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Questions 1-9
Calvin Coolidge was President of the United States during the triumphant
reign of prosperity that made the twenties “golden,” and this prosperity had very
real roots. Although there had been a brief but sharp postwar depression in
1920 and 1921, American industry made a quick recovery. Largely responsible
(5) for the industrial boom that followed was the introduction of new products into
American life. For example, on the eve of the First World War, only half a million
automobiles were being produced annually, but during the twenties production
reached nearly five million units per year. Furthermore, the new auto industry
created demands on older industries for products such as rubber, copper, glass,
(10) steel, and fabrics. It called for the building of paved roads across the nation
and brought about the tremendous expansion of the oil and gasoline refining
industries, along with the construction of thousands of gasoline stations, which
broke out like a rash of measles over the countryside. Basic industries expanded
as well – coal, steel, machine tools, clothing, and, most dramatically of all, the new
(15) electric power industry.
For the first time, average citizens were buying cars, radios (another new and
booming industry), refrigerators, and a host of other new consumer products.
The poor seemed to be getting richer, and certainly the rich were getting richer.
For the well-to-do, the business civilization of the twenties seemed to promise all
(20) that could be expected “this side of paradise,” as F. Scott Fitzgerald titled one of his
most popular novels. But paradise in the twenties had two sides. On the far side
of paradise during the golden decade lived the majority of American farmers.
1. According to the passage, when did the United States experience a brief depression?
2. The word “boom” in line 5 is closest in meaning to
3. The phrase “called for” in line 10 is closest in meaning to
4. According to the passage, the growth in automobile production caused an increase in the demand for
5. According to the passage, all of the following were relatively new in the 1920’s EXCEPT
6. The word “host” in line 17 is closest in meaning to
7. It can be inferred from the passage that the characters in the novel This Side of Paradise are
8. What can be inferred from the passage about farms in the United States in the 1920’s?
9. The paragraph following the passage most likely discusses
Questions 10-19
The piano has always had a special place in music in the United States.
Because one can play on it several notes at once, it can be used in substitution
for a band. This quality has attracted composers; there has been far more music
written for piano, or the keyboards in general, than for any other instrument. And
(5) because a piano can, in effect, accompany itself, for a century it has been the basic
instrument for the playing of popular music.
This was especially so during the decades around the turn of the century.
In the years before the First World War (1914-1918), most families in the United
States felt it important to own a piano, no matter how poor they were. People
(10) who could play the piano were welcome visitors and were generally cajoled into
playing the latest popular tunes.
But it was not just in the home that the piano flourished. It was the basic
entertainment tool in cabarets, clubs, and restaurants, just as it is today. The piano,
thus, was central to the social lives of people in the United States, and in the
(15) period between the Civil War (1861-1865) and the First World War, there grew up
a considerable industry devoted to it: the popular music business, a huge trade in
instructional schools and mail order lessons, and, of course, the selling of pianos
themselves.
Inevitably a large corps of virtuoso professional piano players developed.
(20) These “professors” or “ivory ticklers”were not necessarily trained in the classical
European tradition. Most, although not all, either were self-taught or studied with
older ticklers who themselves had little experience with the classical tradition.
Despite the lack of European-style training, many of these players possessed
astonishing techniques that, if not well-suited to classical piano compositions,
(25) were exactly right for producing the showy effects with which these professors
impressed audiences and competing pianists. Fast arpeggios, octave runs, and
other great splashes up and down the keyboard were practiced endlessly.
These ticklers were the people who developed and popularized ragtime;
it is no accident that the most popular music of the period was a piano form. And of
(30) course, when jazz came into fashion, they were caught up in this new music.
10. What does the passage mainly discuss?
11. The word“place” in line 1 is closest in meaning to
12. The word“it” in line 2 refers to
13. The word “central” in line 14 is closest in meaning to
14. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about the piano industry between 1861 and 1914?
15. The word “virtuoso” in line 19 is closest in meaning to
16. The word “themselves” in line 22 refers to
17. According to the passage, why were audiences amazed by the piano-playing of the ticklers mentioned in the third paragraph?
18. Which of the following is NOT true of the professional piano players mentioned in the fourth paragraph?
19. The paragraph following the passage most probably discusses
Questions 20-29
Virtually every epoch of human civilization includes references to flight. From
ancient winged deities to a score of myths, themes of flight occur repeatedly.
There were undoubtedly sporadic attempts to achieve human flight, probably in
imitation of birds. The first credible mention of such efforts appeared in a book
(5) written in 1250, which referred to an ornithopter, a winged machine strapped
to a person’s arms. Based on the flapping motion of a bird’s wings, an ornithopter
would require a good deal of muscular energy from the arms of its human
operator. Since this was not a practical source of mechanical power, it could not fly.
With the age-old problem of suitable power sources impeding early
(10) experiments, the first person to leave the surface of the Earth did so in the
eighteenth century in a balloon. The first balloons were buoyed into and kept up
in the air with air itself – hot air. The Montgolfier brothers had observed that warm
air rose, and reasoned that if they could capture it in a lightweight bag, the bag
would rise along with anything attached to it. They experimented with several
(15) small linen bags lined with paper to help retain the hot air. The first free flight in a
balloon was made in 1783, a 25-minute journey totaling 8 kilometers.
Practical heavier-than-air flight evolved from fixed-wing aircraft in the form of
gliders, which are motorless aircraft that are launched from high places. Gliding
itself dated from the year 1000, when a Benedictine monk reportedly launched
(20) himself from a tower and flew more than 400 meters. However, structural
and stability problems seemed to frustrate gliding enthusiasts until the early
nineteenth century. With the addition of propellers and engines in the early
twentieth century, airplanes at last became a reality.
20. What does the passage mainly discuss?
21. The word“sporadic” in line 3 is closest in meaning to
22. According to the passage, what was the problem with the ornithopter?
23. The word “it” in line 8 refers to
24. The word “buoyed” in line 11 is closest in meaning to
25. The word “it” in line 13 refers to
26. What can be inferred about gliders that were made before the nineteenth century?
27. Which of the following statements is supported by the passage?
28. Where in the passage does the author mention an historical account of early attempts at flight?
29. The passage probably continues with a discussion of
Questions 30-39
The Comstock Lode in Nevada was the scene of one of the biggest silver
mining booms in the history of the opening up of the North American West. It was
discovered in 1859, but productivity did not reach its peak until the 1870’s when
many large silver deposits were discovered. A large number of mines are scattered
(5) along the five-kilometer length of the lode, which is basically a mineralized fault
zone, separating geologically young andesite and dacite lavas from older rocks.
The lode forms a flattish sheet, inclined at about 40 degrees to the horizontal,
and reaches a maximum thickness of 120 meters and a depth of 1,000 meters,
although most of the richest ore was found well above this level.
(10) As in so many of the world’s mines, the mining operations on the Comstock
Lode were severely hampered by water flooding into the workings. At Comstock,
though, the problems were particularly acute, since the water was extremely
hot, reaching 64 degrees Celsius in some places. Geologically, the presence of
such large volumes of hot water was immensely significant, since it implied that
(15) beneath the Comstock Lode there was still a large mass of hot igneous rock that
might be producing more mineralization. For a long while this near-scalding water
made it impossible to mine much below the 1,000-meter level, and many miners
were killed by it, either directly by falling into the water or indirectly through the
effects of overexertion in the very high temperatures of the mine galleries.
(20) No fewer than 53 miners died in one period of 22 months ending in May 1877.
To combat this it was decided to dig a six-kilometer-long tunnel to drain and
ventilate the upper parts of the mine workings. This tunnel, which became known
as the Sutro Tunnel, took many years of extremely hard work to complete, and
the succession of physical obstacles and financial crises that were successfully
(25) overcome in its construction have become legendary, comparable in some ways
with the heroic engineering involved in the laying of the first transcontinental
railway across the United States.
30. The word “It” in line 2 refers to
31. The word “scattered” in line 4 is closest in meaning to
32. Where in the passage does the author describe a lode?
33. What is the main idea of the second paragraph?
34. The word “hampered” in line 11 is closest in meaning to
35. The word “acute” in line 12 is closest in meaning to
36. According to the passage, what can be signaled by the presence of hot igneous rock?
37. What was the purpose of the Sutro Tunnel?
38. The word “obstacles” in line 24 is closest in meaning to
39. The author compares the construction of the Sutro Tunnel to the first transcontinental railroad in North America because both projects
Questions 40-50
Woodpeckers also use their powerful beaks to excavate nest holes in tree
trunks, drilling first of all a neat horizontal hole, then chiseling downward for a
foot or so and there cutting out a chamber. They frequently choose dead trees, no
doubt because the rotting wood is softer to work than that of living trees. Such
(5) trees also are usually infected by bark beetles, which provide a rich food supply
conveniently near at hand.
The drumming noise made by the rapid blows of a woodpecker’s beak on a
tree trunk is one of the most characteristic sounds of the forest. The birds do not
produce it solely when they are feeding or excavating a nest. They beat tattoos on
(10) echoing timber for the same reason that other birds sing, to declare possession of
a territory and to attract a mate. Each species has its own length of drumroll with
its own characteristic interval between one burst and the next.
Different species of the woodpecker family specialize in different foods.
(15) The green woodpecker, as well as taking bark-boring beetles, often descends
to the ground to forage for ants. The wryneck is even more dependent upon
ants. It is not primarily a climber at all and lacks the stiff propping tail of other
woodpeckers, but it does have the usual long sticky tongue, which it flicks into
a nest of ants to bring out 150 of them at a time. The acorn woodpecker exploits
(20) its wood-boring skills by drilling neat holes in tree trunks, the diameter of which
exactly accommodates acorns. It will cover a favored tree with several hundred
such holes and store several acorns in each of them, so accumulating a massive
larder for the winter. An even more specialized group within the family, the
sapsuckers, bore holes in tree trunks for a quite different purpose. They choose
(25) living trees of species that produce liberal flows of sap and drill numerous small,
squarish holes in them. The liquid that trickles out attracts insects that the
sapsucker collects and then mixes with the sap to produce a little sweetmeat.
40. What does the passage mainly discuss?
41. The word“excavate” in line 1 is closest in meaning to
42. The word“that” in line 4 refers to
43. It can be inferred from the passage that the different species of woodpeckers can be identified by the
44. The word “interval” in line 12 is closest in meaning to
45. The words “as well as” in line 14 are closest in meaning to
46. According to the passage, the wryneck differs from other woodpeckers in that it does NOT
47. The word “which” in line 19 refers to
48. The word “massive” in line 21 is closest in meaning to
49. Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a species of woodpecker that eats insects?
50. The sapsucker’s behavior is different from the behavior of other species in which of the following ways?