Every culture that has adopted the cultivation of maize—also known as corn—has been radically changed by it. ███
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Assuming that all other relevant ███████ ████████ ███ █████ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ██ █████████ ██ █ ███████ ██ █████ ████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ███████████████ █████ ████ ██████ ████ ████ ███████ ██ █████████ ███████ ██ ████ █████ ███ ██████ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████
Water is split ████ ███ ███████████ ████████ ██ ███████████ ██████████████████████ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████ ██████
Splitting water into its constituent elements
An enzyme with █████ ██████ ██████ ████ ████████ ███ ████ ██ ████████
The advantage that C-4 plants have is their ability to keep oxygen from binding to rubisco. If a non-C-4 plant used some other enzyme that performs the same role as rubisco, but which oxygen is unable to bind to, then that plant would have the same advantage as a C-4 plant: oxygen can’t interfere with a key enzyme involved in photosynthesis.
The vascular structures ██ ███ ████ ██████ ███████████ ██ ████ ██████ ███████ ███ ███ ██████ ████
For this to give non-C-4 plants a similar advantage to what C-4 plants have (namely, the ability to keep oxygen from binding with rubisco), we’d need to know that rubisco is located somewhere on the other other side of those impermeable vascular structures, such that oxygen can’t reach it. But the author doesn’t say where rubisco is located in non-C-4 plants, so it’s unclear whether (C) would keep oxygen and rubisco apart. That’s enough to eliminate (C). And even if rubisco were located on the other side of the vascular structures, we’d now have the problem that carbon dioxide gas can’t reach rubisco—but
The specialized chlorophyll-containing ██████████ ██ █████ █████ ██ █████ ████████ ███ ████████ ██████████ ██ ███ █████
The advantage that C-4 plants have is their ability to keep oxygen from binding to rubisco. If a non-C-4 plant split water around the vascular structures of the leaf, as (D) says, then we’d have
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The role of rubisco is to