Ch09 MCAT Passages 51-60.docx

Chapter 9 MCAT Verbal Reasoning Exercises Passage 51 If present trends continue, nearly one out of every three of today’s farms may not be around by the turn of the century. The prime culprit won’t be urban sprawl. Most of the decline in the number of farms will come as larger units absorb smaller ones, resulting in an increasing concentration of farmland and farm production among the biggest operations. Of course, these projections are by no means inevitable. Farm policies, the economy, energy costs, technology, foreign market developments, and other perhaps unanticipated factors will all influence the future of U.S. agriculture. While much of the move to larger operations will reflect farmers’ expansion decisions, price inflation will also play a role in pushing farms into larger sales classes. These projections assume an average annual increase in farm prices of 7.5 percent - about equal to the average rate of the 1970’s. Under these conditions, about a third of the build up in larger farms will reflect nothing more than changes in farm prices. A higher price inflation rate would shift more farms into the largest sales classes, while a lower rate would slow the trend. In either case, U. S. agricultural production will become increasingly concentrated among fewer and larger farms. Recent figures show that the largest 1 percent of the farms produce about a fourth of the nation’s food. In 20 years, they’ll account for half of total U.S. output, while the smallest 50 percent of our farms will produce less than 1 percent of America’s crops and livestock. By then, farms with annual sales of $100,000 or more will produce virtually all the food going into commercial marketing channels. The diminished role of small farms will partly reflect their size. Small farms of the year 2000 will be very small according to projections that the largest million farms will operate almost all of the nation’s farmland. Three-fourths of the farmland will be in the hands of the top 200,000 operators. Total farm wealth will show a similar pattern of concentration. Equity capital (farmers’ ownership share of their total assets) was distributed evenly among farm sales classes in 1978 - the small, medium, and large classes each accounted for about a third of total U. S. farm equity. In 20 years, however, two-thirds of the total wealth of the farm sector will be in farms with sales of $100,000 or more. Partly for these reasons, it will become even more difficult for new farmers to get started. They may need about $2 million in assets for a farm to generate sales of more than $100,000, double the estimated requirement of 1978. Of course, capital requirements for small farms will be much lower, and a large percentage of operators are now at the age where they’ll be retiring sometime in the next few decades. However, even when smaller, less expensive tracts of farmland are available for sale or rental, many aspiring young farmers will face intense competition from established farmers expanding their operations. There may also be sales competition from non-farm investors seeking to develop the land or rent it to a “proven” operator. Those who do manage to enter farming on a small scale will be heavily dependent on off-farm income. Very few will succeed in making the transition to full-time farming. Most small farms won’t generate enough income to support a family, let alone enough for expansion. Also, as many of these units are bought up to expand existing farms, there will be fewer farms around for the future, particularly at the sizes a young person may be able to afford. In fact, for every three operators who leave farms with sales of less than $100,000, only one will begin. The total number of new farmers under age 35 may shrink from about 377,000 just a few years ago to 233,000 by the end of the century. Of course, the number of large farms will be expanding, but that won’t open many doors for new entrants because the capital requirements will usually be far beyond their reach. Opportunities will be confined mostly to those who inherit a farm, and - more often than in the past - they’ll be inheriting not an entire farm, but partnerships or shares in a family farm corporation that’s highly specialized. 1. The tone of the passage is best described as A. alarmed. B. cautious. C. factual. D. rustic. 2. According to the passage, a large farm is one that A. produces two-thirds of the nation’s crops and livestock. B. has sales of over $100,000 per year. C. covers more than 2 square miles. D. can support a family of six. 3. The passage would be most likely to have appeared as an article in which of the following? A. a publication of the United States Department of Defense. B. a publication of the University School of Forests and Mines. C. a publication of the United States Department of Agriculture. D. a publication of the United States Internal Revenue Service. 4. The passage predicts all of the following except A. fewer younger farmers. B. fewer smaller farms. C. fewer farms producing relatively more. D. more families will be living on farms. 5. According to the passage, a lower rate of inflation would slow the trend to larger farms because A. reduced inflation will slow the economy and make farming a less attractive investment. B. inflation is necessary for economic growth. C. population pressures will lower food prices. D. prices received for farm produce would increase less, and sales are the measure of farm size. 6. It can be inferred from the passage that A. predicting agricultural trends is a complex process. B. reducing the number of farms will surely increase productivity. C. increasing the size of farms will necessarily increase productivity. D. increasing farm size will increase the total wealth held by farmers. 7. Good advice for the aspiring farmer would be A. “Go west, young man, go west.” B. “Make hay while the sun shines.” C. “Many are called, but few are chosen.” D. “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.” Passage 52 In my early childhood I received no formal religious education. I did, of course, receive the ethical and moral training that moral and conscientious parents give their children. When I was about ten years old, my parents decided that it would be good for me to receive some formal religious instruction and to study the Bible, if for no other reason than that a knowledge of both is essential to the understanding of literature and culture. As lapsed Catholics, they sought a group which had as little doctrine and dogma as possible, but what they considered good moral and ethical values. After some searching, they joined the local Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Although my parents did not attend Meetings for Worship very often, I went to First Day School there regularly, eventually completing the course and receiving an inscribed Bible. At the Quaker school, I learned about the concept of the “inner light” and it has stayed with me. I was, however, unable to accept the idea of Jesus Christ being any more divine than, say, Buddha. As a result. I became estranged from the Quakers who, though believing in substantially the same moral and ethical values as I do, and even the same religious concept of the inner light, had arrived at these conclusions from a premise which I could not accept. I admit that my religion is the poorer for having no revealed word and no supreme prophet, but my inherited aversion to dogmatism limits my faith to a Supreme Being and the goodness of man. Later, at another Meeting for Worship, I found that some Quakers had similar though not so strong reservations about the Christian aspects of their belief. I made some attempt to rejoin a Meeting for Worship, but found that though they remained far closer to me than any other organized religious group, I did not wish to become one again. I do attend Meetings for Worship on occasion, but it is for the help in deep contemplation which it brings rather than any lingering desire to rejoin the fold. I do believe in a “Supreme Being” (or ground of our Being, as Tillich would call it). This Being is ineffable and not to be fully understood by humans. He is not cut off from the world and we can know him somewhat through the knowledge which we are limited to the world. He is interested and concerned for humankind but on man himself falls the burden of his own life. To me the spurn the reward indignantly. accept it only as a token of the other person’s feelings of gratitude. neither take nor refuse the reward. explain to the offerer that rewards are blasphemous. message of the great prophets, especially Jesus, is that good is its own reward, and indeed the only possible rewards are intrinsic in the actions themselves. The relationship between each human and the Supreme Being is an entirely personal one. It is my faith that each person has this unique relationship with the Supreme Being. To me that is the meaning of the inner light. This purpose of life, insofar as a human can grasp it, is to understand and increase this lifeline to the Supreme Being, this piece of divinity that every human has. Thus, the taking of any life by choice is the closing of some connection to God, and unconscionable. Killing anyone not only denies them their purpose, but corrupts the purpose of all men. 1. The author of the preceding passage is most probably writing in order to A. persuade a friend to convert to Quakerism. B. reassure a Friend that he has not become immoral. C. explain the roots of his pacifism. D. analyze the meaning of the “inner light.” 2. If offered a reward for doing a good deed, the author would A. B. C. D. 3. According to the passage, the Quakers A. are the group he wishes to become a member of again. B. have historically been pacifists. C. are Christians, but only in a weak sense. D. share basic religious thought with the author. 4. Which of the following would the author see as most divine? A. Jesus Christ. B. Buddha. C. Mohammed. D. They would be seen as equally divine. 5. It can be inferred that A. the author views the inner light as uniquely an attribute of Quakers. B. Quakers treat all men the same, whether they have inner light or not. C. the Catholics are not concerned with killing. D. the author’s parents found Catholic religious views unsuitable or inadequate. 6. The author argues that A. we must seek greater comprehension of our own inner lights. B. humans must always seek to increase the number of inner lights, hence, population increase is desirable. C. the unique relationship between each person and his inner light makes him more divine than those without an inner light. D. only a person without an inner light could kill. 7. If the author, were faced with a situation where the killing of another human would occur both by his action and his inaction, then A. he could not act because it would kill some-one. B. he could not fail to act because it would kill someone. C. he would have to kill himself to avoid the situation. D. he would have to choose to act or not act on some basis other than whether a human would die. Passage 53 An action of apparent social significance among animals is that of migration. But several different factors are at work causing such migrations. These may be concerned with food-getting; with temperature, salinity, pressure, and light changes; with the action of sex hormones; and probably combinations of these and other factors. The great aggregations of small crustaceans found at the surface of the ocean, swarms of insects about a light, or the masses of plankton in the lakes and oceans are all examples of non-social aggregations of organisms brought together because of the presence or absence of certain factors in their environment, such as air currents, water currents, food or the lack of it, oxygen, or carbon dioxide, etc. Insects make long migrations, most of which seem due to the urge for food. The migrations of the locust, both in this country and elsewhere, are well-known. While fish, such as salmon, return to the same stream where they grew up, such return migrations are rare in insects, the only known instance being in the monarch butterfly. This is apparently due to the fact that it is long-lived and has the power of strong flight. The mass migrations of the Rocky Mountain and the African species of locust seem attributable to the need for food. Locusts live, eat, sun themselves, and migrate in groups. It has been suggested that their social life is in response to the two fundamental instincts - aggregation and imitation. Migrations of fish have been studied carefully by many investigators. Typically, the migrations are from deep to shallow waters, as in the herring, mackerel, and many other marine fish. Fresh water fish, in general, exhibit this type of migration in the spawning season. Spawning habits of many fish show a change in habitat - from salt to fresh water. In the North American and European eels, long migrations take place at the breeding season. All these migrations are obviously not brought about by a quest for food; for the salmon and many other fish feed only sparingly during the spawning season, but are undoubtedly brought about by metabolic changes in the animal initiated by the interaction of sex hormones. If this thesis holds, then here is the beginning of social life. Bird migrations have long been a matter of study. The reasons for the migration of the golden plover from the Arctic regions to the tip of South America and back in a single year are not fully explainable. Several theories have been advanced, although none have been fully proved. The reproductive “instinct,” food scarcity, temperature and light changes, the metabolic changes brought about by the activity of the sex hormones, and the length of the day all have been suggested, and ultimately several may prove to be factors. Aside from other findings, it is interesting to note that bird migrations take place year after year on about the same dates. Recent studies in the biochemistry of metabolism, showing that there is a seasonal cycle in the blood sugar that has a definite relation to activity and food, seem to be among the most promising leads. In mammals, the seasonal migrations that take place, such as those of the deer, which travel from the high mountains in summer to the valleys in winter, or the migration of the caribou in the northern areas of Canada, are based on the factor of temperature, which regulates the food supply. Another mystery is the migration of the lemming, a small rat-like animal found in Scandinavia and Canada. The lemming population varies greatly from year to year, and at times when it greatly increases a migration occurs in which hordes of lemmings march across the country, swimming rivers, and even plunging into the ocean if it bars their way. This again cannot be purely social association of animals. The horde is usually made up entirely of males, as the females seldom migrate. 1. The reasons for the migrations of birds may ultimately be determined by scientists working in the field of A. population studies. B. biology. C. metabolism chemistry. D. reproduction. 2. A characteristic of migration is the return of the migrants to their former home areas. This is, however, not typically true of migrating A. birds. B. insects. C. mammals. D. fish. 3. The reproductive instinct is probably not a factor in the actual migration of the A. salmon. B. lemming. C. golden plover. D. monarch butterfly. 4. The main purpose of the passage is to A. show that social factors may be of lesser importance to understanding animal behavior than first appears. B. present a new theory in regard to biological evolution. C. teach the reader how to evaluate a natural phenomenon. D. describe a phenomenon that has not yet been satisfactorily explained. 5. However mysterious, the migration of the lemmings cannot be considered one of social association since A. usually only males migrate. B. migrations occur only with population increases. C. it is probably due to the absence of some factor in the environment. D. the migrants do not return. 6. If the author of the above passage were called on to explain the apparently social behavior of ants or bees in their hills and hives, we may infer that he would probably A. refuse to speculate in any way. B. compare the hills and hives to human cities. C. find their behavior mysterious. D. first seek to find other than purely social explanations 7. All of the following are posited as reasons for migration except A. lack of food. B. hormonal changes. C. temperature changes. D. Peer pressure. Passage 54 Of all the areas of learning the most important is the development of attitudes. Emotional reactions as well as 70 logical thought processes affect the behavior of most people. “The burnt child fears the fire” is one instance; attitudes affect our actions. teachers play a significant role in developing or changing pupils’ attitudes. by their attitudes, teachers inadvertently affect pupils’ attitudes. attitudes can be changed by some classroom experiences. another is the rise of despots like Hitler. Both these examples also point up the fact that attitudes stem from experience. In the one case the experience was direct and impressive; in the other it was indirect and cumulative. The Nazis were indoctrinated largely by the speeches they heard and the books they read. The classroom teacher in the elementary school is in a strategic position to influence attitudes. This is true partly because children acquire attitudes from these adults whose word they respect. Another reason it is true is that pupils often delve somewhat deeply into a subject in school that has only been touched upon at home or has possibly never occurred to them before. To a child who had previously acquired little knowledge of Mexico, his teacher’s method of handling such a unit would greatly affect his attitude toward Mexicans. The media through which the teacher can develop wholesome attitudes are innumerable. Social studies (with special reference to races, creeds, and nationalities), science, matters of health and safety, the very atmosphere of the classroom - these are a few of the fertile fields for the inculcation of proper emotional reactions. However, when children come to school with undesirable attitudes, it is unwise for the teacher to attempt to change their feelings by cajoling or scolding them. She can achieve the proper effect by helping them obtain constructive experiences. To illustrate, first grade pupils afraid of policemen will probably alter their attitudes after a classroom chat with the neighborhood officer in which he explains how he protects them. In the same way, a class of older children can develop attitudes through discussion, research, outside reading, and all-day trips. Finally, a teacher must constantly evaluate her own attitude because her influence can be deleterious if she has personal prejudices. This is especially true in respect to controversial issues and questions on which children should be encouraged to reach their own decisions as a result of objective analysis of all the facts. 1. The central idea conveyed in the above passage is that A. B. the attitudes of children are influenced by all the adults in their environment. C. attitudes cannot easily be changed by rewards and lectures. D. a child can develop in the classroom an attitude about the importance of brushinghis teeth. attitudes can be based on the learning of falsehoods. 2. The author implies that A. children’s attitudes often come from those of other children. B. in some aspects of social studies a greater variety of methods can be used in the upper grades than in the lower grades. C. the teacher should guide all discussions by revealing her own attitude. D. people usually act on the basis of reasoning rather than emotion. 3. A statement not made or implied in the passage is that A. B. C. D. 4. The passage specifically states that A. teachers should always conceal their own attitudes. B. whatever attitudes a child learns in school have already been introduced at home. C. direct experiences are more valuable than indirect ones. D. teachers can sometimes have an unwholesome influence on children. 5. The first and fourth paragraphs have all the following points in common except A. how reading affects attitudes. B. the importance of experience in building attitudes. C. how attitudes can be changed in the classroom. D. how fear sometimes governs attitudes. Passage 55 The word geology refers to the study of the composition, structure, and history of the earth. The term is derived from the Latin, geologia, coined by Bishop Richard de Bury in 1473 to distinguish lawyers who study “earthy things” from theologians. It was first consistently used in its present sense in the latter part of the 17th Century. The great mass of detail that constitutes geology is classified under a number of subdivisions which, in turn, depend upon the fundamental sciences, physics, chemistry and biology. The principal subdivisions of geology are: mineralogy, petrology, structural geology, physiography (geomorphology), usually grouped under physical or dynamical geology; and paleontology, stratigraphy and paleogeography, grouped under historical geology. The term economic geology usually refers to the study of valuable mineral “ore” deposits, including coal and oil. The economic aspects of geology are, however, much more embracive, including many subjects associated with civil engineering, economic geography, and conservation. Some of the more important of these subjects are meteorology, hydrology, agriculture, and seismology. Subjects which are also distinctly allied to geology are geophysics, geochemistry, and cosmogony. 1. The statement that geology treats of the history of the earth and its life, especially as recorded in the rocks, is A. contrary to the paragraph. B. made in the paragraph. C. neither made nor implied in the paragraph. D. not made, but implied in the paragraph. 2. The statement that the principal branches or phases of geology are dynamical geology and historical geology are A. contrary to the paragraph. B. made in the paragraph. C. neither made nor implied in the paragraph. D. not made, but implied in the paragraph. 3. The statement that mining geology is a subdivision of geophysics is A. contrary to the paragraph. B. made in the paragraph. C. neither made nor implied in the paragraph. D. not made, but implied in the paragraph. 4. The statement that the study of both the exterior of the earth and its inner constitution constitutes the fundamental subject matter of geology is A. contrary to the paragraph. B. made in the paragraph. C. neither made nor implied in the paragraph. D. not made, but implied in the paragraph. 5. The statement that geology utilizes the principles of astronomy, zoology, and botany is A. contrary to the paragraph. B. made in the paragraph. C. neither made nor implied in the paragraph. D. not made, but implied in the paragraph. 6. The statement that geology is synonymous with the study of the attributes of rocks, rock formation, or rock attributes is A. contrary to the paragraph. B. made in the paragraph. C. neither made nor implied in the paragraph. D. not made, but implied in the paragraph. Passage 56 Schiller was the first to ring a change on this state of things by addressing himself courageously to the entire population of his country in all its social strata at one time. He was the great popularizer of our theatre, and remained for almost a century the guiding spirit of the German drama of which Schiller’s matchless tragedies are still by many people regarded as the surpassing manifestos. Schiller’s position, while it demonstrates a whole people’s gratitude to those who respond to its desires, does not however furnish a weapon of self-defense to the “popularizers” of drama, or rather its diluters. Schiller’s case rather proves that the power of popular influence wrought upon a poet may be vastly inferior to the strength that radiates from his own personality. Indeed, whereas the secret of ephemeral power is only too often found in paltriness or mediocrity, an influence of enduring force such as Schiller exerts on the Germans can only emanate from a strong and self-assertive character. No poet lives beyond his day who does not exceed the average in mental stature, or who, through a selfish sense of fear of the general, allows himself to be ground down to the conventional size and shape. Schiller, no less than Ibsen, forced his moral demands tyrannically upon his contemporaries. And in the long run your moral despot, provided he be high-minded, vigorous, and able, has a better chance of fame than the pliant time-server. However, there is a great difference between the two cases. For quite apart from the striking dissimilarities between the poets themselves, the public, through the gradual growth of social organization, has become greatly altered. 1. Schiller’s lasting popularity may be attributed to A. his meeting the desires of a whole people, not just a segment of the people. B. his abiding by his innermost convictions. C. his mediocrity and paltriness. D. his courageous facing up to the problems of his day. 2. In the first sentence, “on this state of things” refers to A. romantic drama. B. the French play of contrived construction. C. drama directed to the rich and well-born. D. the popularizers of the theatre of today. 3. In the second sentence from the last, “the two cases” refer to A. pliant time-server and moral despot. B. the one who exceeds the average in mental stature and the one who allows himself to be ground down to conventional size. C. the popularizer and the poet of enduring fame. D. Ibsen and Schiller. 4. We may assume that the author A. is no believer in the democratic processes. B. has no high opinions of the “compact majority.” C. regards popularity with the people as a measure of enduring success. D. is opposed to the aristocracy. Passage 57 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 posi-tive 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. 1. The “sound” of Professor Zuckerkandl’s book title probably refers to A. the music of the spheres. B. music in the abstract. C. musical notation. D. the seemingly musical sounds produced by tachyons. 2. The passage supports the inference that A. Einstein’s theory of relativity is wrong. B. the Lorentz-Fitzgerald formulas contradict Einstein’s theories. C. time travel is clearly possible. D. it is impossible to travel at precisely the speed of light. 3. The tone of the passage is A. critical but hopeful. B. hopeful but suspicious. C. suspicious but speculative. D. speculative but hopeful. 4. The central idea of the passage can be best described as being which of the following? A. Anomalies in theoretical physics notation permit intriguing hypotheses and indicate the need for refined notation of the time dimension. B. New observations require the development of new theories and new methods of describing the new theories. conscious and unconscious rebellion. guilt-feelings and scapegoating. halting of psychological growth and blaming the “breaks.” “Peccavi - I have sinned” and “all the world is made except thee and me and I am not so sure of thee.” C. Einsteinian physics can be much improved on in its treatment of tachyons. D. Zuckerkandl’s theories of tachyon formation are preferable to Einstein’s. 5. According to the author, it is too soon to A. call Beethoven a physicist. B. adopt proposals such as Zuckerkandl’s. C. plan for time travel. D. study particle chambers for tachyon traces. 6. It can be inferred that the author sees Zuckerkandl as believing that mathematics is a A. necessary evil. B. language. C. musical notation. D. great hindrance to full understanding of physics. 7. In the first sentence, the author refers to “philosopher” as well as to “scientist” because A. this is part of a larger work. B. philosophers study all things. C. physicists get Doctor of Philosophy degrees. D. the nature of time is a basic question in philosophy as well as physics. Passage 58 In one sense, of course, this is not a new insight: all our great social and philosophical thinkers have been keenly aware of the fact of individual differences. It has remained, however, for psychologists to give the insight scientific precision. What all this adds up to is more than just a working body of information about this and that skill. It adds up to a basic recognition of one important factor in the maturing of the individual. If each individual has a certain uniqueness of power, his maturing will best be accomplished along the line of that power. To try to develop him along lines that go in directions contrary to that of his major strength is to condition him to defeat. Thus, the non-mechanical person who is arbitrarily thrust into a mechanical occupation cannot help but do his work poorly and reluctantly, with some deep part of himself in conscious or unconscious rebellion. He may blame himself for the low level of his accomplishment or for his persistent discontent; but not all his self-berating, nor even all his efforts to become more competent by further training, can make up for the original aptitude-lack. Unless he discovers his aptitude-lack, he may be doomed to a lifetime of self-blame, with a consequent loss of self-confidence and a halting of his psychological growth. Or he may take refuge in self-pity, finding reason to believe that his failure is due to one or another bad break, to the jealousy of a superior, to lack of sympathy and help at home, to an initial bad start, to a lack of appreciation of what he does. If he thus goes the way of self-pity, he is doomed to a lifetime of self-commiseration that makes sound growth impossible. The characteristic of the mature person is that he affirms life. To affirm life he must be involved, heart and soul, in the process of living. Neither the person who feels himself a failure nor the person who consciously or unconsciously resents what life has done to him can feel his heart and soul engaged in the process of living. That experience is reserved for the person whose full powers are enlisted. This, then, is what this fourth insight signifies: to mature, the individual must know what his powers are and must make them competent for life. 1. It is the author’s view that A. “all men are created equal.” B. “each man in his life plays many parts.” C. “all comes to him who waits.” D. “no kernel of nourishing corn can come to one but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground given to him to till ....” 2. Ignorance of this fourth insight A. may very likely cause one to take refuge in self-pity or conscious or unconscious rebellion. B. constitutes a failure to understand that each individual is different and must cultivate his special powers in socially rewarding ways. C. is a major deterrent to a growth to maturity. D. means unawareness of the fact that each must use all his energy and powers to the best of his ability to make him competent for life. 3. Two possible maladjustments of a man thrust into a position he is unfitted for may be summed up in the phrase A. B. C. D. 4. We will expect a person placed in a job he is unequal to, to A. strike out for himself as an entrepreneur. B. display quick angers and fixed prejudices. C. show a great love of life outside of his work. D. engage in labor union activities. Passage 59 In its current application to art, the term “primitive” is as vague and unspecific as the term “heathen” is in its application to religion. A heathen sect is simply one which is not affiliated with one or another of three or four organized systems of theology. Similarly, a primitive art is one which flourishes outside the small number of cultures which we have chosen to designate as civilizations. Such arts differ vastly and it is correspondingly difficult to generalize about them. Any statements which will hold true for such diverse aesthetic experiences as the pictographs of the Australians, the woven designs of the Peruvians, and the abstract sculptures of the African Negroes must be of the broadest and simplest sort. Moreover, the problem is complicated by the meaning attached to the term “primitive” in its other uses. It stands for something simple, undeveloped, and, by implication, ancestral to more evolved forms. Its application to arts and cultures other than our own is an unfortunate heritage from the nineteenth-century scientists who laid the foundations of anthropology. Elated by the newly enunciated doctrines of evolution, these students saw all cultures as stages in a single line of development and assigned them to places in this series on the simple basis of the degree to which they differed from European culture, which was blandly assumed to be the final and perfect flower of the evolutionary process. This idea has long since been abandoned by anthropologists, but before its demise it diffused to other social sciences and became a part of the general body of popular misinformation. It still tinges a great deal of the thought and writing about the arts of non-European peoples and has been responsible for many misunderstandings. 1. The main purpose of the passage is to A. explain the various definitions of the term “primitive.” B. show that the term “primitive” can be applied validly to art. C. compare the use of the term “primitive” to the use of the term “heathen.” D. deprecate the use of the term “primitive” as applied to art. 2. The nineteenth-century scientists believed that the theory of evolution A. could be applied to the development of culture. B. was demonstrated in all social sciences. C. was substantiated by the diversity of “primitive” art. D. could be applied only to European culture. 3. With which of the following would the author agree? A. The term “primitive” is used only by the misinformed. B. “Primitive” arts may be as highly developed as “civilized” arts. C. The arts of a culture often indicated how advanced that culture was. D. Australian, Peruvian, and African Negro arts are much like the ancestral forms from which European art evolved. 4. According to the author, many misunderstandings have been caused by the belief that A. most cultures are fundamentally different. B. inferior works of art in any culture are “primitive” art. C. “primitive” arts are diverse. D. European civilization is the final product of the evolutionary process. Passage 60 Political scientists, as practitioners of a negligibly formalized discipline, tend to be accommodating to formulations and suggested techniques developed in related behavioral sciences. They even tend, on occasion, to speak of psychology, sociology, and anthropology as “hard core sciences.” Such a characterization seems hardly justified. The disposition to uncritically adopt into political science nonindigenous sociological and general systems concepts tends, at times, to involve little more than the adoption of a specific, and sometimes barbarous, academic vocabulary which is used to re-describe reasonably well-confirmed or intuitively-grasped low-order empirical generalizations. At its worst, what results in such instances is a runic explanation, a re-description in a singular language style, i.e. no explanation at all. At their best, functional accounts as they are found in the contemporary literature provide explanation sketches, the type of elliptical explanation characteristic of historical and psychoanalytic accounts. For each such account, there is an indeterminate number of equally plausible ones, the consequence of either the complexity of the subject matter, differing perspectives, conceptual vagueness, the variety of sometimes mutually exclusive empirical or quasi-empirical generalizations employed, or syntactical obscurity, or all of them together. Functional explanations have been most reliable in biology and physiology (where they originated) and in the analysis of servomechanical and cybernetic systems (to which they have been effectively extended). In these areas we possess a well-standardized body of law-like generalizations. Neither sociology nor political science has as yet the same resource of well-confirmed law-like statements. Certainly sociology has few more than political science. What passes for functional explanation in sociology is all too frequently parasitic upon suggestive analogy and metaphor, trafficking on our familiarity with goal directed-systems. What is advanced as “theory” in sociology is frequently a non-theoretic effort at classification or “codification,” the search for an analytic conceptual schema which provides a typology or a classificatory system serviceable for convenient storage and ready retrieval of independently established empirical regularities. That such a schema takes on a hierarchic and deductive character, imparting to the collection of propositions a prime facie theoretical appearance, may mean no more than that the terms employed in the high-order propositions are so vague that they can accommodate almost any inference and consequently can be made to any conceivable state of affairs. 1. The author implies that, when the political scientist is at his best, his explanations A. are essentially a retelling of events. B. only then form the basis of an organized discipline. C. plausibly account for past occurrences. D. are prophetic of future events. 2. With which of the following would the author probably agree ? Because of an abundance of reasonable explanations for past conduct, there is the possibility of contending schools within the field of political science developing. Political science is largely devoid of predictive power. Political science has very few verified axioms. The correct answer is: A. III only B. I and III C. I and II D. I, II, and III 3. The passage implies that many sociological theories A. are capable of being widely applied to various situations. B. do not even appear to be superficially theoretical in appearance. C. contrast with those of political science in that there are many more confirmed law-like statements. D. are derived from deep analysis and exhaustive research. 4. The author’s thesis would be unsupportable if A. the theories of the political scientist possessed predictive power. B. political science did not consist of re-description. C. political scientists were not restricted to “hard core sciences.” D. political science consisted of a body of theories capable of application to any situation. 5. The author believes that sociology, as a “hard core science,” A. contains reliable and functional explanations. B. is never more than a compilation of conceptual schema. C. is in nearly every respect unlike political science. D. is a discipline which allows for varied inferences to be drawn from its general propositions.