Reading Compreh...

[passage-header]Read the passage and accordingly, fill in the blank:[/passage-header]    Once Nanapush began talking, nothing stopped the spill of his words. The day receded and darkness broadened. At dusk, the wind picked up and cold poked mercilessly through the chinking of the cabin. The two wrapped themselves in quilts and continued to talk. The talk broadened, deepened. Went back and forth in time and then stopped time. The talk grew huge, of death and radiance, then shrunk and narrowed to the making of soup. The talk was of madness, the stars, sin, and death. The two spoke of all there was to know. And although it was in English, during the talk itself Nanapush taught language to Father Damien, who took out a small bound notebook and recorded words and sentences. In common, they now had the love of music, though their definition of what composed music was dissimilar.
   "When you hear Chopin," Father Damien asserted, "you find yourself travelling into your childhood, then past that, into a time before you were born when you were nothing when the only truths you knew were sounds."
   "Ayiih!11085 Tell me, does this Chopin know love songs? I have a few I don't sing unless I mean for sure to capture my woman."
   "This Chopin makes songs so beautiful your knees shake. Dogs cry. The trees moan. Your thoughts fly up nowhere. You can't think. You become flooded26506 in the heart."
   "Powerful. Powerful. This Chopin," asked Nanapush, "does he have a drum?"
   "No," said Damien, "he uses a piano."
   "That great box in your church," said Nanapush.
   "How is this thing made?"
   Father Damien opened his mouth to say it was constructed of wood, precious woods, but in his mind there formed the image of Agnes's Caramacchione settled in the bed of the river, unmoved by the rush of water over its keys, and instead he said, "Time." As soon as he said it, he knew that it was true.
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[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows. [/passage-header]In 1955, Maurice Duverger published The Political Role of Women, the first behavioralist, multinational comparison of women's electoral participation ever to use election data and survey data together. His study analyzed women's patterns of voting, political candidacy, and political activism in four European countries during the first half of the twentieth century. Duverger's research findings were that women voted somewhat less frequently than men (the difference narrowing the longer women had the vote) and were slightly more conservative.
Duverger's works set an early standard for the sensitive analysis of women's electoral activities. Moreover, to Duverger's credit, he placed his findings in the context of many of the historical processes that had shaped these activities. However, since these contexts have changed over time, Duverger's approach has proved more durable than his actual findings. In addition, Duverger's discussion of his findings was hampered by his failure to consider certain specific factors important to women's electoral participation at the time he collected his data: the influence of political regimes, the effects of economic factors, and the ramifications of political and social relations between women and men. Given this failure, Duverger's study foreshadowed the enduring limitations of the behaviorist approach to the multinational study of women's political participation.

[passage-header]Read the poem and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]Promise me no promises,
So I will not promise you:
Keep we both our liberties,
Never false and never true:
Let us hold the die uncast,
Free to come as free to go:
For I cannot know your past,
And of mine what can you know?

74109You, so warm, may once have been
Warmer towards another one:
I, so cold, may once have seen
77539Sunlight, once have felt the sun:89888
Who shall show us if it was
Thus indeed in time of old?
Fades the image from the glass,
And the fortune is not told.

If you promised, you might grieve
For lost liberty again:
If I promised, I believe
I should 92637fret to break the chain.
Let us be the friends we were,
Nothing more but nothing less:
Many thrive on frugal fare
Who would perish of excess?
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[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]ELIZA (overwhelmed): Ah-ah-ow-oo!

HIGGINS: There! That's all you'll get out of Eliza. Ah-ah-ow-oo! No use explaining. As a military man, you ought to know that. Give her orders: that's what she wants. Eliza: you are to live here for the next six months, learning how to speak beautifully like a lady in a florist's shop. If you're good and do whatever you're told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, and have lots to eat, and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. If you're naughty and idle, you will sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles, and be walloped by Mr. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months, you shall go to Buckingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the king finds out you are not a lady, you will be taken to the Tower of London, where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls. If you are not found out, you shall have a present of seven and sixpence to start life as a lady in a shop. If you refuse this offer you will be a most ungrateful and wicked girl, and the angels will weep for you.
[passage-footer](1916)
This excerpt is from Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw.[/passage-footer]

[passage-header]"Blue Girls"[/passage-header]Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward
Under the towers of your seminary,
Go listen to your teachers old and contrary
20434Without believing a word.

Tie the white fillets then about your hair
And 19741think no more of what will come to pass
Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass
55449And chattering on the air.

Practice your beauty, blue girls, before it fail;
And I will cry out with my loud lips and publish
Beauty which all our power shall never establish,
It is so frail.

For I could tell you a story which is true;
I know a woman with a terrible tongue,
59129Blear eyes fallen from blue,
All her perfections tarnished - yet it is not long
Since she was lovelier than any of you.
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[passage-header]"Blue Girls"[/passage-header]Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward
Under the towers of your seminary,
Go listen to your teachers old and contrary
20434Without believing a word.

Tie the white fillets then about your hair
And 19741think no more of what will come to pass
Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass
55449And chattering on the air.

Practice your beauty, blue girls, before it fail;
And I will cry out with my loud lips and publish
Beauty which all our power shall never establish,
It is so frail.

For I could tell you a story which is true;
I know a woman with a terrible tongue,
59129Blear eyes fallen from blue,
All her perfections tarnished - yet it is not long
Since she was lovelier than any of you.
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[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]   44492Keenly alive to the prejudice of hers, Mr. Keeble stopped after making her announcements and 55490had to rattle the keys in his pocket in order to acquire the necessary courage to continue.
   He 16278was not looking at his wife, but knew, just how forbidding her expressions must be. This task of his was no easy, congenial task for a pleasant summer morning.
   "She says in her letter," proceeded Mr. Keeble, 27022his eyes on the carpet and his cheeks a deeper pink, "that young Jackson has got the chance of buying a big farm ... 64291in Lincolnshire, I think she said ... if he can raise three thousand pounds."
   He paused and stole a glance at his wife. It was as he had feared. 20865She had congealed. 44505Like some spell, the name had apparently 16607turned her to marble. It was like 72432the Pygmalion and Galatea business working the wrong way around. She was 19364presumably breathing, but there was 27294no sign of it.
   "So, I was just thinking," said Mr. Keeble 92768producing another obbligato on the keys, "it just crossed my mind ... it isn't as if the thing were speculation ... 43810the place is apparently coining money ... present owner only selling because he wants to go abroad ... it occurred to me ... and they would pay good 89676interest on the loan ..."
   "What loan?" 61871enquired the statute icily, 70025coming to life.
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[passage-header]Read the poem and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]Promise me no promises,
So I will not promise you:
Keep we both our liberties,
Never false and never true:
Let us hold the die uncast,
Free to come as free to go:
For I cannot know your past,
And of mine what can you know?

74109You, so warm, may once have been
Warmer towards another one:
I, so cold, may once have seen
77539Sunlight, once have felt the sun:89888
Who shall show us if it was
Thus indeed in time of old?
Fades the image from the glass,
And the fortune is not told.

If you promised, you might grieve
For lost liberty again:
If I promised, I believe
I should 92637fret to break the chain.
Let us be the friends we were,
Nothing more but nothing less:
Many thrive on frugal fare
Who would perish of excess?
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[passage-header]"Blue Girls"[/passage-header]Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward
Under the towers of your seminary,
Go listen to your teachers old and contrary
20434Without believing a word.

Tie the white fillets then about your hair
And 19741think no more of what will come to pass
Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass
55449And chattering on the air.

Practice your beauty, blue girls, before it fail;
And I will cry out with my loud lips and publish
Beauty which all our power shall never establish,
It is so frail.

For I could tell you a story which is true;
I know a woman with a terrible tongue,
59129Blear eyes fallen from blue,
All her perfections tarnished - yet it is not long
Since she was lovelier than any of you.
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[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:
[/passage-header]SIR EDWARD TRENCHARD: Good morning, Coyle, good morning (with affected ease). There is a chair, Coyle. (They sit.) So you see those infernal tradespeople are pretty troublesome.
COYLE: My agent's letter this morning announces that Walter and Brass have got 69978judgement and execution on their amount for repairing your townhouse last season. Boquet and Barker announce their intention of taking this same course with the wine account. Handmarth is preparing for a settlement of his heavy demand for the stables. Then there is Temper for pictures and other things and Miss Florence Trenchard's account with Madame Pompon, and-
SIR EDWARD: 85932Confound it, why harass me with details, these 42791infernal particulars? Have you made out the total?
COYLE: Four thousand, eight hundred and thirty pounds, nine shilling and sixpence.
SIR EDWARD: Well, of course, we must find means of settling this 72231extortion.
COYLE: Yes, Sir Edward, if possible.

SIR EDWARD: If possible?
COYLE: I, as your agent, must stoop to detail, you must allow me to repeat, if possible.

SIR EDWARD: Why, you don't say there will be any difficulty in raising the money?
COYLE: What means would you suggest, Sir Edward?

SIR EDWARD: That, sir, is tour business.
COYLE: A foretaste on the interest on the Fanhille & Ellenthrope mortgages, you are aware both are in the arrears. The mortgagees, in fact, write here to announce their intentions to foreclose. (Shows papers.)

SIR EDWARD: Curse your 59501impudence, pay them off.
COYLE: How, Sir Edward?

SIR EDWARD: Confound it, sir, which of us is the agent? Am I to find you brains for your own business?
COYLE: No, Sir Edward, I can furnish the brains, but what I ask of you is to furnish the money.

SIR EDWARD: There must be money somewhere, I came into possession of one of the finest properties in Hampshire only twenty-six years ago, and now you mean to tell me I can't raise 4,000 pounds?
COYLE: The fact is distressing, Sir Edward, but so it is.
SIR EDWARD: There's the Ravensdale property 82233unencumbered.

COYLE: There, Sir Edward, you are under a mistake. The Ravensdale property is deeply encumbered, to nearly its full value.
SIR EDWARD(Springing up.): Good heavens.
COYLE: I have found among my father's papers a mortgage of that very property to him.

SIR EDWARD: To your father! My father's agent? Sir, do you know that if this be true I am something like a beggar, and your father something like a thief.
COYLE: I see the first plainly, Sir Edward, but do not the second.
SIR EDWARD: Do you forget, sir, that your father was a charity boy, fed, clothed by my father?

SIR EDWARD: And do you mean to tell me, sir, that your father repaid that kindness by robbing his benefactor?
COYLE: Certainly not, but by advancing money to that benefactor when he wanted it, and by taking the 17056security of one of his benefactor's estates as any prudent man would under the circumstances. 

SIR EDWARD: Why, then, sir, the benefactor's property is yours.
COYLE: I see one means, at least, of keeping the Ravensdale estate in the family.

SIR EDWARD: What is it?
COYLE: By marrying your daughter to the mortgagee.

SIR EDWARD: To you?
COYLE: I am prepared to settle the estate of Miss Trenchard the day she becomes Mrs. Richard Coyle.

SIR EDWARD (Springing up.): You insolent scoundrel, how dare you insult me in my own house, sir. Leave it, sir, or I will have you kicked out by my servants.
COYLE: I never take an angry man at his word, Sir Edward. Give a few moments reflection to my offer. You can have me kicked out afterwards.

SIR EDWARD: (Pacing Stage): 43305A beggar, Sir Edward Trenchard a beggar, see my children reduced to labor for their bread, to misery perhaps; but the alternative, Florence detests him, still the match would save her, at least, from ruin. He might take the family name, I might retrench, retire, to the continent for a few years. Florence's health might serve as a pretense. Repugnant as the alternative is, yet it deserves consideration54806.
COYLE: (who has watched.): Now, Sir Edward, shall I ring for the servants to kick me out?
[passage-footer]The extract is from Our American Cousin, by Tom Taylor.[/passage-footer]