首页　>　TOEFL　>　阅读 B版　第３课时

Passage 1.

Born in 1830 in rural Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson spent her entire life in the household of her parents. Between 1858 and 1862, it was later discovered, she wrote like a person possessed, often producing a poem a day. It was also during this period that her life was transformed into the myth of Amherst. Withdrawing more and more, keeping to her room, sometimes even refusing to see visitors who called, she began to dress only in white-a habit that added to her reputation as an eccentric.

In their determinatin to read Dickinson's life in terms of a traditional romantic plot, biographers have missed the unique pattern of her life-her struggle to create a female life not yet imagined by the culture in which she lived. Dickinson was not the innocent, lovelorn, and emotionally fragile girl sentimentalized by the Dickinson myth and popularized by William Luce's 1976 play, The Belle of Amherst. Her decision to shut the door on Amherst society in the 1850's transformed her house into a kind of magical realm in which she was free to engage her poetic genius. Her seclusion was not the result of a failed love affair, but rather a part of a more general pattern of renunciation through which she, in her quest for self-sovereignty, carried on an argument with the Puritan fathers, attacking with wit and irony their cheerless Calvinist doctrine, their stern patriarchal God, and their rigid notions of "true womanhood."

1. What is the author's main purpose in the passage?

(A) To interpret Emily Dickinson's eccentric behavior

(B) To promote the popular myth of Emily Dickinson

(C) To discuss Emily Dickinson's failed love affair

(D) To describe the religious climate in Emily Dickinson's time

2. According to the passage, the period from 1858 to 1862 was for Emily Dickinson a period of great

(A) tragedy

(B) sociability

(C) productivity

(D) frivolity

3. Which of the following is NOT mentioned as being one of Emily Dickinson's eccentricities?

(A) Refusing to eat

(B) Wearing only white

(C) Avoiding visitors

(D) Staying in her room

4. According to the passage, biographers of Emily Dickinson have traditionally

(A) criticized most of her poems

(B) ignored her innocence and emotional fragility

(C) seen her life in romantic terms

(D) blamed her parents for restricting her activities

5. Why does the author mention William Luce's play The Belle of Amherst?

(A) To give an example of the sentimentalized Emily Dickinson myth

(B) To show how popular Emily Dickinson's poems have become

(C) To show that Emily Dickinson was also an actress

(D) To illustrate the theatrical quality of Emily Dickinson's poems

6. The author implies that many people attribute Emily Dickinson's seclusion to

(A) physical illness

(B) a failed love affair

(C) religious fervor

(D) her dislike of people

7. The author suggests all of the following as reasons for Emily Dickinson's unusual behavior EXCEPT the

(A) struggle to create a new female identity

(B) desire to develop her genius undisturbed

(C) search for her own independence

(D) attempt to draw attention to her poetry

8. It can be inferred from the passage that Emily Dickinson lived in a society that was characterized by

(A) strong Puritan beliefs

(B) equality of men and women

(C) the encouragement of nonconformity

(D) the appreciation of poetic creativity

Passage 2:

One of the most popular literary figures in American literature is a woman who spent almost half of her long life in China, a country on a continent thousands of miles from the Unite States. In her lifetime she earned this country's most highly acclaimed literary award: the Pulitzer Prize, and also the most prestigious form of literary recognition in the world, the Nobel Prize for Literature. Pearl S. Buck was almost a household word throughout much of her lifetime because of her prolific literary output, which consisted of some eighty-five published works, including several dozen novels, six collections of short stories, fourteen books for children, and more than a dozen works of nonfiction. When she was eighty years old, some twenty-five volumes were awaiting publication. Many of those books were set in China, the land in which she spent so much of her life. Her books and her life served as a bridge between the cultures of the East and the West. As the product of those two cultures she became as the described herself, "mentally bifocal." Her unique background made her into an unusually interesting and versatile human being. As we examine the life of Pearl Buck, we cannot help but be aware that we are in fact meeting three separate people: a wife and mother, an internationally famous writer and a humanitarian and philanthropist. One cannot really get to know Pearl Buck without learning about each of the three. Though honored in her lifetime with the William Dean Howell Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in addition to the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes. Pearl Buck as a total human being, not only a famous author, is a captivating subject of study.

1. What is the author's main purpose in the passage?

(A) To offer a criticism of the works of Pearl Buck.

(B) To illustrate Pearl Buck's views on Chinese literature

(C) To indicate the background and diverse interests of Pearl Buck

(D) To discuss Pearl Buck's influence on the cultures of the East and theWest

2. According to the passage, Pearl Buck is known as a writer of all of the following EXCEPT

(A) novels

(B) children's books

(C) poetry

(D) short stories

3. Which of the following is NOT mentioned by the author as an award received by Pearl Buck?

(A) The Nobel Prize

(B) The Newberry Medal

(C) The William Dean Howell medal

(D) The Pulitzer prize

4. According to the passage, Pearl Buck was an unusual figure in American literature in that she

(A) wrote extensively about a very different culture

(B) published half of her books abroad

(C) won more awards than any other woman of her time

(D) achieved her first success very late in life

5. According to the passage, Pearl Buck described herself as "mentally bifocal" to suggest that she was

(A) capable of resolving the differences between two distinct linguistic systems

(B) keenly aware of how the past could influence the future

(C) capable of producing literary works of interest to both adults and children

(D) equally familiar with two different cultural environments

6. The author's attitude toward Peart Buck could best be described as

(A) indifferent

(B) admiring

(C) sympathetic

(D) tolerant

Passage 3:

Joyce Carol Oates published her first collection of short stories, By The North Gate,

in 1963, two years after she had received her master's degree from the University of

Wisconsin and become an instructor of English at the University of Detroit. Her

Line productivity since then has been prodigious, accumulating in less than two decades to

(5) nearly thirty titles, including novels, collections of short stories and verse, plays, and

literary criticism. In the meantime, she has continued to teach, moving in 1967 from

the University of Detroit to the University of Windsor, in Ontario, and, in 1978, to

Princeton University. Reviewers have admired her enormous energy, but find a

productivity of such magnitude difficult to assess.

(10) In a period characterized by the abandonment of so much of the realistic tradition by

authors such as John Barth, Donald Barthelme, and Thomas Pynchon, Joyce Carol

Oates has seemed at times determinedly old-fashioned in her insistence on the

essentially mimetic quality of her fiction. Hers is a world of violence, insanity,

fractured love, and hopeless loneliness. Although some of it appears to come from her

(15) own direct observations, her dreams, and her fears, much more is clearly from the

experiences of others. Her first novel, With Shuddering Fall (1964), dealt with stock

car racing, though she had never seen a race. In Them (1969) she focused on Detroit

from the Depression through the riots of 1967, drawing much of her material from the

deep impression made on her by the problems of one of her students. Whatever the

(20) source and however shocking the events or the motivations, however, her fictive world

remains strikingly akin to that real one reflected in the daily newspapers, the television

news and talk shows, and the popular magazines of our day.

1. What is the main purpose of the passage?

(A) To review Oates' By the North Gate

(B) To compare some modern writers

(C) To describe Oates' childhood

(D) To outline Oates' career

2. Which of the following does the passage indicate

about Joyce Carol Qates' first publication?

(A) It was part of her master's thesis.

(B) It was a volume of short fiction.

(C) It was not successful.

(D) It was about an English instructor in Detroit.

3. Which of the following does the passage suggest

about Joyce Carol Oates in terms of her writing

career?

(A) She has experienced long nonproductive

periods in her writing.

(B) Her style is imitative of other contemporary

authors.

(C) She has produced a surprising amount of

fictions in a relative short time.

(D) Most of her work is based on personal

experience.

4. The word "characterized" in line 10 can best

replaced by which of the following?

(A) shocked

(B) impressed

(C) distinguished

(D) helped

5. What was the subject of Joyce Carol Oates' first

novel?

(A) Loneliness

(B) Insanity

(C) Teaching

(D) Racing

6. Why does the author mention Oates book In

Them?

(A) It is a typical novel of the 1960's

(B) It is her best piece of nonfiction.

(C) It is a fictional work based on the experiences

of another person.

(D) It is an autobiography.

7. Which of the following would Joyce Carol Oates

be most likely to write?

(A) A story with an unhappy ending

(B) A romance novel set in the nineteenth century

(C) A science fiction novel

(D) A dialogue for a talk show

Passage 4.

What makes it rain? Rain falls from clouds for the same reason anything falls to Earth

The Earth's gravity pulls it. But every cloud is made of water droplets or ice crystals. Why

doesn't rain or snow fall constantly from all clouds? The droplets or ice crystals in clouds are

exceedingly small. The effect of gravity on them is minute. Air currents move and lift droplets

(5) so that the net downward displacement is zero, even though the droplets are in constant motion.

Droplets and ice crystals behave somewhat like dust in the air made visible in a shaft of

sunlight. To the casual observer, dust seems to act in a totally random fashion, moving about

chaotically without fixed direction. But in fact dust particles are much larger than water droplets

and they finally fall. The average size of a cloud droplet is only 0.0004 inch in diameter, It is so

(10) small that it would take sixteen hours to fall half a mile in perfectly still air, and it does not fall out of moving air at all. Only when the droplet grows to a diameter of 0.008 inch or larger can it fall from the cloud. The average raindrop contains a million times as much water as a tiny

cloud droplet. The growth of a cloud droplet to a size large enough to fall out is the cause of

rain and other forms of precipitation. This important growth process is called "coalescence."

23. What is the main topic of the passage?

(A) The mechanics of rain

(B) The weather patterns of North America

(C) How Earth's gravity affects agriculture

(D) Types of clouds

24. The word "minute" in line 4 is closest in meaning

to which of the following?

(A) second

(B) tiny

(C) slow

(D) steady

25. The word "motion" in line 5 is closest in meaning

to

(A) wind

(B) change

(C) movement

(D) humidity

26. Ice crystals do NOT immediately fall to Earth

because

(A) they are kept aloft by air currents

(B) they combine with other chemicals in the

atmosphere

(C) most of them evaporate

(D) their electrical charges draw them away from

the earth

27. The word "random" in line 7 is closest in

meaning to

(A) unpredictable

(B) perplexing

(C) independent

(D) abnormal

28. What can be inferred about drops of water

larger than 0.008 inch in diameter?

(A) They never occur.

(B) They are not affected by the force of gravity.

(C) In still air they would fall to earth.

(D) In moving air they fall at a speed of thirty-two

miles per hour.

29. How much bigger is a rain drop than a cloud

droplet?

(A) 200 times bigger

(B) 1,000 times bigger

(C) 100,000 times bigger

(D) 1,000,000 times bigger

30. In this passage, what does the term "coalescence"

refer to?

(A) The gathering of small clouds to form larger

clouds

(B) The growth of droplets

(C) The effect of gravity on precipitation

(D) The movement of dust particles in the sunlight

Passage 5.

Many of the most damaging and life-threatening types of weather-torrential rains,

severe thunderstorms, and tornadoes--begin quickly, strike suddenly, and dissipate

rapidly, devastating small regions while leaving neighboring areas untouched. One

Line such event, a tornado, struck the northeastern section of Edmonton, Alberta, in July 1987.

(5) Total damages from the tornado exceeded $250 million, the highest ever for any

Canadian storm. Conventional computer models of the atmosphere have limited value

in predicting short-lived local storms like the Edmonton tornado, because the available

weather data are generally not detailed enough to allow computers to discern the subtle

atmospheric changes that precede these storms. In most nations, for example, weather-

(10) balloon observations are taken just once every twelve hours at locations typically

separated by hundreds of miles. With such limited data, conventional forecasting

models do a much better job predicting general weather conditions over large regions

than they do forecasting specific local events.

Until recently, the observation-intensive approach needed for accurate, very short-range

(15) forecasts, or "Nowcasts," was not feasible. The cost of equipping and operating

many thousands of conventional weather stations was prohibitively high, and the

difficulties involved in rapidly collecting and processing the raw weather data from

such a network were insurmountable. Fortunately, scientific and technological

advances have overcome most of these problems. Radar systems, automated weather

(20) instruments, and satellites are all capable of making detailed, nearly continuous

observation over large regions at a relatively low cost. Communications satellites can

transmit data around the world cheaply and instantaneously, and modern computers can

quickly compile and analyzing this large volume of weather information. Meteorologists

and computer scientists now work together to design computer programs and video

(25) equipment capable of transforming raw weather data into words, symbols, and vivid

graphic displays that forecasters can interpret easily and quickly. As meteorologists

have begun using these new technologies in weather forecasting offices, Nowcasting is

becoming a reality.

Which of the following would best illustrate Nowcasting?

(A) A five-day forecast

(B) A warning about a severe thunderstorm on the radio

(C) The average rainfall for each month

(D) A list of temperatures in major cities

Passage 6.

Are organically growth foods the best food choices? The advantages claimed for

such foods over conventionally growth and marketed food products are now being

debated. Advocates of organic foods---- a term whose meaning varies greatly ----

frequently proclaim that such products are safer and more nutritious than others.

(5) The growing interest of consumers in the safety and nutritional quality of the

typical North American diet is a welcome development. However, much of this

interest has been sparked by sweeping claims that the food supply is unsafe or

inadequate in meeting nutritional needs. Although most of these claims are not

supported by scientific evidence, the preponderance of written material advancing

(10) such claims makes it difficult for the general public to separate fact from fiction.

As a result, claims that eating a diet consisting entirely of organically grown foods

prevents or cures disease or provides other benefits to health have become widely

publicized and form the basis for folklore.

Almost daily the public is besieged by claims for "no-aging" diets, new vitamins,

(15) and other wonder foods. There are numerous unsubstantiated reports that natural

vitamins are superior to synthetic ones, that fertilized eggs are nutritionally superior

to unfertilized eggs, that untreated grains are better than fumigated grains, and the like.

One thing that most organically grown food products seem to have in common is

that they cost more than conventionally grown foods. But in many cases consumers are

(20) misled if they believe organic foods can maintain health and provide better nutritional

quality than conventionally grown foods. So there is real cause for concern if consumers,

particularly those with limited incomes, distrust the regular food supply and buy only

expensive organic foods instead

According to the first paragraph. which of the following is true about the term "organic foods"?

(A) It is accepted by most nutritionists

(B) It has been used only in recent years.

(C) It has no fixed meaning.

(D) It is seldom used by consumers.

Passage 7.

Ancient people made clay pottery because they needed it for their survival. They

used the pots they made for cooking, storing food, and carrying things from places to

place. Pottery was so important to early cultures that scientists now study it to learn

more about ancient civilizations. The more advanced the pottery in terms of decoration.

(5) materials, glazes, and manufacture, the more advanced the culture itself.

The artisan who makes pottery in North America today utilizes his or her skill and

imagination to create items that are beautiful as well as functional, transforming

something ordinary into something special and unique.

The potter uses one of the Earth's most basic materials: clay. Clay can be found

(10) almost anywhere. Good pottery clay must be free from all small stones and other hard

materials that would make the potting process difficult. Most North American artisan-

potters now purchase commercially processed clay, but some find the clay they need

right in the earth, close to where they work.

The most important tools potters use are their own hands; however, they also use

(15) wire loop tools, wooden modeling tools, plain wire, and sponges. Plain wire is used to

cut away the finished pot from its base on the potter's wheel.

After a finished pot is dried of all its moisture in the open air, it is placed in a kiln

and fired. The first firing hardens the pottery, and it is then ready to be glazed and

fired again.

(20) For areas where they do not want any glaze, such as the bottom of the pot, artisans

paint on melted wax that will later burn off in the kiln. They then pour on the liquid

glaze and let it run over the clay surface, making any kind of decorative pattern that

they want.

Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as a way that ancient people used pottery?

(A) To hold food

(B) To wash clothes

(C) To cook

(D) To transport objects

Passage 8.

The temperature of the Sun is over 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface, but it rise to

perhaps more than 16 million degrees at the center. The Sun is so much hotter than the Earth

that matter can exist only as a gas, except at the core. In the core of the Sun. the pressures are

so great against the gases that, despite the high temperature, there may be a small solid core.

(5) However, no one really knows, since the center of the Sun can never be directly observed.

Solar astronomers do know that the Sun is divided into five layers or zones. Starting at

the outside and going down into the Sun, the zones are the corona, chromosphere, photo-

sphere, convection zone, and finally the core. The first three zones are regarded as the Sun's

atmosphere. But since the Sun has no solid surface, it is hard to tell where the atmosphere

(10) ends and the main body of the Sun begins.

The Sun's outermost layer begins about 10,000 miles above the visible surface and goes

outward for millions of miles. This is the only part of the Sun that can be seen during an

eclipse such as the one in February 1979. At any other time, the corona can be seen only

when special instruments are used on cameras and telescopes to shut out the glare of the

(15) Sun's rays.

The corona is a brilliant, pearly white, filmy light, about as bright as the full Moon. Its

beautiful rays are a sensational sight during an eclipse. The corona's rays flash out in a

brilliant fan that has wispy spikelike rays near the Sun's north and south poles. The corona

is thickest at the Sun's equator.

(20) The corona rays are made up of gases streaming outward at tremendous speeds and

reaching a temperature of more than 2 million degrees Fahrenheit. The rays of gas thin out

as they reach the space around the planets. By the time the Sun's corona rays reach the

Earth, they are weak and invisible.

Where in the passage does the author compare the light of the Sun's outermost layer to that of another astronomical body?

(A) Lines 2-3

(B) Lines 9-10

(C) Lines 16

(D) Lines 22-23

All of the following are parts of the Sun's atmosphere EXCEPT the

(A) corona

(B) chromosphere

(C) photosphere

(D) core

Passage 9.

Basic to any understanding of Canada in the 20 years after the Second World War is

the country's impressive population growth. For every three Canadians in 1945. there

were over five in 1966. In September 1966 Canada's population passed the 20 million

mark. Most of this surging growth came from natural increase. The depression of the

(5) 1930's and the war had held back marriages, and the catching-up process began after

1945. The baby boom continued through the decade of the 1950's, producing a

population increase of nearly fifteen percent in the five years from 1951 to 1956. This

rate of increase had been exceeded only once before in Canada's history, in the decade

before 1911. when the prairies were being settled. Undoubtedly, the good economic

(10) conditions of the 1950's supported a growth in the population, but the expansion also

derived from a trend toward earlier marriages and an increase in the average size of

families. In 1957 the Canadian birth rate stood at 28 per thousand, one of the highest in the world.

After the peak year of 1957, the birth rate in Canada began to decline. It continued

(15) falling until in 1966 it stood at the lowest level in 25 years. Partly this decline reflected

the low level of births during the depression and the war, but it was also caused by

changes in Canadian society. Young people were staying at school longer, more

women were working; young married couples were buying automobiles or houses

before starting families; rising living standards were cutting down the size of families.

(20) It appeared that Canada was once more falling in step with the trend toward smaller

families that had occurred all through the Western world since the time of the Industrial

Revolution.

Although the growth in Canada's population had slowed down by 1966 (the

increase the first half of the 1960's was only nine percent), another large population

(25) wave was coming over the horizon. It would be composed of the children of the

children who were born during the period of the high birth rate prior to 1957.

The author mentions all of the following as causes of declines in population growth after 1957 EXCEPT

(A) people being better educated

(B) people getting married earlier

(C) better standards of living

(D) couples buying houses

Passage 10.

The physical difficulties encountered, how-ever, were quite real. Without a plentiful and

convenient supply of some suitable writing medium, any very extended development of the arithmetic process was bound to be hampered. It must be remembered that our common machine-made pulp paper is little more than a hundred years old. The older rag paper was made by hand and so consequently expensive and scarce.

The author describes old rag paper as all of the following EXCEPT

(A) handmade

(B) costly

(C) scarce

(D) delicate

Passage 11.

But the most spectacular things about the sea cucumber is the way it defends itself. Its major enemies are fish and crabs, when attacked, it squirts all its internal organs into the water. It also casts off attached structures such as tentacles. The sea cucumber will eviscerate and regenerate itself if it is attacked or even touched; it will do the same if the surrounding water temperature is too high or if the water becomes too polluted.

Of all the characteristics of the sea cucumber, which of the following seems to fascinate the author most?

(A) What it does when threatened

(B) Where it lives

(C) How it hides from predators

(D) What it eats

Passage 12.

Certainly no creature in the sea is odder than the common sea cucumber. All living

creature, especially human beings, have their peculiarities, but everything about the

little sea cucumber seems unusual. What else can be said about a bizarre animal that,

Line among other eccentricities, eats mud, feeds almost continuously day and night but can

(5) live without eating for long periods, and can be poisonous but is considered supremely

edible by gourmets?

For some fifty million years, despite all its eccentricities, the sea cucumber has

subsisted on its diet of mud. It is adaptable enough to live attached to rocks by its tube

feet, under rocks in shallow water, or on the surface of mud flats. Common in cool

(10) water on both Atlantic and Pacific shores, it has the ability to suck up mud or sand and

digest whatever nutrients are present.

Sea cucumbers come in a variety of colors, ranging from black to reddish-brown to

sand-color and nearly white. One form even has vivid purple tentacles. Usually the

creatures are cucumber-shaped-hence their name-and because they are typically

(15) rock inhabitants, this shape, combined with flexibility, enables them to squeeze

into crevices where they are safe from predators and ocean currents.

Although they have voracious appetites, eating day and night, sea cucumbers have

the capacity to become quiescent and live at a low metabolic rate-feeding sparingly

or not at all for long periods, so that the marine organisms that provide their food have

(20) a chance to multiply. If it were not for this faculty, they would devour all the food

available in a short time and would probably starve themselves out of existence.

But the most spectacular thing about the sea cucumber is the way it defends itself.

Its major enemies are fish and crabs, when attacked, it squirts all its internal organs

into the water. It also casts off attached structures such as tentacles. The sea cucumber

(25) will eviscerate and regenerate itself if it is attacked or even touched; it will do the same

if the surrounding water temperature is too high or if the water becomes too polluted.

Compared with other sea creatures the sea cucumber is very

(A) dangerous

(B) intelligent

(C) strange

(D) fat

Passage 13.

A folk culture is small, isolated, cohesive, conservative, nearly self-sufficient

group that is homogeneous in custom and race, with a strong family or clan structure

and highly developed rituals. Order is maintained through sanctions based in the

Line religion or family, and interpersonal relationships are strong. Tradition is paramount,

(5) and change comes infrequently and slowly. There is relatively little division of labor

into specialized duties. Rather, each person is expected to perform a great variety of

tasks, though duties may differ between the sexes. Most goods are handmade, and a

subsistence economy prevails. Individualism is weakly developed in folk cultures, as

are social classes. Unaltered folk cultures no longer exist in industrialized countries

(10) such as the United States and Canada. Perhaps the nearest modern equivalent in Anglo-

America is the Amish, a German American farming sect that largely renounces the

products and labor saving devices of the industrial age. In Amish areas, horse-drawn

buggies still serve as a local transportation device, and the faithful are not permitted to

own automobiles. The Amish's central religious concept of Demut, "humility", clearly

(15) reflects the weakness of individualism and social class so typical of folk cultures, and

there is a corresponding strength of Amish group identity. Rarely do the Amish marry

outside their sect. The religion, a variety of the Mennonite faith, provides the principal

mechanism for maintaining order.

By contrast, a popular culture is a large heterogeneous group, often highly

(20) individualistic and constantly changing. Relationships tend to be impersonal, and a

pronounced division of labor exists, leading to the establishment of many specialized

professions. Secular institutions, of control such as the police and army take the place of

religion and family in maintaining order, and a money-based economy prevails.

Because of these contrasts, "popular" may be viewed as clearly different from "folk".

(25) The popular is replacing the folk in industrialized countries and in many developing

nations, Folk-made objects give way to their popular equivalent, usually because the

popular item is more quickly or cheaply produced, is easier or time saving to use, or

lends more prestige to the owner.

Which of the following is NOT given as a reason why folk-made objects are replaced by mass-produced objects?

(A) Cost

(B) Prestige

(C) Quality

(D) Convenience

The word "their" in line 26 refers to

(A) folk

(B) nations

(C) countries

(D) objects

Passage 14.

One of the most important social developments that helped to make possible a shift

in thinking about the role of public education was the effect of the baby boom of the

1950's and 1960's on the schools. In the 1920's, but especially in the Depression

Line conditions of the 1930's, the United States experienced a declining birth rate-every

(5) thousand women aged fifteen to forty-four gave birth to about 118 live children in

1920, 89.2 in 1930, 75.8 in 1936, and 80 in 1940. With the growing prosperity brought

on by the Second World War and the economic boom that followed it, young people

married and established households earlier and began to raise larger families than had

their predecessors during the Depression. Birth rates rose to 102 per thousand in 1946,

(10) 106.2 in 1950, and 118 in 1955. Although economics was probably the most important

determinant, it is not the only explanation for the baby boom. The increased value

placed on the idea of the family also helps to explain this rise in birth rates. The baby

boomers began streaming into the first grade by the mid-1940's and became a flood by

1950. the public school system suddenly found itself overtaxed. While the number of

(15) schoolchildren rose because of wartime and postwar conditions, these same conditions

made the schools even less prepared to cope with the flood. The wartime economy

meant that few new schools were built between 1940 and 1945. Moreover, during the

war and in the boom times that followed, large numbers of teachers left their profession

for better-paying jobs elsewhere in the economy.

(20) Therefore, in the 1950's and 1960's, the baby boom hit an antiquated and inadequate

school system. Consequently, the "custodial rhetoric" of the 1930's and early 1940's

no longer made sense; that is, keeping youths aged sixteen and older out of the labor

market by keeping them in school could no longer be a high priority for an institution

unable to find space and staff to teach younger children aged five to sixteen. With the

(25) baby boom, the focus of educators and of laymen interested in education inevitably

turned toward the lower grades and back to basic academic skills and discipline. The

system no longer had much interest in offering nontraditional, new, and extra services

to older youths

The "custodial rhetoric" mentioned in line 21 refers to

(A) raising a family

(B) keeping older individuals in school

(C) running an orderly household

(D) maintaining discipline in the classroom

Passage 15.

People in the United States in the nineteenth century were haunted by the prospect

that unprecedented change in the nation's economy would bring social chaos. In the

years following 1820, after several decades of relative stability, the economy entered a

Line period of sustained and extremely rapid growth that continued to the end of the

(5) nineteenth century. Accompanying that growth was a structural change that featured

increasing economic diversification and a gradual shift in the nation's labor force from

agriculture to manufacturing and other nonagricultural pursuits.

Although the birth rate continued to decline from its high level of the eighteenth and

early nineteenth century, the population roughly doubled every generation during the rest

(10) of the nineteenth centuries. As the population grew, its makeup also changed.

Massive waves of immigration brought new ethnic groups into the country. Geographic

and social mobility-downward as well as upward-touched almost everyone. Local

studies indicate that nearly three-quarters of the population-in the North and South,

in the emerging cities of the Northeast, and in the restless rural counties of the

(15) West-changed their residence each decade. As a consequence, historian David

Donald has written, "Social atomization affected every segment of society, " and it

seemed to many people that "all the recognized values of orderly civilization were

gradually being eroded."

Rapid industrialization and increased geographic mobility in the nineteenth century

(20) had special implications for women because these changes tended to magnify social

distinctions. As the roles men and women played in society became more rigidly

defined, so did the roles they played in the home. In the context of extreme

competitiveness and dizzying social change, the household lost many of its earlier

functions and the home came to serve as a haven of tranquillity and order. As the size

(25) of families decreased, the roles of husband and wife became more clearly differentiated

than ever before. In the middle class especially, men participated in the productive

economy while women ruled the home and served as the custodians of civility and

culture. The intimacy of marriage that was common in earlier periods was rent, and a

gulf that at times seemed unbridgeable was created between husbands and wives.

The word "its" in line 10 refers to

(A) century

(B) population

(C) generation

(D) birth rate

Passage 16.

Volcanic fire and glacial ice are natural enemies. Eruptions at glaciated volcanoes

typically destroy ice fields, as they did in 1980 when 70 of Mount Saint Helens

ice cover was demolished. During long dormant intervals, glaciers gain the upper hand

Line cutting deeply into volcanic cones and eventually reducing them to rubble. Only rarely

(5) do these competing forces of heat and cold operate in perfect balance to create a

phenomenon such as the steam caves at Mount Rainier National Park.

Located inside Rainier's two ice-filled summit craters, these caves form a labyrinth

of tunnels and vaulted chambers about one and one-half miles in total length. Their

creation depends on an unusual combination of factors that nature almost never brings

(10) together in one place. The cave-making recipe calls for a steady emission of volcanic

gas and heat, a heavy annual snowfall at an elevation high enough to keep it from

melting during the summer, and a bowl-shaped crater to hold the snow.

Snow accumulating yearly in Rainier's summit craters is compacted and compressed

into a dense form of ice called firm, a substance midway between ordinary ice and the

(15) denser crystalline ice that makes up glaciers. Heat rising from numerous openings (called

fumaroles) along the inner crater walls melts out chambers between the rocky walls

and the overlying ice pack. Circulating currents of warm air then melt additional openings

in the firm ice, eventually connecting the individual chambers and, in the larger of

Rainier's the crater's, forming a continuous passageway that extends two-thirds of the

(20) Way around the crater's interior.

To maintain the cave system, the elements of fire under ice must remain in equilibrium

Enough snow must fill the crater each year to replace that melted from below. If too

much volcanic heat is discharged, the crater's ice pack will melt away entirely and the

caves will vanish along with the snows of yesteryear. If too little heat is produced, the

(25) ice, replenished annually by winter snowstorms, will expand, pushing against the

enclosing crater walls and smothering the present caverns in solid firm ice.

The word "they" in line 2 refers to

(A) fields

(B) intervals

(C) eruptions

(D) enemies

Passage 17.

Panel painting, common in thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Europe, involved a

painstaking, laborious process. Wooden planks were joined, covered with gesso to

prepare the surface for painting, and then polished smooth with special tools. On this

Line perfect surface, the artist would sketch a composition with chalk, refine it with inks,

(5) and then begin the deliberate process of applying thin layers of egg tempera paint (egg

yolk in which pigments are suspended) with small brushes. The successive layering of

these meticulously applied paints produced the final, translucent colors.

Backgrounds of gold were made by carefully applying sheets of gold leaf, and then

embellishing or decorating the gold leaf by punching it with a metal rod on which a

(10) pattern had been embossed. Every step in the process was slow and deliberate. The

quick-drying tempera demanded that the artist know exactly where each stroke be

placed before the brush met the panel, and it required the use of fine brushes. It was,

therefore, an ideal technique for emphasizing the hard linear edges and pure, fine areas

of color that were so much a part of the overall aesthetic of the time. The notion that an

(15) artist could or would dash off an idea in a fit of spontaneous inspiration was completely

alien to these deliberately produced works.

Furthermore, making these paintings was so time-consuming that it demanded

assistance. All such work was done by collective enterprise in the workshops. The

painter or master who is credited with having created the painting may have designed

(20) the work and overseen its production, but it is highly unlikely that the artist's hand

applied every stroke of the brush. More likely, numerous assistants, who had been

trained to imitate the artist's style, applied the paint. The carpenter's shop probably

provided the frame and perhaps supplied the panel, and yet another shop supplied the

gold. Thus, not only many hands, but also many shops were involved in the final

(25) product.

In spite of problems with their condition, restoration, and preservation many panel

paintings have survived, and today many of them are housed in museum collections.

The word "it" in line 4 refers to

(A) chalk

(B) composition

(C) artist

(D) surface

Passage 18.

Basic to any understanding of Canada in the 20 years after the Second World War is

the country's impressive population growth. For every three Canadians in 1945. there

were over five in 1966. In September 1966 Canada's population passed the 20 million

mark. Most of this surging growth came from natural increase. The depression of the

(5) 1930's and the war had held back marriages, and the catching-up process began after

1945. The baby boom continued through the decade of the 1950's, producing a

population increase of nearly fifteen percent in the five years from 1951 to 1956. This

rate of increase had been exceeded only once before in Canada's history, in the decade

before 1911. when the prairies were being settled. Undoubtedly, the good economic

(10) conditions of the 1950's supported a growth in the population, but the expansion also

derived from a trend toward earlier marriages and an increase in the average size of

families. In 1957 the Canadian birth rate stood at 28 per thousand, one of the highest in

the world.

After the peak year of 1957, the birth rate in Canada began to decline. It continued

(15) falling until in 1966 it stood at the lowest level in 25 years. Partly this decline reflected

the low level of births during the depression and the war, but it was also caused by

changes in Canadian society. Young people were staying at school longer, more

women were working; young married couples were buying automobiles or houses

before starting families; rising living standards were cutting down the size of families.

(20) It appeared that Canada was once more falling in step with the trend toward smaller

families that had occurred all through the Western world since the time of the Industrial

Revolution.

Although the growth in Canada's population had slowed down by 1966 (the

increase the first half of the 1960's was only nine percent), another large population

(25) wave was coming over the horizon. It would be composed of the children of the

children who were born during the period of the high birth rate prior to 1957.

The word "It" in line 25 refers to

(A) horizon

(B) population wave

(C) nine percent

(D) first half

Passage 19.

When we accept the evidence of our unaided eyes and describe the Sun as a yellow star, we have summed up the most important single fact about it-at this moment in time. It appears probable, however, that sunlight will be the color we know for only anegligibly small part of the Sun's history.

Stars, like individuals, age and change. As we look out into space, We see around us starsat all stages of evolution. There are faint blood red dwarfs so cool that their surface temperature is a mere 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, there are searing ghosts blazing at 100,000degrees Fahrenheit and almost too hot to be seen, for the great part of their radiation is in the invisible ultraviolet range. Obviously, the "daylight" produced by any star depends on its temperature; today(and for ages to come) our Sun is at about 10.000 degrees Fahrenheit, and this means that most of the Sun's light is concentrated in the yellow band of the spectrum, falling slowly in intensity toward both the longer and shorter light waves.

That yellow "hump" will shift as the Sun evolves, and the light of day will change accordingly. It is natural to assume that as the Sun grows older, and uses up its hydrogen fuel-which it is now doing at the spanking rate of half a billion tons a second-it will become steadily colder and redder.

In line 15, to which of the following does "it" refer?

(A) yellow "hump"

(B) day

(C) Sun

(D) hydrogen fuel

Passage 20.

In Philadelphia, for example, with a population of 150,000, people still had to go to the post office go get their mail. The confusion and congestion of individual citizens looking for their letters was itself enough to discourage use of the mail. It is no wonder that, during the years of these cumbersome arrangements, private letter-carrying and express businesses developed. Although their activities were only semilegal, they thrived, and actually advertised that between Boston and Philadelphia they were a half-day speedier than the government mail. The government postal service lost volume to private competition and was not able to handle efficiently even the business it had.

The word "they" in line 15 refers to

(A) Boston and Philadelphia

(B) businesses

(C) arrangements

(D) letters

Passage 21.

Archaeology has long been an accepted tool for studying prehistoric cultures.

Relatively recently the same techniques have been systematically applied to studies of

the more immediate past. This has been called "historical archaeology," a term that is

Line used in the United States to refer to any archaeological investigation into North

(5) American sites that postdate the arrival of Europeans.

Back in the 1930's and 1940's, when building restoration was popular, historical

archeology was primarily a tool of architectural reconstruction. The role of archaeologists

was to find the foundations of historic buildings and then take a back seat to architects.

The mania for reconstruction had largely subsided by the 1950's and 1960's. Most

(10) people entering historical archaeology during this period came out of university

anthropology departments, where they had studied prehistoric cultures. They were, by

training, social scientists, not historians, and their work tended to reflect this bias. The

questions they framed and the techniques they used were designed to help them

understand, as scientists, how people behaved. But because they were treading on

(15) historical ground for which there was often extensive written documentation and because

their own knowledge of these periods was usually limited, their contributions to American

history remained circumscribed. Their reports, highly technical and sometimes poorly

written, went unread.

More recently, professional archaeologists have taken over. These researchers have

(20) sought to demonstrate that their work can be a valuable tool not only of science but also

of history, providing fresh insights into the daily lives of ordinary people whose existences

might not otherwise be so well documented. This newer emphasis on archaeology as

social history has shown great promise, and indeed work done in this area has lead to a

reinterpretation of the United States past.

(25) In Kingston, New York, for example, evidence has been uncovered that indicates that

English goods were being smuggled into that city at a time when the Dutch supposedly

controlled trading in the area. And in Sacramento an excavation at the site of a fashionable

nineteenth-century hotel revealed that garbage had been stashed in the building's

basement despite sanitation laws to the contrary.

The phrase "their contributions" in line 16 refers to the contributions of

(A) social scientists

(B) prehistoric cultures

(C) historians

(D) documentation and knowledge

Passage 22.

This vertical movement of the fieldstones is not simply an artifact of soil erosion; it is the result of frost heaving. In the fall the soil freezes first beneath stones, because stones are a better conductor of heat than soil. Or, put another way, soil is a better insulator than rock. In a sea of insulation, stones are chilly islands.

Because most glacial till has a fairly high water content, ice forms beneath fieldstones when they freeze, and the expansion of this ice forces them upward. Even when the ice thaws, the stones do not return to their original positions because during thawing particles of soil seep into the cavity beneath， partially preventing the stones from dropping. Like a ratchet on a car jack each freeze-thaw cycle gradually lifts the fieldstones toward the surface. In a very cold winter there may actually be two thrusts per freeze. Ice expands when it initially forms, but as the temperature plummets, the ice contracts. In the reverse process, when this very cold ice finally melts, it must expand a second time, pushing the stone once more. In theory, the upward movement of fieldstones should result in pure soil, all the stones above the frost line having been pushed to the surface and carried away. What a vision! Acres of pure, deep soil and crowbars rusting away unused. Alas, the fastest stones move only an inch or so a year, and most are orders of magnitude slower.

What statement was most probably made in the paragraph preceding this passage?

(A) Pure soil is quickly eroded.

(B) Fieldstones are lifted to the top of the soil.

(C) It is not easy to move stones from fields.

(D) Ancient cultural artifacts are buried deep in the soil.

Passage 23.

Just how salt became so crucial to our metabolism is a mystery; one appealing theory trace sour dependence on it to the chemistry of the late Cambrian seas. It was there, a half-billion years ago, that tiny metazoan organisms first evolved systems for sequestering and circulating fluids. The water of the early oceans might thus have become the chemical prototype for the fluids of all animal life-the medium in which cellular operations could continue no matter how the external environment changed. This speculation is based on the fact that, even today, the blood serums of radically divergent species are remarkably similar. Lizards, platypuses, sheep, and humans could hardly be more different in anatomy or eating habits, yet the salt content in the fluid surrounding their blood cells is virtually identical.

As early marine species made their way to freshwater and eventually to dry land, sodium remained a key ingredient of their interior, if not their exterior, milieu. The most successful mammalian species would have been those that developed efficient hormonal systems for maintaining the needed sodium concentrations. The human body, for example, uses the hormonesrenin, angiotensin, and aldosterone to retain or release tissue fluids and bloodplasma. The result, under favorable conditions, is a dynamic equilibrium in which neither fluid volume nor sodium concentration fluctuates too dramatically. But if the body is deprived of salt, the effects soon become dangerous, despite compensatory mechanisms.

What did the paragraph preceding the passage most probably discuss?

(A) Methods of mining salt

(B) Ancient beliefs about the powers of salt

(C) How humans used salt during the Cambrian period

(D) The importance of salt to our metabolism

Passage 24.

The origins of the horse go back to eohippus, the "dawn-horse" of the Eocene, only 10to 20 inches tall. Like its relatives, the ancient tapir and rhinoceros, eohippus had four toes on its front feet, three on the rear, and teeth adapted to a forest diet of soft leaves. Eohippus died out about 50 million years ago in both North America and Europe.

Later ancestral horse types moved from their forest niche out onto the grassy plains. Their teeth had to accommodate to hard siliceous grass. No longer could these proto horses slip away through thick forest when danger threatened. Escape now demanded speed and endurance. Limbs grew longer. Extra toes became vestiges that were not visible externally.

The paragraph following the passage most probably discusses

(A) other changes that the rhinoceros has undergone

(B) more reasons for the extinction of eohippus

(C) further development of early horse types

(D) the diet of eohippus

Passage 25

The history of clinical nutrition, or the study of the relationship between health

and how the body takes in and utilizes food substances, can be divided into four

distinct eras: the first began in the nineteenth century and extended into the early

Line twentieth century when it was recognized for the first time that food contained

(5) constituents that were essential for human function and that different foods provided

different amounts of these essential agents. Near the end of this era, research studies

demonstrated that rapid weight loss was associated with nitrogen imbalance and

could only be rectified by providing adequate dietary protein associated with certain

foods.

(10) The second era was initiated in the early decades of the twentieth century and

might be called "the vitamin period." Vitamins came to be recognized in foods, and

deficiency syndromes were described. As vitamins became recognized as essential

food constituents necessary for health, it became tempting to suggest that every

disease and condition for which there had been no previous effective treatment might

(15) be responsive to vitamin therapy. At that point in time, medical schools started to

become more interested in having their curricula integrate nutritional concepts into

the basic sciences. Much of the focus of this education was on the recognition of

vitamin deficiency symptoms. Herein lay the beginning of what ultimately turned from

ignorance to denial of the value of nutritional therapies in medicine. Reckless

(20) claims were made for effects of vitamins that went far beyond what could actually

be achieved from the use of them.

In the third era of nutritional history in the early 1950's to mid 1960's, vitamin

therapy began to fall into disrepute. Concomitant with this, nutrition education in

medical schools also became less popular. It was just a decade before this that many

(25) drug companies had found their vitamin sales skyrocketing and were quick to supply

practicing physicians with generous samples of vitamins and literature extolling the

virtue of supplementation for a variety of health-related conditions. Expectations

as to the success of vitamins in disease control were exaggerated. As is known in

retrospect, vitamin and mineral therapies are much less effective when applied to

(30) health-crisis conditions than when applied to long-term problems of undernutrition

that lead to chronic health problems.

The paragraph following the passage most probably discusses

(A) the fourth era of nutrition history

(B) problems associated with undernutrition

(C) how drug companies became successful

(D) why nutrition education lost its appeal

KEYS:

Passage 1: ACACA BDA

Passage 2: CCBAD B

Passage 3: DBCCD CA

Passage 4: ABCAA CDB

Passage 5: A

Passage 6: C

Passage 7: B

Passage 8: C

Passage 9: B

Passage 10: D

Passage 11: A

Passage 12: C

Passage 13: CD

Passage 14: B

Passage 15: B

Passage 16: C

Passage 17: C

Passage 18: B

Passage 19: C

Passage 20: B

Passage 21: A

Passage 22: B

Passage 23: D

Passage 24: A

Passage 25: A