Reading Compreh...

In 1927 Charles Lindbergh, a pilot from the United States,
became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
When he landed in France, he was hailed as a hero of the
age. In this passage, a historian considers the reaction to
Lindbergh's achievement.
Was Lindbergh in any sense a creation of the press? The
press was at its apogee in the 1920's. Never before or since
have there been as many newspapers or as many readers of
the printed word. The press was the source of news, infor-
mation, and entertainment. Every European capital had
dozens of newspapers. Many editors, moreover, did judge
the Lindbergh flight to be the biggest news story since the
First World War.
But though it played an important role in informing
the world of Lindbergh's feat and the acclaim it met, the
press can scarcely be charged with creating the American's
renown. At most one can say that the printed word and the
paucity of pictorial evidence encouraged some people to
venture forth to the airfield and into the streets to try to
catch a glimpse of the modern hero. On the whole, the press
followed the excitement rather than created it. In fact, before
Lindbergh's departure from New York there was scant
mention in the European press of the impending venture.
The sensational story blossomed in people's minds before
it reached the front pages, while Lindbergh was over the
Atlantic.
The acclaim, then, has to be put into a broader context if
its dimensions are to be appreciated. Lindbergh, through his
achievements and character, seemed to satisfy the needs of
many Europeans who believed that their world was in the
throes of decline. Since the end of the war, eight and a half
years earlier, Europe had slumped into a monumental mel-
ancholy. What was being lost, many felt, was the prewar
world of values, of decorum, of positive accomplishment,
of grace. It was a world that had room and ready recogni-
tion for individual achievement based on effort, preparation,
courage, staying power. It was a world in which people
used the machine and technology to conquer nature, in
which means were subordinate to ends. It was a world
revolving around family, religion, and the good and
moral life.
For those who remembered this world, what a hero
Lindbergh was! He was homespun to the core. He was
solicitous about mothers, children, animals. He did not
drink or smoke or even dance. He rejected all the mone-
tary and material rewards and temptations that were dan-
gled before him: not only free clothes and meals, but
houses and enormous sums of money offered for appear-
ances in film, on stage, on radio, or in advertisements.
Lindbergh was interpreted as a model for the old order in
meeting and overcoming the challenges of the modern age.
Europeans adored him for his restraint, and they adopted
this heroic individual from small-town, midwestern America
as one of their own.

In 1927 Charles Lindbergh, a pilot from the United States,
became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
When he landed in France, he was hailed as a hero of the
age. In this passage, a historian considers the reaction to
Lindbergh's achievement.
Was Lindbergh in any sense a creation of the press? The
press was at its apogee in the 1920's. Never before or since
have there been as many newspapers or as many readers of
the printed word. The press was the source of news, infor-
mation, and entertainment. Every European capital had
dozens of newspapers. Many editors, moreover, did judge
the Lindbergh flight to be the biggest news story since the
First World War.
But though it played an important role in informing
the world of Lindbergh's feat and the acclaim it met, the
press can scarcely be charged with creating the American's
renown. At most one can say that the printed word and the
paucity of pictorial evidence encouraged some people to
venture forth to the airfield and into the streets to try to
catch a glimpse of the modern hero. On the whole, the press
followed the excitement rather than created it. In fact, before
Lindbergh's departure from New York there was scant
mention in the European press of the impending venture.
The sensational story blossomed in people's minds before
it reached the front pages, while Lindbergh was over the
Atlantic.
The acclaim, then, has to be put into a broader context if
its dimensions are to be appreciated. Lindbergh, through his
achievements and character, seemed to satisfy the needs of
many Europeans who believed that their world was in the
throes of decline. Since the end of the war, eight and a half
years earlier, Europe had slumped into a monumental mel-
ancholy. What was being lost, many felt, was the prewar
world of values, of decorum, of positive accomplishment,
of grace. It was a world that had room and ready recogni-
tion for individual achievement based on effort, preparation,
courage, staying power. It was a world in which people
used the machine and technology to conquer nature, in
which means were subordinate to ends. It was a world
revolving around family, religion, and the good and
moral life.
For those who remembered this world, what a hero
Lindbergh was! He was homespun to the core. He was
solicitous about mothers, children, animals. He did not
drink or smoke or even dance. He rejected all the mone-
tary and material rewards and temptations that were dan-
gled before him: not only free clothes and meals, but
houses and enormous sums of money offered for appear-
ances in film, on stage, on radio, or in advertisements.
Lindbergh was interpreted as a model for the old order in
meeting and overcoming the challenges of the modern age.
Europeans adored him for his restraint, and they adopted
this heroic individual from small-town, midwestern America
as one of their own.

In this excerpt from a 1994 article, a biologist discusses his
research expedition to Indonesia.
Over the course of millions of years, humans throughout
the world have built up a knowledge of their local natural
environment so extensive that not even professional biol-
ogists can hope to capture more than a small fraction of it,
and other members of urban and industrialized societies can
scarcely imagine it. At the end of the twenty-four days that
I spent with the Ketengban people of New Guinea, I felt like
a narrow-minded boor because I had so often nudged the
subject back to birds when they began to talk of anything
else. Even for very rare bird species, such as New Guinea's
leaden honey-eater and garnet robin, the Ketengbans rattled
off the altitudes at which the birds lived, the other species
with which they associated, the height above the ground at
which they foraged, their diet, adult call, juvenile call, sea-
sonal movements, and so on. Only by cutting short the
Ketengbans' attempts to share with me their equally
detailed knowledge of local plant, rat, and frog species
could I record even fragments of their knowledge of birds
in twenty-four days.
Traditionally, the Ketengbans acquired this knowledge
by spending much of their time in the forest, from child-
hood on. When I asked my guide, Robert Uropka, how,
lacking binoculars and the sight of one eye, he had come
to know so much about a tiny, dull-plumed warbler species
that lives in the treetops, he told me that as children he and
his playmates used to climb trees, build blinds in the can-
opy,and observe and hunt up there. But all that is changing,
he explained, as he pointed to his eight-year-old son. Child-
ren go to school now, and only at vacation times can they
live in the forest. The results, as I have seen elsewhere in
New Guinea, are adult New Guineans who know scarcely
more about birds than do most American city dwellers.
Compounding this problem, education throughout
Indonesian New Guinea is in the Indonesian national
language, not in Ketengban and the 300 other indigenous
languages. Radio, TV, newspapers, commerce, and govern-
ment also use the Indonesian national language. While the
reasoning behind such decisions is, of course, understand-
able, the outcome is that all but 200 of the modern world's
6,000 languages are likely to be extinct or moribund by the
end of the next century. As humanity's linguistic heritage
disintegrates, much of our traditional, mostly unrecorded
knowledge base vanishes with it.
The analogy that occurs to me is the final destruction,
in 391 A.D., of the largest library of the ancient world, at
Alexandria. The library housed all the literature of Greece,
plus much literature of other cultures, most of which, as a
result of that library's burning, was lost to later generations.
The ongoing loss today that draws most public attention
is the loss of biodiversity; that is, the loss of variety in nature.
In that loss, nature is viewed as the victim, humans as the
villains. But there is also a parallel loss in which humans
are both victims and unwitting villains. Not only are species
going extinct, but so is much of our information about
those species that survive. In the future, no children will
grow up in the forest, where they could receive or redis-
cover that knowledge. Certainly, professional biologists
don't have the necessary time - I count myself lucky if I
can spend one month every year or two in New Guinea. It
is as if we are burning most of our books, while the lan-
guages of those books that remain become as lost to us as
the texts written 3,000 years ago in ancient Crete in what
is the still-undecipherable ancient Greek script.

[passage-header]Read the conversation given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]ROSE: Times have changed since you was playing baseball, Troy. That was before the war. Times have changed a lot since then.
TROY: How in hell they done changed?

[passage-footer](1986)
*Josh Gibson was a notable baseball player in the Negro Leagues.[/passage-footer]

Portia: Then must the Jew be merciful.

Shylock: On what compulsion must I? tell me that.

Portia: The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation:

[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]The principal object of this Work is to remove the erroneous and discreditable notions current in England concerning this City, in common with everything else connected with the Colony. We shall endeavor to represent Sydney as it really is- to exhibit its spacious Gas-lit Streets, crowned by an active and thriving population- its Public Edifices, and its sumptuous shops, which boldly claim a comparison with those of London itself: and to shew that 62994 the Colonists have not been inattentive to matters of higher import, we shall display to our Readers the beautiful and commodious buildings raised by piety and industry for the use of Religion. 64643 It is true, all are not yet in a state of completion; but, be it remembered, that what was done gradually in England, in the course of many centuries, has been here affected in the comparatively short period of sixty years 65329. Our object, in setting forth this work, is one of no 26593 mean moment; and we trust that every Australian, whether this is his native or adopted country, will heartily bid us "God speed!"
   It became necessary, after the rebellion of those Colonies now known as the United States, for Britain to send her convicts elsewhere; and the wide, distant, and almost totally unknown regions of Australia were adjudged most suitable for the purpose. Accordingly, eleven ships, since known in Colonial History as the "First Fleet," sailed for New Holland on the 15th of May, 1787, under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, and arrived in Botany Bay on the 20th day of January in the following year. Finding the spot in many respects unfit for an infant settlement, and but scantily supplied with water, Captain Phillip determined to explore the coast; and proceeded northward, with a few officers and marines, in three open boats. After passing along a rocky and barren line of the shore for several miles, they entered Port Jackson, which they supposed to be of no great dimensions, it having been marked in the chart of Captain Cook as a boat harbor. Their astonishment may be easily imagined when they found its waters gradually expand, and the full proportions of that magnificent harbor (capable of containing the whole navy of Britain) burst upon their view. The site of the intended settlement was no longer a matter of doubt; and, after first landing at Manly Beach, they eventually selected a spot on the banks of a small stream of fresh water, falling into a Cove on the southern side of the estuary.
  Sydney, the capital, is situated on the southern shore of Port Jackson, at the distance of seven miles from the Pacific Ocean. It is built at the head of the far-famed "Cove"; and, with Darling Harbor as its general boundary to the west, extends, in an unbroken succession of houses, for more than two miles in a southerly direction. As a maritime city, its site is unrivaled, possessing at least three miles of water frontage, at any part of which vessels of the heaviest burden can safely approach the wharves. The stratum on which it stands is chiefly sandstone; and, as it enjoys a considerable elevation, it is remarkably healthy and dry. The principal thoroughfares run north and south, parallel to Darling Harbor, and are crossed at right angles by shorter streets. This, at first, gives the place an air of unpleasing sameness and formality, to those accustomed to the winding and romantic streets of an ancient English town; but the eye soon becomes reconciled to the change, and you cease to regret the absence of what is in so many respects undesirable.
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[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:
[/passage-header]Their adobe house was the same as two decades before, four large rooms under a thatched roof and three square windows facing south with their frames painted sky blue. Lin stood in the yard facing the front wall while flipping over a dozen mildewed books he had left to be sunned on a stack of firewood. 64644Sure thing, he thought, Shuyu doesn't know how to take care of books. Maybe I should give them to my nephews. These books are of no use to me anymore.30311
   Beside him, 55737chickens were strutting and geese waddling. A few little chicks were passing back and forth through the narrow gaps in the paling that fenced a small vegetable garden. In the garden pole beans and 26122long cucumbers hung on trellises, 43939eggplants curved like ox horns, and lettuce heads were so robust that they covered up the furrows. In addition to the poultry, his wife kept two pigs and a goat for milk. 31915Their sow was oinking from the pigpen, which was adjacent to the western end of the vegetable garden. Against the wall of the pigpen, a pile of manure waited to be carted to their family plot, where it would go through high-temperature composting in a pit for two months before being put into the field.
   26735The air reeked of distillers' grains mixed in the pig feed. Lin disliked the 29422sour smell, which was the only uncomfortable thing to him here. 90914From the kitchen, where Shuyu was cooking, came the coughing of the bellows28098. In the south, elm and birch crowns shaded their neighbors' straw and tiled roofs. Now and then a dog barked from one of these homes.
   Having turned over all the books, Lin went  out of the front wall, which was three feet high and topped with thorny jujube branches. In one hand he held a dog-eared Russian dictionary he had used in high school. Having nothing to do, he sat on their grinding stone, thumbing through the old dictionary. He still remembered some Russian vocabulary and even tried to form a few short sentences in his mind with some words. But he couldn't recall the grammatical rules for the case changes exactly, so he gave up and let the books lie on his lap. Its pages fluttered a little as a breeze blew across. He raised his eyes to watch the villagers hoeing potatoes in a  distant field, which was so vast that a red flag was planted in the middle of it as a marker so that they could take a break when they reached the flag. Lin was fascinated by the sight, but he knew little about farm work.  
[passage-footer](1999)
The excerpt above is from Ha Jin's Waiting.[/passage-footer]

[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]ROMAN: I know you well, sir, and you know me.
Your name, I think, is Adrain.
VOLSCE: It is so, sir. Truly, I have forgotten 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]

[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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