Reading Comprehension Test 6

[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]   Everybody at all addicted to letter writing, without having much to say, which will include a large proportion of the female world at least, must feel with Lady Bertram, that she was out of luck in having such a capital piece of Mansfield news, as the certainty of the Grants going to bath, occur at a time when she 18114could make no advantage of it, and will admit that it must have been very mortifying to her to see it fall to the share of their thankless son, and treated as concisely as possible at the end of a long letter, instead of having it to spread over the largest part of a page of her own. For though Lady Bertram, rather at home in the epistolary line, having early in her marriage, from the 68982want of other employment, and the circumstance of Sir Thomas's being in the Parliament, got into the way of making and keeping correspondents, and formed for herself a very creditable, commonplace, 72489amplifying style, so that a very little matter was enough for her; she could not do entirely without any; she must have something to write about, 42326even of her niece, and being so soon to loose all the 18247benefits of Dr. Giant's gouty symptoms and, Mrs. Grant's morning calls, it was very hard upon her to be deprived of one of the last epistolary uses she could put them to.
   There were a rich amends, however, preparing for her. Lady Bertram's hour of good luck came. Within a few days from the receipt of Edmund's letter, Fanny had one from her aunt, beginning thus:
   "My dear Fanny, I take up my pen to communicate some very alarming intelligence, which I make no doubt will give you much concern."
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The following two passages are from critical commentaries

on "the Tramp," the comic character created by silent-film

star Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977).

Passage 1

Before Charlie Chaplin came along, tramps and hoboes

had long been a part of the cartoon and comic strip tradition,

represented most prominently in England in 1896

by Tom Browne's "Weary Willie and Tired Tim" and

in the United States in 1900 by Frederick Burr Opper's

"Happy Hooligan." But Chaplin was to bring a definitive

genius to the tramp figure, raising it to heights of poetic

and mythic power in his first year with the Keystone studios.

That Chaplin had considered using the tramp figure earlier

is suggested by the title of one of his childhood stage teams,

"Bristol and Chaplin, the Millionaire Tramps.' But the

tramp character was not fully realized until 1914, when

Chaplin donned the baggy pants, the floppy shoes, the cane,

the derby hat, and the little moustache for his second film.

As Chaplin would later explain, "The moment I was dressed,

the clothes and makeup made me feel the character. By the

time I walked on stage 'the Tramp' was fully born." He

would polish and revise the character through other film

roles until 1915, when he was featured in his own two-reel

film,The Tramp.

        In his own comments on the Tramp, Chaplin put his

finger on many of the elements that made the characterization

so powerful and universally relevant. As he said

after introducing the character to his director, "this fellow

is many-sided, a tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a

lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.

He would have you believe he is a scientist, a musician, a

duke,a polo player. However, he is not above picking up

cigarette butts or robbing a baby of its candy." The Tramp,

in other words, is a human being down and out on his luck

and full of passion for life and hope that things will get

better.He is imaginative and creative, and thus a romantic

and an artist, who brings style to his meager existence and

art to his struggle for survival. Yet when things become

worse,he is willing to place practicality above sentiment

and violate the usual social amenities. He is indeed complex

and many-sided, thereby touching most human beings at

one or more points in our character and makeup. There is a

good deal in his nature that most of us identify with in our

secret selves, apart from what we are in the public world

we inhabit.

Passage 2

       There is no doubt that Charlie Chaplin was a regu-

lar reader of the most famous of the early comic strips,

"Weary Willie and Tired Tim." Weary Willie and

Tired Tim made their debut on the front of Illustrated

Chips in 1896 when Chaplin was an energetic eight year

old.In his book, My Autobiography, Chaplin only mentions

his love of comics in passing, commenting that one of his

rare pleasures was reading "my weekly comic on a serene

Sunday morning."

        He was much more forthcoming---and revealing---

in 1957 while talking to journalist Victor Thompson.

Chaplin began reminiscing about his younger days--and

one particular occasion when he had a short-lived job at

a glass-blowing establishment in London.

      "In the lunch breaks, I used to entertain the men with

sand dances," he told Thompson. "On one occasion I

danced so furiously, I got sick and had to be sent home.

I sat on the curb feeling I was dying. A woman gave me a

penny to go home by horse-bus, but I walked and bought

a comic with the windfall.

"Ah,those comics, Chaplin went on, the wonderfully

vulgar paper for boys with Casey Court pictures, and the

'Adventures of Weary Willie and Tired Tim,' two famous

tramps with the world against them. Theres been a lot said

about how I evolved the little tramp character who made my

name.Deep, psychological stuff has been written about

how I meant him to be a symbol of all the class war, of

the love-hate concept, the death-wish and what-all.

      "But if you want the simple Chaplin truth behind the

Chaplin legend, I started the little tramp simply to make

people laugh and because those other old tramps, Weary

Willie and Tired Tim, had always made me laugh."

       If one glances through old copies of Illustrated Chips,

it is possible to find similarities between the scrapes that

Weary Willie and Tired Tim got into and those in some of

Chaplin's films: even the titles of Chaplin's early movies

seem derived from the adventures of the comic book heroes.

And if further proof of the influence is needed, isn't the

very appearance of the gaunt Weary Willie strikingly

similar to that of Chaplin's Little Tramp?

[passage-header]This passage is adapted from Saki, The Schartz-Metterklume Method. Originally published in 1911.[/passage-header]Lady Carlotta stepped out on to the platform of the small wayside station and took a 83290turn or two up and down its uninteresting length, to kill time till the train should be pleased to proceed on its way. Then, in the roadway beyond, she saw a horse struggling with a more than ample load, and a carter of the sort that seems to bear a sullen hatred against the animal that helps him to earn a living. Lady Carlotta promptly betook her to the roadway, and put rather a different complexion on the struggle. 74396Certain of her acquaintances were wont to give her plentiful admonition as to the undesirability of interfering on behalf of a distressed animal, such interference being none of her business.82306Only once had she put the doctrine of non-interference into practice, when one of its most eloquent exponents had been besieged for nearly three hours in a small and extremely uncomfortable maytree by an angry boar-pig, while Lady Carlotta, on the other side of the fence, had proceeded with the water-colour sketch she was engaged on, and refused to interfere between the boar and his prisoner. 38315It is to be feared that she lost the friendship of the ultimately rescued lady.24597

[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]   The guest waked from a dream and remembering his 11733day's pleasure hurried to dress himself that it might sooner begin. He was sure from the way the shy little girl looked once or twice yesterday that she had at least seen the white heron, and now she must really be persuaded to tell. Here she comes now, paler than ever, and her worn old frock is 91241torn and tattered and smeared with pine pitch. The grandmother and sportsman stand in the door together and question her, and the 61168splendid moment has come to speak of the dead hemlock-tree by the green marsh.
   But Sylvia does not speak after all, though the old grandmother fretfully rebukes her, and the young man's kind appealing eyes are looking straight on her own. He can make them rich with money; he has promised it, and they are poor now. He is so well worth making happy, and he waits to hear the story she can tell.
   No, she must keep silence! What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb? Has she been 47900nine years growing, and now, when 43068the great world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it aside for a bird's sake? 94899The murmur of the pine's green branches in her ears, she remembers how the white heron came flying through 97477the golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron's secret and give its lie away.
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The following passage is adapted from a novel set in the early twentieth century. Mr. Beebe, a clergyman, is speaking with Cecil Vyse about a mutual acquaintance, Lucy Honey church. Miss Honey church has recently returned from a journey with her older cousin and chaperone, Miss Bartlett.
Lucy Honey church has no faults, said Cecil, with grave sincerity. I quite agree. At present she has none. 
At present?
Im not cynical. Im only thinking of my pet theory about Miss Honeychurch. Does it seem reasonable that she should play piano so wonderfully, and live so quietly? I suspect that someday she shall be wonderful in both. The water-tight compartments in her will break down and music and life will mingle. Then we shall have her heroically good, heroically badtoo heroic, perhaps, to be good or bad. Cecil found his companion interesting. And at present you think her not wonderful as far as life goes? Well, I must say Ive only seen her at Tunbridge Wells, where she was not wonderful, and at Florence. She wasnt wonderful in Florence either, but I kept on expecting that she would be.  
In what way?
Conversation had become agreeable to them, and they were pacing up and down the terrace. I could as easily tell you what tune shell play next. There was simply the sense that she found wings and meant to use them. I can show you a beautiful picture in my diary. Miss Honey church as a kite, Miss Bartlett holding the string. Picture number two: the string breaks. The sketch was in his diary, but it had been made afterwards, when he viewed things artistically. At the time he had given surreptitious tugs to the string himself. 
But the string never broke? No. I mightnt have seen Miss Honeychurch rise, but I should certainly have heard Miss Bartlett fall. It has broken now, said the young man in low, vibrating tones. Immediately he realized that of all the conceited, ludicrous, contemptible ways of announcing an engagement this was the worst. He cursed his love of metaphor; had he suggested that he was a star and that Lucy was soaring up to reach him?
Broken? What do you mean? 
I meant, Cecil said stiffly, that she is going to marry me. 
The clergyman was conscious of some bitter disappointment which he could not keep out of his voice. 
I am sorry; I must apologize. I had no idea you were intimate with her, or I should never have talked in this flippant, superficial way. You ought to have stopped me. And down in the garden he saw Lucy herself; yes, he was disappointed. 
Cecil, who naturally preferred congratulations to apologies, drew down the corner of his mouth. Was this the reaction his action would get from the whole world? Of course, he despised the world as a whole; every thoughtful man should; it is almost a test of refinement. 
 Im sorry I have given you a shock, he said dryly. I fear that Lucys choice does not meet with your approval.

[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]People around the world unanimously agree that gold is a valuable mineral. Gold has been seen as a precious commodity by many cultures throughout time, and Americans of the 1840s were no different. When James W. Marshall, a carpenter and sawmill owner, discovered a gold nugget in the American River, California was forever changed. News of his discovery attracted thousands of immigrants from other parts of California, as well as other places around the United States and the World.
   In the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range that runs 400 miles through California, years of erosion caused by rainfall and the downhill flow of mountain streams loosened pieces of gold that had been embedded in the solid rock formed over 100 million years ago. California is largely made of quartz previously found at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Underwater volcanoes melted the quartz into magma and pushed it up towards the surface, sometimes forming islands. Due to the movements of the Earth's tectonic plates, these islands were pushed together and against the West Coast. This movement and accumulation of land over millions of years formed the area known as California. The gold that was dispersed across the sea floor became concentrated and redistribution throughout the veins of quartz in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 

The following passage is adapted from a novel set in the early twentieth century. Mr. Beebe, a clergyman, is speaking with Cecil Vyse about a mutual acquaintance, Lucy Honey church. Miss Honey church has recently returned from a journey with her older cousin and chaperone, Miss Bartlett.
Lucy Honey church has no faults, said Cecil, with grave sincerity. I quite agree. At present she has none. 
At present?
Im not cynical. Im only thinking of my pet theory about Miss Honeychurch. Does it seem reasonable that she should play piano so wonderfully, and live so quietly? I suspect that someday she shall be wonderful in both. The water-tight compartments in her will break down and music and life will mingle. Then we shall have her heroically good, heroically badtoo heroic, perhaps, to be good or bad. Cecil found his companion interesting. And at present you think her not wonderful as far as life goes? Well, I must say Ive only seen her at Tunbridge Wells, where she was not wonderful, and at Florence. She wasnt wonderful in Florence either, but I kept on expecting that she would be.  
In what way?
Conversation had become agreeable to them, and they were pacing up and down the terrace. I could as easily tell you what tune shell play next. There was simply the sense that she found wings and meant to use them. I can show you a beautiful picture in my diary. Miss Honey church as a kite, Miss Bartlett holding the string. Picture number two: the string breaks. The sketch was in his diary, but it had been made afterwards, when he viewed things artistically. At the time he had given surreptitious tugs to the string himself. 
But the string never broke? No. I mightnt have seen Miss Honeychurch rise, but I should certainly have heard Miss Bartlett fall. It has broken now, said the young man in low, vibrating tones. Immediately he realized that of all the conceited, ludicrous, contemptible ways of announcing an engagement this was the worst. He cursed his love of metaphor; had he suggested that he was a star and that Lucy was soaring up to reach him?
Broken? What do you mean? 
I meant, Cecil said stiffly, that she is going to marry me. 
The clergyman was conscious of some bitter disappointment which he could not keep out of his voice. 
I am sorry; I must apologize. I had no idea you were intimate with her, or I should never have talked in this flippant, superficial way. You ought to have stopped me. And down in the garden he saw Lucy herself; yes, he was disappointed. 
Cecil, who naturally preferred congratulations to apologies, drew down the corner of his mouth. Was this the reaction his action would get from the whole world? Of course, he despised the world as a whole; every thoughtful man should; it is almost a test of refinement. 
 Im sorry I have given you a shock, he said dryly. I fear that Lucys choice does not meet with your approval.

[passage-header]Read the following passages and answer the question that follows:
(Passage 1 is adapted from Nicholas Carr, "Author Nicholas Carr: The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains."
Passage 2 is from Steven Pinker, "Mind over Mass Media.")
[/passage-header]Passage 1
The mental consequences of our online
info-crunching are not universally bad.
Certain cognitive skills are strengthened by our use
of computers and the Net. These tend to involve
more primitive mental functions, such as hand-eye
coordination, reflex response, and the processing of
visual cues. One much-cited study of video gaming
revealed that after just 10 days of playing action
games on computers, a group of young people had
significantly boosted the speed with which they could
shift their visual focus between various images and
tasks.
It's likely that Web browsing also strengthens
brain functions related to fast-paced problem
solving, particularly when it requires spotting
patterns in a welter of data. A British study of the
way women search for medical information online
indicated that an experienced Internet user can, at
least in some cases, assess the trustworthiness and
probable value of a Web page in a matter of seconds.
The more we practice surfing and scanning, the more
adept our brain becomes at those tasks.
But it would be a serious mistake to look narrowly
at such benefits and conclude that the Web is making
us smarter. In a Science article published in early
2009, prominent developmental psychologist Patricia
Greenfield reviewed more than 40 studies of the
effects of various types of media on intelligence and
learning ability. She concluded that "every medium
develops some cognitive skills at the expense of
others." Our growing use of the Net and other
screen-based technologies, she wrote, has led to the
"widespread and sophisticated development of
visual-spatial skills." But those gains go hand in hand
with a weakening of our capacity for the kind of
"deep processing" that underpins "mindful
knowledge acquisition, inductive analysis, critical
thinking, imagination, and reflection."
We know that the human brain is highly
plastic; neurons and synapses change as
circumstances change. When we adapt to a new
cultural phenomenon, including the use of a new
medium, we end up with a different brain, says
Michael Merzenich, a pioneer of the field of
neuroplasticity. That means our online habits
continue to reverberate in the workings of our brain
cells even when were not at a computer. We're
exercising the neural circuits devoted to skimming
and multitasking while ignoring those used for
reading and thinking deeply.
Passage 2
Critics of new media sometimes use science itself
to press their case, citing research that shows how
"experience can change the brain." But cognitive
neuroscientists roll their eyes at such talk. Yes, every
time we learn a fact or skill the wiring of the brain
changes; it's not as if the information is stored in the
pancreas. But the existence of neural plasticity does
not mean the brain is a blob of clay pounded into
shape by experience.
Experience does not revamp the basic
information-processing capacities of the brain.
Speed-reading programs have long claimed to do just
that, but the verdict was rendered by Woody Allen
after he read Leo Tolstoys famously long novel
War and Peace in one sitting: "It was about Russia."
Genuine multitasking, too, has been exposed as a
myth, not just by laboratory studies but by the
familiar sight of an SUV undulating between lanes as
the driver cuts deals on his cell phone.
Moreover, the effects of experience are highly
specific to the experiences themselves. If you train
people to do one thing (recognize shapes, solve math
puzzles, find hidden words), they get better at doing
that thing, but almost nothing else. Music doesn't
make you better at math, conjugating Latin doesn't
make you more logical, brain-training games don't
make you smarter. Accomplished people don't bulk
up their brains with intellectual calisthenics; they
immerse themselves in their fields. Novelists read
lots of novels, scientists read lots of science.
The effects of consuming electronic media are
likely to be far more limited than the panic implies.
Media critics write as if the brain takes on the
qualities of whatever it consumes, the informational
equivalent of "you are what you eat." As with ancient
peoples who believed that eating fierce animals made
them fierce, they assume that watching quick cuts in
rock videos turns your mental life into quick cuts or
that reading bullet points and online postings turns
your thoughts into bullet points and online postings.

[passage-header]"The Author to Her Book"[/passage-header]Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, 11304less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,

Where errors were not lessened (all may judged).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy visage was so irksome in my sight;

Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could:
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.
58290I stretched the joints to make thee even feet,

53207Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to 95382trim thee was my mind,
But nought same homespun cloth i' th' 27694house I find.
In this array 'mongst vulgars may'st thou roam.
In critic hands beware thou dost not come,

And take thy way where yet thou art not known;
If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.
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This passage is adapted from J. D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick,
"Genetical Implications of the Structure of Deoxyribonucleic
Acid." 1953 by Nature Publishing Group. Watson and Crick
deduced the structure of DNA using evidence from Rosalind
Franklin and R. G. Goslings X-ray crystallography diagrams
of DNA and from Erwin Chargaffs data on the base
composition of DNA.

          The chemical formula of deoxyribonucleic acid
          (DNA) is now well established. The molecule is a
          very long chain, the backbone of which consists of a
Line      regular alternation of sugar and phosphate groups.
  5       To each sugar is attached a nitrogenous base, which
          can be of four different types. Two of the possible
          bases--adenine and guanine--are purines, and the
          other two--thymine and cytosine--are pyrimidines.
          So far as is known, the sequence of bases along the
  10      chain is irregular. The monomer unit, consisting of
          phosphate, sugar and base, is known as a nucleotide.
          The first feature of our structure which is of
          biological interest is that it consists not of one chain,
          but of two. These two chains are both coiled around
  15      a common fiber axis. It has often been assumed that
          since there was only one chain in the chemical
          formula there would only be one in the structural
          unit. However, the density, taken with the X-ray
          evidence, suggests very strongly that there are two.
  20      The other biologically important feature is the
          manner in which the two chains are held together.
          This is done by hydrogen bonds between the bases.
          The bases are joined together in pairs, a single base
          from one chain being hydrogen-bonded to a single
  25      base from the other. The important point is that only
          certain pairs of bases will fit into the structure.
          One member of a pair must be a purine and the other
          a pyrimidine in order to bridge between the two
          chains. If a pair consisted of two purines, for
  30      example, there would not be room for it.
          We believe that the bases will be present almost
          entirely in their most probable forms. If this is true,
          the conditions for forming hydrogen bonds are more
          restrictive, and the only pairs of bases possible are:
  35      adenine with thymine, and guanine with cytosine.
          Adenine, for example, can occur on either chain; but
          when it does, its partner on the other chain must
          always be thymine.
          The phosphate-sugar backbone of our model is
  40      completely regular, but any sequence of the pairs of
          bases can fit into the structure. It follows that in a
          long molecule many different permutations are
          possible, and it therefore seems likely that the precise
          sequence of bases is the code which carries the
  45      genetical information. If the actual order of the bases
          on one of the pair of chains were given, one could
          write down the exact order of the bases on the other
          one, because of the specific pairing. Thus one chain
          is, as it were, the complement of the other, and it is
  50      this feature which suggests how the deoxyribonucleic
          acid molecule might duplicate itself.
The table shows, for various organisms, the percentage of
each of the four types of nitrogenous bases in that
organisms DNA.