Reading Comprehension Test 51

[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]

[passage-header]Read the following passage and answer the question given after it:[/passage-header]    Dolphins are regarded as the friendliest creatures in the sea and stories of them helping drowning sailors have been common since Roman times. The more we learn about dolphins, the more we realise that their society is more complex than people previously imagined. They look after other dolphins when they are ill, care for pregnant mothers and protect the weakest in the community as we do. Some scientists have suggested that dolphins have a language but it is much more probable that they communicate with each other without needing words. Could any of these mammals be more intelligent than man? Certainly, the most common argument in favour of man's superiority over them that we can kill them more easily than they can kill us is the least satisfactory. On the contrary, the more we discover about these remarkable creatures, the less we appear superior when we destroy them.

[passage-header]Read the following passage and answer the question given after it:[/passage-header]    There was a proud teak tree in the forest. He was tall and strong. There was a small herb next to the tree. The teak tree said, "I am very handsome and strong. Noone can defeat me". Hearing this, the herb replied, "Dear friend, too much pride is harmful. Even the strong will fall one day". The teak ignored the herb's words. He continued to praise himself. 
    A strong wind blew. The teak stood firmly. Even when it rained, the teak stood strong by spreading its leaves. At the same time, the herb bowed low. The teak made fun of the herb. One day there was a storm in the forest. The herb bowed low. As usual, the teak did not want to bow. The storm kept growing stronger. The teak could no longer bear it. He felt his strength giving way. He fell down. This was the end of the proud tree. When everything was calm the herb stood straight. He looked around. He saw the proud teak had fallen. 

[passage-header]Read the following passage and answer the question given after it:[/passage-header]    There was a proud teak tree in the forest. He was tall and strong. There was a small herb next to the tree. The teak tree said, "I am very handsome and strong. Noone can defeat me". Hearing this, the herb replied, "Dear friend, too much pride is harmful. Even the strong will fall one day". The teak ignored the herb's words. He continued to praise himself. 
    A strong wind blew. The teak stood firmly. Even when it rained, the teak stood strong by spreading its leaves. At the same time, the herb bowed low. The teak made fun of the herb. One day there was a storm in the forest. The herb bowed low. As usual, the teak did not want to bow. The storm kept growing stronger. The teak could no longer bear it. He felt his strength giving way. He fell down. This was the end of the proud tree. When everything was calm the herb stood straight. He looked around. He saw the proud teak had fallen. 

[passage-header]Read the following passage and answer the question given after it:[/passage-header]    There was a proud teak tree in the forest. He was tall and strong. There was a small herb next to the tree. The teak tree said, "I am very handsome and strong. Noone can defeat me". Hearing this, the herb replied, "Dear friend, too much pride is harmful. Even the strong will fall one day". The teak ignored the herb's words. He continued to praise himself. 
    A strong wind blew. The teak stood firmly. Even when it rained, the teak stood strong by spreading its leaves. At the same time, the herb bowed low. The teak made fun of the herb. One day there was a storm in the forest. The herb bowed low. As usual, the teak did not want to bow. The storm kept growing stronger. The teak could no longer bear it. He felt his strength giving way. He fell down. This was the end of the proud tree. When everything was calm the herb stood straight. He looked around. He saw the proud teak had fallen. 

[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]Current feminist theory, in validating women's own stories of their experience, has encouraged scholars of women's history to view the use of women's oral narratives as the methodology, next to the use of women's written autobiography, that brings historians closest to the "reality" of women's lives. Such narratives, unlike most standard histories, represent experience from the perspective of women, affirm the importance of women's contributions, and furnish present-day women with historical continuity that is essential to their identity, individually and collectively. Scholars of women's history should, however, be as cautious about accepting oral narratives at face value as they already are about written memories.
Oral narratives are no more likely than are written narratives to provide a disinterested commentary on events or people. Moreover, the stories people tell to explain themselves are shaped by narrative devices and storytelling conventions, as well as by other cultural and historical factors, in ways that the storytellers may be unaware of. The political rhetoric of a particular era, for example, may influence women's interpretations of the significance of their experience. Thus a woman who views the Second World War as pivotal in increasing the social acceptance of women's paid work outside the home may reach that conclusion partly and unwittingly because of wartime rhetoric encouraging a positive view of women's participation in such work.

[passage-header]Read the following passage and answer the question given after it:[/passage-header]    There was a proud teak tree in the forest. He was tall and strong. There was a small herb next to the tree. The teak tree said, "I am very handsome and strong. Noone can defeat me". Hearing this, the herb replied, "Dear friend, too much pride is harmful. Even the strong will fall one day". The teak ignored the herb's words. He continued to praise himself. 
    A strong wind blew. The teak stood firmly. Even when it rained, the teak stood strong by spreading its leaves. At the same time, the herb bowed low. The teak made fun of the herb. One day there was a storm in the forest. The herb bowed low. As usual, the teak did not want to bow. The storm kept growing stronger. The teak could no longer bear it. He felt his strength giving way. He fell down. This was the end of the proud tree. When everything was calm the herb stood straight. He looked around. He saw the proud teak had fallen. 

[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:
[/passage-header]In 1988, services moved ahead of manufacturing as the main product of the United States economy. But what is meant by "services"? Some economists define a service as something that is produced and consumed simultaneously, for example, a haircut. The broader, classical definition is that a service is an intangible something that cannot be touched or stored. Yet electric utilities can store energy, and computer programmers save information electronically. Thus, the classical definition is hard to sustain.
The United States government's definition is more practical: services are the residual category that includes everything that is not agriculture or industry. Under this definition, services includes activities as diverse as engineering and driving a bus. However, besides lacking a strong conceptual framework, this definition fails to recognize the distinction between service industries and service occupations. It categorizes workers based on their company's final product rather than on the actual work the employees perform. Thus, the many service workers employed by manufacturers book keepers or janitors, for example - would fall under the industrial rather than the services category. Such ambiguities reveal the arbitrariness of this definition and suggest that, although practical for government purposes, it does not accurately reflect the composition of the current United States economy.

[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]Scientists long believed that two nerve clusters in the human hypothalamus, called suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCNs), were what controlled our circadian rhythms. Those rhythms are the biological cycles that recur approximately every 24 hours in synchronization with the cycle of sunlight and darkness caused by Earth's rotation. Studies have demonstrated that in some animals, the SCNs control daily fluctuations in blood pressure, body temperature, activity level, and alertness, as well as the nighttime release of the sleep-promoting agent melatonin. Furthermore, cells in the human retina dedicated to transmitting information about light levels to the SCNs have recently been discovered.
Four critical genes governing circadian cycles have been found to be active in every tissue, however, not just the SCNs, of flies, mice, and humans. In addition, when laboratory rats that usually ate at will were fed only once a day, peak activity of a clock gene in their livers shifted by 12 hours, whereas the same clock gene in the SCNs remained synchronized with light cycles. While scientists do not dispute the role of the SCNs in controlling core functions such as the regulation of body temperature and blood pressure, scientists now believe that circadian clocks in other organs and tissues may respond to external cues other than light-including temperature changes that recur regularly every 24 hours.

[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]Current feminist theory, in validating women's own stories of their experience, has encouraged scholars of women's history to view the use of women's oral narratives as the methodology, next to the use of women's written autobiography, that brings historians closest to the "reality" of women's lives. Such narratives, unlike most standard histories, represent experience from the perspective of women, affirm the importance of women's contributions, and furnish present-day women with historical continuity that is essential to their identity, individually and collectively. Scholars of women's history should, however, be as cautious about accepting oral narratives at face value as they already are about written memories.
Oral narratives are no more likely than are written narratives to provide a disinterested commentary on events or people. Moreover, the stories people tell to explain themselves are shaped by narrative devices and storytelling conventions, as well as by other cultural and historical factors, in ways that the storytellers may be unaware of. The political rhetoric of a particular era, for example, may influence women's interpretations of the significance of their experience. Thus a woman who views the Second World War as pivotal in increasing the social acceptance of women's paid work outside the home may reach that conclusion partly and unwittingly because of wartime rhetoric encouraging a positive view of women's participation in such work.