Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Questions 1 to 6: Please select the most appropriate option from the choices given. Please note
that each blank should have a single correct answer.
Inventive
Flamboyant
Signature
Unusual
Disturbing
2. Architects and sound engineers routinely use sound-absorbing materials on ceilings and walls.
In addition, they have sometimes tried to create optimal acoustics by building the ceilings and
walls of concert halls with rippled or (i) ______ surfaces, so that the sound is reflected and (ii)
______ at many angles.
Blank (i)
A. Invariably rigid
B. Highly polished
C. Slightly undulating
Blank (ii)
D. Distorted
E. Diffused
F. Auditory
3. The investigative panel was nothing short of outraged by the bus drivers negligence and lack
of remorse. It determined that the driver had failed to follow the established (i) _______. As a
result, she had compromised the safety of the passengers. More fundamentally, however, she
had actually and effectively (ii) ______ at least two of her riders rights.
Blank (i)
A. code of conduct
B. rules of engagement
C. terms of use
Blank (ii)
D. abrogated
E. renounced
F. negated
4. In part by personifying them, and in larger part through a selection of detail, childrens books
do nothing less than (i) ______ cars and trucks. The trucks are big, mighty, fearless, and friendly
behemoths that happily get the job done. Cars are speedy, bright, often open conveyances that
delight their drivers and passengers on similarly open roads without traffic, congestion, or
exhaust fumes. Such storybook portrayals begin the process of (ii) ______ that preserves and
protects the (iii) ______ of the automobile in American culture.
Blank (i)
A. extol
B. infantilize
C. venerate
Blank (ii)
D. indoctrination
E. validation
F. vindication
Blank (iii)
G. desultory consequences
H. eternal aggrandizement
I. unquestioned dominance
5. The peasants portrayed in Pieter Brueghel the Elders renowned paintings performed physical
labor from sunup to sundown and lived grim, short lives. In The Wedding Dance, Pieter
Brueghel depicts a nearly frenzied release from that daily round of (i) ______ and (ii) ______
in which peasants dance and (iii) ______ to the music of the bagpipes.
Blank (i)
A. employment
B. privation
C. mediocrity
Blank (ii)
D. inanity
E. woe
F. striving
Blank (iii)
G. unwind
H. carouse
I. sing
6. Is the most spineless method of delivering the news of a breakup by means of a text message?
A recent survey based on Facebook data found that 14% of those born after 1984 are likely to
choose this most expedient of methods. Of course, expedience alone may not explain this
choice, but the study offers no other explanation for why respondents act in such a (i) ______
manner. Readers of the study are left to infer why the perpetrators of such spineless behavior
(ii) ______ the more dignified, if not relatively (iii) _______, face-to-face meeting.
Blank (i)
A. muted
B. unreliable
C. craven
Blank (ii)
D. disavow
E. eschew
F. denounce
Blank (ii)
G. decorous
H. imposing
I. outdated
Questions 7 to 16 are based on the on the different passages below. Choose one answer
choice unless otherwise directed.
Question 7 is based on the following passage:
Prosopagnosia, or face blindness, was lately given a boost in long-overdue recognition as a genetic
disorder when the distinguished professor of neurology and best-selling author Oliver Sacks described
his own affliction with the disease. Like other proposagnosiacs, Sacks has a fundamental inability to
recognize faces, and not just the faces of random strangers or people he met for the first time last week.
One index to the profundity of Sackss problem is reflected in a study that found that proposagnosiacs
who looked at photos of their own family members were unable to recognize 30% of the faces. Sacks
himself admits that he often does not recognize a person whom he has met just five minutes before.
7. The passage achieves all of the following purposes EXCEPT
(A) explain why prosopagnosia was given recognition as a genetic disorder.
(B) tell or imply how prosopagnosia manifests itself.
(C) cite research that helps define the challenges faced by prosopagnosiacs.
(D) personalize and humanize the disorder known as prosopagnosia.
(E) imply the severity of the challenges faced by prosopagnosiacs.
the governments appears to be, fundamentally, preventing acts of terrorism, Americans were and are
outraged. Of course, unlike many Internet companies (which are essentially surveillance groups), the
NSA never requested permission or revealed its operations or scope. The NSA, unlike the online giants
whose trespasses we forgive daily, seems to have indulged in the ridiculous notion that, for the success
of its mission, secrecy was important.
Why do we constantly forgive the participants of the new California Gold Rush, whose actions include
not only infringement of our most basic rights, but also the creation of a new class of super-rich that
undermines our democracy just as certainly as any practice on Wall Street does? In part, this
phenomenon derives from the fact that we actually trust our government to do the right thing, at least
eventually, while we actually expect corporations to achieve their goals at our expense.
8.Which is the first sentence in this passage to clearly reflect the authors perspective on a question
posed earlier in the passage? Indicate all that apply.
(A) Sentence 3 (As the well-known . . . the product.)
(B) Sentence 6 (For many citizens . . . U.S. government.)
(C) Sentence 9 (The NSA . . . secrecy was important.)
For questions 17 to 20, choose the two answers that best fit the meaning of the sentence
as a whole and result in two completed sentences that are alike in meaning
17. After hours of acrimonious arguments the negotiations reached a(n) _____ ; neither side was willing
to compromise.
A. solution
B. impasse
C. conclusion
D. end
E. deadlock
F. resolution
18. This new staging of King Lear is not a production in which every aspect falls neatly into place
throughout; however, the drama does ____ at certain points to give the audience memorable and
thought-provoking moments.
A. coalesce
B. crystallize
C. triumph
D. flower
E. dissolve
F. transcend
19. The teachers mercurial mood changes and ____ approach to grading made the students uneasy;
they never knew what would please him or what would earn good marks.
A. tardy
B. authoritarian
C. strict
D. ambivalent
E. whimsical
F. hidebound
20. The book is an attempt on the part of the eminent scholar to reconcile the ____ experience and
theoretical underpinnings of certain everyday phenomena.
A. philosophical
B. empirical
C. arcane
D. practical
E. superficial
F. obtuse