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Spears: Developing Critical Reading Skills
Developing Critical Reading Skills, 6/e
Deanne Spears, City College of San Francisco
Exercises

Chapter 2 - Exercise 5

Review of Modes of Discourse, Main Idea and Inference

(1) In ancient times people believed in the predictions and advice of astrologers because astrology was part and parcel of their magical world view. (2) They looked upon celestial objects as abodes or omens of the Gods and, thus, intimately connected with events here on earth; they had no concept of the vast distances from the earth to the planets and stars. (3) Now that these distances can and have been calculated, we can see how infinitesimally small are the gravitational and other effects produced by the distant planets and the far more distant stars. (4) It is simply a mistake to imagine that the forces exerted by stars and planets at the moment of birth can in any way shape our futures. (5) Neither is it true that the position of distant heavenly bodies make certain days or periods more favorable to particular kinds of action, or that the sign under which one was born determines one's compatibility or incompatibility with other people.
--Bart J. Bok, "Objections to Astrology," The Humanist

Answer these questions about the paragraph.

1

The mode of discourse in this paragraph is
A)narration.
B)description.
C)exposition.
D)persuasion.
2

Write a complete sentence in your own words stating the main idea.
3

Which of the following can we accurately infer?

Astrology developed in the ancient world largely because
A)people believed that the stars and planets were deities.
B)it was part of their traditional mythology.
C)they had a desire to explain what they didn't understand.
D)they were scientifically ignorant.
4

Write the portion of the sentence from the paragraph that serves as evidence for the inference in question 3 above.
5

The author's attitude toward astrology can be best described as
A)unbelieving.
B)angry.
C)sympathetic.
D)laudatory.








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