Though pollution is everywhere, there are ways to prevent it. by walking or riding bikes—instead of driving cars—people can decrease air pollution. people can also buy and eat organic foods to support farmers that do not use fertilizers on their crops. it is also a good idea to take old things that people intend to throw away and find new ways to use them. a great way to the environment is to recycle. save items like used paper, glass and plastic bottles, and metal cans. then, take them to a recycling center where they can be turned into new products to be used again. some cities and towns even have recycling programs in place so all you have to do is leave your recyclable items on the curb on a certain day each week. it doesn’t get much easier to the environment and reduce pollution than that! in paragraph 5, what point is the author making when he talks about ways to prevent pollution? a) simple changes can lead to big improvements for the environment. b) reusing old items in new ways can actually harm the environment. c) one person’s efforts will have little impact on the environment. d) it is easier to reduce air pollution than it is to reduce water pollution.

[1] nothing that comes from the desert expresses its extremes better than the unhappy growth of the tree yuccas. tormented, thin forests of it stalk drearily in the high mesas, particularly in that triangular slip that fans out eastward from the meeting of the sierras and coastwise hills. the yucca bristles with bayonet-pointed leaves, dull green, growing shaggy with age like an old [5] man's tangled gray beard, tipped with panicles of foul, greenish blooms. after its death, which is slow, the ghostly hollow network of its woody skeleton, with hardly power to rot, makes even the moonlight fearful. but it isn't always this way. before the yucca has come to flower, while yet its bloom is a luxurious, creamy, cone-shaped bud of the size of a small cabbage, full of sugary sap. the indians twist it deftly out of its fence of daggers and roast the prize for their [10] own delectation why does the author use the words "bayonet-pointed" (line 4) and "fence of daggers" (line 9) to describe the leaves of the yucca tree? . to create an image of the sharp edges of the plant to emphasize how beautiful the plant's leaves are to explain when and where the plant grows to show how afraid the author is of the plant