Vocabulary Test 47

[passage-header]This passage is adapted from Iain King, "Can Economics Be Ethical?" 2013 by Prospect Publishing.[/passage-header]   Recent debates about the economy have rediscovered the question, "is that right?", where "right" means more than just profits or efficiency. 

[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]Some observers have attributed the dramatic growth in temporary employment that occurred in the United States during the 1980s to increased participation in the workforce by certain groups, such as first-time or re-entering workers, who supposedly prefer such arrangements. However, statistical analyses reveal that demographic changes in the workforce did not correlate with variations in the total number of temporary workers. Instead, these analyses suggest that factors affecting employers account for the rise in temporary employment. One factor is product demand: temporary employment is favored by employers who are adapting to fluctuating demand for products while at the same time seeking to reduce overall labor costs.
Another factor is labor's reduced bargaining strength, which allows employers more control over the terms of employment. Given the analyses, which reveal that growth in temporary employment now far exceeds the level explainable by recent workforce entry rates of groups said to prefer temporary jobs, firms should be discouraged from creating excessive numbers of temporary positions. Government policymakers should consider mandating benefit coverage for temporary employees, promoting pay equity between temporary and permanent workers, assisting labor unions in organizing temporary workers, and encouraging firms to assign temporary jobs primarily to employees who explicitly indicate that preference.

[passage-header]This passage is adapted from Geoffrey Giller, "Long a Mystery, How 500-Meter-High Undersea Waves Form Is Revealed." 2014 by Scientific American.[/passage-header]   73738Some of the largest ocean waves in the world are nearly impossible to see13037. Unlike other large waves, these rollers called internal waves, do not ride the ocean surface. Instead, 61205they move underwater, undetectable without the use of satellite imagery or sophisticated monitoring equipment66855. Despite their hidden nature, internal waves are fundamental parts of ocean water dynamics, transferring heat to the ocean depths and bringing up cold water from below And they can reach staggering heights - some as tall as skyscrapers.
   Because these waves are involved in ocean mixing and thus the transfer of heat, understanding them is crucial to global climate modeling, says Tom Peacock, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most models fail to take internal waves into account. "51464If we want to have more and more accurate climate models, we have to be able to 96398capture processes such as this85920," Peacock says. Peacock and his colleagues tried to do just that. Their study published in November in Geophysical Research Letters focused on internal waves generated in the Luzon Strait, which separates Taiwan and the Philippines. 36782Internal waves in this region, thought to be some of the largest in the world, can reach about 500 meters high43292. "That's the same height as the Freedom Tower that's just been built in New York," Peacock says.
   16528Although scientists knew of this phenomenon in the South China Sea and beyond, they didn't know exactly how internal waves formed94538. To find out, Peacock and a team of researchers from M.I.T. and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution worked with France's National Center for Scientific Research using a giant facility there called the Coriolis Platform. The rotating platform, about 15 meters (49.2 feet) in diameter, turns at variable speeds and can simulate Earth's rotation. It also has walls, which means scientists can fill it with water and create accurate, large-scale simulations of various oceanographic scenarios.
   Peacock and his team built a carbon-fiber resin scale model of the Luzon Strait, including the islands and surrounding ocean floor topography. Then they filled the platform with water of varying salinity to replicate the different densities found at the strait, with denser, saltier water below and lighter, less briny water above. Small particles were added to the solution and illuminated with lights from below in order to track how the liquid moved. Finally, they re-created tides using two large plungers to see how the internal waves themselves formed.
   The Luzon Strait's underwater topography, with a distinct double-ridge shape, turns out to be responsible for generating the underwater waves. 69817As the tide rises and falls and water moves through the strait, colder, denser water is pushed up over the ridges into warmer, less dense layers above it28633.
   This action results in bumps of colder water trailed by warmer water that generate an internal wave. 12531As these waves move toward land, they become steeper - much the same way waves at the beach become taller before they hit the shore - until they break on a continental shelf19132.
   The researchers were also able to 92527devise a mathematical model that describes the movement and formation of these waves. 61484Whereas the model is specific to the Luzon Strait, it can still help researchers understand how internal waves are generated in other places around the world22111. 

        In general, democracies organize and carry out their elections in one of two ways. In first-past-the-post (FPTP) elections, voters choose individual candidates for office, and the candidate with the most votes wins. Elections in this kind of system are also called winner-take-all. In a democracy with proportional representation (PR), parties, not individuals, win seats in a legislature according to the percent of votes they receive in an election. Parties then form coalitions with each other to gain control of the government. Which system a country uses tends to greatly affect its politics; each has its merits and disadvantages.

      These two types of election tend to foster very different styles of political debate. First-past-the-post elections tend to lead to more moderate political discussions at the national level. In elections for the presidency of the United States, for example, candidates need support from every part of the country. They cannot alienate large groups by expressing extreme views, so they must be moderate in order to have broad appeal. This moderation has its downsides, however. For one, uncommon opinions tend to be left out of the public discussion. This can result in an elected government that may not fully represent citizens views. Extreme parties are also reduced to the role of spoilers in national elections: unable to win, but able to hurt larger parties with similar, but more moderate, viewpoints. During the US election for president in 1992, a far-right candidate, Ross Perot, drew votes from the sitting president, the center-right George H.W. Bush. This may have allowed the center-left candidate, Bill Clinton, to win the presidency. 

        Proportional representation, for better or worse, allows more extreme viewpoints to be represented at the national level. This can be a good thing, allowing minority groups and small, single-issue parties to have a voice in government. However, these small parties can cause problems when they join the ruling coalitions. They can force the government to focus on niche agendas by threatening to leave the coalition if ignored. In some cases, radical parties that actively oppose or threaten democracy, like fascist or communist parties, can gain seats in PR elections. This occurred most famously in Germany's Weimar Republic in the 1930s, when democratic elections gave the Nazi Party the opportunity to take power.         Each electoral system also results in different levels of voter participation. First-past-the-post systems generally result in lower overall voter participation. This could be because the rules of FPTP elections discourage voters who support candidates or parties who are not likely to win.

Because votes for a losing candidate count for nothing in an FPTP election, votes for opposition parties are effectively wasted. In elections for US Senate seats and the US presidency, for instance, many states are consistently won by candidates from one party. Opposition voters in these states have little reason to show up at the polls. However, some political scientists argue that because voters vote for specific candidates in FPTP elections, those elected officials are more personally accountable to the citizens that voted for them. This sense of accountability could lead to more citizen engagement between elections.

         Proportional representation, on the whole, encourages higher levels of participation. Because voters will be represented even if they are in the minority, there are far fewer wasted votes in PR elections. Perhaps, for this reason, voter turnout is much higher, on average, in countries that use a PR system. On the other hand, voters in PR elections generally vote for parties rather than individuals. Because the parties appoint legislators to their seats, politicians may feel more accountable to their parties than to voters. This can lead officials to focus on within-party politics rather than the wishes of the people.

[passage-header]Read the passage given below and accordingly, fill in the blank:
[/passage-header]Jailbirds sing they say and Subhadra Khosla, the youngest freedom fighter to be imprisoned at 13 was no exception. The only difference was that singing taught her the power of non-violence. Now, 80, Khosla recounted her days in jail. She was locked in jail with her mother for over a year. "One day, we decided to put one chair on top of another till we managed to take off the Union Jack and unfurl the national flag." The inmates of the jail found themselves facing a firing squad. "There were orders to shoot us. We didn't know what else to do. So we started singing," said Khosla. Their voice had its impact. "The guards were Indians too. They started crying and said they couldn't fire at us. That was our first win," a thrilled Khosla recalled. Khosla's father was a doctor and her brother, Krishna Kant, later on, became India's Vice-President. Khosla was picketing at Anarkali Bazar in Lahore in 1942 when she and her siblings were arrested. "It was unfair. We were all children after all. But the British wanted to destroy families like ours. We fought for this freedom. But we still have to go beyond."

[passage-header]This passage is adapted from Carrie Chapman Catt's 1917 "Address to the United States Congress." Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association; the closing arguments of her speech are excerpted below.[/passage-header]   Your party platforms have pledged woman suffrage. Then why not be honest, frank friends of our cause, adopt it in reality as your own, make it a party program and "fight with us"? As a party measure--a measure of all parties--why not put the amendment through Congress and the Legislatures? 57494We shall all be better friends, we shall have a happier nation, we women will be free to support loyally the party of our choice, and we shall be far prouder of our history89594.
   "77138There is one thing mightier than kings and armies"--aye, than Congress and political parties-- "the power of an idea when its time has come to move72572." The time for woman suffrage has come. The woman's hour has struck. If parties prefer to postpone action longer and thus do battle with this idea, they challenge the inevitable. The idea will not perish; the party which opposes it may. Every delay, every trick, every political dishonesty from now on will 33487antagonize the women of the land more and more, and 89420when the party or parties which have so delayed woman suffrage finally let it come, their sincerity will be doubted and their appeal to the new voters will be met with suspicion28207. This is the psychology of the situation. Can you afford the risk? Think it over.
   We know you will meet opposition. 99188There are a few "woman haters" left, a few "old males of the tribe," as Vance Thompson calls them73179, whose duty they believe it to be to keep women in the places they have carefully picked out for them. Treitschke, made world-famous by war literature, said some years ago, "Germany, which knows all about Germany and France, knows far better what is good for Alsace-Lorraine than that miserable people can possibly know." A few American Treitschkes we have who know better than women what is good for them. There are women, too ... But the world does not wait for such as these, nor does Liberty pause to heed the plaint of men and women with a grouch. She does not wait for those who have a special interest to serve, nor a selfish reason for depriving other people of freedom. Holding her torch aloft, Liberty is pointing the way onward and upward and saying to America, "Come."
   23976To you the supporters of our cause, in Senate and House, and the number is large, the suffragists of the nation express their grateful thanks33649. This address is not meant for you. We are more truly appreciative of all you have done than any words can express. We ask you to make a last, hard fight for the amendment during the present session. 40978Since last we asked a vote on this amendment your position has been fortified by the addition to suffrage territory of Great Britain, Canada, and New York24604.
   Some of you have been too indifferent to give more than casual attention to this question. 32158It is worthy of your immediate consideration--a question big enough to engage the attention of our Allies in war time, is too big a question for you to neglect16514...
   17943Gentlemen, we hereby petition you, our only designated representatives, to 37885redress our grievances by the immediate passage of the influence to secure its ratification in your own state15813, 50281in order that the women of our nation may be endowed with political freedom that our nation may resume its world leadership in democracy33481.
   45406Woman suffrage is coming--you know it. Will you, Honorable Senators and Members of the House of Representatives, help or hinder it?

Enter LORD MAYOR (Sir Roger Otley) and EARL OF LINCOLN
LINC: My Lord Mayor you have 40118sundry times feasted myself, and many courtiers more; Seldom or never can we be so kind to make requital of your courtesy. But, leaving this, I hear my cousin Lacy is much 67505affected to your daughter Rose.
L. MAYOR: True, my good Lord, and she loves him so well that I mislike her boldness in the chase.
LINC: Why, my Lord Mayor, think you it then a shame to join a Lacy with an Otley's name?
L. MAYOR: Too mean is my poor girl for 44751his high birth: 29414Poor citizens must not with courtiers wed, who will in silks arid gay apparel spend more in one year than I am worth by far; Therefore your honour need not doubt my girl.
LINC: Take need, my Lord, advise you what you do: A verier 85487unthrift lives not in the world than is my cousin: for I'll tell you what, 'Tis now almost a year since he requested to travel countries for experience; I furnish'd him with coins, bills of exchange, letters of credit,men to wait on him, solicited my friends in Italy well to respect him but to see the end: Scant had be journey'd, through half Germany, But all his coin was spent, his men cast off, His bills embezzl'd and my 24050jolly coz asham'd to show his bankrupt presence here, become a shoemaker in Wittenberg. A goodly science for a gentleman of such descent! Now judge the rest by this: Suppose your daughter have a thousand pound, He did consume me more in one half-year; And make him heir to all the wealth you have, One twelve month's rioting will waste it all. The seek, my Lord, some honest citizen to wed your daughter so.