Q7

[Mab6q]

I really had a hard time with this question, because I felt like there was great support for B. If we only read the sentence before the last, it makes sense that D would be the answer, but I thought the author was making a bigger point about how burning changed the tropic forests to pine forests, and this also happened in the lower parts of the Caribbean and Mexico. The "succession" was the transition from tropics to pines. I felt the inclusion of the land returning to mixed hardwoods was simply to reinforce the idea that the burning was causing pine forests. I don't know, I just feel like you could make a good case for B. Am I missing something here guys?

[maryadkins]

"This succession" is going to refer to the most recent succession discussed in the passage. That's the transition from pines back to hardwoods which is discussed from line 50 to line 57. The transition to pines is discussed earlier, too distant (line 44) from "this succession" for it to be referring to it. (Note that the earlier discussion of the existence of pines is not really presented as a succession anyway, more as a phenomenon.)