Practice Verbal Reasoning 09.docx

Practice Verbal Reasoning 9 Questions Number of Items: 40 Time Allowed: 60 minutes DIRECTIONS: There are seven passages in the Verbal Reasoning test. Each passage is followed by several questions. After reading a passage, select the one best answer to each question. If you are not certain of an answer, eliminate the alternatives that you know to be incorrect then select an answer from the remaining alternatives. Indicate your selection by clicking on the answer bubble next to it. Passage I The World Bank Group and the regional lending institutions now account for more than half of total official development lending. This lending is only a part of the total resource flow to developing countries, but it is a key element. It gives international organizations a basis for taking primary responsibility for setting the strategy under which all donors provide assistance to developing countries. Under an international system of development, international agencies would assume primary responsibility for analyzing conditions and policies in developing countries, for establishing close working relations with appropriate officials in these countries, and for determining total capital and technical assistance requirements and the policies necessary for effective use of investment resources. This would set the framework for the bilateral assistance programs of the United States and other industrialized countries. To do this, the international organizations will have to take a less parochial view of their mission. They will need to have wider representation abroad and more flexible lending policies without lowering standards. They will have to give increasing attention to the management, social, technical, scientific cooperation, and popular participation aspects of development. Finally, they will have to be diplomatic, flexible, sympathetic, and persuasive, but prepared to say no and to withstand political pressure from both the creditor and the borrowing countries. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are well along on this course. In Latin America, the Inter-American Development Bank and the OAS Inter-American Committee for the Alliance for Progress have begun to move in these directions. The other regional institutions too are beginning to gain some experience. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has been very active in pre-investment surveys and in a variety of technical assistance programs. It has missions on a worldwide scale and has recently reexamined its role and performance. With necessary reorganization, the UNDP would have the potential for exercising greater responsibility for technical assistance in an international system. Furthermore, as these organizations expand their operations, they will have to prepare for a parallel buildup in their control procedures so as to assure continued high operating standards. Also member governments will have to become more fully involved in the work of these international agencies. It will take time and sustained support from the member countries for the international organizations to assume the leadership role. It is not necessary that the same international organization assume primary responsibility in every country. The World Bank group can now exercise such leadership in the major developing countries, as well as in many others. Eventually, the regional organizations and the UNDP could assume this role in individual countries. A clear decision by the United States to rely on international organizations for this purpose, and action to support this decision, would spur the pace of the entire process. Because international economic development has become a responsibility of the World Bank group, only a portion of public loan money is going to developing nations. bilateral donors will no longer provide funds for development. these organizations will take over all responsibility for all forms of economic aid. these organizations will set the strategy for donors to developing countries. An international system responsible for economic development entails the abolition of bilateral programs. the determination of budgets for foreign countries. setting up policies essential to the effective use of capital and other resources. the establishment of rules for international trade. International agencies taking on economic responsibilities will have to change their present way of doing things by increasing loans at lower rates. seeing to it that the highest officials in foreign governments can be relied upon. being willing to understand and accept the political pressures that make for immediate success. paying increased attention to management and to social and other types of cooperation. The United Nations Development program is now exercising significant leadership in many developing countries. active in pre-investment surveys. organized wholly on a regional basis. an organization with adequate control procedures. The author favors all of the following policies except more economic aid to be administered by international agencies. fewer bilateral economic programs. U.S. reliance on international organizations. World Bank group leadership. Passage II It has always been difficult for the philosopher or scientist to fit time into his view of the universe. Prior to Einsteinian physics, there was no truly adequate formulation of the relationship of time to the other forces in the universe, even though some empirical equations included time quantities. However, even the Einsteinian formulation is not perhaps totally adequate to the job of fitting time into the proper relationship with the other dimensions, as they are called, of space. The primary problem arises in relation to things which might be going faster than the speed of light, or have other strange properties. Examination of the Lorentz-Fitzgerald formulas yields the interesting speculation that if something did actually exceed the speed of light, it would have its mass expressed as an imaginary number and would seem to be going backwards in time. The barrier to exceeding the speed of light is the calculation that only an infinite mass can move at exactly the speed of light. If this situation could be leaped over in a large quantum jump which seems highly unlikely for masses that are large in normal circumstances—then the other side may be achievable. The idea of going backwards in time is derived from the existence of a time vector that is negative, although just what this might mean to our senses in the unlikely circumstance of our experiencing this state cannot be conjectured. There have been, in fact, some observations of particle chambers which have led some scientists to speculate that a particle called the tachyon may exist with the trans-light properties we have just discussed. The difficulties of imagining and coping with these potential implications of our mathematical models points out the importance of studying alternative methods of notation for advanced physics. Professor Zuckerkandl, in his book Sound and Symbol , hypothesizes that it might be better to express the relationships found in quantum mechanics through the use of a notation derived from musical notations. To oversimplify greatly, he argues that music has always given time a special relationship to other factors or parameters or dimensions. Therefore, it might be a more useful language in which to express the relationships in physics where time again has a special role to play, and cannot be treated as just another dimension. The point of this, or any other alternative to the current methods of describing basic physical processes, is that time does not appear—either by common experience or sophisticated scientific understanding—to be the same sort of dimension or parameter as physical dimensions, and is deserving of completely special treatment, in a system of notation designed to accomplish that goal. One approach would be to consider time to be a field effect governed by the application of energy to mass; that is to say, by the interaction of different forms of energy, if you wish to keep in mind the equivalence of mass and energy. The movement of any normal sort of mass is bound to produce a field effect that we call positive time. An imaginary mass would produce a negative time field effect. This is not at variance with Einstein’s theories, since the “faster” a given mass moves, the more energy was applied to it and the greater would be the field effect. The time effects predicted by Einstein and confirmed by experience are, it seems, consonant with this concept. The “sound” of Professor Zuckerkandl’s book title probably refers to the music of the spheres. music in the abstract. musical notation. quantum mechanics. The passage supports the inference that Einstein’s theory of relativity is wrong. the Lorentz-Fitzgerald formulas contradict Einstein’s theories. time travel is clearly possible. it is impossible to travel at precisely the speed of light. The tone of the passage is critical but hopeful. hopeful but suspicious. suspicious but speculative. speculative but hopeful. The central idea of the passage can be best described as being which of the following? Anomalies in theoretical physics notation permit intriguing hypotheses and indicate the need for refined notation of the time dimension. New observations require the development of new theories and new methods of describing the new theories. Einsteinian physics can be much improved on in its treatment of tachyons. Zuckerkandl’s theories of tachyon formation are preferable to Einstein’s. It can be inferred that the author sees Zuckerkandl as believing that mathematics is a necessary evil. language. musical notation difficult field of study. In the first sentence, the author refers to “philosopher” as well as to “scientist” because this is part of a larger work. philosophers study all things. the nature of time is a basic question in philosophy as well as physics. the study of the methods of any field is a philosophical question. Passage III Particularly as far as music is concerned, the preservation of ancestral forms is meaningless unless it is part of a genuine development program. We are, of course, delighted that the many excellent recordings that are now available permit people throughout the world to become acquainted with the purest form of African expression. We are also gratified to know that men of good will have gone to the trouble of recording African life in the belief that it is a new and interesting world — a world that is now preserved in European and American museums on miles of magnetic tape and other electronic media. This book would certainly never have been written if such efforts had not been made in recent years. But preservation just for the sake of preserving is one thing; it merely gives the satisfaction of knowing that every possible effort has been made to ensure that nothing in existence shall be lost. Selective preservation of what deserves to be kept is quite another matter. In the first instance, preservation will, in most cases, prove to be a waste of time. The second attitude is prompted by a dynamic and positive spirit of liberalism that turns its back on immobility and that is orientated toward development. And development is a form of preservation that keeps abreast of the times and, in the long run, gains time. We feel it is imperative that the future of African music be based on the idea of development and not merely upon preservation. What form should this development take? Parallel with the efforts undertaken to collect, classify, and publish existing material, there is a need to establish centers for the development of African music. The “schools of art” that are springing up throughout Africa today should certainly not be suppressed, but special emphasis must be placed on the development of the musical art. Up until now, only a handful of specialists, mostly non-Africans, have taken a real interest in music. This fact is probably because music is more abstract than the plastic arts and also because it is associated with various other art forms and tends, therefore, to be overlooked. Art is part and parcel of the corporate soul. All that can be captured in electronic form is a minute fraction of the emotions that are expressed by this soul, and these media can never replace the soul itself — a soul that is the mother of expression. It is by no means a bad thing to preserve this fraction; on the contrary, it is useful to maintain a record of the different ways in which this expression manifests itself at different points in time. Pinpointing this expression at a given moment may be a useful contribution to the world of the arts. But it is by no means enough. People must be inspired with the urge to express themselves often, in an artistic language that takes account of their evolution. Sincere efforts of this kind have been made in a number of African countries during the past years. But they must be increased and coordinated if African music is to develop. The author of the passage is primarily concerned with criticizing a doctrine. decrying a trend. proposing a theory. outlining a program. According to the author, the preservation of traditional African music is mainly bad, because it discourages free expression by African musicians today. good, if directed toward development of the African music of the future. bad, because it limits appreciation of African music to a few specialists. good, as a means of perpetuating the forms and styles of the great musicians of the past. It can be inferred from the passage that the study and preservation of African music has been undertaken mainly by African political and cultural organizations. leaders of the new African “schools of art.” non-African musicians. non-African students of music. In the statement, “Art is part and parcel of the corporate soul,” the author wishes to stress the role of music in expressing the feelings and values of the community as a whole. providing an outlet for the impulses of the individual artistic genius. serving as a focus for social activism and political protest. inculcating traditional beliefs in the younger generation. The author regards present efforts toward encouraging musical self-expression among Africans as highly successful. unlikely to bear fruit. mainly backward-looking. valuable but limited. The author would most strongly favor which of the following initiatives? Development of an exchange program between the music departments of American and African universities Creation of a musical academy specializing in the training and encouragement of young African musicians Expansion of the music preservation programs to include the recording of more contemporary African music Greater integration of music with other African art forms Passage IV The problem of neutral rights on the seas revived to plague America’s relations with the belligerents. One of the German justifications for its shoot-on-sight policy was, as we have seen, the fragility of the U-boat and its vulnerability to even armed merchant vessels. To deal with this problem, in early 1916 Lansing proposed a modus vivendi: if the Allies agreed to disarm their merchant ships, the Germans would agree to the principle, suspended but not yet formally acknowledged, that their submarines would not attack such vessels without warning and without protecting the safety of civilians. In effect, the submarine would function as a surface cruiser and observe the rules of naval warfare laid down in past years. Unwilling to surrender what they considered a well-established right to arm surface vessels in exchange for a German concession to abide by existing international law, the British rejected the proposal immediately. Faced with this hostile response, Lansing quickly dropped the modus vivendi proposal. Unfortunately, he had opened a Pandora’s box. In explaining it to the German government, Lansing had implied that the American government regarded Allied armed merchant vessels as warships. This had been the German position all along, and they eagerly seized on the opening the Americans had created. On February 10, the kaiser’s government informed the American State Department that beginning on February 29, German U-boats would resume their attacks on armed merchant vessels without prior warning. In effect, the truce ushered in by the Arabic pledge was over. The sequence of events alarmed the pacifists and the isolationists. The Wilson administration, by dropping the modus vivendi, seemed to be saying that it accepted the British position that armed merchant vessels were not warships. If this were so, then by the administration’s interpretation, Americans would have the right to travel on such vessels. Since the Germans now intended to attack them on sight, Wilson was almost guaranteeing a collision with Germany. Hoping to head off such a confrontation, Representative Jeff McLemore of Texas and Senator Thomas P. Gore of Oklahoma introduced resolutions forbidding American travel on armed or contraband-carrying ships. Wilson interpreted this as a challenge to his leadership in foreign affairs and a cowardly surrender of American rights. “For my own part,” he wrote the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “I cannot consent to any abridgement of the rights of American citizens in any respect…. Once accept a single abatement of rights, and many other humiliations would certainly follow, and the whole fine fabric of international law might crumble under our hands piece by piece.” Congress backed down under the President’s pressure and tabled the Gore-McLemore resolutions. Wilson’s victory over Congress and the peace groups marked the further drift to war. The primary subject of the passage is how disagreement between the Germans and the Allies over the rights of merchant ships helped draw the United States into war. how conflicts over control of the sea lanes helped lead to the outbreak of war. the effects on international relations of internal political conflicts in the United States. Wilson’s failure to accede in certain steps that could have prevented United States involvement in war. It can be inferred from the passage that Lansing’s dropping of the modus vivendi proposal seemed to represent a reversal of the U.S. position on the status of armed merchant ships. a rejection of the British position concerning the rights of merchant vessels. an attempt to subsume the controversy under the general provisions of international law. a tacit acceptance of the German shoot-on-sight policy. According to the passage, the Gore-McLemore resolutions were introduced in an attempt to conciliate the British. avoid a confrontation with Germany. appease pro-pacifist sentiment. undercut the Allied bargaining position. Wilson’s attitude toward the Gore-McLemore resolutions may best be characterized as one of cautious acceptance. hasty disavowal for political reasons. hesitant disapproval. unqualified rejection. It can be inferred from the passage that Wilson regarded which of the following as most important? The avoidance of U.S. involvement in war The maintenance of presidential authority in foreign affairs The upholding of international law The protection of the lives of U.S. citizens The author implies that U.S. involvement in the war was caused largely by unplanned and unintentional actions. largely by Wilson’s intransigent attitude. primarily by German belligerence. by a breakdown in international communications. Passage V The magnetic field of Jupiter is approximately twenty to thirty times stronger than that of Earth. Because of its strong magnetic field and great distance from the sun, Jupiter’s magnetosphere is considerably larger than the earth’s. If we could see the Jovian magnetosphere from the earth, it would appear close to the size of the moon in the sky, despite our great distance from Jupiter Jupiter’s magnetosphere has three distinct regions. The inner region is doughnut-shaped, with the planet in the hole of the-doughnut. It is similar to Earth’s magnetosphere but more intense, containing several shells, where protons and electrons of enormous energies concentrate, similar to the Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts. Jupiter’s small innermost satellite, Amalthea, and three of its large satellites — Io, Europa, and Ganymede — travel through this inner region. The middle region of the magnetosphere has no counterpart around Earth. It consists of a sheath of electrically charged particles being whirled around rapidly by the rotation of Jupiter’s magnetic field. These particles strongly distort the intrinsic magnetic field of Jupiter. The outer region is the transition zone between the middle region of the magnetosphere and the solar wind, where a blizzard of electrons and protons streams across space from the sun. The solar wind interacts with the magnetic field of Jupiter, often forcing the Jovian field back toward the planet, squeezing the magnetosphere as though it were a great air-filled bag. Leaks develop, from which high -energy particles “squirt” across the solar system. Some of these particles have been detected at Earth and at Mercury by orbiting and interplanetary spacecraft. The energetic particles in Jupiter’s magnetosphere appear to have several sources. Some originate in the planet’s ionosphere; others appear to be injected into the magnetosphere from the surface of the satellites. Io, in particular, is believed to interact with the Jovian magnetic field to produce energetic electrons, while volcanic activity and bombardment of Io’s surface with energetic particles are believed to be responsible for releasing sodium, potassium, and sulfur ions into the magnetosphere. These atoms and ions form neutral clouds around Io and a doughnut-shaped torus of ions circling Jupiter in the plane of the magnetic equator. Investigations of this complex toric region of plasma where ionized gas consists wholly of charged particles are important in understanding not only the magnetosphere of Earth but plasmas in general. Since most of the intensely energetic processes of the universe take place in plasmas, their study is important to future energy research, particularly in fusion power. The dynamic magnetosphere of Jupiter provides us with a unique laboratory for the study of these and other issues of astrophysics. The passage provides information to answer which of the following questions? Where is the ionosphere of Jupiter located in relation to its magnetosphere? Is it possible to observe the Jovian magnetosphere visually from Earth? Why is the Jovian magnetosphere stronger than that of Earth? What is the effect of volcanic activity on the surface of Jupiter upon the planet’s magnetosphere? The passage describes how the magnetosphere of Jupiter differs from that of Earth in which of the following ways? its strength its size III. its structure I and II only I and III only II and III only I, II, and III According to the passage, the solar wind is a major source of the energetic particles found in Jupiter’s magnetosphere. has a distorting effect on the shape of Jupiter’s magnetosphere. produces particles that have been detected near the earth’s own orbit. exerts a powerful gravitational attraction upon the magnetosphere of Jupiter. Which of the following statements is not true of Io? Its surface is under bombardment by energetic particles. It orbits Jupiter in the inner ring of the magnetosphere. It is one source of the ions found orbiting Jupiter. It is one of the smallest satellites of Jupiter. It can be inferred from the passage that Earth’s magnetosphere resembles that of Jupiter in that both contain the orbital paths of one or more satellites. are squeezed by the action of the solar wind. are in rapid motion around their planets. are regions of plasma. The passage implies that which of the following is (are) true of plasmas? I. They are likely to house fusion reactions. They are generally under high pressure and seek to escape their gravitational confines. They are made up mainly of large quantities of ionized particles. I only II only I and III only II and III only Passage VI The years prior to and including those of the Romantic Movement are notable for the beginnings of really serious attempts to improve and correct the spoken language—in other words, to set up a standard of pronunciation. In 1772, William Kendrick published the first dictionary that indicated vowel sounds, and he was quickly copied by both English and American lexicographers. Because many of these men felt that words should be pronounced as they were spelled, there was a tendency to reestablish older pronunciations, especially in respect to unaccented syllables. This was especially true in America, which was establishing an English of its own. Americans rebelled against the pronunciations of Samuel Johnson, long the accepted English authority. Although Johnson’s dictionary had indicated no pronunciations, his poetry through its meter made clear which pronunciations he regarded as standard. Thus in his poem “The Vanity of Human Wishes,” the following words obviously are to be pronounced with only two syllables: venturous, treacherous, powerful, general, history, quivering, flattering, and slippery. Yet, with the possible exception of general, they were three-syllable words in America. It was not until the Romantic Age that Greek began to affect the English language directly. Many new philosophic and scientific names were being added to the language. Combining two or more words or roots from Latin or Greek gave the language such words as barometer and thermometer. Another method of creating new words was adding Greek combining forms, prefixes and suffixes—such as micro- (small), macro- (large), tele- (far), per- (maximum), -oid (like), -ic (smaller), and - ous (larger)—to words already in use. In this manner, words like microscope, macrocosm, telepathy, peroxide, paratoid, sulphuric, and sulphurous were produced. Partly as a result of the interest of the romanticists in the Middle Ages, words belonging to the past were reintroduced into the language. The imitation of older ballads revived some archaic words found in such poems. Coleridge uses eftsoons for again, I wis (from the Middle English iwis) for certainly, and een for eye. Keats uses faeries, the archaic spelling of fairies, fay in place of faith, and sooth to mean smooth. These words, not only old but odd, were scarcely likely to be adopted in conversation, but they served to acquaint readers with the language of England’s past. In their search for color, the romanticists also included slang and dialect terms, and although these forms are sparsely used in comparison with their use in literature today, they began to find acceptance in writing. Many of the romanticists like to coin their own words; sometimes, as with fuzzgig and critickasting, these bordered on the ridiculous. The romantic writers were concerned with bringing naturalness and simplicity back into the language. Consequently, some of them felt that borrowed or foreign words should be eliminated from the language because they corrupted the mother tongue. This discrimination against foreign words was not widespread, for English had become quite stabilized. The focus of this article is the explanation of unusual words used by English writers. the futility of learning specific words in a new language. the changing English language during the Romantic Movement. a language that is in stasis. The author alludes to all of the following EXCEPT pronunciation differences. borrowing words. poets’ use of archaisms. coining of words. The effect of the Greek language on the English language involves philosophic differences. reintroducing archaic terms into the “modem” language. increasing the number of syllables in most words. the field of science. There is evidence in this article to support the theory that making English the official language of business is important. more people speak and read English than any other language. English is an inferior language. Americans pronounce certain words with more syllables than others do. One of the ways to create new words is to use prefixes. use suffixes. use word combinations. all of the above. Passage VII It is important to note the ways in which Montesquieu’s classification of the forms of government in The Spirit of the Laws departed from the classical tradition. Montesquieu’s first originality was to regard democracy and aristocracy (which in Aristotle’s classification are two separate types) as two modes of a form of government called republican. For Montesquieu, the fundamental distinction is between the republic, including the two modes of aristocracy and democracy, and the monarchy. According to Montesquieu, Aristotle was unaware of the true nature of monarchy — which is understandable since monarchy, as Montesquieu conceived it, had been achieved only in postclassical Europe. There is an underlying reason for this departure. In Montesquieu, the distinction between forms of government is also a conscious distinction between social organizations and structures. Aristotle had created a theory of forms of government to which he had apparently assigned a general validity, but he was presupposing the Greek city-state as its social basis. Monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy constituted the three modes of political organization of the Greek city-states. It was justifiable, in this context, to distinguish types of government according to the number of persons holding the sovereign power. But this kind of analysis really implied that these three forms of government were, in modern terms, the political superstructure of a certain type of society. In classical political philosophy, no one bothered to examine the relationship between the types of political superstructure and the social foundations. No one had clearly formulated the question of to what extent a classification of political regimes can be made without considering the organization of societies. Montesquieu’s decisive contribution was precisely to combine the analysis of forms of government with the study of social organizations in such a way that each regime is also seen as a certain type of society. How did he establish this relationship between government and society? First, Montesquieu stated explicitly in Book VIII, Chapters 16, 17, and 19, that each of these three forms of government corresponds to or is consistent with a certain dimension of the society under consideration. Here is Montesquieu’s most typical pronouncement, from Book VIII, Chapter 16: “It is natural for a republic to have only a small territory; otherwise it cannot long subsist.” A little further on he says: “A monarchical state ought to be of moderate extent.” Finally, a third passage, from Chapter 19 of Book VIII: “A large empire supposes a despotic authority in the person who governs.” If we wished to translate these formulas into strictly logical terms, we should probably have to abandon a vocabulary of causality. We would be unable to say that once the territory of a state exceeds a certain size, despotism is inevitable, but at least we could say that there is a natural correspondence between the size of the society and the type of government. In any case, it is by means of this theory of size that Montesquieu linked the classification of governments to what is now called social morphology, in Durkheim’s term. The primary purpose of the passage is to describe Montesquieu’s system of classification of forms of government. importance in the history of the study of democratic government. contributions to the theory of types of government. pioneering role in the study of social morphology. According to Montesquieu, the form of government of a nation depends largely on its population. size. location. history. All of the following theoretical notions are referred to in the passage except Aristotle’s conception of the republic. Montesquieu’s conception of democracy. Aristotle’s conception of monarchy. Montesquieu’s conception of aristocracy. It can be inferred from the passage that Aristotle’s classification of types of government was based mainly on the social organization underlying each political structure. distinction between republican and monarchical government. number of persons controlling the power of the state. varying social structures of the Greek city-states. According to the passage, Aristotle’s theory of government differed from Montesquieu’s in that it failed to clearly distinguish between the democratic and aristocratic modes of government. assumed the superiority of Greek social structures to those found in other ancient societies. ignored the connection between governmental forms and the cultural characteristics of a society. did not consider the relationship between political structures and social organizations. It can be inferred that the author of the passage regards Montesquieu’s views on the relationship between forms of government and social structures as oversimplified but significant. interesting but highly dubious. valid for his time but largely irrelevant today. historically important but discredited. STOP. IF YOU FINISH BEFORE TIME IS CALLED, CHECK YOUR WORK. YOU MAY GO BACK TO ANY QUESTION IN THE VERBAL REASONING TEST BOOKLET.