Despite a dramatic increase in the number of people riding bicycles for recreation in Parkville, a recent report by the Parkville Department of Transportation shows that the number of accidents involving bicycles has decreased for the third consecutive year.
Question 1
Which of the following, if true during the last three years, best reconciles the apparent discrepancy in the facts above?
A. The Parkville Department of Recreation confiscated abandoned bicycles and sold them at auction to any interested Parkville residents.
B. Increased automobile and bus traffic in Parkville has been the leading cause of the most recent increase in automobile accidents.
C. Because of the local increase in the number of people bicycling for recreation. many out -of -town bicyclists ride in the Parkville area.
D. The Parkville Police Department enforced traffic rules for bicycle riders much more vigorously and began requiring recreational riders to pass a bicycle safety course.
E. The Parkville Department of Transportation canceled a program that required all bicycles to be inspected and registered each year.
What makes a worker ant perform one particular task rather than another? From the 1970s to the mid-1980s, researchers emphasized internal factors within individual ants, such as polymorphism, the presence in the nest of workers of different shapes and sizes, each suited to a particular task. Other elements then considered to have primary influence upon an ant’s career were its age—it might change tasks as it got older—and its genetics. However, subsequent ant researchers have focused on external prompts for behavior. In advocating this approach, Deborah Gordon cites experiments in which intervention in a colony’s makeup perturbed worker activity. By removing workers or otherwise altering the nest conditions, researchers were able to change the tasks performed by individual workers.
Question 2
According to the passage, which of the following factors were considered from the 1970s to the mid-1980s to influence the division of labor among a colony's worker ants?
A. Ants’ inherited traits
B. The age of the ants
C. The ants’ experiences outside the nest
Question 3
It can be inferred from the passage that Gordon and earlier researchers would agree with which of the following statements about worker ants?
A. Disruption of the nest can affect workers’ roles.
B. Genetics predominates over other factors in determining a worker ant’s role.
C. An individual worker’s tasks can change during its lifetime.
Question 4
The last sentence has which of the following functions in the passage?
A. It explains how the experiments performed by Gordon differed from those performed by earlier researchers.
B. It justifies the methodology of the experiments cited by Gordon.
C. It gives details showing how the experiments cited by Gordon support her position.
This passage is excerpted from material published in 2001.
In 1998 scientists using the neutrino detector in Kamioka, Japan, were able to observe several thousand neutrinos—elusive, tiny subatomic particles moving at nearly the speed of light and passing through almost everything in their path. The Kamioka find- ings have potentially far-reaching ramifications. They strongly suggest that the neu-trino has mass, albeit an infinitesimal amount. Even a tiny mass means that neutrinos would outweigh all the universe’s visible matter, because of their vast numbers. The findings also suggest that a given neutrino does not have one stable mass or one stable identity; instead it oscillates from one identity or “flavor” (physicists’ term describing how neutrinos interact with other particles) to another. This oscillation may explain why, although the Sun is a large source of neutrinos, detectors capture far fewer solar neutrinos than the best theory of solar physics predicts: the neutrinos may be changing to flavors undetectable by detectors. Finally, while the standard particle-physics model—which describes all matter in terms of twelve fundamental particles and four fundamental forces—does not allow for neutrinos with mass, there are theories that do. Further experiments to confirm that neutrinos have mass could help physicists determine which, if any, of these theories is correct.
Question 5
The primary purpose of the passage is to
A. evaluate the merits of a particular theory in light of new evidence
B. discuss scientists’ inability to account for certain unexpected
C. discoveries C point out certain shortcomings in a long-standing theory
D. compare several alternative explanations for a particular phenomenon
E. consider some implications of certain scientific findings
Question 6
According to the passage, one significant implication of the discovery that neutrinos have mass is that such a discovery would
A. cast doubt on the solar origins of many of the neutrinos that reach Earth
B. help to establish the validity of the standard particle-physics model
C. indicate that most of the visible matter of the universe is composed of neutrinos
D. entail that the total weight of all the visible matter in the universe is less than that of all the neutrinos in the universe
E. mean that the speed with which neutrinos normally move can be slowed by certain types of matter
Mayor: Four years ago, when we reorganized the city police department in order to save money, critics claimed that the reorganization would make the police less responsive to citizens and would thus lead to more crime. The police have compiled theft statistics from the years following the reorganization that show that the critics were wrong. There was an overall decrease in reports of thefts of all kinds, including small thefts.
Question 7
Which of the following, if true, most seriously challenges the mayor's argument?
A. When city police are perceived as unresponsive, victims of theft are less likely to report thefts to the police.
B. The mayor’s critics generally agree that police statistics concerning crime reports provide the most reliable available data on crime rates.
C. In other cities where police departments have been similarly reorganized, the numbers of reported thefts have generally risen following reorganization.
D. The mayor’s reorganization of the police department failed to save as much money as it was intended to save.
E. During the four years immediately preceding the reorganization, reports of all types of theft had been rising steadily in comparison to reports of other crimes.
During the 1920s, most advocates of scientific management, Frederick Taylor’s method for maximizing workers’ productivity by rigorously routinizing their jobs, opposed the five-day workweek. Although scientific managers conceded that reducing hours might provide an incentive to workers, in practice they more often used pay differentials to encourage higher productivity. Those reformers who wished to embrace both scientific management and reduced hours had to make a largely negative case, portraying the latter as an antidote to the rigors of the former.
In contrast to the scientific managers, Henry Ford claimed that shorter hours led to greater productivity and profits. However, few employers matched either Ford’s vision or his specific interest in mass marketing a product—automobiles—that required leisure for its use, and few unions succeeded in securing shorter hours through bar-gaining. At its 1928 convention, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) boasted of approximately 165,000 members working five-day, 40-hour weeks. But although this represented an increase of about 75,000 since 1926, about 70 percent of the total came from five extremely well-organized building trades’ unions.
Question 8
The passage is primarily concerned with discussing which of the following?
A. The relative merits of two points of view regarding a controversy
B. The potential benefits to workers in the 1920s of a change in employers’ policies
C. The reasons for a labor-management disagreement during the 1920s
D. The status of a contested labor issue during the 1920s
E. The role of labor unions in bringing about a reform
Question 9
It can be inferred that the author of the passage mentions “automobiles” (line 10) primarily to suggest that
A. Ford’s business produced greater profits than did businesses requiring a workweek longer than five days
B. Ford, unlike most other employers, encouraged his employees to use the products they produced
C. Ford may have advocated shorter hours because of the particular nature of his business
D. unions were more likely to negotiate for shorter hours in some businesses than in others
E. automobile workers’ unions were more effective than other unions in securing a five-day workweek
Question 10
It can be inferred that the author of the passage would probably agree with which of the following claims about the boast referred to in lines 12–13?
A. It is based on a mistaken estimation of the number of AFL workers who were allowed to work a five-day, 40-hour week in 1928.
B. It could create a mistaken impression regarding the number of unions obtaining a five-day, 40-hour week during the 1920s.
C. It exaggerates the extent of the increase between 1926 and 1928 in AFL members working a five-day, 40-hour week.
D. It overestimates the bargaining prowess of the AFL building trades’ unions during the 1920s.
E. It is based on an overestimation of the number of union members in the AFL in 1928.
Question 11
According to the passage, the “reformers” (line 5) claimed that
A. neither scientific management nor reduced hours would result in an improvement in the working conditions of most workers
B. the impact that the routinization of work had on workers could be mitigated by a reduction in the length of their workweek
C. there was an inherent tension between the principles of scientific management and a commitment to reduced workweeks
D. scientific managers were more likely than other managers to use pay differentials to encourage higher productivity
E. reducing the length of the workweek would increase productivity more effectively than would increases in pay
In November 1753, the British author Sarah Fielding accepted half the payment for her novel The Cry and asked that the other half, when due, go to her “or to whomsoever I shall appoint,” perhaps indicating that the remaining share was intended for someone else. Indeed, many think that the novel was a collaborative venture between Fielding and Jane Collier. This particular collaboration was likely enough, as the two were close friends with common interests. They wrote jointly authored letters, were both published authors with a lively interest in each other’s work, and were enthusiastic supporters of didacticism and innovation in fiction—central concerns of The Cry. However, contemporaries ascribed the work solely to Fielding, and there is nothing in the novel that is incompatible with Fielding’s other writings.
Question 12
The passage presents which of the following as evidence in favor of Fielding and Collier’s having collaborated in writing The Cry?
A. Their friendship
B. Their joint authorship of correspondence
C. Their approach to fiction
Question 13
It can be inferred that the author of the passage would agree with which of the following claims about The Cry?
A. It develops themes commonly found in published works.
B. It reflects an interest in the purposes to which fiction may be put.
C. It contains elements that are incompatible with any of Collier’s solo writings.
D. It shows that the extent of Collier and Fielding’s shared interests was not as wide as is generally thought.
E. Parts of it were written jointly by Fielding and Collier.
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