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Multiple Choice Exercise 2
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Read these two paragraphs and answer the questions that follow.

(1) In many years of hiking in the East, I've happened across bears twice. Once, in Maine, I rounded a corner on a trail, and there, three feet away, as lost in thought as I had been, sat a black bear. One look at me and she dived for the bushes--total contact time, perhaps four seconds. A few years later, walking near my house with my wife, I heard a noise in a treetop, and suddenly a black bear, roughly the size and shape of a large sofa, dropped to the ground a few yards away. She glowered in our direction and then lit out the opposite way. Time of engagement: maybe seven seconds. Those were grand encounters, and they've spiced every other day I've spent in the woods--on the way up Blackberry, for instance, I sang as I waded through the berry bushes, aware that this was where any bear with an appetite would be, especially after I found fresh berry-filled scat. But if I counted as dramatic only those days when I actually saw a big fierce animal, I would think the forest a boring place indeed.

(2) Even if you did go to the woods and saw a rare animal, and somehow managed to creep up real close, chances are it wouldn't be doing anything all that amazing. Chances are it would be lying in the sun, or perhaps grooming itself, or maybe, like the duck on the pond, swimming back and forth. A lot of animals are remarkably good at sitting still (especially when they suspect they're under surveillance), and this is something TV never captures. The nature documentaries are as absurdly action-packed as the soap operas, where a life's worth of divorce, adultery, and sudden death is crammed into a week's worth of watching. Trying to understand "nature" from watching "Wild Kingdom" is as tough as trying to understand "life" from watching "Dynasty."

--Bill McKibben, "Reflections: Television," The New Yorker

1
The main idea of the first paragraph is implied, that
A)nature is essentially boring
B)dramatic encounters with wild animals in nature are unusual
C)the author's two encounters with bears were the high points of his life
D)bears are afraid of people
2
The female bear "glowered" at the author and his wife, suggesting that she was
A)terrified
B)shy
C)angry
D)bewildered
E)surprised
3
The main idea of the second paragraph is that
A)animals stay still when they know they are under surveillance
B)animals in nature do not do very much
C)nature is quiet and not filled with constant action as portrayed in TV documentaries
D)one can learn a great deal about nature by watching TV documentaries
4
What is the connection between paragraphs 1 and 2?
A)Paragraph 1 provides the evidence for the point made in paragraph 2
B)Paragraph 1 is specific while paragraph 2 is general
C)Paragraph 2 contradicts the main point of paragraph 1
D)Both paragraph describe steps in a process
5
The examples at the beginning of paragraph 2 strongly suggest that
A)the author is a keen observer of nature
B)a lot of animals seldom do anything very amazing
C)wild animals will not allow people to get close to them
D)animals do little so that they can conserve energy, especially when food is scarce
6
At the end of paragraph 2, what does the author imply about nature shows and soap operas?
A)Nature shows are modeled on soap operas
B)The pace of action on both shows is unrealistically fast
C)Both shows are a good way to learn about life
D)Both shows should be made more realistic
7
The primary method of development in the passage is
A)facts and statistics
B)steps in a process
C)comparison
D)contrast
E)examples and illustration.
8
The tone, or emotional attitude, of the last two sentences can best be described as
A)hostile
B)objective
C)laudatory
D)critical







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