Directions: Study the following information carefully and answer the question given below.
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
At 3,200 metres along the wind-scoured ridges of the Ecuadorian cloud forest, Dr. Clara Morales paused to steady her breath against the thin Andean air. Around her, gnarled Podocarpus trees were smothered in thick cushions of moss, liverworts, and iridescent bromeliads—an ecosystem sustained by the perpetual drift of Pacific fog. For three weeks, Clara had followed the cryptic field diaries of a Victorian collector who had briefly sketched an unclassified epiphytic orchid in 1884 before succumbing to yellow fever in Guayaquil. Academic peers in Quito had dismissed her expedition as quixotic romanticism, insisting that commercial timber roads had extinguished whatever endemic flora remained in these fragmented highlands.
Yet as the afternoon sun fractured through the churning mist, Clara caught a flicker of intense cinnabar-red nestled high on a lichen-draped branch. Scrambling up the slick, decomposing trunk with trembling fingers, she shone her loupe upon the blossom. It possessed a delicate, fringed labellum and a nectar spur curving in an exquisite mathematical spiral. It was unmistakable: the lost orchid had endured in this razor-thin microclimatic refuge, undisturbed by centuries of human tumult. Holding the specimen with scientific reverence, Clara felt not triumph, but a humbling awareness of nature’s stubborn persistence in the precarious margins of survival.
What was the scientific objective of Dr. Clara Morales's arduous expedition into the Ecuadorian cloud forest?
💡 Solution & Explanation:
Correct Answer: (A)
Core Concept: Reading Comprehension — Detail Retrieval
Step-by-Step Solution:
1. Paragraph 1 explains that Clara was following 'the cryptic field diaries of a Victorian collector who had briefly sketched an unclassified epiphytic orchid in 1884...'
2. This matches option (A).
3. Options B, C, and D are contradicted by the text.
Key Shortcut / Exam Tip: Identify Clara's quest mentioned in the opening paragraph.