Sporting Futures USA | SAT Prep | Critical Reading 1.8

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Quiz on Sporting Futures USA | SAT Prep | Critical Reading 1.8, created by SportingFutures USA on 24/09/2014.
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Question 1

Question
Ryan did his best to cheer his sister up and ________ her guilt after she inadvertently spilled coffee on their parents' expensive new carpet. Select the word that best completes the sentence.
Answer
  • lull
  • assuage
  • exacerbate
  • aggravate
  • propitiate

Question 2

Question
PASSAGE 1 1 A meticulous actor, a connoisseur of everything you 2 ever wanted to be, and more, John spoke like Picasso 3 made art, and shared the latter's imagination (some- 4 times enough to get himself into desperate trouble). 5 He was a businessman, a doctor, or a lawyer; per- 6 haps some combination of the three, always walking in 7 uninvited, smiling from ear-to-ear, athletic, confident, 8 intriguing (on the surface). His relationships were as 9 real as a politician's promise for the future (though 10 even they sometimes hold true), and he felt every 11 burning prickle of his own falsehood. 12 What was he to do? 13 Born to a magical father blessed with invisibility and 14 raised by a working mother gifted with naiveté, John 15 crafted his own self-made brilliance, a sparkling blend 16 of a near-orphan's rugged individualism and the 17 learned street-skills of a poor boy. I envied him, in a 18 way, but not enough to wish his life upon my own: I only 19 wanted the girls, the grace, the benefits of not having 20 been indulged; I wanted masochism, selfish greed. PASSAGE 2 21 In England, I felt like they were teasing me. They must 22 have known from my dress, my accent, my occasional 23 Kansas slang. Did the upper-class become upper 24 from feeding off everyone else? But surely a family 25 rich as this couldn't be so desperate. I wasn't likeable, 26 either, not at all, not by their standards, at least. An 27 innocuous, fortuitous meeting in the middle of an un- 28 known street leads to a three week stay in a British 29 castle, all because they wanted to hear about my re- 30 search into the North American tropical system. I had 31 never learned so much meteorology before in my life. 32 My self-satisfaction wasn't coming from my inherent 33 ability to fool them, but from how their wealth of money 34 was no comparison to my dearth supply. Did it make 35 them any happier? They hadn't seen the real world, 36 what it was like to wake up one morning and not know 37 who you are, or where you came from--simply inviting 38 strangers met on a Sunday afternoon downtown into 39 their home for entertainment. Who knew a high school 40 drop-out, former criminal and current thief, could 41 be such a lovely addition to the Parsley family? QUESTION: Which of the following would the narrator of Passage 2 probably consider to be one of the "benefits of not having been indulged" (lines 19-20)?
Answer
  • He has had to make his own way through the world.
  • He never has to pretend to be anything he's not.
  • He is always learning about new subjects as he takes on new roles.
  • He isn't held back from pursuing his own desires by the expectations of his family.
  • He has greater compassion for others who were raised in poverty.

Question 3

Question
The following two passages discuss the amount of homework assigned to U.S. students. PASSAGE 1 1 Sarah Lam, an eighth-grader at Presidio Middle 2 School in San Francisco, has learned to manage her 3 time better since sixth grade, when she spent three to 4 four hours toiling over nightly assignments, she said. 5 But her schedule these days--which includes orches- 6 tra, working as a tutor, plus two to three hours of 7 homework--is packed. Her father has occasionally 8 had to use college texts to help her answer science 9 homework questions. 10 Yet there's no evidence that lobbing on the home- 11 work in elementary grades boosts test scores later, 12 according to Harris Cooper, a psychology professor 13 at University of Missouri, who reviewed dozens of 14 studies and concluded homework may begin to pay 15 off in junior high. Cooper said giving large amounts of 16 homework in elementary school may have "negative 17 benefits" such as frustration, negative self-image and 18 not enough time to do other important activities. The 19 National Parent Teacher Association has 20 recommended 10 minutes per grade level, but 21 acknowledges that some kids have less and some 22 have a lot more. So why are schools doing it? 23 "There seem to be two sources," said Cooper. "Some 24 of the pressure is coming from parents who are 25 highly achievement-oriented. The other source is new 26 state standards, which are requiring teachers to 27 teach more, while at the same time requiring more 28 non-academic activities. In my district, for example, 29 fourth-graders learn swimming." There are parents 30 who protest, but principals and teachers say just as 31 many ask for more homework. Many believe that 32 heavy homework, while stressful, is a necessary bur- 33 den in a world that's increasingly competitive. They 34 assist when they can. Some hire homework coaches 35 to help their kids keep up and relieve the stress that 36 arguing over doing it can cause. Others sign up their 37 kids for test-taking classes or enrichment courses. 38 Businesses like Kumon and Score--which give kids 39 test practice--and the Report Card in San Rafael, 40 which sells educational materials and offers both 41 regular tutoring and enrichment classes, have 42 sprouted around the Bay area. 43 "The amount of homework kids are getting is out- 44 rageous," said Donna Gray, a tutor who offers not 45 only remedial help to students, but also enrichment 46 work some parents feel is necessary for their kids to 47 stay competitive. "If you don't develop physically, 48 emotionally and socially as well, it's not good . . ." 49 said Gray, a retired teacher who has a waiting list of 50 clients in Tiburon. "It's society today. I believe that 51 teachers today wouldn't give homework like this if it 52 weren't for the parents. The young teachers here 53 worry about the parents. They're smart, high- 54 achieving. It's hard for them to live up to what the 55 parents expect." 56 Now that homework appears to be at a peak, the 57 pendulum is bound to swing in the other direction, 58 said Gill, who believes reasonable amounts of home- 59 work can be a useful learning tool and give parents 60 "a window into the classroom." There already may be 61 a modest backlash brewing. Take, for example, Gill's 62 research colleague Steven Schlossman, head of the 63 history department at Carnegie Mellon University. He 64 said he had pulled his ninth-grade son out of private 65 school near Pittsburgh because of the unwieldy 66 amount of homework. One week, as an experiment, 67 Schlossman did the homework himself. It took him 35 68 hours. "That's what stimulated my interest in the 69 subject of homework," he said. "This is one of the 70 dramas going on throughout middle class America 71 that very few people want to talk about. They fear if 72 their child can't do it, he's destined to failure. But the 73 amount of trauma, if anyone wants to measure it, I'll 74 venture is extraordinary." PASSAGE 2 75 A comprehensive review of academic performance 76 around the world gives bad marks to excessive 77 homework. Teachers in Japan, the Czech Republic 78 and Denmark assign relatively little homework, yet 79 students there score well, researchers said this week. 80 "At the other end of the spectrum, countries with very 81 low average scores--Thailand, Greece, Iran--have 82 teachers who assign a great deal of homework," says 83 Penn State researcher David Baker. "American stu- 84 dents appear to do as much homework as their peers 85 overseas--if not more--but still only score around the 86 international average," said co-researcher Gerald 87 LeTendre. Baker and LeTendre examined the Third 88 International Study of Mathematics and Sciences 89 (TIMSS), which in 1994 collected data from schools 90 in 41 nations on performance in grades 4, 8 and 12. 91 Additional similar data from 1999 was factored in. 92 The homework burden is especially problematic in 93 poorer households, where parents may not have the 94 time or inclination to provide an environment condu- 95 cive to good study habits, the researchers conclude. 96 In particular, drills designed to improve memorization 97 may not be suited to many homes. 98 "An unintended consequence may be that those chil- 99 dren who need extra work and drill the most are the 100 ones least likely to get it," Baker said. "Increasing 101 homework loads is likely to aggravate tensions within 102 the family, thereby generating more inequality and 103 eroding the quality of overall education." 104 In the early 1980s, U.S. teachers began assigning 105 more homework, the researchers say. The shift was 106 in response to mediocre performance in comparison 107 to Japanese students. At the same time, the trend 108 was going the other way in Japanese schools. The 109 new study found U.S. math teachers assigned more 110 than two hours of homework a week in 1994-95, 111 while in Japan the figure was about one hour per 112 week. "Undue focus on homework as a national 113 quick-fix, rather than a focus on issues of instruc- 114 tional quality and equity of access to opportunity to 115 learn, may lead a country into wasted expenditures of 116 time and energy," LeTendre says. The homework 117 burden might also affect performance among children 118 of higher-income parents. "Parents are extremely 119 busy with work and household chores, not to mention 120 chauffeuring young people to various extracurricular 121 activities, athletic and otherwise," LeTendre said. 122 "Parents might sometimes see exercises in drill and 123 memorization as intrusions into time." QUESTION: Passage 1 and Passage 2 both support which of the following generalizations about homework?
Answer
  • Doing large amounts of homework prepares students for the realities of adult life.
  • Teachers give large amounts of homework because they feel pressure from the government to improve students' test scores.
  • The amount of homework assigned by U.S. teachers is grueling.
  • The amount of homework assigned in the U.S. has been increasing steadily since the early 1980s.
  • Students in the U.S. do more homework than students in any other country.

Question 4

Question
1 He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour 2 before. From what had it proceeded? From his 3 aunt's supper, from his own foolish speech, from the 4 wine and dancing, the merry-making when saying 5 good-night in the hall, the pleasure of the walk along 6 the river in the snow. Poor Aunt Julia! She would 7 soon be a shade. He had caught that haggard look 8 upon her face for a moment when she was singing 9 "Arrayed for the Bridal." Soon, perhaps, he would 10 be sitting in that same drawing-room, dressed in 11 black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds would be 12 drawn down and Aunt Kate would be sitting beside 13 him, crying and blowing her nose and telling him how 14 Julia had died. He would cast about in his mind for 15 some words that might console her, and would find 16 only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that would 17 happen very soon. QUESTION: Which of the following most accurately explains the narrator's "riot of emotions" (line 1)?
Answer
  • the depression he feels as a result of seeing his aunt looking so haggard
  • the emotions relating to the pleasurable experiences of the evening in combination with those relating to the image of his Aunt Julia
  • his conflicting feelings regarding his aunt's soon-to-be death
  • the embarrassment he feels after giving a foolish speech
  • the mix of emotions resulting from the change of setting from the drawing- room to the riverside

Question 5

Question
The engineer was concerned that her ________ with her supervisor might have repercussions, but she felt that it was necessary to be forthright. Select the word that best completes the sentence.
Answer
  • generosity
  • predictability
  • acrimony
  • candor
  • empathy

Question 6

Question
________ the monarch had abdicated the throne, his younger brother was then named his ________ . Select the words that best complete the sentence.
Answer
  • After . . successor
  • Because . . predecessor
  • Once . . antecedent
  • Although . . confidant
  • Since . . oppressor

Question 7

Question
1 They often tell me that So-and-so has no sense of 2 humor. Lack of this sense is everywhere held to be 3 be a horrid disgrace, nullify any number of delightful 4 qualities. Perhaps the most effective means of dis- 5 paraging an enemy is to lay stress on his integrity, his 6 erudition, his courage, the fineness of his head, the 7 grace of his figure, his strength of purpose, which has 8 overleaped all obstacles, his goodness to his parents, 9 the kind word that he has for every one, his musical 10 voice, his freedom from aught that in human nature 11 is base; and then to say what a pity it is that he has no 12 sense of humor. Perfection is not loved in this im- 13 perfect world; so that the more highly you extol any 14 one, the more eagerly will your audience accept any- 15 thing you have to say against him. And what could 16 match for deadliness the imputation of being without 17 sense of humor? To convict a man of that lack is to 18 strike him with one blow to a level with the beasts of 19 the field--to kick him, once and for all, outside the 20 human pale. What is it that mainly distinguishes us 21 from the brute creation? That we walk erect? Some 22 brutes are bipeds. That we do not slay one another? 23 We do. That we build houses? So, again, do they. 24 That we converse? They are chatterboxes, whose 25 lingo we are not sharp enough to master. On no 26 possible point of superiority can we preen ourselves, 27 save this: that we can laugh, and that they, with 28 one notable exception, cannot. 29 Belief in the general humorousness of the human 30 race is more deep-rooted for that every man is certain 31 that he himself is not without sense of humor. A man 32 will admit cheerfully that he does not know one tune 33 from another, or that he cannot discriminate the 34 vintages of wines. The blind beggar does not seek to 35 benumb sympathy by telling his patrons how well 36 they are looking. The deaf and dumb do not scruple 37 to converse in signals. "Have you no sense of beauty?" 38 I said to a friend who in the Academia of Florence 39 suggested that we had stood long enough in front of 40 the "Primavera." "No!" was his simple, straight- 41 forward, quite unanswerable answer. But I have never 42 heard a man assert that he had no sense of humor. 43 And I take it that no such assertion ever was made. 44 Moreover, were it made it would be a lie. Every man 45 laughs. Frequently or infrequently, the corners of his 46 mouth are drawn up into his cheeks, and through his 47 parted lips comes his own particular variety, soft or 48 loud, of that noise which is called laughter. Frequently 49 or infrequently, every man is amused by something. 50 Every man has a sense of humor, but not every man 51 has the same sense. A may be incapable of smiling at 52 what has convulsed B, and B may stare blankly when 53 he hears what has rolled A off his chair. Jokes are so 54 diverse that no one man can see them all. The very 55 fact that he can see one kind is proof positive that 56 certain other kinds will be invisible to him. And so 57 egoistic in his judgment is the average man that he 58 is apt to suspect of being humorless any one whose 59 sense of humor squares not with his own. But the 60 suspicion is always false, incomparably useful though 61 it is in the form of an accusation. 62 I have said that not every man has the same sense of 63 of humor. I might have said truly that no two men have 64 the same sense of humor, for that no two men have 65 the same brain and heart and experience, by which 66 things the sense of humor is formed and directed. One 67 joke may go round the world tickling myriads, but 68 no two persons will be tickled in precisely the same 69 way, to precisely the same degree. If the vibrations 70 of inward or outward laughter could be scientifically 71 registered, differences between them all would be 72 made apparent to us. "Oh," is your cry whenever you 73 hear something that especially amuses you. "I must 74 tell that to" whomever you credit with a sense of humor 75 most akin to your own. And the chances are that you 76 will be disappointed by his reception of the joke. 77 Either he will laugh less loudly than you hoped, or 78 he will say something which reveals to you that it 79 amuses him and you not in quite the same way. Or 80 perhaps he will laugh so long and loudly that you are 81 irritated by the suspicion that you have not yourself 82 gauged the full beauty of it. QUESTION: According to this passage, which human attribute does the author espouse as a rationale for the differentiation among individuals' sense of humor?
Answer
  • egoistic differences
  • their varied levels of brutality
  • differences in brain and heart
  • their ability to perceive beauty in the same way
  • the sound of their laughter

Question 8

Question
1 They often tell me that So-and-so has no sense of 2 humor. Lack of this sense is everywhere held to be 3 be a horrid disgrace, nullify any number of delightful 4 qualities. Perhaps the most effective means of dis- 5 paraging an enemy is to lay stress on his integrity, his 6 erudition, his courage, the fineness of his head, the 7 grace of his figure, his strength of purpose, which has 8 overleaped all obstacles, his goodness to his parents, 9 the kind word that he has for every one, his musical 10 voice, his freedom from aught that in human nature 11 is base; and then to say what a pity it is that he has no 12 sense of humor. Perfection is not loved in this im- 13 perfect world; so that the more highly you extol any 14 one, the more eagerly will your audience accept any- 15 thing you have to say against him. And what could 16 match for deadliness the imputation of being without 17 sense of humor? To convict a man of that lack is to 18 strike him with one blow to a level with the beasts of 19 the field--to kick him, once and for all, outside the 20 human pale. What is it that mainly distinguishes us 21 from the brute creation? That we walk erect? Some 22 brutes are bipeds. That we do not slay one another? 23 We do. That we build houses? So, again, do they. 24 That we converse? They are chatterboxes, whose 25 lingo we are not sharp enough to master. On no 26 possible point of superiority can we preen ourselves, 27 save this: that we can laugh, and that they, with 28 one notable exception, cannot. 29 Belief in the general humorousness of the human 30 race is more deep-rooted for that every man is certain 31 that he himself is not without sense of humor. A man 32 will admit cheerfully that he does not know one tune 33 from another, or that he cannot discriminate the 34 vintages of wines. The blind beggar does not seek to 35 benumb sympathy by telling his patrons how well 36 they are looking. The deaf and dumb do not scruple 37 to converse in signals. "Have you no sense of beauty?" 38 I said to a friend who in the Academia of Florence 39 suggested that we had stood long enough in front of 40 the "Primavera." "No!" was his simple, straight- 41 forward, quite unanswerable answer. But I have never 42 heard a man assert that he had no sense of humor. 43 And I take it that no such assertion ever was made. 44 Moreover, were it made it would be a lie. Every man 45 laughs. Frequently or infrequently, the corners of his 46 mouth are drawn up into his cheeks, and through his 47 parted lips comes his own particular variety, soft or 48 loud, of that noise which is called laughter. Frequently 49 or infrequently, every man is amused by something. 50 Every man has a sense of humor, but not every man 51 has the same sense. A may be incapable of smiling at 52 what has convulsed B, and B may stare blankly when 53 he hears what has rolled A off his chair. Jokes are so 54 diverse that no one man can see them all. The very 55 fact that he can see one kind is proof positive that 56 certain other kinds will be invisible to him. And so 57 egoistic in his judgment is the average man that he 58 is apt to suspect of being humorless any one whose 59 sense of humor squares not with his own. But the 60 suspicion is always false, incomparably useful though 61 it is in the form of an accusation. 62 I have said that not every man has the same sense of 63 of humor. I might have said truly that no two men have 64 the same sense of humor, for that no two men have 65 the same brain and heart and experience, by which 66 things the sense of humor is formed and directed. One 67 joke may go round the world tickling myriads, but 68 no two persons will be tickled in precisely the same 69 way, to precisely the same degree. If the vibrations 70 of inward or outward laughter could be scientifically 71 registered, differences between them all would be 72 made apparent to us. "Oh," is your cry whenever you 73 hear something that especially amuses you. "I must 74 tell that to" whomever you credit with a sense of humor 75 most akin to your own. And the chances are that you 76 will be disappointed by his reception of the joke. 77 Either he will laugh less loudly than you hoped, or 78 he will say something which reveals to you that it 79 amuses him and you not in quite the same way. Or 80 perhaps he will laugh so long and loudly that you are 81 irritated by the suspicion that you have not yourself 82 gauged the full beauty of it. QUESTION: This passage best falls into which of the following categories of writing?
Answer
  • intuitive
  • argumentative
  • dialectic
  • descriptive
  • metaphorical

Question 9

Question
1 We shall not understand what a book is, and why a 2 book has the value many persons have, and is even 3 less replaceable than a person, if we forget how 4 important to it is its body, the building that has been 5 built to hold its line of language safely together 6 through many adventures and a long time. Words on 7 a screen have visual qualities, to be sure, and these 8 darkly limn their shape, but they have no materiality, 9 they are only shadows, and when the light shifts they'll 10 be gone. Off the screen they do not exist as words. 11 They do not wait to be reseen, reread; they only wait 12 to be remade, relit. I cannot carry them beneath a tree 13 or onto a side porch; I cannot argue in their margins; 14 I cannot enjoy the memory of my dismay when, 15 perhaps after years, I return to my treasured copy of 16 Treasure Island to find the jam I inadvertently smeared 17 there still spotting a page precisely at the place where 18 Billy Bones chases Black Dog out of the Admiral 19 Benbow with a volley of oaths and where his cutlass 20 misses its mark to notch the inn's wide sign instead. 21 My copy, which I still possess, was of the cheapest. 22 Published by M. A. Donohue & Co. of Chicago, it bears 23 no date, and its coarse pages are jaundiced and brit- 24 tle, yet they've outlived their manufacturer; they will out- 25 live their reader--always comforting yet a bit sad. The 26 pages, in fact, smell their age, their decrepitude, and 27 the jam smear is like an ancient bruise; but like a scar 28 recalling its accident, I remember the pounding in my 29 chest when the black spot was pressed into Billy 30 Bones's palm and Blind Pew appeared on the road 31 in a passage that I knew even then was a piece of 32 exemplary prose. 33 That book and I loved each other, and I don't mean 34 just its text: that book, which then was new, its cover 35 slick and shiny, its paper agleam with the tossing sea 36 and armed, as Long John Silver was, for a fight, its 37 binding tight as the elastic of new underwear, not 38 slack as it is now, after so many openings and clos- 39 ings, so many dry years; that book would be borne off 40 to my room, where it lived through my high school 41 miseries in a dime-store bookcase, and it would 42 accompany me to college too, and be packed in the 43 duffel bag I carried as a sailor. 44 Should we put these feelings for the object and its 45 vicissitudes down to simple sentimental nostalgia? 46 I think not; but even as a stimulus for reminiscence, 47 a treasure more important than a dance card, or the 48 photo that freezes you in at the edge of the Grand 49 Canyon, because such a book can be a significant 50 event in the history of your reading, and your reading 51 (provided you are significant) should be an essential 52 segment of your character and your life. Unlike the 53 the love we've made or meals we've eaten, books 54 congregate to form a record around us of what they've 55 fed our stomachs or our brains. These are not a 56 hunter's trophies but the living animals themselves. 57 In the ideal logotopia, every person would possess 58 his own library and add at least weekly if not daily to it. 59 The walls of each home would seem made of books; 60 wherever one looked one would only see spines; 61 because every real book (as opposed to dictionaries, 62 almanacs, and other compilations) is a mind, an 63 imagination, a consciousness. Together they com- 64 pose a civilization, or even several. 65 A few of us are fortunate enough to live in Logotopia, 66 to own our own library, but for many this is not possi- 67 ble, and for them we need a free and open public 68 institution with a balanced collection of books that it 69 cares for and loans, with stacks where a visitor may 70 wander, browse, and make discoveries; such an insti- 71 tution empowers its public as few do. In fact, it has no 72 rival, for the books in the public library are the books 73 that may take temporary residence in yours or mine. 74 We share their wealth the way we share the space of a 75 public park. My high school had no library worthy of 76 the name "book," so I would walk about a mile down- 77 town to the public one to borrow, in almost every case, 78 a new world. That's what a library does for its patrons. 79 It extends the self. It is pure empowerment. 80 The sciences, it is alleged, no longer use books; 81 neither do the professions, since what everyone 82 needs is data, data day and night, because data, like 83 drugs, soothe the senses and encourage us to think 84 we are, when at the peak of their heap, on top of the 85 world. Of course, libraries contain books, and books 86 contain information, but information has always been 87 of minor importance, except to minor minds. What 88 matters is how the information is arranged, how it is 89 understood, and to what uses it is put. In short, what 90 matters is the book the data's in. 91 Frequently, one comes across comparisons of the 92 electronic revolution with that of writing and printing, 93 and these are usually accompanied by warnings to 94 those suspicious of technology that objections to these 95 forward marches are both fuddy-duddy and futile. But 96 Plato's worries that writing would not reveal the writer 97 the way the soul of a speaker was exposed; that 98 spontaneity would be compromised; that words would 99 be stolen, and words would be put in other mouths 100 than those of their authors; that writing does not hear 101 its reader's response; that lying, hypocrisy, false 102 borrowing, ghostwriting, would increase so that the 103 hollow heads of state would echo with hired words; 104 and that, oddly, the advantages and powers of the book 105 would give power and advantage to the rich, who would 106 learn to read and would have the funds to acquire 107 and keep such precious volumes safe: these fears 108 were overwhelmingly realized. 109 The advent of printing was opposed (as writing was) 110 for a number of mean and self-serving reasons, but 111 the fear that it would lead to the making of a million 112 half-baked brains, and cause the illicit turning of a 113 multitude of untrained heads, as a consequence of the 114 unhindered spread of nonsense was a fear that was 115 also well founded. The boast that the placement of 116 books in many hands would finally overthrow supersti- 117 tion was not entirely a hollow hope, however. The gift 118 gave a million minds a chance at independence. QUESTION: How does the simile in line 27 relate to the author's overall purpose in the passage?
Answer
  • It points out the damage that can result when the public does not truly value books for the wisdom they can offer.
  • It emphasizes the importance of Treasure Island in the classic canon of literature.
  • It emphasizes both the longevity of books and their ability to inspire reminiscence.
  • It provides support for the author's argument for the proliferation of libraries.
  • It illustrates the fact that the author's copy of Treasure Island is older than its manufacturer.

Question 10

Question
The politician's ________ bothered me; I wanted an ________ answer. Select the words that best complete the sentence.
Answer
  • veracity . . amorphous
  • ineffectiveness . . equitable
  • equivocation . . unambiguous
  • restraint . . impassive
  • prevarication . . enigmatic

Question 11

Question
1 Talk to the handful of "doughboys" who are still alive 2 today--the youngest of which is 105 years old, having 3 lied about his age in order to enlist as an ambulance 4 corpsman in 1917 and they still cannot bring them- 5 selves to discuss the brutal horror that was trench 6 warfare. "I don't want to think about it," one veteran 7 said, though he added that he thinks about his fallen 8 comrades every day of his unnaturally-long life. 9 The experience of any warfare, from our American 10 Civil War to the present conflicts in Iraq and 11 Afghanistan, often leaves veterans dumb, but there 12 was something exponentially more terrible, indeed 13 unspeakable, about the mass slaughter that marked 14 "The War to End All Wars," so named because it was 15 (to that point) that bloodiest conflict known to man. 16 Nearly 10 million soldiers died, and more than 20 17 million were wounded in four years of fighting. It made 18 folks so sick of war that they hoped against hope no 19 new war would ever erupt again. 20 The lethal drones and computerized smart-bombs of 21 today, the napalm and jungle warfare of Vietnam, the 22 frozen tundra and stalemate of the Korean peninsula, 23 or the aerial fire-bombing of The Second World War-- 24 for all their selective butchery, they are pale in com- 25 parison with the impassable mud, denuded land- 26 scapes, endless barbed wire and infected vermin, the 27 the mustard gas and killing field in between enemy 28 trenches forever known as "No-Man's Land" that 29 marked this particular conflict as the worst hardship 30 that soldiers ever had to endure. "All this madness," 31 the British philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, 32 "all this rage, all this flaming death of our civilization 33 and our hopes, has been brought about because a 34 set of official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly 35 stupid, and all without imagination or heart, have 36 chosen that it should occur rather than that any one 37 of them should suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his 38 country's pride." 39 Of course World War I did not "end all wars," but it did 40 awaken nations to unite initially as the League of 41 Nations and later as the United Nations in order to 42 take steps to correct some of the worst outrages of that 43 barbaric conflict, such as trench warfare, and in that 44 sense endures as the crucible of man's inhumanity to 45 man. QUESTION: What is it that "endures as the crucible of man's inhumanity to man" (lines 44-45)?
Answer
  • United Nations (line 41)
  • sense (line 44)
  • conflict (line 43)
  • trench warfare (line 43)
  • World War I (line 39)

Question 12

Question
Although the parents tried to ________ the situation, the vendor was too ________ to accept their apologies because the child had ruined the expensive painting. Select the words that best complete the sentence.
Answer
  • assuage . . incensed
  • prevent . . hurried
  • uncover . . weary
  • dispel . . important
  • disclose . . proud

Question 13

Question
The soldiers came home to a hero's welcome. Everyone in town seemed to ________ them. Select the word that best completes the sentence.
Answer
  • revolt
  • Despise
  • revere
  • revenue
  • repulse

Question 14

Question
1 Biologist Rupert Sheldrake has argued that all 2 organized groups "from people to animals" are shaped 3 by a collective memory from their predecessors. The 4 process by which this information moves from past to 5 present to influence like upon like is called "morphic 6 resonance." As a result of this process, patterns of 7 development and behavior become habitual through 8 repetition. This repetition shapes the group and helps 9 it to learn and evolve. In his book Dogs That Know 10 When Their Owners are Coming Home, Sheldrake 11 discusses how horses seemed to have learned to 12 avoid running into barbed wire fences and potentially 13 injuring themselves. This behavior cannot simply be 14 explained as mothers teaching their colts to avoid 15 them, he argues. Young horses immediately seem to 16 have some knowledge that these fences offer them 17 potential harm, something colts a century ago did not 18 possess. Similarly, ranchers in the West have begun 19 using fake cattle guards (lines painted across a road) 20 instead of real cattle guards (a series of metal tubs 21 and rails). Cattle are just as unwilling to cross the fake 22 guards as the real ones, according to studies done. QUESTION: Which of the following best reflects the pattern of development used in the passage?
Answer
  • a series of cause-effect relationships
  • a chronology of collective memory
  • a series of rhetorical situations
  • a series of comparisons
  • a series of case studies

Question 15

Question
The stilted silence that ________ on the roomful of new acquaintances seemed as ________ as the loudest siren. Select the words that best complete the sentence.
Answer
  • descended . . deafening
  • permeated . . resounding
  • subsided . . vociferous
  • declined . . blatant
  • alighted . . sonorous

Question 16

Question
Paul Gray, a book critic at Life magazine, initially lauded Philip Roth's novel, The Counterlife, as an "exquisite metaphysical thriller steeped in hilarious invention," but later ________ his praise by saying Roth was completely overrated. Select the word that best completes the sentence.
Answer
  • rescinded
  • refined
  • diluted
  • extended
  • enhanced

Question 17

Question
Sandra is a born ________; her witty stories could amuse anyone. Select the word that best completes the sentence.
Answer
  • braggart
  • raconteur
  • prevaricator
  • vaunter
  • fabricator

Question 18

Question
1 Biologist Rupert Sheldrake has argued that all 2 organized groups "from people to animals" are shaped 3 by a collective memory from their predecessors. The 4 process by which this information moves from past to 5 present to influence like upon like is called "morphic 6 resonance." As a result of this process, patterns of 7 development and behavior become habitual through 8 repetition. This repetition shapes the group and helps 9 it to learn and evolve. In his book Dogs That Know 10 When Their Owners are Coming Home, Sheldrake 11 discusses how horses seemed to have learned to 12 avoid running into barbed wire fences and potentially 13 injuring themselves. This behavior cannot simply be 14 explained as mothers teaching their colts to avoid 15 them, he argues. Young horses immediately seem to 16 have some knowledge that these fences offer them 17 potential harm, something colts a century ago did not 18 possess. Similarly, ranchers in the West have begun 19 using fake cattle guards (lines painted across a road) 20 instead of real cattle guards (a series of metal tubs 21 and rails). Cattle are just as unwilling to cross the fake 22 guards as the real ones, according to studies done. QUESTION: Based on how the words are used in the passage, all of the following pairs contain words that express similar meanings or serve as parallels to each other except:
Answer
  • like (line 5) and predecessors (line 3).
  • horses (line 11) and Cattle (line 21).
  • habitual (line 7) and resonance (line 6).
  • repetition (line 8) and habitual (line 7).
  • mothers (line 14) and ranchers (line 18).

Question 19

Question
Instead of being thrilled by the surprise her parents had promised, Rachel found the sudden appearance of the new pony to be rather ________ . Select the word that best completes the sentence.
Answer
  • solipsistic
  • grandiloquent
  • quotidian
  • archetypal
  • sacrosanct

Question 20

Question
After years of paying close attention to market trends, talented brokers often display true ________ when predicting stock prices. Select the word that best completes the sentence.
Answer
  • acknowledgment
  • perplexity
  • integrity
  • prescience
  • dauntlessness
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