1.  Typical of Argentina melodrama of the 1930s were the films starring Libertad Lamarque, the genre’s biggest box-office attraction.  Her most frequent role was that of the tango singer whose romance with a wealthy suitor is blocked by his elitist family.  Despite its widespread social acceptance by the 1930s, tango continued to be associated in film melodrama with criminality and vice.  As Diana Paladino remarks, in these films “the tango songstress was doomed from the start.” Nevertheless, if melodramatic logic dictated that Lamarque be punished for the transgressive act of singing tango, surely that judgment was not shared by the members of the audience, many of whom were drawn to her early movies precisely because of her fame as a tango singer

According to the author of the passage, which of the following is true about the tango?

a. By the time Lamarque starred in films as a tango singer, the tango was socially acceptable

b. Outside Argentina the tango’s reputation was quite different from what prevailed in ARgentine

c. The tango began to gain popularity in Argentine once it became an element in melodramatic films

d. By the 1930s, no one in Argentina associated the tango with criminality and vice

e. Until the 1930s, the tango was primarily thought of as a dance form rather than as a genre of song

2. The use of thought experiments has a rich history in many scientific traditions but has been surprisingly underutilized  in ecology.  Traditionally, thought experiments have been employed to clarify concepts and to test the claims of various proposals without the need to carry out scientific experiments.  At the heart of thought experiments is the creation of simple, unambiguous, compelling examples that serve as standards against which proposed theories must hold true.  Thought experiments can be very useful in demonstrating that certain approaches will not work because of internal inconsistency or logical flaws, and the can also obviate the need for traditional research.

In the context in which it appears, the word claims most nearly means

a. demands

b. rights

c. assertions

d. suits

e. licenses

3. The use of thought experiments has a rich history in many scientific traditions but has been surprisingly underutilized  in ecology.  Traditionally, thought experiments have been employed to clarify concepts and to test the claims of various proposals without the need to carry out scientific experiments.  At the heart of thought experiments is the creation of simple, unambiguous, compelling examples that serve as standards against which proposed theories must hold true.  Thought experiments can be very useful in demonstrating that certain approaches will not work because of internal inconsistency or logical flaws, and the can also obviate the need for traditional research.

The passage suggests which of the following about the relationship between thought experiments and scientific experiments?

a. For any scientific experiment, there is a thought experiment that would serve the same purpose

b. Scientists looking to test a theory sometimes find that a thought experiment will rule out the need to do a particular scientific experiment

c. Most of the things that have been learned in the field of ecology as a result of scientific experiments could have been learned through the use of thought experiments.

 

4. Educators predict a shortage of teachers over the next five years because more teachers will be needed to educate an increasing  student population and fewer people  graduating from college are entering the teaching profession.  However, since many good and enthusiastic teachers were forced to leave the profession ten years ago when the student population decreased significantly, the predicted shortage is unlikely

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

a. The number of people graduating from college will not decrease over the next five years

b.  The predicted shortage of teachers  will not have the effect of driving up teachers’ salaries

c.  The student population will continue to increase for many years beyond the next five years

d. Teachers currently in the profession will not continue to teach beyond the normal retirement age

e.  The teachers who were forced to leave the profession ten years ago did not, as a result of being forced out, lose their desire to teach.

5. Much of the senator’s combative language about the budget plan was actually a _____ intended to give her room to negotiate toward more neutral ground later in the negotiations.

a. reversal

b. gambit

c. capitulation

d. compromise

e. strategem

f. surrender

6.Given the company’s declining fortunes have already sowed unease among workers and discontent among investors, the newly released poor financial results are likely to ____ calls for a shift in strategy.

a. confound

b. heighten

c. intensify

d. initiate

e. suppress

f. conceal

7. Economists who think of individuals only as consumers believe that antisocial behavior can be eliminated by making it costly to the perpetrators, ______ the possibility that people’s actions are sometimes driven by noneconomics factors

a. stressing

b. overlooking

c. minimizing

d. emphasizing

e. disregarding

f. identifying

8.  In the nineteenth century, the apparent_____ of folktales made them appealing to cultural  nationalists; if no single person invented a folktale, it must have arisen in some primal, mystical way from a nation’s people. 

a. authorless

b. diversity

c. simplicity

d. anonymity

e. straightforwardness

f. antiquity

9. Geologists can determine the ages of rocks and fossils by using natural clocks, including the natural decay of unstable , radioactive atoms into stable forms. The element uranium occurs in minute concentrations in seawater, and certain types of organisms, particularly corals, absorb it as they grow.  One isotope of uranium, U, decays through a series of steps to Th, an isotope of thorium.  As a coral grows, it adds tiny  amounts of U to its skeleton.  Over time, this U steadily transforms into Th.  The proportion of the two isotopes changes in a predictable way over time, allowing us to calculate the ages of fossil corrals in marine terraces back as far as five hundred thousand years.  

A drawback of uranium-thorium dating is that it doesn’t work on most fossils.  Shells of molluscs like clams and snails are common in marine terrace deposits, but molluscs dont take up uranium from seawater.  Here, though, we have another trick: amino acid racemization.  The proteins of living creatures contain amino acids in a specific molecular shape known as the L-configuration.

The passage implies which of the following about differences between fossil molluscs and fossil corrals 

a. Fossil corrals can be dated to a greater age than fossil molluscs can.

b. Fossil molluscs are more commonly found to have absorbed Th directly from seawater

c.  Fossil corrals undergo racemizatno at a less predictable rate than fossil molluscs do

d. Fossil molluscs are found in some marine terrace deposits that do not contain fossil corrals

e. Fossil corrals contain amino acids that are not found in fossil molluscs

10. Geologists can determine the ages of rocks and fossils by using natural clocks, including the natural decay of unstable , radioactive atoms into stable forms. The element uranium occurs in minute concentrations in seawater, and certain types of organisms, particularly corals, absorb it as they grow.  One isotope of uranium, U, decays through a series of steps to Th, an isotope of thorium.  As a coral grows, it adds tiny  amounts of U to its skeleton.  Over time, this U steadily transforms into Th.  The proportion of the two isotopes changes in a predictable way over time, allowing us to calculate the ages of fossil corrals in marine terraces back as far as five hundred thousand years.  

A drawback of uranium-thorium dating is that it doesn’t work on most fossils.  Shells of molluscs like clams and snails are common in marine terrace deposits, but molluscs dont take up uranium from seawater.  Here, though, we have another trick: amino acid racemization.  The proteins of living creatures contain amino acids in a specific molecular shape known as the L-configuration.  Upon death, some of these amino acids begin shape-shifting to a new arrangement called the D-configurationi-  a process called racemization.  

The highlighted sentence serves primarily to

a. provide a rationale for a procedure frequently used by geologists 

b. Distinguish one biological process from another, closely related process

c. explain why the ages of some marine terrace deposits are difficult to pin down

d. cite a natural development that can be exploited for a scientific purpose

e.  Identify a factor that complicates efforts to estimate the ages of mollusc shells

11.  Geologists can determine the ages of rocks and fossils by using natural clocks, including the natural decay of unstable , radioactive atoms into stable forms. The element uranium occurs in minute concentrations in seawater, and certain types of organisms, particularly corals, absorb it as they grow.  One isotope of uranium, U, decays through a series of steps to Th, an isotope of thorium.  As a coral grows, it adds tiny  amounts of U to its skeleton.  Over time, this U steadily transforms into Th.  The proportion of the two isotopes changes in a predictable way over time, allowing us to calculate the ages of fossil corrals in marine terraces back as far as five hundred thousand years.  

A drawback of uranium-thorium dating is that it doesn’t work on most fossils.  Shells of molluscs like clams and snails are common in marine terrace deposits, but molluscs dont take up uranium from seawater.  Here, though, we have another trick: amino acid racemization.  The proteins of living creatures contain amino acids in a specific molecular shape known as the L-configuration.  Upon death, some of these amino acids begin shape-shifting to a new arrangement called the D-configurationi-  a process called racemization.  

The passage is primarily concerned with 

a. explaining the development of two methods of determining the ages of fossils

b. suggesting similarities between two methods of determining the ages of fossils

c. describing the uses of two methods of determine the ages of fossils

d. analyzing the advantages of a method of determining the ages of fossils

e.  pointing out the drawback of a method of determining the ages of fossils

12. Attempts to identify New Guinea’s hunter-gatherers face the well-known difficulty of defining what constitutes a hunter-gatherer group.  According to the common definition, hunter-gatherers are those who subsist by hunting wild animals and gathering  wild plants.  Yet those criteria beg numerous questions , including the issue of what constitutes “wild”  The very presence on a landscape of humans who are consumers affects food resources, blurring the lines between wild and domesticated, and hence between hunting and pastoralism and between gathering and cultivation.  Moreover, it is unclear how groups should be classified that are hunter-gatherers in their procurement strategies but that make use of pastoralism and cultivation in their consumption patters  -subsisting , for example, by trading wild foods to neighbors in return for domesticated crops.

According to the passage, “The very presence on a landscape of humans who are consumers is significant because

a. the presence of humans can sometimes cause a significant decline in available resources

b. The presence of humans make it less clear whether the landscape’s plants and animals should be considered truly wild

c.  The presence of humans poses a threat to many wild plant and animal species

d.  as consumers, most humans progress from hunter -gatherer status to cultivator and pastoralist status

e. as consumers, humans often come into conflict with each other  over food resources

 

13.  Attempts to identify New Guinea’s hunter-gatherers face the well-known difficulty of defining what constitutes a hunter-gatherer group.  According to the common definition, hunter-gatherers are those who subsist by hunting wild animals and gathering  wild plants.  Yet those criteria beg numerous questions , including the issue of what constitutes “wild”  The very presence on a landscape of humans who are consumers affects food resources, blurring the lines between wild and domesticated, and hence between hunting and pastoralism and between gathering and cultivation.  Moreover, it is unclear how groups should be classified that are hunter-gatherers in their procurement strategies but that make use of pastoralism and cultivation in their consumption patters  -subsisting , for example, by trading wild foods to neighbors in return for domesticated crops.

In the last sentence, the author discusses the example of “trading wild foods to neighbors in return for domesticated crops”primaril to illustrate

a. a trend in consumption patterns that distinguishes cultivators from pastoralists

b. a procurement strategy that has been highly successful for some hunter-gatherer groups

c. an approach to trade that can clarify the boundary between wild and domesticated foods.

d. a problem that maybe encountered in classifying hunter-gatherer groups

e. a trading practice whose purpose continues to be misunderstood.

14. How good a writer was she? It is too soon to be certain , and lack of distance is only one of the difficulties in making that (i) ________.  Her books seem not merely to entertain, but, by casting a spell over receptive readers, to (ii) _____________ their critical faculties; many who read them tend to (iii)_____ reasons

a. claim, qualify,  exemplify

b. judgement,  glorify, overestimate

c. affirmation,  dull,  ignore.

15.   Appreciating that mathematical notation presents a major roadblock to many students, some well meaning educators (i) _______ them by (ii)  ______ the use of notation; but this is unfortunate detour, since practice with notation  (iii)  __________the important skill of reasoning.

a. enrich,   mandating,  compromises

b. discourage,   accelerating,  promotes

d. accommodate,  minimizing,  circumvents

16.  The author is hardly rigorous in discussing the possible health effects of household chemical poducts, he (i) ______ important studies, avoids crucial details,  and is quite (ii) in his use of the word “toxic.” 

a. fails to address  , straightforward

b. seeks to elucidate,  casual

c. tries to refute,  consistent

17.  Because of so many early Native American  autobiographies were, to varying degrees, recorded, edited, rearranged, and co authored by non-Native Americans, some scholars contest the idea of presenting them as ______ authentic Native American writing

a. derived from

b. samples of

c. distinct from

d. rebuttals to

e. overshadowed by

18.  Even a causal consideration of the world we observe around us shows the planetary evolution does not ________; it involves close and diverse relationships with neighboring bodies.

a. occur rapidly

b. follow a pattern

c. decelerate with time

d.  proceed in isolation

e. progress at a steady pace

19.  Companies used to keep new research secret out of fear that their ideas would be stolen, but today they conduct such research more ___________ in the belief that the free exchange  of ideas will stimulate innovation

a. timidly

b. clandestinely

c. reluctantly

d. thoroughly

e. openly