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"The rock was still wet. The animal was glistening, like it was still swimming," recalls Hou Xianguang. Hou discovered the unusual fossil while surveying rocks as a paleontology graduate student in 1984, near the Chinese town of Chengjiang. "My teachers always talked about the Burgress Shale animals. It looked like one of them. My hands began to shake." Hoe had indeed found a Naraoia like those from Canada. However, Hou's animal was 15 million years older than it's Canadian relatives.

In the passage,

"Surveying" most nearly means:

a) calculating the value of

b) examining comprehensively

c) determining the boundaries of

d) polling randomly

e) conducting a statistical study of

Answer: