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Short Answer Exercise 2
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Review of Modes of Discourse, Main Idea, Inference, and Methods of Development




1(1) The concept that no two people see exactly the same thing when actively using their eyes in a natural situation is shocking to some people because it implies that not all men relate to the world around them in the same way. (2) Without recognition of these differences, however, the process of translating from one perceptual world to another cannot take place. (3) The distance between the perceptual worlds of two people of the same culture is certainly less than that between two people of different cultures, but it can still present problems. (4) As a young man, I spent several summers with students making archaeological surveys in the high deserts of northern Arizona and southern Utah. (5) Everyone on these expeditions was highly motivated to find stone artifacts, arrowheads in particular. (6) We marched along in single file with the typical head-down, ground-scanning gaze of an archaeological field party. (7) In spite of their high motivation, my students would repeatedly walk right over arrowheads lying on top of the ground. (8) Much to their chagrin, I would lean down to pick up what they had not seen simply because I had learned to "attend" some things and to ignore others. (9) I had been doing it longer and knew what to look for, yet I could not identify the cues that made the image of the arrowhead stand out so clearly.
(10) I may be able to spot arrowheads in the desert but a refrigerator is a jungle in which I am easily lost. (11) My wife, however, will unerringly point out that the cheese or the leftover roast is hiding right in front of my eyes. (12) Hundreds of such experiences convince me that men and women often inhabit quite different visual worlds. (13) These are differences which cannot be attributed to variations in visual acuity. (14) Men and women simply have learned to use their eyes in very different ways.
--Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension

The mode of discourse in the passage is
A)narration.
B)description.
C)exposition.
D)persuasion.



2The main idea of the paragraph is that
A)men and women perceive the world differently.
B)people of different cultures perceive the world differently.
C)it is more difficult to perceive things in nature than things in one's home.
D)whether they are individuals from the same culture or not, no two people see exactly the same thing.



3Hall develops the main idea by means of
A)steps in a process.
B)definition.
C)comparison.
D)examples and illustrations.



4The word distance as Hall uses it in sentence 3 means
A)the degree of difference.
B)literally the distance from one place to another.
C)an interval separating two events.
D)a feeling of reservation or aloofness.



5We can infer that much of our ability to perceive comes from our
A)genetic inheritance.
B)experience in looking at things around us.
C)level of intelligence.
D)our desire to learn.



6Isolating the factors that cause people to perceive the same thing differently is
A)possible.
B)a waste of time.
C)difficult, if not impossible.
D)necessary.



7(1) Scientists who work on animal behavior are occupationally obliged to live chancier lives than most of their colleagues, always at risk of being fooled by the animals they are studying or, worse, fooling themselves. (2) Whether their experiments involve domesticated laboratory animals or wild creatures in the field, there is no end to the surprises that an animal can think up in the presence of an investigator. (3) Sometimes it seems as if animals are genetically programmed to puzzle human beings, especially psychologists.
(4) The risks are especially high when the scientist is engaged in training the animal to do something or other and must bank his professional reputation on the integrity of his experimental subject. (5) The most famous case in point is that of Clever Hans, the turn-of-the-century German horse now immortalized in the lexicon of behavioral science by the technical term, the "Clever Hans Error." (6) The horse, owned and trained by Herr von Osten, could not only solve complex arithmetical problems, but even read the instructions on a blackboard and tap out infallibly, with one hoof, the right answer. (7) What is more, he could perform the same computations when total strangers posed questions to him, with his trainer nowhere nearby. (8) For several years Clever Hans was studied intensively by groups of puzzled scientists and taken seriously as a horse with something very like a human brain, quite possibly even better than human. (9) but finally in 1911, it was discovered by Professor O. Pfungst that Hans was not really doing arithmetic at all; he was simply observing the behavior of the human experimenter. (10) Subtle, unconscious gestures--nods of the head, the holding of breath, the cessation of nodding when the correct count was reached--were accurately read by the horse as cues to stop tapping.
--Lewis Thomas, "Clever Animals," Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony

Which two modes of discourse are most evident in this passage?
A)narration.
B)description.
C)exposition.
D)persuasion.



8The main point Thomas emphasizes about Clever Hans is that he
A)really could do arithmetic.
B)had been taught by his trainer deliberately to deceive his audiences.
C)learned to read subtle clues in his questioners' behavior and body language.
D)he was the most intelligent horse that ever lived.



9The "Clever Hans Error" means essentially that
A)researchers can easily be fooled by the animal subjects they study.
B)horse trainers often do not know their animals as well as they should.
C)animals are more intelligent that most people give them credit for.
D)it is wrong to assume that animals cannot be taught human computational skills.



10Paraphrase this phrase from sentence 4: "[the scientist] must bank his professional reputation on the integrity of the experimental subject."



11What is the relationship between paragraphs 1 and 2?
A)steps in a process.
B)general statement and a supporting illustration.
C)contrast.
D)introduction to an unfamiliar term and a definition of it.







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