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501 Critical Reading QuestionsThis is trial version www.adultpdf.com... By reading and working through 501 Critical Reading Questions you will become much more proﬁcient at answering the

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501 Critical Reading Questions

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

501 critical reading questions.—1st ed.

p cm.

ISBN 1-57685-510-4 (pbk : alk paper)

1 Reading (Secondary)—Examinations, questions, etc 2 Reading comprehension— Examinations, questions, etc 3 Readers (Secondary) I Title: Five hundred one

critical reading questions II Title: Five hundred and one critical reading questions III LearningExpress (Organization)

LB1632.A16 2004

428.4'07'12—dc22

2004001114 Printed in the United States of America

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The LearningExpress Skill Builder in Focus Writing Team is

comprised of experts in test preparation, as well as educators and teachers who specialize in language arts

LearningExpress Skill Builder in Focus Writing Team

English Tutor, New York Cares

New York, New York

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Introduction ix

5 Literature and Literary Criticism 121

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Why Should I Use this Book?

Schools and employers know that students and workers who reason cally about what they read are better students and more valuable employ-ees That is why standardized tests almost invariably include a readingcomprehension section

criti-This book is designed to help you be a more successful critical reader.You are probably most interested in performing well on a standardized testsuch as the SAT, ACT, or a vocational or professional exam By reading and

working through 501 Critical Reading Questions you will become much more

proﬁcient at answering the multiple-choice questions found on those tests.The beneﬁts you gain from this practice and from your conscious attention

to critical reasoning skills will extend far beyond any exam and into allaspects of your life Reading will become a much more rewarding andenjoyable experience, and your life will be richer for it

What Is in this Book?

Each of the chapters in this book focuses on a different subject matter, soregardless of the exact exam you need to prepare for, there will be contentsimilar to material you will face on your exam However, it’s important that

Introduction

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or mark the area to return to later.

3 After reading the passage, return to the questions and try to answer each one in your own words before you look at your answer choices The

reason for this is that the answers will contain distracter choices.These are choices that are logically plausible but not correct, thatcontain words and phrases found in the passage but are not

correct, or that are close to correct but wrong in some detail Ifyou can formulate your own answer before looking at your choices,you are less likely to be lured by an incorrect answer choice

4 As with all multiple-choice questions, elimination is an important

strategy when you aren’t sure of the answer Usually you can narrow

down your choices to two or three without too much effort Whenyou eliminate an incorrect choice, it’s important to actually cross itout in your test booklet so that you aren’t distracted by it again asyou focus on the remaining possibilities

5 Refer back to the passage(s) on virtually every question Even if you

think you know the answer to a question without looking at thepassage, look anyway, just to conﬁrm your answer and to makesure you haven’t fallen for a clever distracter

6 When you encounter a two-passage section, read the passages with their relationship in mind Are they opposed or in agreement? If there is

some other type of relationship, how would you describe it? If thepassages have opposing viewpoints, what are the points of

difference? You may want to make notes about these things in themargin

7 Don’t be afraid to skip around among the questions, or among the

passages within a section This is an especially important strategy if

you know from past experience that you often run out of time onstandardized tests If this is the case, and you encounter a passageyou’re having difﬁculty with, go on to the next one and come back

to the difﬁcult one later, as time allows

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Remind Me Why I’m Doing This

Finally, as you work through these 501 questions, think of it as time spentdoing something for yourself It is extremely important for you to improveyour critical reading skills, not only for standardized tests, but also for yoursuccess throughout life And, besides, there is some pretty interesting stuff

in this book! Enjoy

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501 Critical Reading Questions

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the spiral track of pits, and is then reﬂected off either the pit or the minum layer Because the CD is read through the bottom of the disc,each pit looks like a bump to the laser.

alu-Information is read as the laser moves over the bumps (where nolight will be reﬂected) and the areas that have no bumps, also known

as land (where the laser light will be reﬂected off the aluminum) Thechanges in reﬂectivity are interpreted by a part of the compact discplayer known as the detector It is the job of the detector to convertthe information collected by the laser into the music that was origi-nally recorded onto the disc This invention brought 22 patents toJames Russell, who today says he working on an even better system forrecording and playing back music

1 According to the passage, why did James Russell invent the CD?

a He was tired of turning over his records to hear both sides.

b He wanted to record more music on a new format.

c He wanted a purer, more durable sound than he could get from

vinyl records

d He was interested in getting patents.

e He wanted to work with lasers.

2 What would happen if the detector on a CD player

malfunctioned?

a The spiral track would not be read properly.

b The pits and land would look like one unit.

c The changes in reﬂectivity would be absorbed back into the

laser

d The music would play backwards.

e The information read by the laser would not be converted into

music

3 Paragraph 3, lines 14–21, explains all of the following EXCEPT

a how the information on a CD is read.

b why semiconductor lasers were invented.

c where information is stored on a CD.

d what pits and bumps are.

e the purpose of the aluminum layer of a CD.

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Questions 4–6 are based on the following passage

The selection that follows is about the current state of the modeling industry.

The beginning of the twenty-ﬁrst century has been called the end of thesupermodel era by fashion magazines, trend watchers, and news organ-izations around the world The models are being replaced, so the the-ory goes, with actors Check the covers of fashion magazines, and youwill ﬁnd that many on any given month feature an actor, rather than amodel But, as with most trends, this is nothing new

From its beginnings in the 1920s, the modeling industry has vided beautiful people to help sell everything from magazines to com-puters to vacation destinations John Robert Powers, who opened theﬁrst modeling agency in 1923, was a former actor who hired his actorfriends to model for magazine advertisements Cary Grant, LucilleBall, and Princess Grace of Monaco were clients However, for manymodels simply being “great-looking” was where their resumés beganand ended The height of popularity for them was in the 1980s and1990s, the era of the supermodel A handful of “perfect” women com-manded salaries of up to $25,000 a day to walk catwalks at fashionshows, appear in print ads, and pose their way through commercials.They were celebrities, treated with all of the lavish attention usuallypaid to heads of state or rock stars

pro-But that was in the supermodel heyday As designers and magazineeditors began to favor more exotic and more “real” looking models,the modeling handful grew into an army The demand for the perfect-looking select few dropped, and women who had quirky smiles, a fewextra pounds, spiky hair, or were past their twenties, gained favor Thisgroup was joined by those who achieved success in some other venue,such as music (think Renee Fleming raving about a watch), sports(Tiger Woods happily devouring his Wheaties®), and acting (DannyGlover waxing rhapsodic over MCI) Iconic fashion designer CalvinKlein summed it up: “I don’t think that people are that interested inmodels anymore It’s not a great moment for the modeling industry

It says a lot about our society and I think it’s good.”

4 According to the passage, the author believes that

a today’s fashion models are not as perfect looking as were the

supermodels

b people still respond to perfection in advertising.

c today’s fashion models are thinner than those in the past.

d to be a model, one must be taller than average.

e in the 1980s, models were paid more than they are today.

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5 The phrase in lines 13 and 14, “great-looking” was where their resumes began and ended, is

a a description of the models’ work experience.

b meant to be taken literally.

c meant to be taken ﬁguratively.

d a truthful statement.

e an example of pathos.

6 Waxing rhapsodic (line 28) most nearly means

a orchestrating a positive statement.

b becoming musical.

c burning a candle for.

d making overtures.

e becoming enthusiastic.

This selection introduces the Computer Museum of America, and details an important item in its collection.

Wondering what to do with that old Atari Home Video Game in theattic? It’s on the wish list of the Computer Museum of America, in SanDiego, California, which hopes you will donate it to their holdings.The Museum was founded in 1983 to amass and preserve historiccomputer equipment such as calculators, card punches, and typewrit-ers, and now owns one of the world’s largest collections In addition,

it has archives of computer-related magazines, manuals, and booksthat are available to students, authors, researchers, and others for his-torical research

One item currently on display is a 1920s comptometer, advertised

as “The Machine Gun of the Office.” The comptometer was firstsneered at by accountants and bookkeepers, many of whom could addfour columns of numbers in their heads The new machine was thefirst that could do the work faster than humans The comptometergained a large following, and its operation became a formal professionthat required serious training But by the 1970s, computers took over,and comptometers, and the job of operating them, became obsolete

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c operation manuals for calculators.

d card punch machines.

e kitchen scales.

8 In line 12, the author used the words sneered at to show

a a negative image of accountants.

b what accountants and bookkeepers looked like.

c the negative reaction to the comptometer.

d the precursor of the comptometer operator.

e how fast accountants and bookkeepers could add.

9 What term paper topic could probably be researched at theComputer Museum of America?

a Alexander Graham Bell’s contributions to American society

b IBM’s contribution to the development of the modern

computer

c more than just paintings: the museums of California

d the rise and fall of the comptometer operator

e why video games are harmful to our nation’s youth

The following selection explains the origins and development of the modern shopping mall.

Today’s shopping mall has as its antecedents historical marketplaces,

such as Greek agoras, European piazzas, and Asian bazaars The

pur-pose of these sites, as with the shopping mall, is both economic andsocial People go not only to buy and sell wares, but also to be seen,catch up on news, and be part of the human drama Both the market-place and its descendant the mall might also contain restaurants,banks, theaters, and professional ofﬁces

The mall is also the product of the creation of suburbs Althoughvillages outside of cities have existed since antiquity, it was the tech-nological and transportation advances of the 19th century that gaverise to a conscious exodus of the population away from crowded,industrialized cities toward quieter, more rural towns Since the sub-urbs typically have no centralized marketplace, shopping centers or

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malls were designed to ﬁll the needs of the changing community, viding retail stores and services to an increasing suburban population.The shopping mall differs from its ancient counterparts in a num-

pro-ber of important ways While piazzas and bazaars were open-air

ven-ues, the modern mall is usually enclosed Since the suburbs are spreadout geographically, shoppers drive to the mall, which means that park-ing areas must be an integral part of a mall’s design Ancient market-places were often set up in public spaces, but shopping malls aredesigned, built, and maintained by a separate management firm as aunit The first shopping mall was built by J C Nichols in 1922 nearKansas City, Missouri The Country Club Plaza was designed to be anautomobile-centered plaza, as its patrons drove their own cars to it,rather than take mass transportation as was often the case for cityshoppers It was constructed according to a unified plan, rather than

as a random group of stores Nichols’ company owned and operatedthe mall, leasing space to a variety of tenants

The ﬁrst enclosed mall was the Galleria Vittoria Emanuele in Milan,Italy in 1865–77 Inspired by its design, Victor Gruen took the shoppingand dining experience of the Galleria to a new level when he created theSouthdale Center Mall in 1956 Located in a suburb of Minneapolis, itwas intended to be a substitute for the traditional city center The 95-acre, two-level structure had a constant climate-controlled temperature

of 72 degrees, and included shops, restaurants, a school, a post ofﬁce,and a skating rink Works of art, decorative lighting, fountains, tropicalplants, and ﬂowers were placed throughout the mall Southdale affordedpeople the opportunity to experience the pleasures of urban life whileprotected from the harsh Minnesota weather

In the 1980s, giant megamalls were developed While Canada hashad the distinction of being home to the largest of the megamalls forover twenty years, that honor will soon go to Dubai, where the Mall

of Arabia is being completed at a cost of over ﬁve billion U.S dollars.The 5.3 million square foot West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada,opened in 1981, with over 800 stores, 110 eating establishments, ahotel, an amusement park, a miniature-golf course, a church, a zoo,and a 438-foot-long lake Often referred to as the “eighth wonder ofthe world,” the West Edmonton Mall is the number-one touristattraction in the area, and will soon be expanded to include more retailspace, including a facility for sports, trade shows, and conventions.The largest enclosed megamall in the United States is Blooming-ton, Minneapolis’s Mall of America, which employs over 12,000 peo-ple It has over ﬁve hundred retail stores, an amusement park whichincludes an indoor roller coaster, a walk-through aquarium, a college,

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