. Such traces are most commonly found in shale and sandstone rocks wedged between coal beds.Today only tropical forests bear living proof of the ancient greatness of ferns. The species that grow there are no longer those of the Carboniferous period, but their variety and vast numbers, and the great size of some, remind us of the time when ferns ruled the plant kingdom.
The author states that fossils of early plant life are usually found in rocks located between deposits of............