第二天模考题

Section 3

1.To criticize a disaster film for being ________ is a bit silly, since people do not go to disaster movies to see an honest portrayed of reality.

A.expensive

B.harrowing

C.derivative

D.convoluted

E.implausible

2.Though many avant-garde writers ________ traditional distinctions among literary categories, combining elements of biography and fiction, prose and poetry, this fusion of forms has been slow to catch on with publishers.

A.flout

B.presuppose

C.exploit

D.imitate

E.illuminate

3.Despite the abundance and importance of maize, its biological origin has been a long-running mystery. The bright yellow, mouth-watering treat does not grow in the wild

4.If newspaper consumers are concerned about more than (i)________ and prefer to read news that is consistent with their beliefs, then (ii)________ is not a journalistic flaw, but, rather, a cultivated feature. In a competitive news market, producers can use slant to

5.China’s rapidly growing population is the main threat facing large carnivores in the People’s Republic. Increasingly, policies aimed at limiting population growth have been (i)________: nevertheless, the country’s vast size and the isolation of many its re gions mean that human populations in areas where large carnivores still occur(ii)________. This

6.The slow pace of job creation was without precedent for the period of recovery from

a recession, but the conditions that conspired to cause the recession were also (i)________. The stock market declined sharply, and rampant business investment slumped. Then an ensuing spate of scandals (ii)________ public trust in the way companies were run. And

In 1755 British writer Samuel Johnson published an acerbic letter to Lord Chesterfield rebuffing his patron for neglecting and declining support. Johnson’s rejection of his patron’s belated assistance has often been identified as a key moment in the history of publishing, marking the end of the culture of patronage. However, patronage had been in decline for 50 years, yet would survive, in attenuated form, for another 50. Indeed, Johnson was in 1762 awarded a pension by the Crown—a subtle form of sponsorshi p, tantamount to state patronage. The importance of Johnson’s letter is not so much historical as emotional; it would become a touchstone for all who repudiated patrons and for all who embraced the laws of the marketplace.

7.The author of the passage mentio ns Johnson’s 1762 pension award in order to

A.reveal that Johnson remained consistent in his rebuke of Lord Chesterfield well after 1755

B.provide evidence for a general trend in the later half of the eighteenth century of private patronage’s being replaced by state sponsorship.

C.situated the debate over the end of patronage within the wider realm of eighteenth-century

D.suggest that Johnson’s letter to Chesterfield was noticed by the crown only years after

E.emphasize that patronage still helped support Johnson’s writing after his letter to Lord Chesterfield

8.Which of the following best describes the function of highlighted sentence in the context of the passage as a whole?

A.It points out the most obvious implications of Johnson’s letter to his patron

B.It suggests a motivation for Johnson’s rejection of Chesterfield’s patronage

C.It provides information that qualifies the assertion that Johnson’s letter sharply defined the end of a publishing era

D.It provides a possible defense for Chesterfield’s alleged neglect of Johns on

E.It refuses the notion that patrons are found primarily among the nobility

Massive projectiles striking much larger bodies create various kinds of craters, including multi-ring basins–the largest geologic features observed on planets and moons. In such collisions, the impactor is completely destroyed and its material is incorporated into the larger body. Collisons between bodies of comparable size, on the other hand, have very different consequences: one or both bodies might be entirely smashed, with mass from one or both the bodies redistributed among new objects formed from the fragments. Such a titanic collision between Earth and a Mars-size impactor may have given rise to Earth’s Moon.

The Earth-Moon system has always been perplexing. Earth is the only one of the inner planets with a large satellite, the orbit of which is neither in the equatorial plane of Earth nor in the plane in which the other planets lie. The Moons mean density is much lower than that of Earth but is about the same as that of Earths mantle. This similarity in density has long prompted speculation that the Moon split away from a rapidly rotating Earth, but this idea founders on two observations. In order to spin off the Moon, Earth would have had to rotate so fast that a day would have lasted less than three hours. Science offers no plausible explanation of how it could have slowed to its current rotational rate from that speed. Moreover, the Moons composition, though similar to that of Earths mantle, is not a precise match. Theorizing a titanic collision eliminates postulating a too-rapidly spinning Earth and accounts for the Moons peculiar composition. In a titanic collision model, the bulk of the Moon would have formed from a combination of material from the impactor and Earths mantle. Most of the earthly component would have been in the form of melted or vaporized matter. The difficulty in recondensing this vapor in Earths orbit, and its subsequent loss to the vacuum of outer space, might account for the observed absence in lunar rocks of certain readily vaporized compounds and elements.

Unusual features of some other planets might also be explained by such impacts. Mercury is known to have a high density in comparison with other rocky planets. A titanic impact could have stripped away a portion of its rocky mantle, leaving behind a metallic core whose density is out of proportion with the original ratio of rock to metal.

A massive, glancing blow to Venus might have given it its anomalously slow spin and reversed direction of rotation. Such conjectures are tempting, but, since no early planet was immune to titanic impacts, they could be used indiscriminately to explain away in a cavalier fashion every unusual planetary characteristic; still, we may now be beginning to discern the true role of titanic impacts in planetary history.

9. According to the passage, which of the following is true of the collisions mentioned in the highlighted sentence?

A. They occur less frequently than do titanic collisions.

B. They occur between bodies of comparable size.

C. They occur primarily between planet-sized bodies.

D. They result in the complete destruction of the impacting body.

E. They result in mass being redistributed among newly formed objects.

10. The author of the passage asserts which of the following about titanic collision models?

A. Such models are conclusive with respect to certain anomalies within the solar system, but leave numerous other anomalies unexplained.

B. Such models are more likely than are earlier models to account for the formation of multi-ring basins.

C. Such models may be particularly useful in explaining what happens when the impacting bodies involved are of highly dissimilar mean densities.

D. Such models have been tested to such a degree that they are quickly reaching the point where they can be considered definitive.

E. Such models are so tempting that they run the risk of being used indiscriminately to explain unusual planetary features.

11. The passage suggests that which of the following is true of the cited compounds and elements?

A. They were created by reactions that took place during a titanic collision.

B. They were supplied by an impactor that collided with Earth.

C. They were once present on the Moon but were subsequently vaporized.

D. They are rarely found on planet-size bodies in our solar system.

E. They are present on Earth but not on the Moon.

12. In the second paragraph, the author is primarily concerned with

A. Arguing in favor of a particular theory about the formation of the EarthMoon system.

B. Summarizing conventional theories about the formation of the earth-Moon system.

C. Anticipating and responding to criticisms of a particular theory about the formation of the Earth-Moon system.

D. Explaining why the Earth-Moon system is considered scientifically perplexing.

E. Questioning an assumption underlying one theory about the formation of the Earth-Moon system.

13. Although legislators on both sides of the issues have repeatedly________ a desire to find a middle ground, until now no acceptable compromise has been achieved.

A.discussed

B.proclaimed

C.professed

D.rejected

E.disowned

F.betrayed

14. Even before she went to art school, Veronica found the standard design categories________: she didn’t understand why designing buildings and designing tables should require different sensibilities.

A.provocative

B.limiting

C.stimulating

D.confusing

E.confining

F.exhilarating

15. The author engages this issue from diverse perspectives, supports his arguments with many examples, and manages to avoid antagonizing others in dealing with a very _____ subject.

A.contentious

B.pedestrian

C.controversial

D.perplexing

E.mundane

F.intriguing

16. To call Kermode the finest English critic of his generation be a_________ compliment, since not many of its population are professionally engaged in literary criticism.

A.sincere

B.backhanded

C.paltry

D.heartfelt

E.meager

F.plausible

Although several ancient cultures practiced mummification, mummies from ancient Egypt are generally more well preserved than mummies of similar antiquity from other cultures. One possible explanation for this difference is that the mummification techniques or materials used by ancient Egyptians were better than those of other cultures. A second, more likely, explanation is that the extremely dry climate of ancient Egypt was largely responsible, given that dryness promotes the preservation of organic remains generally.

17. Which of the following provide the most support for the argument?

A. The materials used by ancient Egyptians for mummification were not used by any other ancient culture that practiced mummification.

B. Some ancient Egyptian mummies are better preserved than other ancient Egyptian mummies from around the same time.

C. No ancient people living in very damp areas practiced mummification.

E. Bodies from ancient Egyptian tombs dating from before the practice of mummification began are almost as well preserved as ancient Egyptian mummies.

F. Ancient mummies discovered in places other than Egypt have typically not been as well protected from the elements as ancient Egyptian mummies were.

Attempts to identify New Guinean’s hunter-gatherers face the well-known difficulty of defining what constitutes a hunter-gather group. According to the common definition, hunter-gathers are those who subsist by hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants. Yet those criteria beg numerous questions, including the issue of what constitutes “wild”. The very presence on a landscape of humans who are consumers affects food resources, blurring the lines between wild and domesticated and, hence between hunting and pastoralism, and between gathering and cultivation. Moreover, it is unclear how groups should be classified that are hunter-gatherers in their procurement strategies but that make use of pastoralism and cultivation in their consumption patterns––subsisting, for example, by trading wild foods to neighbors in return for domesticated crops.

18.The primary purpose of the passage is to

A.suggest that there are not as many hunter-gathers in New Guinea as is commonly thought

B.explain why identifying N ew Guinean’s hunter-gathers is not a straightforward process

C.point to certain difficulties in establishing what constitute a wild plant and a wild animal

D.establish new, more relevant criteria for what constitutes a hunter-gather group

E.discuss the implication of an inappropriate definition of pastoralism

19.Replacement of the word “common” with which of the following results in the LEAST change in meaning to the passage?

A.trite

B.mutual

C.unexceptional

D.collective

E.conventional

Columnist: Until very recently, Presorbin and Veltrex, two medications used to block excess stomach acid, were both available only with a prescription written by a doctor. In an advertisement for Presorbin, its makers argue that Presorbin is superior on the grounds that doctors have written 200 million prescriptions for Presorbin, as compared to 100 million for Veltrex. It can be argued that the number of prescriptions written is never a worthwhile criterion for comparing the merits of medicines, but that the advertisement’s argument is a bsurd is quite adequately revealed by observing that Presorbin was available as a prescription medicine years before Veltrex was.

20. In the columnist’s argument, the two highlighted portions play which of the following roles?

A. The first is a claim that the columnist’s argument seeks to clarify; the second states a conclusion drawn about one possible interpretation of that claim.

B. The first identifies the conclusion of an argument that the columnist’s argument is directed against; the second states the main conclusion of the columnist’s argument.

C. The first states the main conclusion of the columnist’s argument; the second states a conclusion that the columnist draws in defending that conclusion against an objection.

D. The first identifies an assumption made in an argument that the columnist's argument is directed against; the second states the main conclusion of the columnist’s argument.

E. The first is a claim that has been offered as evidence to support a position that the columnist opposes; the se cond states the main conclusion of the columnist’s argument

Section 4 1. The idea of a “language instinct” may seem________ to those who think of language as the zenith of the human intellect and of instincts as brute impulse. A. jarring B. plausible C. gratifying D. inevitable E. conciliatory 2. The maps in this volume are meant not as guides but as________ they are designed to make the reader think anew about the city. A. adornments B. references

C. truisms

D. provocations

E. valedictions 3. Proponents of international regulation of environmental issues have always struggled against scientific uncertainty and economic hostility, two obstacles which, form a political standpoint, often have been closely related, as economic hostile toward environmental regulation for economic reasons have (i)________the considerable uncertainly underlying most environmental challenges to (ii)________ of environmental regulation.

4. It would be imprecise to characterize her scholarship as (i)________: though her etymological discussion is necessarily esoteric, there is nothing (ii)________

about the conclusions she derives from it.

5. The book is not comprehensive but is, instead, (i)________ in the most positive sense: (ii)_______ rather than settles.

6.With the emergence of scientific history-writing in the late nineteenth century, several authors sought to ignore the glowing myths surrounding George Washington and uncover the human being within, but their biographies were still (i)________ enough that Washington remained a marbled and remote figure. Indeed, by the 1920s Washington had become such (ii)________ personage that inevitably someone had to go to the other

Early life insurers in the United States found themselves facing the problem of obtaining reliable information, as they needed to rely on applicants themselves to provide truthful, complete answers to a standard set of questions. In an attempt to personalize the relationship between insurers and their individual applicants, firms selected highly respecte d local citizens to act as their agents. These agents were expected to evaluate the appearance of candidates, unearth evidence of unhealthy family histories or questionable habits, and attest to the respectability of the people writing testimonial letters on an applicant's behalf. In short, the initial purpose of the agency system was not to actively solicit customers, but, rather, to recreate the glass-bowl mentality associated with small towns or city neighborhoods.

7. The primary purpose of the passage is to

A. explain the original function of life insurance agents

B. evaluate the effectiveness of early life insurance agents

C. describe how life insurance was first introduced

D. illustrate how the life insurance agency system changed over time

E. compare the strategies used by life insurance in cities and in small towns

8 . The author suggests which of the following about “city neighborhoods”？

A. They were places where family histories where difficult to establish

B. They were places where unhealthy behaviors had been successfully addressed

C. They were locations that were well suited for recruiting insurance agents

D. They offered a high degree of transparency about a resident's personal history and character

E. They offered potentially fruitful markets for the life insurance industry

Throughout much of the Tertiary period (most of the past 65million years), the Arctic supported continuous forests. Only toward the end of that period does the fossil evidence show that certain present-day Arctic plants were established and widely distributed throughout the Arctic. Many Arctic plants are thought to have originated in the high mountain ranges of central Asia and North America, to have spread northward to the Arctic as global temperatures fell in the late Tertiary, and to have achieved a circumpolar distribution by the end of the Tertiary (about 2 million years ago). However, fossil evidence to support these proposals is either lacking or fragmentary. Consequently, the routes by which these plants expanded their ranges during their colonization of the Arctic remain unknown.

9. Which of the following statements about Arctic plants is supported by the passage?

A. The decline in global temperatures in the late Tertiary prevented many high-mountain plants from becoming established in the Arctic.

B. There is not enough evidence to firmly establish the historical migration routes of present-day Arctic plants.

C. Present-day Arctic plants are less likely to leave fossil remains than are plants outside the Arctic.

10. The context in which it appears, "distributed" most nearly means

A. developed

B. isolated

C. dispersed

D. divided

E. disconnected

9.Even though the original settlement may not hold up, it at least proves that the

deadlock can be broken and that a hitherto________ party is ready to bargain.

A.implacable

B.unyielding

C.impeccable

D.flawless

E.unqualified

F.capricious

10.The company is so old-fashioned and opposed to innovation that it can seem downright________.

A.antediluvian

B.flighty

C.archaic

D.chauvinistic

E.capricious

F.patronizing

11.Space is often referred to as the final frontier, as the only realm of which humankind has still to gain substantial understanding, yet the ocean is also another vast area about which our knowledge is ________.

A.erroneous

B.confusing

C.frustrating

D.rudimentary

E.delusive

F.sketchy

12.In sharp contrast to the novel’s scenic realism and precise characterized figure is its persistent philosophical ________.

A.naturalism

B.abstraction

C.generality

D.impartiality

E.sincerity

F.objectivity

A mouse’s immune system generally rejects proteins different from those produced by that mouse. The immune system of a pregnant mouse does not, however, reject the mouse’s fetuses, alt hough the fetal tissue a fetus produces as it develops typically contains many such proteins. Some scientists hypothesize that the placenta surrounding the fetus physically blocks the mother’s immune system. But others, noting that the placenta produces IDO, an enzyme that suppresses the immune system, hypothesize that IDO plays a crucial role in protecting the fetus.

15. In order to choose between the two hypotheses, it would be most useful to determine which of the following?

A.Whether mice sometimes produce IDO when they are not pregnant

B.Whether the immune systems of fetal mice are capable of attacking the tissue of the mother

C.Whether there are cases in which the immune system of a pregnant mouse rejects some fetuses but not others

D.Whether IDO is the only substance capable of suppressing the immune system produced by mice

E.Whether the immune systems of pregnant mice that are given a drug that inhibits IDO production subsequently reject the fetus.

Biologists studying wild monkeys sometimes need the genetic material DNA from a particular monkey to determine the animal's parentage. Until recently, DNA could be extracted only from blood. Collecting a blood sample required tranquilizing the donor animal. Now DNA can be extracted from hair. Monkeys shed large quantities of hair in places where they sleep. Therefore, researchers will now be able to determine the parentage of individual monkeys from DNA without tranquilizing the monkeys.

16. Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. The places in which monkeys sleep are easily accessible to researchers

B. Information about a particular monkey’s parentage is the only kind of information that can be determined from DNA that has been extracted from that monkey’s hair.

C. For at least some samples of hair collected from monkey habitat it will be possible to associate hairs with the individual monkeys from which they came

D. Examining DNA is the only way to determine the parentage of wild monkeys

E. It will be necessary to obtain any hair samples used in determining a monkey’s parentage from a place where the monkey has slept

During the 1920s, most advocates of scientific management, Frederick Taylor’s method for maximizing workers’ productivity by rigorously routinizing their jobs, opposed the five-day workweek. Although scientific managers conceded that reducing hours might provide an incentive to workers, in practice they more often used pay differentials to encourage higher productivity. Those reformers who wished to embrace both scientific management and reduced hours had to make a largely negative case, portraying the latter as an antidote to the rigors of the former.

In contrast to the scientific managers, Henry Ford claimed that shorter hours led to greater productivity and pro fits. However, few employers matched either Ford’s vision or his specific interest in mass marketing a product—automobiles—that required leisure for its use, and few unions succeeded in securing shorter hours through bargaining. At its 1928 convention, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) boasted of approximately 165,000 members working five-day, 40-hour weeks. But although this represented an increase of about 75,000 since 1926, about 70 percent of the total came from five extremely well-organized building trades’ unions.

17. It can be inferred that the author of the passage would probably agree with

which of the following claims about the boast referred to in highlighted sentence?

A.It is based on a mistaken estimation of the number of AFL workers who were allowed to work a five-day, 40-hour week in 1928.

B.It could create a mistaken impression regarding the number of unions obtaining a five-day, 40-hour week during the 1920s.

C.It exaggerates the extent of the increase between 1926 and 1928 in AFL members working a five-day, 40-hour week.

D.It overestimates the bargaining prowess of the AFL building trades’ unions during the 1920s.

E.It is based on an overestimation of the number of union members in the AFL in 1928.

18. According to t he passage, the “reformers” (line 5) claimed that

A.neither scientific management nor reduced hours would result in an improvement in the working conditions of most workers

B.the impact that the routinization of work had on workers could be mitigated by a reduction in the length of their workweek

C.there was an inherent tension between the principles of scientific management and a commitment to reduced workweeks

D.scientific managers were more likely than other managers to use pay differentials to encourage higher productivity

E.reducing the length of the workweek would increase productivity more effectively than would increases in pay

Unlike herbivores and omnivores, predators have traditionally been thought not to balance nutrient intake because of the assumption that animal tissue as a food source varies little and is nutritionally balanced. But chemical analysis of invertebrate prey reveals remarkable variation in nutrient composition among species; even within species, nutrient composition may vary considerably. Greenstone suggested that predators may select food items according to their nutrient contents. Jensen et al (2011) have shown experimentally that even sit-and-wait invertebrate predators with limited mobility can work to address nutrient deficiencies. The wolf spider, for instance, has been shown to regulate nutrient intake by extracting more dry mass from a prey item if it contains a higher proportion of a nutrient that was deficient in the previous prey.

19.The passage supplies information for answering which of the following

questions?

A.Do invertebrate predators with full mobility address nutrient needs in the same fashion as sit-and-wait invertebrate predators with limited mobility?

B.Why would there be a considerable variation in nutrient composition within prey of a given species?

C.Is all of the nutrient content of invertebrate prey contained in the dry mass?

D.What would a wolf spider do if a fly it was eating contained a higher proportion of a certain nutrient than was present in the spider’s recent prey?

E.How is a wolf spider able to determine that some prey it is eating contains a higher proportion of a nutrient that was deficient in the previous prey?

20.Which of the following best describes the organization of the passage as a whole?

A. A phenomenon is described, and an interpretation is offered.

B. A claim is made, and the corroborating evidence is evaluated.

C. A hypothesis is presented and undermined by recent findings.

D. A contrast is noted and shown to be specious based on recent findings.

E. A series of assumptions is presented and shown to be based on sound reasoning.