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 I What 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
(D) 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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Questions 1-10
The ballpoint pen is the universal writing instrument of the twentieth century.
When the tiny metal ball at the writing tip is drawn across a sheet of paper, it
rotates within a housing at the end of an ink reservoir and is coated with ink,
which it transfers to the paper.
(5) The first ballpoint pen was invented by John Loud in 1888. Loud has been
working on a design for a nonleaking pen to mark leather and fabrics and,
although his cumbersome design was similar in essence to the modern item, it
was never manufactured in large quantities and the patent was allowed to expire.
The first workable design was patented in 1938 and became widely accepted in
(10) 1942 when the United States Army required a pen that would not leak in high-
flying aircraft.
The ball of the pen is fitted into a socket so that it rotates freely. Several
internal ducts in the socket feed ink to the ball; the other end of the socket is
fitted onto a metal or plastic tube that contains the ink. When the ball is pressed
(15) on paper and moved, the capillary action draws the ink from the reservoir. In
effect, the ball functions as a valve to prevent overflow, and on rotation it acts as a
suction pump drawing out the ink.
One problem was that as some of the ink ran out, a partial vacuum was
formed between the back of the ball and ink reservoir, which cut off the supply.
(20) This was solved by making a small hole at the far end of the reservoir. As the ink
at the tip is sucked out, more ink from the tube is drawn into the socket to fill its
place, the vacuum being prevented by air that is drawn through the vent.
Disposable ballpoints have improved considerably in efficiency and reliability
since 1938. Further improvements made recently include the production of a pen
(25) that writes at any angle, even upside down, and the development of a new ink
that is erasable.
1. The word “it” in line 2 refers to
17. According to the passage, which of the following modes of transportation was negatively affected by motor vehicles?
33. The word “readily” in line 7 is closest in meaning to
49. Which of the following terms is defined in the passage?
2. The word “housing” in line 3 is closest in meaning to
18. The passage suggests that a major advantage of the internal-combustion engine was its
34. According to the passage, Impressionism is regarded historically as
50. The phrase “this pattern” in line 22 refers to
3. It can be inferred from the passage that there was interest in designing a new type of pen because the old ones
19. The author identifies all of the following as contributors to the “social revolution” of the 1920’s EXCEPT
35. In line 15 the word “It” refers to
4. The word “expire” in line 8 is closest in meaning to
20. Where in the passage does the author give an example of a technological advance that led to a demand for improvement in another area?
36. Which of the following words does NOT refer to something that holds paint?
5. It can be inferred that the ballpoint pen first gained popularity among
Questions 21-30
Astronomers have long used direct photography to gather large amounts of
information from telescopes. To do this, they have special light-sensitive coatings
on glass plates, whose size depends on the type of telescope employed. Certain
wide-field telescopes commonly required very large glass plates. These plates do
(5) not bend, can be measured accurately, and can preserve information over a long
period of time, providing a record that an astronomer at a later time can examine.
However, even though long time exposures increase the amount of light striking
the plate so that very faint objects in the sky eventually show up clearly, even the
most sensitive plates convert only a small percent of the photons striking them
(10) into an image. For this reason, photography cannot make very efficient use of
short time exposures on a telescope. Despite this inefficiency, photography is still
very useful because it works as a two-dimensional detector covering a large area
at a telescope’s focus. Hence, the information contained in a single photograph
can be enormous, especially when the photograph is taken with wide-field
(15) telescopes.
Today, the technology of newer radio and x-ray telescopes has allowed
astronomers to view images otherwise invisible to the eye, and direct
photography is now used less often to gather images. Today’s astronomers can
study an enhanced view of a telescope’s focus on a television monitor; and in
(20) most cases, the data can later be converted by computer into digital form. This
procedure, called image processing, plays a central role in astronomy today.
Using false colors, the computer can display images of information otherwise
undetectable to the unaided eye. These colors are false in the sense that they are
not the actual colors of the object in the visual range of the spectrum. Rather,
(25) they are codes to a specific property, such as the x-ray emissions from stars.
21. What is the main topic of the passage?
37. What contribution did chemists make to the Impressionist movement?
6. Which of the following statements is true of the ball in a ballpoint pen?
22. The word “employed” in line 3 is closest in meaning to
38. It can be inferred that Impressionist paintings differed from other nineteenth-century paintings in terms of which of the following?
7. The author mentions a “suction pump” in line 17 to indicate a function of the
23. The word “efficient” in line 10 is closest in meaning to
39. Where in the passage does the author mention two new technologies available to artists in the nineteenth century?
8. The word “which” in line 19 refers to
24. Which of the following is NOT mentioned as an advantage of glass-plate photographs?
Questions 40-50
Radiocarbon dating and tree-ring dating, in combination, have provided
a very powerful tool to establish a time spectrum for more recent dates in the
past. The initial idea for dating by tree rings can be traced back to 1811. Modern
scientific tree-ring dating, dendrochronology, stems from pioneering work in
(5) early 1900’s.
Usually, but not always, trees produce one ring each year. This ring is formed by
the cambium, which lies between the old wood and the bark. In spring,
wood cells with large lumens are manufactured, but in summer and autumn,
the cells become smaller and more thick-walled until with the onset of winter
(10) the production of a new cell stops. The same process is repeated the following
year. In this way a year’s growth (annual ring) is imprinted as new wood. The
demarcation line between summer and autumn wood of the previous year, with
its characteristic small cells, and the spring wood of the year following, with its
large cells, enables annual rings to be counted relatively easily.
(15) Growth rings, however, are not always the same thickness. They vary for
several reasons. Environmental factors rigidly control the degree of growth of an
annual ring or determine whether, in fact, an annual ring appears at all in any
particular year. Thus in a specific locale or, more accurately, a specific climatic
province, tree-ring counts will reflect climatic conditions and variations due to
(20) inequalities of climate from year to year. In years with abnormal drought, for
example, narrow rings are produced and sometimes no ring at all. In this way a
fossil record is imprinted for as long as the wood remains intact. From this pattern
a historical template can be constructed to correlate one set of growth rings in
one tree with a set of growth rings in another tree or piece of timber.
(25) Another important factor is that tree-ring growth varies with age of the tree.
As the tree matures, the rings become narrower, and this results in the central
rings being wider than those on the outer part of the tree.
40. What does the passage mainly discuss?
9. What was the purpose of the small hole mentioned in line 20?
25. Astronomers most probably use direct photography less frequently today than in the past because
41. The word “stems” in line 4 is closest in meaning to
10. Until recently one limitation of ballpoint pens was
26. What is image processing?
42. The approximate age of a tree can be determined by
Questions 11-20
By the 1920’s in the United States, great change had been made in daily life
by an accumulation of inventions that had been produced in increasing numbers
since the Civil War. These technological innovations created what, in effect, was a
social revolution.
(5) Improvements in communications served to knit more closely citizens of
diverse ethnic and political backgrounds. Rapid printing presses, typesetting
devices, and page-plate processes made printed matter more widely accessible.
The telephone simplified person-to-person communication. The phonograph,
the silent motion picture, the radio, and the sound picture for the first time made
(10) auditory and visual impact simultaneously possible over the whole country and
had the inevitable, and perhaps undesirable, effect of establishing a trend to
national conformity in thought and feeling. One could call this revolution the
nationalization of thought and taste.
Improvements in transportation made all parts of the country less remote from
(15) each other when measured by the time required to go from one place to another.
Bicycles and trolleys put the nation on wheels. Then the automobile provided the
means for speed and mobility, now so dear to Americans, and brought a demand
for better highways. By the 1920’s cargo trucks were beginning to cut into railroad
revenues, and the latest wonder, the airplane, was a fairly common sight.
(20) The transport revolution was made possible by the development and
perfection of new engines and motors. The internal-combustion engine, using
gasoline or oil, could be built in compact power units admirably suited to
automobiles, aircraft, and boats. The use of electricity, generated by water power
or coal-burning plants, simplified the problems of mechanical power for industrial
(25) use and made electrical illumination commonplace in cities, indoors and out.
Electricity also powered an increasing variety of domestic appliances.
11. The passage focuses on the United States in the 1920’s primarily in terms of the
27. The word “undetectable” in line 23 is closest in meaning to
43. The word “onset” in line 9 is closest in meaning to
12. The word “knit” in line 5 is closest in meaning to
28. Why do computer-generated images use false colors?
44. The word “enables” in line 14 is closest in meaning to
13. The word “accessible” in line 7 is closest in meaning to
29. Why does the author mention “x-ray emissions” in line 25?
45. The word “They” in line 15 refers to
14. According to the author, expanded communications led to a decrease in
30. Where in the passage does the author mention a disadvantage of photography?
46. According to the passage, the production of rings from year to year in any given tree is
15. The words “each other” in line 15 refer to
Questions 31-39
The artistic movement known as Impressionism was first identified in
1874 when a group of artists, dissatisfied with the reception of their works by the
academic art establishment of their period, chose to hold a separate exhibition of
their paintings.
(5) Despite obvious differences in style, all of these painters were connected
by an ability to catch a moment and preserve it on canvas, and in their belief
in the importance of that moment. They readily accepted and made use of the
technological advances available to them, and in the end became recognized
as proponents of one of the most significant movements in the history of art, a
(10) movement that produced an aesthetic revolution in art.
Several technological breakthroughs were responsible, to some degree, for
the creation and execution of the new Impressionist style. One of these was the
invention of a new brush that gave artists greater control. Another useful invention
was the collapsible tin tube. This easily reclosed container preserved the oil paint
(15) in a stable condition without altering the color. It was a great improvement over
animal bladders, which had been used for centuries to hold oil paint. The new
tube was portable and made it possible for artists to work outside. This freedom
made it possible for Impressionist paintings to “capture the moment,” giving them
a feeling of immediacy.
(20) Another innovation was color. Nineteenth-century chemists had created a new
palette of colors, derived from cola tar and other substances. These were first used
by textile manufacturers and then adopted by artists. They included some of the
brighter colors – new shades of blue, green, and yellow, whose tones gave the
Impressionist paintings their characteristic shimmering quality.
31. What did the group of Impressionist artists do in 1874?
47. The word “reflect” in line 19 is closest in meaning to
16. The word “mobility” in line 17 is closest in meaning to
32. The word “it” in line 6 refers to
48. A narrow growth ring between two wide growth rings would probably indicate