In the following five passages, certain words and phrases are underlined and numbered. In the right-hand column are alternatives for each underlined portion. Select the one that best conveys the idea, creates the most grammatically correct sentence, or is the most consistent with the style and tone of the passage. If you decide that the original version is best, select NO CHANGE. You may also find questions that ask about the entire passage or a section of the passage. These questions will correspond to small numbered boxes in the text. For these questions, decide which choice best accomplishes the purpose set out in the question stem. After you’ve selected the best choice, fill in the corresponding oval in your Answer Grid. For some questions, you’ll need to read the context in order to answer correctly. Be sure to read until you have enough information to determine the correct answer choice.
You will also find questions about a section of the passage or about the passage as a whole. These questions do not refer to an underlined portion of the passage, but rather are identified by a number or numbers in a box.
For each question, choose the alternative you consider best and fill in the corresponding oval on your answer document. Read each passage through once before you begin to answer the questions that accompany it. For many of the questions, you must read several sentences beyond the question to determine the answer. Be sure that you have read enough ahead each time you choose an alternative.
If you are like most visitors to Athens, you will make your way to the Acropolis, the hill that once served as a fortified, strategic position over-looking the Aegean Sea—to see the Parthenon. This celebrated temple was dedicated in the fifth century B.C. to the goddess Athena. There is no more famous building in all of Greece; to climb up its marble steps is to have beheld a human creation that has attained the stature of a natural phenomenon like the Grand Canyon. You should also make an attempt to sample Athenian cuisine while you’re there.
Generations of architects have proclaimed the Parthenon to be the most brilliantly conceived structure in the Western world. The genius of its construction is subtle for example the temple’s columns were made to bulge outward slightly in order to compensate for the fact, viewed from distance, that straight columns appear concave. Using this and other techniques, the architects strove to create an optical illusion of; uprightness, solidity, and permanence.
Because of this, the overall impression you’ll get of the Parthenon will be far different from the one the ancient Athenians had. Only by standing on the marble steps of the Parthenon and allowing your imagination to transport you back to the Golden Age of Athens. You will be able to see the temple’s main attraction, the legendary statue of Athena Parthenos. It was 38 feet high and made of ivory and over a ton of pure gold. Removed from the temple in the fifth century C.E., all that remains is the slight rectangular depression on the floor where it stood.
Many of the ornate carvings and sculptures that adorned the walls of the Acropolis is no longer there, either. In the early nineteenth century, the British diplomat Lord Elgins decision to “protect” the ones that survived by removing them from the Parthenon and carrying them back to Britain (he had the permission of the Ottoman Turks, who controlled Greece at the time, to do so).
After they gained independence from the Turks, they began to demand the sculptures and carvings back from the British, to no avail. Thus, if you want to gain a complete picture of what the Parthenon once looked like, you’ll have to visit not only the Acropolis of Athens, but the British Museum in London as well.
Questions 14–15 ask about the preceding passage as a whole.
The writer wishes to insert the following material into the essay:
Some of them were destroyed in 1687 when attacking Venetians bombarded the Acropolis, setting off explosives that had been stored in the Parthenon.
The new material best supports and therefore would most logically be placed in paragraph:
Suppose the editor of an architecture journal had requested that the writer focus primarily on the techniques the ancient Greek architects used in constructing the Parthenon. Does the essay fulfill this request?
Although there is no conclusive evidence that a man named Robin Hood ever actually existed, the story of Robin Hood and his band of merry men has become one of the most popular traditional tales in English literature. Robin is the hero in a series of ballads dating from at least the fourteenth century. These ballads are telling of discontent among the lower classes in the north of England during a turbulent era culminating in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. A good deal of the rebellion against authority stemmed from restriction of hunting rights. These early ballads reveal the cruelty that was a part of medieval life. Robin Hood was a rebel, and many of the most striking episodes depict him and his companions robbing and killing representatives of authority and they gave the gains to the poor. Their most frequentest enemy was the Sheriff of Nottingham, a local agent of the central government. Other enemies included wealthy ecclesiastical landowners.
While Robin could be ruthless with those who abused their power, he was kind to the oppressed. He was a people’s hero as King Arthur was a noble’s. (The Broadway musical Camelot and Walt Disney’s The Sword in the Stone are based on the legend of King Arthur.)
Some scholars have sought to prove that there was an actual Robin Hood. However, references to the Robin Hood legends by medieval writers make it clear that the ballads were the only evidence for Robin’s existence available to them. A popular modern belief that Robin was of the time of Richard I probably stems from the antiquary Richard Stukely’s fabrication of a “pedigree.”
In the eighteenth century, the nature of the legend was distorted by the suggestion that Robin was as a fallen nobleman. Writers adopted this new element as eagerly as puppies. Robin was also given a love interest; Maid Marian. Some critics say that these ballads lost much of their vitality and poetic value by losing the social impulse that prompted their creation.
Consequently, in the twentieth century, the legend of Robin Hood has inspired several movies and a television series. Even a Broadway musical basing on the tale. So, whether or not a Robin Hood actually lived in ancient Britain, and the legendary Robin has lived in the popular imagination for more than 600 years.
Suppose that at this point in the passage, the writer wanted to add more information about Richard Stukely. Which of the following additions would be most relevant to the passage as a whole?
Questions 29–30 ask about the preceding passage as a whole.
Suppose this passage were written for an audience that was unfamiliar with the legend of Robin Hood. The writer could most effectively strengthen the passage by:
This passage was probably written for readers who:
The following paragraphs may or may not be in the most logical order. Each paragraph is numbered in brackets, and question 45 will ask you to choose the most logical order of the paragraphs.
When Mt. St. Helens erupted, my training as a private pilot paid off. My editor asked me to write a feature story on the volcano. Only scientists and reporters were allowed within a ten-mile radius of the mountain. Eager to see Mt. St. Helens for himself, my brother Jeff volunteered to accompany me as an assistant on the flight. He had never flown with me before, and I looked forward at the opportunity to show off my skills.
If I could read a newspaper, I entertained thoughts of becoming a photojournalist. I always envisioned myself in some faraway exotic place performing dangerous deeds as a foreign correspondent. I was thrilled when I was hired for my first job as a cub reporter for the local newspaper in my rural hometown. However, some of the glamour began to fade after I covered the umpteenth garden party. Then one day, Mother Nature intervened, giving me the opportunity to cover an international event.
When we arrived at the airport, filing my flight plan; giving my credentials as a reporter for the Gresham Outlook. As we departed Troutdale airport, my Cessna 152 ascended slowly on its way toward Mt. St. Helens. As we neared the crater, I kept a careful watch for other airplanes in the vicinity. A few other pilots were also circling around the crater. I had to maintain a high enough altitude to avoid both the smoke being emitted from: the crater and the ashen residue already in the atmosphere. Too much exposure to the volcanic particles could put my plane out of service. This element of danger served to increase not only my awareness, but also my excitement.
Jeff and I were at first speechless and mute at the awesome sight below us as we circled the crater. It was as if the spectacular beauty of a Fourth of July celebration were contained in one natural phenomenon. Jeff helped me, steadying the plane and took notes, while I shot pictures and dictated story ideas to him.
My story appeared as the front-page feature the following day. However, I have realized many of my early dreams, working as a foreign correspondent in many different countries. And yet none of my experiences has surpassed that special pride and excitement I felt covering my first “international” story.
The best placement for the underlined portion would be:
The writer could most effectively strengthen the passage at this point by adding which of the following?
Questions 43–45 ask about the preceding passage as a whole.
Readers are likely to regard the passage as best described by which of the following terms?
Is the author’s use of the pronoun I appropriate in the passage?
Choose the sequence of paragraph numbers that will make the passage’s structure most logical.
Sherlock Holmes, the ingenious and extremely clever detective, with the deer-stalker hat, pipe, and magnifying glass, is a universally recognizable character. Everyone knows of Holmes’s ability to solve even the most bizarre mysteries through the application of cold logic. Therefore, everyone is familiar with the phrase “elementary, my dear Watson,” Holmes’s perennial response to the requests of his baffled sidekick, Dr. Watson, for an explanation of his amazing deductions. Strictly speaking, of course, Holmes’s “deductions” were not deductions at all, but inductive inferences.
But how many people know anything about the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Fans of Holmes might be surprised to discover that he did not want to be engraved forever in the memory of the people as the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. In fact, Conan Doyle sent Holmes to his death at the end of the second book of short stories and subsequently felt a great sense of relief. Having had enough of his famous character by that time, Sherlock Holmes would never divert him again from more serious writing, he promised himself. It took eight years and the offer of a princely sum of money before Conan Doyle could be persuaded to revive the detective. Soap opera characters are sometimes brought back to life after they’ve been pronounced dead, too. [1] Admirers of Holmes’s coldly scientific approach to his detective work may also be taken aback when they learn that Conan Doyle has been deeply immersed in spiritualism. [2] Convinced by these experiences of the validity of paranormal phenomena, that he lectured on spiritualism in towns and villages throughout Britain. [3] For example, he and his family attempted to communicate with the dead by automatic writing, thought to be a method of talking with those no longer among the living, and through a spiritual medium, an individual who supposedly could contact those in the world beyond. [4] Conan Doyle claimed to have grasped materialized hands and watched heavy articles swimming through the air during sessions led by the medium.
Doyle seems never to have asked himself: why they would manifest themselves in such curious ways, or to have reflected on the fact that many of these effects are the standard trappings of cheating mediums. One has to wonder, what would Sherlock Holmes have to say?
For the sake of unity and coherence, sentence 2 should be placed:
Question 60 asks about the preceding passage as a whole.
Which of the following would be the most appropriate subtitle for the passage?
Traditional educational theories stressed lecture-based methods in which students learned by listening to an instructor, but contemporary studies have noted that students learn best when they see, hear, and experience. Based on these studies, current educational theories emphasize auditory, visual, and experiential learning. Such theories are not groundbreaking. For example, medical education has stressed this model for decades. Young doctors in their residency training often repeat the mantra, “see it, do it, teach it.” Interestingly, much of the development in the area of visual and experiential learning fields has come from the business world. Many businesses, from corporate management to consulting, utilize presentations. Traditionally, business presentations had included slides filled with dense text that merely repeated the presenter’s words. Though these slides did provide a visual aspect, the slides were difficult to read, which detracted from their effectiveness.
[1] Over the past decade, technological advances have created additional presentation options, business leaders have teamed with public speaking experts to continue to refine the visual presentation style. [2] A very important development revealed that less cluttered visual aids work better than denser ones. [3] This development led to the understanding that text repeating a presenter’s script did not enhance or improve student or audience learning. [4] Studies showed that visual aids should not simply present a speaker’s words, but instead demonstrate or add to them in some way. [5] These studies emphasized the efficacy of visual representations of the presenter’s dialogue in the form of graphs, charts, art, or pictures.
Several studies in listeners have been published in respected journals, that reveal that aesthetically appealing presentations improve comprehension.It has been determined by researchers that a learning aid can be created from any pleasing image, even one that is irrelevant. Using this model, many presenters have begun projecting nature scenes or famous paintings to accompany presentations. Audience members report not being distracted by the irrelevant images. In fact, most audience members find the pleasing images helpful in creating a positive environment which, in turn, helps him or her focus on the presentation.
[1] Even more recently, of late, cognitive psychologists have noted that students and audience members use multiple senses to take in information. [2] In fact, many experts believe that a teacher’s or presenter’s body language is the most important factor in student or audience reaction. [3] Therefore, many education and public speaking experts are interested in investigating other factors in student and audience reaction. [4] While these developments have not coalesced to form one paradigm for public speaking and presenting, they have underscored many of the new theories in the field of communication. [5] These developments continue to influence trends in the academic world.
After reviewing the essay, the writer is considering inserting the following true statement in this paragraph:
Audio aids, though infrequently used, can also help audiences focus on a presentation.
Should this sentence be added to this paragraph, and if so, what is the most logical placement for it?
Given that all of the following are true, which choice would provide the most effective and logical link between Sentences 1 and 2?
At this point, the writer would like to show how education and public speaking experts have been influenced by the theory about the importance of body language. Given that all of the following are true, which choice best achieves the writer’s purpose?