Times: 55 minutes Directions: In this section you will read several passages. Each one is followed by several questions about it. For questions 1-50, you are to choose the one best answer, (A), (B), (C), or (D), to each question. Then, on your ‘answer sheet, find the number of the question and fill in the space that corresponds to the letter of the answer you have chosen.
Answer all questions following a passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage. Read the following passage:
The railroad was not the first institution to impose regularity on society, or to draw attention to the importance of precise timekeeping. For as long as merchants have set out their wares at daybreak and communal festivities have been celebrated, people have been in rough agreement with their neighbors as to the time of day. The value of this tradition is today more apparent than ever. Were it not for public acceptance of a single yardstick of time, social life would be unbearably chaotic: the massive daily transfers of goods, services, and information would proceed in fits and starts; the very fabric of modem society would begin to unravel.
Example IWhat is the main idea of the passage? (A) In modem society we must make more time for our neighbors. (B) The traditions of society are timeless. (C) An accepted way of measuring time is essential for the smooth functioning of society. (D) Society judges people by the times at which they conduct certain activities.
The main idea of the passage is that societies need to agree about how time is to be measured in order to function smoothly. Therefore, you should choose (C).
Example II In line 5, the phrase “this tradition” refers to (A) the practice of starting the business day at dawn (B) friendly relations between neighbors (C) the railroad’s reliance on time schedules (0) people’s agreement on the measurement of time
The phrase “this tradition” refers to the preceding clause, “people have been in rough agreement with their neighbors as to the time of day.” Therefore, you should choose (D).
Now begin work on the questions.
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Question 1- 9
In the 1500’s when the Spanish moved into what later was to become the
southwestern United States, they encountered the ancestors of the modern-day Pueblo,
Hopi, and Zuni peoples. These ancestors, known variously as the Basket Makers, the
Anasazi, or the Ancient Ones, had lived in the area for at least 2,000 years. They were
(5) an advanced agricultural people who used irrigation to help grow their crops.
The Anasazi lived in houses constructed of adobe and wood. Anasazi houses were
originally built in pits and were entered from the roof. But around the year 700 A.D.,
the Anasazi began to build their homes above ground and join them together into
rambling multistoried complexes, which the Spanish called pueblos or villages.
Separate subterranean rooms in these pueblos – known as kivas or chapels – were set
(10) aside for religious ceremonials. Each kiva had a fire pit and a hole that was believed to
lead to the underworld. The largest pueblos had five stories and more than 800 rooms.
The Anasazi family was matrilinear; that is, descent was traced through the female.
The sacred objects of the family were under the control of the oldest female, but the
actual ceremonies were conducted by her brother, or son. Women owned the rooms in
(15) the pueblo and the crops, once they were harvested. While still growing, crops
belonged to the men, who, in contrast to most other Native American groups, planted
them. The women made baskets and pottery; the men wove textile and crafted
turquoise jewelry.
Each village had two chiefs. The village chief dealt with land disputes and
(20) religious affairs. The war chief led the men in fighting during occasional conflicts that
broke out with neighboring villages and directed the men in community building
projects. The cohesive political and social organization of the Anasazi made it almost
impossible for other groups to conquer them.
1. The Anasazi people were considered “agriculturally advanced” because of the way they
2. The word “pits” in line 7 is closest in meaning to
3. The word “stories” in line 12 is closest in meaning to
4. Who would have been most likely to control the sacred objects of an Anasazi family?
5. The word “they” in line 16 refers to
6. The word “disputes” in line 20 is closest in meaning to
7. Which of the following activities was NOT done by Anasazi men?
8. According to the passage, what made it almost impossible for other groups to conquer the Anasazi ?
9. The passage supports which of the following generalizations?
Questions 10-19
Barbed wire, first patented in the United States in 1867, played an important part in
the development of American farming, as it enabled the settlers to make effective
fencing to enclose their land and keep cattle away from their crops. This had a
(5) considerable effect on cattle ranching, since the herds no longer had unrestricted use of
the plains for grazing, and the fencing led to conflict between the farmers and the cattle
ranchers.
Before barbed wire came into general use, fencing was often made from serrated
wire, which was unsatisfactory because it broke easily when under strain, and could
snap in cold weather due to contraction. The first practical machine for producing
(10) barbed wire was invented in 1874 by an Illinois farmer, and between then and the end
of the century about 400 types of barbed wire were devised, of which only about a
dozen were ever put to practical use.
Modern barbed wire is made from mild steel, high-tensile steel, or aluminum. Mild
steel and aluminum barbed wire have two strands twisted together to form a cable that
(15) is stronger than single-strand wire and less affected by temperature changes. Single
strand wire, round or oval, is made from high-tensile steel with the barbs crimped or
welded on. The steel wires used are galvanized – coated with zinc to make them
rustproof. The two wires that make up the line wire or cable are fed separately into a
machine at one end. They leave it at the other end twisted together and barbed.The
(20) wire to make the barbs is fed into the machine from the sides and cut to length by
knives that cut diagonally through the wire to produce a sharp point. This process
continues automatically, and the finished barbed wire is wound onto reels, usually
made of wire, in lengths of 400 meters or in weights of up to 50 kilograms.
A variation of barbed wire is also used for military purposes. It is formed into long
coils or entanglements called concertina wire.
10. What is the main topic of the passage?
11. The word “unrestricted” in line 4 is closest in meaning to
12. The word “snap” in line 9 could best be replaced by which of the following?
13. What is the benefit of using two-stranded barbed wire?
14. According to the author, the steel wires used to make barbed wire are specially processed to
15. The word “fed” in line 20 is closest in meaning to
16. The knives referred to in line 21 are used to
17. What is the author’s purpose in the third paragraph?
18. According to the passage, concertina wire is used for
19. Which of the following most closely resembles the fencing described in the passage?
Questions 20-28
Under certain circumstances, the human body must cope with gases at greater-than
normal atmospheric pressure. For example, gas pressures increase rapidly during a dive
made with scuba gear because the breathing equipment allows divers to stay
underwater longer and dive deeper. The pressure exerted on the human body increases
(5) by 1 atmosphere for every 10 meters of depth in seawater, so that at 30 meters in
seawater a diver is exposed to a pressure of about 4 atmospheres. The pressure of the
gases being breathed must equal the external pressure applied to the body; otherwise
breathing is very difficult. Therefore all of the gases in the air breathed by a scuba
diver at 40 meters are present at five times their usual pressure. Nitrogen, which
composes 80 percent of the air we breathe, usually causes a balmy feeling of
(10) well-being at this pressure. At a depth of 5 atmospheres, nitrogen causes symptoms
resembling alcohol intoxication, known as nitrogen narcosis. Nitrogen narcosis
apparently results from a direct effect on the brain of the large amounts of nitrogen
dissolved in the blood. Deep dives are less dangerous if helium is substituted for
nitrogen, because under these pressures helium does not exert a similar narcotic effect.
(15) As a scuba diver descends, the pressure of nitrogen in the lungs increases. Nitrogen
then diffuses from the lungs to the blood, and from the blood to body tissues. The
reverse occurs when the diver surfaces; the nitrogen pressure in the lungs falls and the
nitrogen diffuses from the tissues into the blood, and from the blood into the lungs. If
the return to the surface is too rapid, nitrogen in the tissues and blood cannot diffuse out
(20) rapidly enough and nitrogen bubbles are formed. They can cause severe pains,
particularly around the joints.
Another complication may result if the breath is held during ascent. During ascent
from a depth of 10 meters, the volume of air in the lungs will double because the air
pressure at the surface is only half of what it was at 10 meters. This change in volume
(25) may cause the lungs to distend and even rupture. This condition is called air embolism.
To avoid this event, a diver must ascend slowly, never at a rate exceeding the rise of the
exhaled air bubbles, and must exhale during ascent.
20. What does the passage mainly discuss?
21. The words “exposed to” in line 6 are closest in meaning to
22. The word “exert” in line 15 is closest in meaning to
23. The word “diffuses” in line 19 is closest in meaning to
24. What happens to nitrogen in body tissues if a diver ascends too quickly?
25. The word “they” in line 21 refers to
26. The word ” rupture ” in line 26 is closest in meaning to
27. It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following presents the greatest danger to a diver?
28. What should a diver do when ascending?
Questions 29-38
Each advance in microscopic technique has provided scientists with new perspective,
on the function of living organisms and the nature of matter itself. The invention of the
visible-light microscope late in the sixteenth century introduced a previously unknown realm
of single-celled plants and animals. In the twentieth century, electron microscopes
have provided direct views of viruses and minuscule surface structures. Now another
(5) type of microscope, one that utilizes X rays rather than light or electrons, offers a
different way of examining tiny details; it should extend human perception still farther
into the natural world.
The dream of building an X-ray microscope dates to 1895; its development, however,
was virtually halted in the 1940’s because the development of the electron microscope
(10) was progressing rapidly. During the 1940’s electron microscopes routinely achieved
resolution better than that possible with a visible-light microscope, while the
performance of X-ray microscopes resisted improvement. In recent years, however,
interest in X-ray microscopes has revived, largely because of advances such as the
development of new sources of X-ray illumination. As a result, the brightness available
today is millions of times that of X-ray tubes, which, for most of the century, were the
(15) only available sources of soft X rays.
The new X-ray microscopes considerably improve on the resolution provided by
optical microscopes. They can also be used to map the distribution of certain chemical
elements. Some can form pictures in extremely short times; others hold the promise of
special capabilities such as three-dimensional imaging. Unlike conventional electron
(20) microscopy, X-ray microscopy enables specimens to be kept in air and in water, which
means that biological samples can be studied under conditions similar to their natural
state. The illumination used, so-called soft X rays in the wavelength range of twenty to
forty angstroms (an angstrom is one ten-billionth of a meter), is also sufficiently
penetrating to image intact biological cells in many cases. Because of the wavelength of
the X rays used, soft X-ray microscopes will never match the highest resolution possible
(25) with electron microscopes. Rather, their special properties will make possible
investigations that will complement those performed with light- and electron-based instruments.
29. What does the passage mainly discuss?
30. According to the passage, the invention of the visible-light microscope allowed scientists to
31. The word “minuscule” in line 5 is closest in meaning to
32. The word “it” in line 7 refers to
33. Why does the author mention the visible-light microscope in the first paragraph?
34. Why did it take so long to develop the X-ray microscope?
35. The word “enables” in line 22 is closest in meaning to
36. The word “Rather” in line 28 is closest in meaning to
37. The word “those” in line 29 refers to
38. Based on the information in the passage, what can be inferred about X-ray microscopes in the future?
Questions 39-50
Perhaps the most striking quality of satiric literature is its freshness, its originality of
perspective. Satire rarely offers original ideas. Instead, it presents the familiar in a new
form. Satirists do not offer the world new philosophies. What they do is look at
familiar conditions from a perspective that makes these conditions seem foolish,
harmful, or affected. Satire jars us out of complacence into a pleasantly shocked
(5) realization that many of the values we unquestioningly accept are false. Don Quixote
makes chivalry seem absurd; Brave New World ridicules the pretensions of science; A
Modest Proposal dramatizes starvation by advocating cannibalism. None of these ideas
is original. Chivalry was suspect before Cervantes, humanists objected to the claims of
pure science before Aldous Huxley, and people were aware of famine before Swift. It
was not the originality of the idea that made these satires popular. It was the manner of
(10) expression, the satiric method, that made them interesting and entertaining. Satires are
read because they are aesthetically satisfying works of art, not because they are morally
wholesome or ethically instructive. They are stimulating and refreshing because with
commonsense briskness they brush away illusions and secondhand opinions. With
spontaneous irreverence, satire rearranges perspectives, scrambles familiar objects into
incongruous juxtaposition, and speaks in a personal idiom instead of abstract platitude.
(15) Satire exists because there is need for it. It his lived because readers appreciate a
refreshing stimulus, an irreverent reminder that they live in a world of platitudinous
thinking, cheap moralizing, and foolish philosophy. Satire serves to prod people into an
awareness of truth, though rarely to any action on behalf of truth. Satire tends to
remind people that much of what they see, hear, and read in popular media is
sanctimonious, sentimental, and only partially true. Life resembles in only a slight
(20) degree the popular image of it. Soldiers rarely hold the ideals that movies attribute to
them, nor do ordinary citizens devote their lives to unselfish service of humanity.
Intelligent people know these things but tend to forget them when they do not hear them
expressed.
39. What does the passage mainly discuss?
40.The word “realization” in line 6 is closest in meaning to
41. Why does the author mention Don Quixote, Brave New World, and A Modest Proposal in lines 6-8?
42. The word “aesthetically” in line 13 is closest in meaning to
43. Which of the following can be found in satiric literature?
44. According to the passage, there is a need for satire because people need to be
45. The word “refreshing” in line 19 is closest ill meaning to
46. The word “they” in line 22 refers to
47. The word “devote” in line 25 is closest in meaning to
48. As a result of reading satiric literature, readers will be most likely to
49. The various purposes of satire include all of the following EXCEPT
50. Why does the author mention “service of humanity” in line 25?