Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the best option for each of the blanks.

THE FASTEST DINOSAUR

According to computer models that were used to estimate the running speed of dinosaurs, the Tyrannosaurus Rex would have been able to outrun a footballer. The study showed that the dinosaur could reach a top (24)______ of 8 metres a second, which is fractionally faster than the average professional footballer. There has been a lot of controversy (25)______ whether the Tyrannosaurus Rex was a predator or a scavenger; some believe that its highly developed sense of smell indicates that it was scavenger, while others say that its keen eyesight shows that it was a hunter. The (26) ______ group will appreciate the recent study, as a hunter is more likely to require such speed.

The University of Manchester study used a powerful supercomputer to calculatc the running speed of fivc-mcat eating dinosaurs and used data taken dircctly from dinosaur fossils, rather than referring to previous work on modern animals. The Tyrannosaurus Rex, however, was not the fastest dinosaur. A small dinosaur (27) ______ Compsognathus, which was about the size of a chicken, could run at 18 metres a second, which is faster than ostrich, the fastest two-legged animal today. It could run 100 metres in a little over six seconds, which would leave modern Olympic (28) ______ more than a third of the track behind.