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(1) A Maya city still untouched--and there are plenty of them--is a strange and somewhat frightening sight. (2) From a high-flying airplane the jungle looks like an endless expanse of massed broccoli, the rounded treetops standing close together and giving no glimpse of the ground. (3) If the airplane circles lower, a few crumbling walls of light-gray limestone appear above the green, like rocky islets poking out of a sea. (4) Sometimes the eye catches a glimpse of a steep-sided pyramid rising from below.
(5) Approached on foot the scene is strikingly different. (6) The jungle floor is deeply shaded, with only occasional flecks of sunlight filtering through from the sky. (7) There is little undergrowth: the ground is soft with rotting humus, and great trees stand solemnly with thick vines dripping down from their tops. (8) Their buttressed trunks march up the sides of the pyramids, and exposed roots writhe like boa constrictors, prying the stones apart. (9) Trees often sprout from the very apex of a pyramid and they cover lesser structures completely.
--Jonathan Norton, Ancient America
This paragraph is a combination of two modes of discourse: |
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| | A) | narration. |
| | B) | description. |
| | C) | exposition. |
| | D) | persuasion. |
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2 | |
The main idea of sentences the first paragraph is sentence ; the main idea of the second paragraph is sentence . |
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3 | |
In addition to deductive order within each paragraph in the passage, another pattern of organization evident in the passage is |
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| | A) | inductive. |
| | B) | variation of deductive. |
| | C) | spatial. |
| | D) | chronological. |
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4 | |
Write any transitions that helped you arrive at your answer for question 3 above. |
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5 | |
Sentences 8 and 9 imply that jungle vegetation |
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| | A) | cannot thrive without sunlight. |
| | B) | is so lush it can easily take over manmade structures. |
| | C) | is being cleared to make way for farms. |
| | D) | is home to a diverse animal and plant population. |
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6 | |
A good title for this paragraph would be |
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| | A) | "Lost Cities." |
| | B) | "Untouched Maya Cities." |
| | C) | "The Pyramids in the Jungle." |
| | D) | "A Frightening Sight." |
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(1) The value of past experience is neatly demonstrated in an anecdote reported by Colin Turnbull, an American anthropologist who has studied the pygmies of the Congo region.( (2) The BaMbuti (the general name given to all pygmies in the Forest of Ituri) spend their entire lives so deeply surrounded by vegetation that the greatest distance they are likely to have experienced is no more than the few tens of yards between them and the other side of a river or a clearing. (3) For the rest of the time their visual world is pressed in closely around them. (4) It is against this background they interpret the size and distance of objects they see. (5) One day Turnbull took Kenge, one of the BaMbuti, with him on a long drive out of the forest and up a mountain overlooking Lake Albert. (6) There Kenge, who found it almost impossible to believe in a world without trees, made a classic perceptual blunder. (7) Pointing to a herd of buffalo grazing several miles away, he asked, "What insects are those?" (8) It took Turnbull a while to realize what Kenge was talking about. (9) Because at that distance buffalo looked so small Kenge supposed they were small, in fact no bigger than insects. (10) To a far greater extent than we realize, like Kenge, we "see" what through experience we have come to expect to see.
--Richard E. Leakey and Roger Lewin, Origins
Which of these statements best represents the main idea of the paragraph? |
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| | A) | We see what we want to see. |
| | B) | Our perceptions of the world around us are shaped by what we have seen in the past. |
| | C) | We are often blind to things that are obvious to everyone else. |
| | D) | The BaMbuti rarely leave their forest environment. |
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8 | |
Which two modes of discourse are represented in this paragraph? and |
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9 | |
The two methods of paragraph development in the paragraph are |
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| | A) | facts and statistics |
| | B) | illustration. |
| | C) | analogy. |
| | D) | classification. |
| | E) | cause-effect. |
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What is the relationship between the first and the last sentences? |
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| | A) | Both represent steps in a process. |
| | B) | Sentence 1 introduces an idea that the writer contradicts in the last sentence. |
| | C) | Sentence 2 represents a conclusion derived from sentence 1. |
| | D) | Both sentences suggest the same idea only in different words. |
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What is the purpose of the parenthetical remark in sentence 2? |
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12 | |
In your own words, explain Kenge's "blunder." |
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Which three sentences best explain why Kenge made his blunder? Sentences , , and |
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Which one of these inferences is probably accurate? |
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| | A) | Kenge realized his mistake instantly. |
| | B) | Kenge had never been out of the forest and on a mountain before. |
| | C) | The buffalo were not where they were supposed to be. |
| | D) | The writer thought that Kenge's blunder was stupid. |
2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education