Reading Compreh...

[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 passage given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]In the second year of the reign of Valentinian and Valens, on the morning of the twenty-first day of July, the greatest part of the Roman world was shaken by a violent and destructive earthquake. 54964The impression was communicated to the waters; the shores of the Mediterranean were left dry, by the sudden retreat of the sea; 33918great quantities of fish were caught with the hand; large vessels were stranded on the mud; and 12641a curious spectator amused his eye, or rather his fancy, by contemplating the various appearance of valleys and mountains, which had never, since the formation of the globe, been exposed to the sun54988. 84072But the tide soon returned, with the weight of an immense and irresistible deluge, which was severely felt57200 on the coasts of Sicily, of Dalmatia, of Greece, and of Egypt: large boats were transported and lodged on the roofs of houses, or at the distance of two miles from the shore; the people, with their habitations, were swept away by the waters, and 43077the city of Alexandria annually commemorated the fatal day, on which fifty thousand persons had lost their lives in the inundation.38735
   This calamity, the report of which was magnified from one province to another, astonished and terrified the subjects of Rome; and their affrighted imagination enlarged the real extent of a momentary evil. They recollected the preceding earthquakes, which had subverted the cities of Palestine and Bithynia: 38648they considered these alarming strokes as the prelude only of still more dreadful calamities99185, and their fearful vanity was disposed to confound the symptoms of 45472declining empire and a sinking world.
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[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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[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  explains  the  challenges
facing a  population  of  trees  and  possible  solutions.

Today, oaks are  plagued  with problems. There  is 
lack  of  regeneration  in  populations  of  certain  spe-
cies.  4.010  such  as  the  acorn  weevil  and  the  filbert 
tne  worm  eat  away  at  acorns  and  prevent  
germination.By  undermining  the  root  systems  of  
seedlings  andsaplings,  ground  squirrels,  gophers,  
and  other  small mammals  often  prevent  these  
young  plants  fromreaching  tree  size.  Severe 
diseases such  as  suddenoak  death,  kill  many  adult  
oaks.  Many  mature  oaks are  having  a  tough  time  
withesuppression.  Inthe  past,  with  light  surface  fires,  
the  oaks  had  been able  to  maintain  a  stronghold  
where  other  plantswere  not  able  to  compete  and  
died  out.  Now  oaks are  being  toppled  by  trees  that  
have  a  higher  toler-ance  for  shade  and  are  not  
fire-resistant;  earliersuch  trees  would  have  been  
killed  when  Native Americans  set  fires.Given  all  of  
these  challenges,  the  "old-growth" oaksthe  large  
old  valley  oaks,  Garry  oaks,  coast live  oaks,  and  
canyon  live  oaks  that  have  huge  girthand  large  
canopiesmay  become  a  thing  of  the past.  These  
oaks  in  particular  are  important  becausethere  are  
often  more  terrestrial  vertebrates  living in  mature  
oak  stands  than  in  seedling  and  sapling areas.  This  
prevalence  of  animals  occurs  becausethe  large  
crowns  of  such  oaks  provide  cover  and feeding  
sites  for  a  large  variety  of  wildlife.The  University  of  
California  has  embarked  on  an ambitious  and  
necessary  research  program  calledthe  Integrated  
Hardwood  Range  ManagementProgram  to  explore  
the  significant  causes  of  oak decline  and  offer  
varied solutions. These  includeinvestigating  the  use  
of  grassing  regimes  that  are compatible  with  oak  
seedling  establishment  reveg-etating  sites  with  
native  grasses  to  facilitate  bettergermination  of  oak  
seedling&  documenting  insectsand  pathogens  that  
attack  oaks,  and  exploring  the ways  that  native  
people  managed  oaks  in  the  past. Scientists  at  the  
Pacific  Northwest  Research  Stationin  Olympia,  
Washington,  and  at  Redwood  NationalPark  in  
northern  California  are  reintroducing  theburning  
practices  of  Native  American&  When used  in  Garry  
oak  ecosystems,  fires  keep  Douglas firs  from  
encroaching  on  the  oaks  and  promotethe  growth  of  
wildflowers  that  are  important  foodplants.  Further  
investigations  about  these  firepractices  may  be  
essential  in  figuring  out  how  to maintain  oaks  in  the  
western  landscape  today,  given that  the  fires  
address  many  of  the  factors  that  arenow  causing  
oak  declinefrom  how  to  eliminateinsect  pests  of  
acorns  to  how  to  maintain  an  openstructure  in  oak  
groves.Ecological  restoration,  the  traditional  
approach to  woodland  maintenance,  refers  to  
humansintervening  on  a  very  limited  time  scale  to  
bringback  plants  and  animals  known  to  have  
historicallyexisted  in  an  area.  The  decline  of  oaks,  
one  of  the most  significant  plants  to  Native  
Americans,  shows us  that  humans  may  play  an  
integral  part  in  therestoration  of  oak  areas.  While  
animals  such  as  jayshave  been  recognized  as  
crucial  partners  in  oakwell-being,  human  actions  
through  the  eons  may also  have  been  key  to  the  
oaks'  flourishing.Sudden  oak  death,  for  example,  
although  ofexotic  origin,  may  be  curtailed  locally  by  
thinningaround  coastal  oaks  and  tan  oaks  and  
setting  lightsurface  fires,  simulating  ancient  fire  
managementpractices  of  Native  Americans.  
Indigenous  shrubs and  trees  that  grow  in  
association  with  oaksare  hosts  to  the  sudden  oak  
death  pathogen.  Bylimiting  the  growth  of  these  
shrubs,  burning  thatmimics  earlier  Native  American  
ways  may  reduce opportunities  for  disease  agents  
to  jump  fromother  plants  to  oak  trees.  With  a  more  
open  envi-ronment,  it  may  be  harder  for  sudden  
oak  death  tospread.The  oak  landscapes  that  we  
inherited,  which still  bear  the  marks  of  former  
Native  Americaninteractions,  demand  a  new  kind  of  
restoration  thatcomplements  other  forms  of  
ecological  restoration.This  new  kind  of  restoration  
could  be  called  eth-nobotanical  restoration,  defined  
as  re-establishing the  historic  plant  communities  of  a  
given  areaand  restoring  indigenous  harvesting,  
vegetationmanagement,  and  cultivation  practices  
(seedbear-ing,  burning,  pruning,  sowing,  tilling,  and  
weeding)necessary  to  maintain  these  communities  in  
the long  term.Thus,  this  kind  of  restoration  is  not  
only  aboutrestoring  plants,  but  also  about  restoring  
the  humanplace  within  nature.  Ethnobotanical  
restoration  isviewed  not  as  a  process  that  can  be  
completed,  but rather  as  a  continuous  interaction  
between  people and  plants,  as  both  of  their  fates  
are  intertwined  ina  region.  Using  oaks  (through  
harvesting  acornsand  making  products  from  all  parts  
of  the  tree)  andhuman  intervention  (by  thinning  tree  
populations and  lighting  light  fires)  may  offer  us  
ways  to  benefi-cially  co-exist  while  improving  the  
long-term  healthand  well-being  of  the  remarkable  
oak.