MCAT verbal test (5)

Black and white themselves placed in juxtaposition make no great impression; and yet they are the most that you can do in pure contrast.. It supports the author’s claim that the great ar

MCAT Section Tests

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VERBAL REASONING TEST 3

Time – 85 Minutes

60 Questions DIRECTIONS: There are nine passages in this 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 and then select an answer from the remaining alternatives

Just to paint is great fun One begins to see, for

instance, that painting a picture is like fighting a battle; and

trying to paint a picture as an amateur is, I suppose, like

trying to fight a battle It is, if anything, more exciting than

fighting the battle successfully But the principle is the

same

In all battles two things are usually required of the

Commander-in-Chief: to make a good plan for his army

and, secondly, to keep a strong reserve Both of these are

also obligatory upon the painter To make a plan, thorough

reconnaissance of the country where the battle is to be

fought is needed Its fields, its mountains, its rivers, its

bridges, its trees, its flowers, its atmosphere—all require

and repay attentive observation from a special point of

view

I think this heightened sense of observation of Nature is

one of the chief delights that have come to me through

painting No doubt many people who are lovers of art have

acquired it in a high degree without actually practising But

I expect that nothing will make one observe more quickly or

more thoroughly than having to face the difficulty of

representing the thing observed And mind you, if you do

observe accurately and with refinement, and if you do

record what you have seen with tolerable correspondence,

the result follows on the canvas with startling obedience

But in order to make his plan, the General must not

only reconnoitre the battle-ground, he must also study the

achievements of the great Captains of the past He must

bring the observations he has collected in the field into the

comparison with the treatment of similar incidents by

famous chiefs

Then the galleries of Europe take on a new—and to me

at least a severely practical—interest “This, then, is how —

— painted a cataract Exactly, and there is that same light I

noticed last week in the waterfall at ——.” And so on

You see the difficulty that baffled you yesterday; and you

see how easily it has been overcome by a great or even by a

skillful painter Not only is your observation of Nature

But it is in the use and withholding of their reserves that the great commanders have generally excelled After all, when once the last reserve has been thrown in, the commander’s part is played If that does not win the battle,

he has nothing else to give The event must be left to luck and to the fighting troops But these last, in the absence of high direction, are apt to get into sad confusion, all mixed together in a nasty mess, without order or plan—and consequently without effect Mere masses count no more The largest brush, the brightest colors cannot even make an impression The pictorial battefield becomes a sea of mud mercifully veiled by the fog of war It is evident there has been a serious defeat Even though the General plunges in himself and emerges bespattered, as he sometimes does, he will not retrieve the day

In painting, the reserves consist in Proportion or Relation And it is here that the art of the painter marches along the road which is traversed by all the greatest harmonies in thought At one side of the palette there is white, at the other black; and neither is ever used ‘neat.’ Between these two rigid limits all the action must lie, all the power required must be generated Black and white themselves placed in juxtaposition make no great impression; and yet they are the most that you can do in pure contrast It is wonderful—after one has tried and failed often—to see how easily and surely the true artist is able to produce every effect of light and shade, of sunshine and shadow, of distance and nearness, simply by expressing justly the relations between the different planes and surfaces with which he is dealing This is founded upon a sense of proportion, trained no doubt by practice, but which in its essence is a frigid manifestation of mental power

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2 as developed by

The existence of which of the following would most

strongly challenge the author’s conception of the

process of painting?

A. A watercolor of waves crashing on the beach

B. A famous artist who has never been in a European

2. In the context of the passage, the Commander-in-Chief

is to the battleground as the:

A. painter is to the subject being painted

B. painter is to the canvas of the painting

C. painter is to the paint colors

D. painter is to the art gallery

3. Following the example of the master Manet, the young

Matisse often inserted in his pictures areas of white

such as tablecloths or crockery that allowed for

striking contrasts with black objects such as a knife or

a dark bottle What is the relevance of this information

to the passage?

A. It supports the author’s claim that the great artists

are worthy of imitation

B. It supports the author’s claim that neither black

nor white is ever used ‘neat.’

C. It weakens the author’s claim that black and white

themselves placed in juxtaposition make no great

impression

D. It weakens the author’s claim that great painters

take Nature as their subject

The passage suggests that having the finest art supplies

at hand may NOT always be helpful to a painter because:

A. the painter may not feel creatively inspired

B. nothing can make up for a lack of sense of proportion

C. the quality of a painting’s colors may not make an impression on the viewer

D. painting is in the final analysis a matter of luck

5. Based on the passage, which of the following opinions could most reasonably be ascribed to the author?

A. Becoming an artist is a matter of training rather than talent

B. One learns more from failures than from successes

C. Modern artists can scarcely hope to equal the achievements of the masters

D. One can convey ideas about art through analogies

to other experiences

6. The author’s statement “But [the fighting troops], in the absence of high direction, are apt to get into sad confusion, all mixed together in a nasty mess, without order or plan—and consequently without effect” assumes that:

A. chaotic painting cannot have an unintended artistic effect

B. an artist naturally resists direction from another individual

C. a painting cannot help but reflect the mental state

Although the concepts and categories of ethics may be

applied to the conduct of corporations, there are important

differences between the values and principles underlying

corporate behavior and those underlying the actions of most

individuals As individuals, we are often concerned with

integrity, autonomy, and responsibility even when they

cannot be shown to further a basic goal such as overall

happiness We regard them as important and valuable in

themselves and not simply as a means to some other more

basic ends But a preoccupation with integrity, autonomy,

and responsibility for their own sakes cannot be ascribed to

corporations or corporate persons

As formal organizations, business corporations are

distinguished by their particular goals, which include

maximization of profits, growth, and survival Providing

goods and services is a means to this end The following

statement from the board of directors of the 3M Company is

exemplary in this regard: “The objective of the 3M

Company is to produce quality goods and services that are

useful and needed by the public, acceptable to the public,

and in the best interests of the global economy—and thereby

to earn a profit which is essential to the perpetuation of the

useful role of the company.” These goals provide the raison

d’etre and ultimate ethical values of the 3M Company

Other things have ethical value only insofar as they are

instrumental in furthering the ultimate goals

If, for example, a number of individuals (outsiders or

even insiders) believe that a company’s aggressive

marketing of infant formula in third world countries is

morally wrong, the company is unlikely to be moved by

moral arguments alone as long as what it is doing remains

profitable But if those opposed to the company’s practice

organize a highly effective boycott of the company’s

products, their moral views will soon enter into the

company’s deliberations indirectly as limiting operating

conditions They can, at this point, no more be ignored than

a prohibitive increase in the costs of certain raw materials

If corporations are by their nature end- or

goal-directed how can they acknowledge acts as wrong in and of

themselves? Is it possible to hold one criminally

responsible for acts that if performed by a human person

would result in criminal liability?

The first case of this type to achieve widespread public

attention was the attempt to prosecute the Ford Motor

Company for manslaughter as the result of alleged negligent

or reckless decision making concerning the safety

engineering of the Pinto vehicle Although the defendant

corporation and its officers were found innocent after trial,

the case can serve as an exemplar for our purposes In

essence, the prosecution in this case attempted to show that

If corporations have no concept of right or wrong because they are exclusively goal-directed, can they be convicted in cases of this type, and what purpose would be served by such a conviction? Remember that we are talking only about the corporate entity itself—not its managers, agents, and owners who, as human persons, can be held to interpersonal standards of moral and legal responsibility It

is very difficult to argue for holding goal-directed entities

to interpersonal standards; in fact, we do not believe it can

be done

Perhaps we can make a utilitarian argument for convicting corporations of such crimes The argument would be that of deterrence; conviction and punishment would deter other corporations from taking similar actions under similar circumstances However, there appears to be considerable evidence that deterrence does not work on corporations, even if, arguably, it works on individuals The penalties imposed do not appear to discourage other corporations from engaging in similar acts The possibility

of being discovered and the potential magnitude of the fine merely become more data to be included in the analysis of limiting conditions

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4 as developed by

7. The claim that things “have ethical value [to

corporations] only insofar as they are instrumental in

furthering the ultimate goals” of the corporation (lines

25-27) is:

A. necessarily true, given the information presented

in the passage

B. perhaps true, and supported by the information

presented in the passage

C. perhaps true, but not supported by any

information in the passage

D necessarily false, given the information presented

in the passage

8. In the context of the passage, the phrase limiting

operating conditions (lines 36-37) refers primarily

to:

A. the factors that will adversely impact a company’s

profit-making capacity

B. the prevailing moral opinions of the public

concerning a company’s products

C. the availability of raw materials necessary for

producing a particular good

D. the difficulty a company’s officers have in trying

to ignore ethical issues

9. Implicit in the author’s discussion of whether or not a

corporation can be convicted in cases like the one

involving the Pinto vehicle is the assumption that:

A. most corporations have committed both moral

and legal transgressions

B. a corporation has an identity above and beyond its

individual members

C. few corporate persons will question their

corporation’s actions

D. corporations do not always believe that the end

justifies the means

10. If a company that produced shampoo products opted

to stop the routine testing of its products on animals because it decided that it is wrong to cause the animals pain, what effect would this have on the argument made in the passage?

A. It would strongly support the argument

B. It would support the argument somewhat, but not conclusively

C. It would neither support nor substantially weaken the argument

D. It would substantially weaken the argument

11. The author’s analogy of the alleged actions of the Ford Motor Company to those of a person who knowingly drives with faulty brakes suggests that:

A. Ford should have been convicted of the crime of manslaughter in the trial

B. the Ford corporation was capable of understanding the moral concepts of right and wrong

C. the problem with the safety engineering of the Pinto had to do specifically with its brakes

D. Ford may have ignored the Pinto’s defects because they would be too costly to correct

12. Which of the following assertions would most

strengthen the author’s claim that deterrence will not

Passage III (Questions 13-21)

Few ideas are more deeply entrenched in our political

culture than that of impending ecological doom Beginning

in 1962, when Rachel Carson warned that pollution was a

threat to all human and animal life on the planet, pessimistic

appraisals of the health of the environment have been issued

with increasing urgency And yet, thanks in large part to her

warnings, a powerful political movement was born and a

series of landmark environmental bills became law These

laws and their equivalents in Western Europe, along with a

vast array of private efforts spurred by environmental

consciousness that Carson helped raise, have been a

stunning success In both the United States and Europe,

environmental trends are, for the most part, positive; and

environmental regulations, far from being burdensome and

expensive, have proved to be strikingly effective, have cost

less than was anticipated, and have made the economies of

the countries that have put them into effect stronger, not

weaker

Nevertheless, the vocabulary of environmentalism has

continued to be dominated by images of futility, crisis, and

decline Nor are environmentalists the only people

reluctant to acknowledge the good news; advocates at both

ends of the political spectrum, each side for its reasons,

seem to have tacitly agreed to play it down The left is

afraid of the environmental good news because it undercuts

stylish pessimism; the right is afraid of the good news

because it shows that governmental regulations might

occasionally amount to something other than wickedness

incarnate, and actually produce benefits at an affordable

cost

Consider some of what has been accomplished in this

country Thanks to legislation, technical advances, and

lawsuits that have forced polluters to pay liability costs,

America’s air and water are getting cleaner, forests are

expanding, and many other environmental indicators are on

the upswing

In recent years, several worrisome environmental trends

have either declined from their peak or ended altogether

The amount of household trash dumped in landfills, for

example, has been diminishing since the late nineteen

eighties, when recycling began to take hold Recycling,

which was a fringe idea a decade ago, is now a major

growth industry, and is converting more than twenty per

cent of America’s municipal wastes into useful products

Despite start-up problems, many municipal recycling

programs now pay for themselves Emissions of

chlorofluorocarbons, which deplete the ozone layer, have

been declining since 1987 Studies now suggest that

ozone-layer replenishment may begin within a decade Dozens of

American cities once dumped raw sludge into the ocean

This category of pollution passed into history in 1992,

when the final load of New York City sludge slithered off a

barge imaginatively named Spring Brook Today, instead

of being dumped into the ocean, municipal

It’s true, of course, that some environmental programs are muddled For instance, the Endangered Species Act can have the unfair effect of penalizing landholders who discover rare creatures on their property, by prohibiting use

of the land In the main, though, conservation has been an excellent investment for society Environmental initiatives worked well even in their early years, when they were driven

by top-heavy federal edicts They work even better as new regulations have centered on market mechanisms and voluntary choice; new acid-rain reductions, for example, are being achieved at unexpectedly affordable rates, thanks to a free-market program under which companies trade pollution “allowances” with each other Western market economies excel at producing what they are asked to produce, and, increasingly, the market is being asked to produce conservation Environmental reform should be seen as a boon to Western industry, impelling it toward efficiencies that enhance its long-term competitiveness

6 as developed by

14. Suppose that current models of automobiles emit an

average of eighty per cent less pollution per mile than

was emitted by cars in 1970 How would this

information affect the claim that landmark

environmental bills have been a stunning success?

A. It would support the claim

B. It would refute the claim

C. It would support the claim if it were shown that

the emissions reductions were a consequence of

environmental bills

D. It would support the claim if it were shown that

the emissions reductions were not a consequence

of environmental bills

15 Based on information in the passage, which of the

following statements is NOT true?

A. Chlorofluorocarbons no longer damage the ozone

D. Recycling has had an impact on landfill dumping

16. Based on information in the passage, each of the

following statements is a plausible explanation of why

pessimistic appraisals of the environment continue to

be issued EXCEPT:

A. environmentalists and politicians are unaware of

the successes of the movement

B. an immense amount of work still needs to be

done to save the environment

C. optimistic evaluations would have unwanted

political repercussions

D. environmentalists garner support by arousing

concerns and fears

17. According to the passage, which of the following is most likely to be true about the impact of the Endangered Species Act on the overall number of animal species in America?

A. The Endangered Species Act has caused the number of species to increase gradually

B. The Endangered Species Act has caused the number of species to rebound markedly

C. The Endangered Species Act has slowed the decline in the number of species

D. The Endangered Species Act has had no significant effect on the number of species

18. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency recently gave a series of speeches pointing out that there were many signs of environmental progress in America Which of the following best characterizes the relevance of this to the passage?

A. It supports the claim that efforts at environmental reform have been costly but effective

B. It weakens the claim that efforts at environmental reform have been costly but effective

C. It supports the claim that the vocabulary of environmentalism is dominated by images of futility

D. It weakens the claim that the vocabulary of environmentalism is dominated by images of futility

19. If the claims made in the passage are correct, how would politicians on the political right be expected to react to America’s program to protect endangered species from extinction?

A. They would extol it because its success is not attributable to governmental regulation

B. They would extol it because its success refutes the pessimistic claims of the political left

C. They would reject it because its success was due

to unjust and costly regulations

D. They would reject it because it has not shown any measurable success

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The author of this passage would probably give his

greatest support to which of the following actions by

the Congress?

A. Establishing a subcommittee that would be

devoted to environmental issues

B. Streamlining the inefficient bureacracies that

arose during environmental reform

C. Legislation that make anti-pollution regulations

difficult to enforce

D. Passing bills that encourage rather than coerce

industries to control pollution

21. The existence of which of the following phenomena

would most strongly challenge the information in the

passage?

A. A speech by a senator who takes credit for saving

his state’s environment

B A species of animal that has disappeared in the

past year

C A prediction by an environmentalist that the

ozone layer problem will worsen

D. A recycling program that is supported by federal

funds

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While most archeologists believe that primitive

European societies were patriarchal in both their social and

religious structures, a new controversial theory challenges

these traditional views This new theory suggests that

during the Stone Age there thrived peace-loving, matriarchal

communities in which men and women lived together as

equals, respected nature, and worshipped a nurturing deity

called the Great Goddess

According to this feminist theory, the people of “Old

Europe”—Europe from 7000 B.C to 3500 B.C.—lived in

stable agricultural societies in which women headed clans

and men labored as hunters and builders, but neither sex

dominated the other War was shunned and craftspeople

created comfortable dwellings and graceful ceramics instead

of weapons Like the woman-centered social system, the

religion of Stone Age Europe focused on women in its

veneration of the life-generating Great Goddess and other

female deities Worship was closely linked to the themes of

respect for life and regeneration

Proponents of this theory contend that this peaceful and

harmonious society was shattered by waves of

Indo-European invaders in about the year 3500 B.C., when

marauders from the Russian steppes transformed Europe

from a peaceful, agrarian culture to one in which men

dominated women and wars raged Social and sexual

egalitarianism were replaced by patriarchy and hierarchy,

and warrior gods dethroned the Great Goddess With the

widespread decimation of Old Europe, the goddess-centered

religion went underground However, its symbols have

reappeared over the centuries in the forms of the female

deities of Greece and Rome, in the Virgin Mary, and in the

belief in spiritual forces lurking within the natural world

The theory of the Great Goddess has been hailed by

feminist social critics, artists, and religious thinkers for

providing an important alternative to traditional, patriarchal

mythologies and paradigms, as well as for providing a new

and more positive model for the human relationship to the

natural world But while eminent anthropologist Ashley

Montagu calls the theory “a benchmark in the history of

civilization,” many other investigators into prehistoric

Europe consider the theory an unsubstantiated and

ideological version of history

To a number of critics, the chief problem in this radical

theory is one of method Traditional archeologists, taking

issue with unorthodox speculation on ancient belief

systems, contend that archeological evidence may tell us

something about what people ate in the small villages of

prehistoric Europe, how they built their homes, and what

they traded, but cannot tell us much about what the dwellers

of the ancient world actually thought Such specu-

55

60

lation, they say, is illegitimate The most severe critics warn that, in blurring the distinction between intuition and fact, proponents of the new theory have failed as scientists

But supporters of the theory of a goddess-worshipping Old Europe counter that such critiques reveal a certain narrow-mindedness on the part of scientists rather than weaknesses on the part of their theory They argue that some degree of speculation is important, perhaps even necessary, for progress in archeology and other fields This element of speculation, they say, helps reveal the implications of a theory While such theories may never be proven, they have the ability to spark debate, stimulate future scholarship, and provide imaginative alternatives to more conventional theories

22. Which of the following would a proponent of the theory of the Great Goddess most likely NOT agree with?

A. The available archaeological evidence does not rule out the idea that Old European matriarchal communities existed

B. The field of archaeology has been dominated in the past by male-oriented scholarship

C. Matriarchy is conducive to establishing a healthy relationship with the natural world

D. The decimation of Old European society wiped away all traces of the Great Goddess religion

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23. Supporters of the Great Goddess theory might

justifiably counter the argument of traditionalists that

archeological evidence “cannot tell us much about

what the dwellers of the ancient world actually

thought” by pointing out that this implies that:

A. archeology cannot hope to be anything more than

a fruitless enterprise

B. there is no good reason to think that primitive

European society was socially patriarchal

C. understanding the thinking of more modern

cultures should likewise be considered

impossible

D. ancient people functioned at a considerably lower

intellectual level than do modern humans

24. Which of the following statements about prehistoric

European society would traditional archeologists

most likely consider illegitimate?

A. The people were agrarian and not nomadic

B. Food was cooked in clay vessels over a fire

C. Arrows and spears were the most commonly used

instruments of warfare

D The people were worried about invasion

25. If it were conclusively demonstrated through

archeological evidence that the society of Old Europe

had in fact been patriarchal and warlike, one would

expect those who had supported the Great Goddess

theory to contend that:

A. it was a mistake to have extended the bounds of

scientific scholarship to the realm of imagination

B. speculating incorrectly had nevertheless been a

valuable exercise

C. no one could have anticipated that the more

unorthodox theory would be the correct one

D. traditional archeologists must have doctored the

evidence to fit their conclusions

26. Which of the following maxims seems most in agreement with the argument the supporters of the Great Goddess theory put forth in response to criticism?

A. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword

B. A mind is like a parachute in that it only works when open

C. He who does not understand his opponent’s arguments does not understand his own

D. The squeaky wheel gets the grease

27. A proponent of the matriarchal theory might argue that the theory serves all of the following purposes EXCEPT:

A. showing the existence of bias in the scientific establishment

B. providing a model of sexual equality for day society to emulate

present-C. broadening the unnecessarily conservative limits

Rhetoric for the Greeks was both an essential part of

their lives and a serious obstacle to progress In public life,

a man had to make his way at every step by the immediate

persuasion of the spoken word Whether he was addressing

an assembly or law-court or a more restricted body, he

would be speaking to a public meeting rather than to a quiet

committee, without the support of circulated documents,

and with no backcloth of daily journalism to make his own

or others’ views familiar to his hearers The immediate

effect was all-important; it would be naive to expect that

mere reasonableness or a good case would be enough It

was early realized that persuasion was an art, up to a point

teachable, and professional teaching was well established in

the second half of the fifth century When the sophists

claimed to teach their pupils how to succeed in public life,

rhetoric was a large part of what they meant, though, to do

them justice, it was not the whole The contests of Attic

tragedy exhibit all the tricks of this trade, as well as the art

of the poets; and the private life of the Greeks was lived so

much in public that the pervasive rhetorical manner crept in

here too

Skill naturally bred mistrust If a man of good will

needed to learn how to present his argument effectively, the

selfish or malicious could be taught to dress their case in

well-seeming guise It was a standing charge against the

sophists that they ‘made the worse appear the better cause,’

and it was this immoral lesson which the hero of

Aristophanes’ Clouds went to learn from, of all people,

Socrates Again, the charge is often made in court that the

opponent is a skillful speaker and the jury must be aware of

being deceived by him From the frequency with which this

crops up, it is clear that the accusation of cleverness might

damage a man Juries, of course, were familiar with the

style, and would recognize the more obvious artifices, but it

was worth a litigant’s while to get his speech written for

him by an expert Persuasive oratory was certainly one of

the pressures that would be effective in an Athenian

law-court

A more insidious danger was the inevitable desire to

display this art as an art It is not easy to define the point at

which a legitimate concern with style shades off into

preoccupation with manner at the expense of matter; but it

is easy to perceive that many Greek writers of the fourth and

later centuries passed that danger point The most

influential was Isocrates, who polished for long years his

pamphlets, written in the form of speeches, and taught to

many pupils the smooth and easy periods he had perfected

This was a style of only limited use in the abrupt

vicissitudes of politics Isocrates took to the written word

in compensation for his inadequacy in live oratory; the

tough and nervous tones of a Demosthenes were far

removed from his, though they, too, were based on study

and practice The exaltation of virtuosity did palpable

of strength for Greek civilisation that its problems, of all kinds, were thrashed out very much in public The shallowness which the study of rhetoric might (not must) encourage was the corresponding weakness

28. The author of the passage would most likely have the highest regard for an orator who:

A. roused his hearers to immediate and decisive action

B. understood that rhetoric serves an aesthetic as well as a practical purpose

C. relied on facts and reason rather than on rhetorical devices in making his case

D. passed on the techniques he had perfected to many students

29. Historians agree that those seeking public office in modern America make far fewer speeches in the course of their campaign than those seeking a public position in ancient Greece did The author would most likely explain this by pointing out that:

A. speeches are now only of limited use in the abrupt vicissitudes of politics

B. modern politicians need not rely exclusively on speeches to make themselves known

C. modern audiences are easier to persuade through rhetoric than were the Greek audiences

D. modern politicians do not make a study of rhetoric as did the Greeks

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