SES 01 Reading

Question 1-7

  Hotels were among the earliest facilities that bound the United States together. They were both creatures and creators of communities, as well as symptoms of the frenetic quest for community. Even in the first part of the nineteenth century, Americans were already forming the habit of gathering from all corners of the nation of both public and private, business and pleasure, purposes. Conventions were the new occasions, and hotels were distinctively American facilities making conventions possible. The first national convention of a major party to choose a candidate for President (that of the Clay for President) was held in Baltimore, at a hotel that was then reputed to be the best in the country. The presence in Baltimore of Barnum’s City Hotel, a six-story building with two hundred apartments, helps explain why many other early national political conventions were held there.
  In the longer run, American hotels made other national conventions not only possible but pleasant and convivial. The growing custom of regularly assembling from afar the representatives of all kinds of groups-not only for political conventions, but also for commercial professional, learned, and avocational ones-in turn supported the multiplying hotels. By the mid-twentieth century, conventions accounted for over a third of the yearly room occupancy of all hotels in the nation: about eighteen thousand different conventions were held annually with a total attendance of ten million persons.
  Nineteenth-century American hotelkeepers, who were no longer the genial, deferential “hosts” of the eighteenth-century European inn, became leading citizens. Holding a large stake in the community, they exercised power to make it prosper. As owners or managers of the local “palace of the public,” they were makers and shapers of a principal community attraction. Travelers from abroad were mildly shocked by this high social position.
  In the longer run, American hotels made other national conventions not only possible but pleasant and convivial. The growing custom of regularly assembling from afar the representatives of all kinds of groups-not only for political conventions, but also for commercial professional, learned, and avocational ones-in turn supported the multiplying hotels. By the mid-twentieth century, conventions accounted for over a third of the yearly room occupancy of all hotels in the nation: about eighteen thousand different conventions were held annually with a total attendance of ten million persons.Hotels were among the earliest facilities that bound the United States together. They were both creatures and creators of communities, as well as symptoms of the frenetic quest for community. Even in the first part of the nineteenth century, Americans were already forming the habit of gathering from all corners of the nation of both public and private, business and pleasure, purposes. Conventions were the new occasions, and hotels were distinctively American facilities making conventions possible. The first national convention of a major party to choose a candidate for President (that of the Clay for President) was held in Baltimore, at a hotel that was then reputed to be the best in the country. The presence in Baltimore of Barnum’s City Hotel, a six-story building with two hundred apartments, helps explain why many other early national political conventions were held there.

(QUESTION) The word “bound” in line 1 is closest in meaning to

The National Republican party is mentioned in line 8 as an example of a group

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The word “assembling” in line 11 is closest in meaning to

The word “ones” in line 12 refers to

The word “it” in line 18 refers to

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It can be inferred from the passage that early hotelkeepers in the United States were

Which of the following statements about early American hotels is NOT mentioned in the passage?

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Question 8-17

Beads were probably the first durable ornaments humans possessed, and the intimate relationship they had with their owners is reflected in the fact that beads are among the most common items found in ancient archaeological sites. In the past, as today, men, women and children adorned themselves with beads. In some cultures still, certain beads are often worn from birth until death, and then are buried with then owners for the afterlife. Abrasion due to daily wear alters the surface features of beads and if they are buried for long, the effects of corrosion can further change their appearance. Thus, interest is imparted to the bead both by use and the effects of time.

Besides their wearability, either as jewelry or incorporated into articles of attire, beads possess the desirable characteristics of every collectible: they are durable, portable, available in infinite variety, and often valuable in their original cultural context as well as in today’s market. Pleasing to look at and touch, beads come in shapes, colors, and materials that almost compel one to handle them and to sort them.

Beads are miniature bundles of secrets waiting to be revealed: their history, manufacture, cultural context, economic role, and ornamental use are all points of information one hopes to unravel. Even the most mundane beads may have traveled great distances and been exposed to many human experiences. The bead researcher must gather information from many diverse fields. In addition to having to be a generalist while specializing in what may seem to be a narrow field, the researcher is faced with the problem of primary materials that have often been separated from their original cultural context.

The special attractions of beads contribute to the uniqueness of bead research. While often regarded as the “small change of civilizations,” beads are a part of every culture, …. They can often be used to date archaeological sites and to designate the degree of …., technological, and cultural sophistication.

 

(QUESTION) What is the main subject of the passage?

The word “adorned” in line 3 is closest in meaning to

The word “attire” in line 8 is closest in meaning to

All of the following are given as characteristics of collectible objects Except

According to the passage, all of the following are factors that make people want to touch beads EXCEPT the

The word “unravel” in line 13 is closest in meaning to

The word “mundane” in line 14 is closest in meaning to

It is difficult to trace the history of certain ancient beads because they

Knowledge of the history of some beads may be useful in the studies done by which of the following?

Where in the passage does the author describe why the appearance of beads may change?

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Question 18-31

In the world of birds, bill design is a prime example of evolutionary fine-tuning Shorebirds such as oystercatchers use their bills to pry open the tightly sealed shells .. their prey hummingbirds have stiletto-like bills to probe the deepest nectar-bearing flowers; and kiwis smell out earthworms thanks to nostrils located at the tip of their beaks. But few birds are more intimately tied to their source of sustenance than are crossbills. Two species of these finches, named for the way the way the upper and lower parts of their bills cross, rather than meet in the middle, reside in the evergreen forests of North America and feed on the seeds held within the cones of coniferous trees.

The efficiency of the bill is evident when a crossbill locates a cone. Using a lateral motion of its lower mandible, the bird separates two overlapping scales on the cone … exposes the seed. The crossed mandibles enable the bird to exert a powerful biting force at the bill tips, which is critical for maneuvering them between the scales and spreading the scales apart. Next the crossbill snakes its long tongue into the gap and draws out the seed. Using the combined action of the bill and tongue, the bird cracks open and discards the woody seed covering and swallows the nutritious inner kernel. This whole process takes but a few seconds and is repeated hundreds of times a day.

The bills of different crossbill species and subspecies vary-some are stout and deep, others more slender and shallow. As a rule, large-billed crossbills are better at securing seeds from large cones, while small-billed crossbills are more deft at removing the seeds from small, thin-scaled cones. Moreover, the degree to which cone are naturally slightly open or tightly closed helps determine which bill design is the best.

One anomaly is the subspecies of red crossbill known as the Newfoundland crossbill. This bird has a large, robust bill, yet most of Newfoundland’s conifers have small cones, the same kind of cones that the slender-billed white-wings rely on.

 

(QUESTION) What does the passage mainly discuss?

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Which of the following statements best represents the type of ‘evolutionary fine-tuning’ mentioned in line 1?

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why does the author mention oystercatchers, hummingbirds, and kiwis in lines1 ?

Crossbills are type of

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Which of the following most closely resembles the bird described in line 6-8?

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The word ‘which’ in line 10 refers to

The word ‘gap’ in line 12 is closest in meaning to

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The word ‘discards’ in line 13 is closest in meaning to

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The word ‘other’ in line 15 refers to

The word ‘deft’ in line 17 is closest in meaning to

The word ‘robust’ in line 20 is closest in meaning to

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In the way is the Newfoundland crossbill an anomaly?

The final paragraph of the passage will probably continue with a discussion of

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Where in the passage does the author describe how a crossbill removes a seed from its cone?

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Question 32-38

If you look closely at some of the early copies of the Declaration of Independence beyond the flourished signature of John Hancock and the other fifty-five men who signed it, you will also find the name of one women, Mary Katherine Goddard. It was she, a Baltimore printer, who published the first official copies of the Declaration, the first copies that included the names of its signers and therefore heralded the support of all thirteen colonies.

Mary Goddard firs got printing at the age of twenty-four when her brother opened a printing shop in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1763. When he proceeded to get into trouble with his partners and creditors, it was Mary Goddard and her mother who were left to run shop. In 1765 they began publishing the Providence Gazette. Similar problems seemed to follow her brother as he opened businesses in Philadelphia and again in Baltimore. Each time Ms. Goddard was brought in to run the newspapers. After starting Baltimore’s first newspaper, The Maryland Journal, in 1773, her brother went broke trying to organize a colonial postal service. While he was in debtor’s prison, Mary Katherine Goddard’s name appeared on the newspaper’s masthead for the firs time.

When the continental congress fled there from Philadelphia in 17776, it commissioned Ms. Goddard to print the first official version of the Declaration Independence in January 1777. After printing the documents, she herself paid the post riders to deliver the Declaration throughout the colonies.

During the American Revolution, Mary Goddard continued to publish Baltimore’s only newspaper, which one historian claimed was ‘second to none among the colonies.’ She was also the city’s postmaster from 1775 to 1789-appointed by Benjamin Franklin-and is considered to be first woman to hold a federal position.

 

(QUESTION) With which of the following subjects is the passage mainly concerned?

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Mary Goddard’s name appears on the declaration of independence because

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The word “heralded” in line 4 is closest in meaning to

According to the passage, Mary Goddard first became involved in publishing when she

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the word “there” in line 14 refers to

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it can be inferred from the passage that Mary Goddard was

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the word ‘position’ in line 19 is closest in meaning to

Question 39-50

Galaxies are the major building blocks of the universe. A galaxy is a giant family of many millions of stars, and it is held together by its own gravitational field. Most of the material universe is organized into galaxies of stars, together with gas and dust.

There are three main types of galaxy: spiral, elliptical, and irregular. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy: a flattish disc of stars with two spiral arms emerging from its central nucleus. About one-quarter all galaxies have this shape. Spiral galaxies are well supplied with the interstellar gas in which new stars form; as the rotating spiral pattern sweeps around the galaxy it compresses gas and dust, triggering the formation of bright young stars in its arms. The elliptical galaxies have a symmetrical elliptical shape with no obvious structure. Most of their member stars are very old and since ellipticals are devoid of interstellar gas, no new stars are forming in them. The biggest and brightest galaxies in the universe are elliptical with masses of about times that of Sun; these giants may frequently be sources of strong radio emission in which case they are called radio galaxies. About two-thirds of all galaxies are elliptical. Irregular galaxies comprise about one-tenth of all galaxies and they come from many subclasses.

Measurement in space is quite different from measurement on Earth. Some distances can be expressed as intervals of time, the time to fly from one continent to another or the time it takes to drive to work, for example. By comparison with these familiar yardsticks, the distances to the galaxies are incomprehensibly large but they too are made more manageable by using a time calibration, in this case, the distance that light travels in one year. On such a scale the nearest giant spiral galaxy the Andromeda galaxy, is two million light years away. The most distant luminous objects seen by telescopes are probably ten thousand million light years away. Their light was already halfway here before the earth even formed. The light from the nearby …. galaxy set out when reptiles still dominated the animal world.

 

(QUESTION) The word ‘major’ in line 1 is closest in meaning to

 

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What does the second paragraph mainly discuss?

The word ‘which’ in line 6 refers

According to the passage, new stars are formed in spiral galaxies due to

The word ‘symmetrical’ in line 8 is closest in meaning to

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The word ‘obvious’ in line 9 is closest in meaning to

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According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true of elliptical galaxies?

Which of the following characteristics of radio galaxies in mentioned in the passage?

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What percentage of galaxies is irregular?

The word ‘they’ in line 17 refers to

Why does the author mention the Virgo galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy in the third paragraph?

The word ‘dominated’ in line 21 is closest in meaning to