Multiple Choice, Single Answer (Reading) — practice #rmcsa-008

The introduction of cane toads to Australia in 1935 is often cited as a warning about well-intentioned interventions in nature. The toads were imported to control beetles that were damaging sugar cane crops, but they proved poorly suited to the task. Instead of eating the pests, they spread rapidly across the continent, breeding in vast numbers and poisoning native predators that tried to eat them. Snakes, lizards, and quolls suffered sharp declines wherever the toads advanced. Decades of effort to contain them, from fencing to community collection drives, have slowed but not reversed their march. Ecologists now point to the episode whenever a new species is proposed as a quick biological fix, arguing that organisms released into unfamiliar environments often behave in ways their promoters never anticipated, with consequences that can prove impossible to undo.