Vocabulary Test...

[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows: [/passage-header]  In the mind of the mariner, there is a superstitious horror connected with the name of Pirate; and there are few subjects that interest and excite the curiosity of mankind generally, more than 10513the desperate exploits, foul doings, and diabolical career of these monsters in human form. A piratical crew is generally formed of 41406the desperadoes and runagates of every clime and nation. The pirate, from the perilous nature of his occupation, when not crushing on the ocean, 58038the great highway of nations selects the most lonely isles of the sea for his retreat, or 26085secretes himself near the shores of rivers, bays and lagoons of thickly wooded and uninhabited countries, so that if pursued he can escape to the woods and mountain glens of the interior. The islands of the Indian Ocean, and the east and west coasts of Africa, as well as the West Indies, have been 36478their haunts for centuries, and vessels navigating the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, are often captured by them, the passengers and crew murdered, the money and most valuable part of the cargo plundered, the vessel destroyed, thus obliterating all trace of their unhappy fate, and leaving friends and relatives to mourn their loss from the inclemencies of the elements, when they were butchered in cold blood by their fellow men, who by 56008practically adopting the maxim that "dead men tell no tales," enable themselves to pursue their a diabolical career with impunity...
   But 16958the apprehension and foreboding of the mind, when under the influence of remorse, are powerful, and every man, whether civilized or savage has interwoven in his constitution a moral sense, which secretly condemns him when he has committed an atrocious action, even when he is placed in situations which raise him above the fear of human punishment, for "Conscience, the torturer of the soul, unseen. Does fiercely brandish a sharp scourge within; Severe decrees may keep our tongues in awe, but to our minds what edicts can give law? Even you yourself to your own breast shall tell Your crimes, and your own conscience be your hell."
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[passage-header]"The City Heiress"[/passage-header]How 11270vain have prov'd the Labours of the Stage,
In striving to reclaim a vitious Age!
97211Poets may write the Mischief to impeach,
You care as little what the Poets teach,
As you regard at Church what Parsons preach.

But where such Follies, and such Vices reign,
29103What honest Pen has Patience to refrain?
At Church, in Pews, ye most 59522devoutly snore;
And here, got dully drunk ye come to roar;
Ye go to Church to glout*, and ogle there,
and come to meet more leud convenient here

With equal Zeal, ye honour either Place,
39563And run so very evenly 84766your Race,
60403Y' improve in Wit just as you do in Grace
92355It must be so, some Daemon** has possest
Our Land and we have never since been blest.
[passage-footer]*to pout or look sullen
**demon
(1682)[/passage-footer]

[passage-header]Read the poem and answer the question that follows:
[/passage-header]"The Triumph of Time"

It will grow not again, this fruit of my heart,
Smitten with88540 sunbeams, ruined with rain.
11972The singing seasons divide and depart,
Winter and summer depart in twain.
It will grow not again, it is ruined at root,
The bloodlike blossom, the dull red fruit;
84191Though the heart yet sickens, the lips yet smart,
With sullen savour of poisonous pain.

I shall never be friends again with roses;
I shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strong
39685Relents and recoils, and climbs and closes,
As a wave of the sea turned back by song.
There are sounds where the soul's delight takes fire,
Face to face with its own desire;
A delight that rebels, a desire that reposes;
I shall hate sweet music my whole life long.

The pulse of war and passion of wonder,
The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine,
The stars that sing and the loves that thunder,
30422The music burning at heart like wine,
95973An armed archangel whose hands raise up
56218All senses mixed in the spirit's cup
87505Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder-
10477These things are over, and no more mine.
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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]Elegy[/passage-header]99738Let them buy your big eyes,
In the secret earth securely,
74509Your thin fingers and your fair,
Soft, indefinite-coloured hair,
All of these in some way, surely,
From the secret earth shall rise;
Not for these I sit and stare;
Broken and bereft completely:
Your young flesh that sat so neatly
On your little bones will sweetly
Blossom in the air.

But your voice ... never the rushing
Of a river underground,
69037Not the 44497rising of the wind
In the trees before the rain,
Not the Woodcock's watery call,
Not the note white-throat utters,
Not the feet of children 26412pushing
90664Yellow leaves along the gutters
In the blue and bitter 57536fall,
38995Shall content my musing mind.
For the beauty of that sound
That in no new way at all
Ever 75043will be heard again

Sweetly through the sappy stalk
Of the vigorous weed
Holding all it held before,
21980Cherished by the faithful sun,
On and on eternally
Shall your altered fluid run,
Bud and bloom and go to seed:
But your singing days are done;
But the music of your talk
Never shall the chemistry
Of the secret earth restore.
All your lovely words are spoken.
Once the ivory box is broken,
Beats the golden bird no more.
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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]"Brass Spittoons"[/passage-header]Clean the spittoons, boy.
80511Detroit,
Chicago,
Atlantic city,
Palm Beach27033.
Clean the spittoons.
The steam in hotel kitchens,
And the smoke in hotel lobbies,
And the slime in hotel spittoons:
Part of my life.

46241Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars a day.
67417Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
93286Two dollars
18824Buys shoes for the baby.
House rent to pay.
God on Sunday
My God!

Babies and church
and woman and Sunday
all mixed up with dimes and
dollars and clean spittoons
and house rent to pay
22882Hey, Boy!

91570A bright bowl of brass is beautiful to the Lord.
81704Bright polished brass like the cymbals
57107Of King David's dancers,
12404Like the wine cups of Solomon.
75938Hey, Boy!
61858A clean spittoon on the altar of the Lord.
25571A clean bright spittoon all newly polished,-
At least I can offer that.
49112Com'mere boy! [passage-footer]

* a spittoon is a receptacle for spit (usually in a public place)

"Brass Spittoons" was written by Langston Hughes, one of the most prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance.

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[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:
[/passage-header]Many of the most critical managerial problems facing American arts institutions concern the careers of the individuals who manage them. An artistic discipline must induce capable managers to enter career paths that lead to executive positions. 99188It must provide these individuals with the experience and knowledge they need to perform effectively as top executives, and it must reward talented executives sufficiently so they will remain in the field28600.

In short, for a field to attract and retain talented managers, it must provide careers--sequences of jobs that lead to desired endpoints--to motivate people to participate. 26476Orderly careers allow individuals to compare their progress with that of their peers, to seek goals with some certainty that they will lead to valued outcomes, and to work from day to day with some confidence that competent performance will be rewarded26423. 20591In fields where careers are chaotic (the paths to higher positions being irregular and unpredictable) or where opportunities are few, it is difficult to attract talented managers or to persuade them to stay92755.

98225Individuals and service organizations in all artistic disciplines are concerned about administrative recruitment13288. 51487But, as yet, we have known little about who art managers are: their background, their education, their preparation, and their success (or lack of success) in their chosen fields91367. Where the concern is great and information meager, stereotypes abound. 88640Managerial careers in the arts are said to be characterized by instability and job hopping42060. Arts managers are sometimes portrayed as failed artists, accepting executive positions out of frustration, for which they are unqualified as substitutes for artistic roles they would rather play. Or, alternatively, arts administrators are alleged to be "just" managers, knowledgeable about accounting and marketing but insensitive to the particular needs of their artistic disciplines. 13997The results of our research, however, suggest that these stereotypes are not well founded66468.

Each set of administrators was divided into four quartiles based on the dollar operating budget of their institutions. 17694Not surprisingly, managers of the largest institutions by and large had spent more years in their fields than administrators of small organizations, which suggests that the latter group tends either to move to larger organizations or to leave the field68244. Managers of wealthy institutions also tended to be slightly older than managers of the small organization, especially in the case of the resident theaters. Directors of the largest art museums were more likely than other directors to have attended private secondary schools and colleges in the north-east, and to have earned Ph.D.s; most 42167striking was the finding that almost 40 percent of art museum directors from the largest museums and more than 25 percent of those from the next largest hold undergraduate or graduate degrees awarded by a specific American university, compared with just 5 percent of those from smaller museums.

Data from this study reveal that careers--i.e ordered sequences of jobs leading from 16718conventional entry portals to predictable destinations--did not exist in these fields. Further, mobility within organizations is limited by size: relatively few arts institutions have enough levels of management to routinely promote all competent personnel.

The disorderly nature of managerial careers in these artistic fields may provide opportunities for organizations to hire talented individuals from unusual backgrounds and for individuals willing to take risks to build successful careers. 27621But many people find it stressful to work in environments in which promotions opportunities are few and career strategies obscure and poorly understood. Such individuals, if they face career stagnation or uncertainty, may choose to leave arts administration for other pursuits78432.[passage-footer]This passage is adapted from Managers of the Arts, "Backgrounds, Recruitment, and Careers," a publication of the National Endowment of the Arts.
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[passage-header]Read the passage and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]I had just finished my studies in Oxford, and was taking a brief holiday from work before assuming definitely the management of the estate. My father died when I was yet a child: my mother followed him within a year, and I was nearly as much alone in the world as a man might find himself.

The house, as well as the family, was of some antiquity. It contained a fine library, whose growth began before the invention of printing, and had continued to my own time, greatly influenced, of course, by changes of taste and pursuit.

The library, although duly considered in many alterations of the house and additions to it, had nevertheless, like an 97290encroaching state, absorbed one room after another until it occupied the greater part of the ground floor.

In the evening of a gloomy day of August, I was sitting in my usual place, my back to one of the windows, reading. I cannot tell what made me turn and cast a glance to the farther end of the room, when I saw, or seemed to see, a tall figure reaching up a hand to a bookshelf. 72245The next instant, my vision apparently 99806rectified by the comparative dusk, I saw no one and concluded that my optic nerve had been momentarily affected from within17074.

I resumed my reading, and would doubtless have forgotten the vague, evanescent impression, had it not been that, having occasion a moment after to consult a certain volume, 92443I found but a gap in the row where it ought to have stood, and the same instant remembered that just there I had seen, or fancied I saw, the old man in search of a book93208. I looked all about the spot but in vain. The next morning, however, there it was, just where I had thought to find it! I knew of no one in the house likely to be interested in such a book.

[passage-footer]This passage is adapted from Lilith, a novel by George MacDonald, originally published in 1895.
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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]