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Practice Test, Chs. 1-2
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Part I. Passages for Analysis.



1A. (1) . . . why do Caucasoids [Caucasians or white people] and Mongoloids [Asian people] and the other racial categories . . . look so different in the first place? Why does a man from northern Europe have blond hair and blue eyes, and a woman from equatorial Africa have dark skin and tightly curled black hair? And what produces the spectrum of human variation in between? Well, the most obvious cause is natural selection. Many generations of exposure to extreme environments results in physical changes. For example, very hot climates favor narrow, cylindrical bodies with large surface areas of skin that can radiate off heat and keep individuals cool and healthy. In higher latitudes, where the weather is cold, surface area has to be minimized to conserve heat-so people evolve more spherical body shapes. (A sphere has the lowest surface area in proportion to its volume, compared with any other object. Rounder animals therefore have less exterior from which heat can radiate-and so stay warmer.) The explanation therefore accounts for the contrast between the physiques of Kenyan tribesmen and the native residents of Greenland and Lapland. Evolution works on the variation in every population so that, over many generations, people with physiques best suited to their environment will thrive and produce more children, who in turn would inherit their parents' successful physiques.

(2) Then there is the question of skin color. In areas of strong sunlight, dark skin provides protection against dangerous ultraviolet radiation that can cause skin cancer. But in the gloomier parts of the world, such as northern Europe, dark skin interferes with the formation of vitamin D in the skin, which plays a critical role in metabolizing calcium for the bones in our bodies. A lack of it leads to bone deformation, however, particularly to rickets. Afflicted with this condition, our early forbears would have been left at a distinct disadvantage during the day-to-day business of foraging and hunting. In addition, women with rickets would have suffered pelvic deformations and would have faced extremely high risks of death during childbirth. This could have produced an intensive selective pressure on early Europeans and other high altitude dwellers, one that would have ensured that the genetically determined attribute of light skin evolved fairly quickly.

--Christopher Stringer and Robin McKie, African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity

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


2Physical differences among the world's races are largely the result of
A)natural selection as an adaptation to variations in the environment.
B)genetic mutations or changes in one's ancestors.
C)vitamin or other nutritional deficiencies.
D)variations in local temperatures.


3What shape of bodies would people who inhabit the hotter equatorial parts of Latin America be likely to have?
A)narrow, cylindrical bodies.
B)round, spherical bodies.
C)cylindrical or spherical, depending on their parents.


4What inference can you make about the degree of adaptation that occurs in human populations?
A)the more temperate the climate, the more changes occur in body type.
B)the more extreme the climate, the more changes occur in body type.
C)the more extreme the climate, the fewer changes occur in body type.


5The term "natural selection" means
A)changes in nature that appear for no apparent reason.
B)the wide variations in human appearance, skin color, and body shape.
C)nature's way of selecting random traits that result in animal specialization.
D)physical changes that become dominant because they are best suited to each environment.
Mark these inferences as PA (probably accurate); PI (probably inaccurate); or NP (not in the passage).



6 Survival among the nation's races is determined by parents' successfully passing positive characteristics to their offspring.


7 Dark skin in southern or equatorial climates prevents Vitamin D from being absorbed into the body.


8 Because animals have fur, the shape of their bodies is not affected by climate in the same way that human bodies are.
Mark these sentences from paragraph 1 as follows: MAIN (main idea), MA (major support), or MI (minor support).



9 Many generations of exposure to extreme environments results in physical changes.


10 For example, very hot climates favor narrow, cylindrical bodies with large surface areas of skin that can radiate off heat and keep individuals cool and healthy.


11 In higher latitudes, where the weather is cold, surface area has to be minimized to conserve heat-so people evolve more spherical body shapes.


12 A sphere has the lowest surface area in proportion to its volume, compared with any other object.


13 Rounder animals therefore have less exterior from which heat can radiate-and so stay warmer.


14 The explanation therefore accounts for the contrast between the physiques of Kenyan tribesmen and the native residents of Greenland and Lapland.


15B. (1) We face an unassailable fact: we are running out of freshwater. In the last century we humans have so vastly expanded our use of water to meet the needs of industry, agriculture, and a burgeoning population that now, after thousands of years in which water has been plentiful and virtually free, its scarcity threatens the supply of food, human health, and global ecosystems. With global population hurtling toward roughly 9 billion people by 2050, projections suggest that if we continue consuming water with our habitual disregard all those needs cannot be met at once.

(2) The world's supply of freshwater remains roughly constant, at about 2 1/2 percent of all water, and of that, almost two thirds is stored in ice caps and glaciers, inaccessible to humans; what must change is how we use the available water supply. Humans have grown so numerous that the usual response to anticipated water scarcity-to increase supply with dams, aqueducts, canals, and wells-is beginning to push against an absolute limit.

--Jacques Leslie, "Running Dry," Harper's

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


16In sentence 1, the word "unassailable" most likely means
A)unappealing.
B)not open to doubt.
C)unacceptable.
D)not likely to be remedied.


17Which two of the following statements are accurate explanations for the shortage of freshwater?
A)the government's failure to find new sources of water.
B)lack of sufficient rainfall throughout the world.
C)overpopulation.
D)increased uses for water.
E)lack of new technology to extract the water stored in glaciers and icecaps.


18In the last sentence of paragraph 1, what does Leslie suggest about human population growth?
A)It is growing slowly but steadily.
B)It is growing at an astoundingly fast rate.
C)Zero-population growth measures have failed.
D)It grew fast for the last century before leveling off.


19What one word in that same sentence helped you arrive at your answer for the question above?


20To remedy the problem, Leslie proposes
A)tapping the water that now is inaccessible to us.
B)building more dams, aqueducts, canals, and wells.
C)building desalinization plants.
D)changing the ways we use water now.
E)imposing heavy penalties on business and industry for wasting water.


21C. (1) It was a foul region, planed off flat except where there were raw gullies cut deep in the red clay. Scrubby pines everywhere. Trees of a better make had once stood in their place but had been cut down long ago, the only evidence of them now an occasional hardwood stump as big around as a dinner table. Poison ivy grew in thick beds that stretched as far as Inman could see through the woods. It climbed the pine trees and spread among their limbs. The falling needles caught in the tangled ivy vines and softened the lines of the trunks and limbs and formed heavy new shapes of them until the trees loomed like green and grey beasts risen out of the ground.

(2) The forest looked to be a sick and dangerous place. It recalled to him a time during the fighting down along the coast when a man had shown him a tiny plant, a strange and hairy thing that grew in bogs. It knew to eat meat, and they fed it little pieces of fatback1 from the end of a splinter. You could hold the tip of a finger to what stood for its mouth and it would snap at you. These flatwoods seemed only a step away from learning the trick on a grander scale.

--Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain

1 A kind of meat similar to salt pork or bacon.

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


22Which of these dictionary definitions of the word "foul" used in the first sentence best fits the context?
A)offensive to the senses
B)stormy, inclement
C)profane, obscene
D)morally offensive


23From paragraph 1 we can infer that the phrase "trees of a better make" refer to
A)pine trees.
B)hardwood trees.
C)poison ivy.
D)trees used to build houses or make furniture.
E)expensive varieties of trees.


24At the end of paragraph 1, Frazier writes: "the trees loomed like green and grey beasts risen out of the ground." In this context, this phrase suggests that these trees were
A)woven together like fabric.
B)huge and menacing in appearance.
C)colorful against the drab background of the forest.
D)smaller than typical trees found in a forest.


25What phrase serves as the controlling idea of the second paragraph?


26Read paragraph 2 again. What was unusual about the tiny plant he had once seen growing near the coast?


27In the last sentence, Frazier writes that "these flatwoods seemed only a step away from learning the trick on a grander scale." Specifically, what can you infer this "trick" refers to?





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