Reading Comprehension Practice Set

Questions 1–3 are based on the passage below.
Among the earliest published literature by African Americans were slave narratives—autobiographical accounts of the lives of slaves who lived primarily in the American South in the early to mid-1800s. These accounts—which included letters, notes, and diaries—often discussed escapes, slave auctions, interactions with plantation owners and abolitionists, and the forced separation of family members, often parents and children. Some of the best-known slave narratives were written by Josiah Henson and Frederick Douglass. In the last three decades, a renewed awareness of the lives of enslaved African Americans has prompted a wave of novels and biographies, sometimes called “neo-slave narratives,” in which modern writers such as Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler offer a historical or fictional representation of the lives of slaves.
2. The author would likely consider each of the following a slave narrative EXCEPT:
  1. an autobiography by a freeborn African American man who lived in New Orleans in the 1830s.
  2. personal papers of African American field hands who were enslaved in Alabama.
  3. correspondence between two sisters who were auctioned to different plantation owners in rural Georgia.
  4. a letter smuggled to an escaped slave from her brother, a slave in South Carolina.
  5. the diary of a Mississippi slave who was captured while attempting to escape.
3. Consider each of the following choices separately and select all that apply. With which of the following statements would the author be likely to agree?
  1. No neo-slave narratives were published later than the early to mid-1800s.
  2. Neo-slave narratives are written primarily by women, while most slave narratives were written by men.
  3. Some neo-slave narratives are fictional, but all slave narratives are firsthand accounts.
4. The passage provides the most support for which one of the following conclusions?
  1. The work of abolitionists in the Northern states helped bring about the publication of slave narratives.
  2. All of the narratives published in the early to mid-1800s were written by slaves living in Southern states.
  3. Most slave narratives were not published until over a century after they were written.
  4. In the mid-1900s, fewer people knew about slave narratives than have people in the last ten years.
  5. Neo-slave narratives such as those by Butler and Morrison have helped to bring attention to slave narratives by earlier writers.
Questions 4–6 are based on the passage below.
The problematic relationship between Heidegger’s political views and his seminal status as a philosopher is a continuing point of contention in the historical assessment of his achievements. His contributions to Continental philosophy in works such as Sein und Zeit have been read, in some circles, through the critical lens of his affiliation with National Socialism in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. His writing during that time covered a broad range of subjects, including philosophy, politics, and aesthetics. His work on ontology directly influenced his contemporary philosophical thinkers, such as Jean-Paul Sartre. Though he is widely regarded within philosophical circles as one of the preeminent luminaries, along with Husserl, in the modern development of ontology, certain scholars and thinkers militate against the value of his thought in its entirety. To regard Heidegger’s work highly would be, in their eyes, to absolve him of his support of the politics of Nazism, even though he is being evaluated solely on the basis of his contributions to the study of philosophy and not in any political context.
2. Select the sentence in the passage in which the author summarizes the competing attitudes toward Heidegger within the academic community.
3. Consider each of the following choices separately and select all that apply. The author asserts which of the following about Heidegger?
  1. Some academics view him positively for both his political and philosophical work.
  2. His legacy has been affected by opinions he expressed during World War II.
  3. Some academics view him positively, while others cannot countenance him at all.
4. Which conclusion is implied by the author in his description of the status of Heidegger’s legacy?
  1. Heidegger’s work should not be given serious recognition due to his political views.
  2. The Second World War fostered a climate of intellectual innovation in Europe.
  3. It is possible to critically evaluate Heidegger’s contributions to philosophy while not absolving him of responsibility for his political views.
  4. Scholars should consider the entire body of work of a thinker, in every field to which he or she contributed, when assessing that thinker’s legacy in any one field.
  5. It is impossible to divorce the study of politics from the study of philosophy.
Questions 7–10 are based on the passage below.
A common misconception is that color refers only to a wavelength of light in the visual spectrum, from about 400 nanometers (violet) to about 700 nanometers (red). When an object reflects light of a given wavelength, we see that object as the corresponding color. So, for example, we might see a Braeburn apple as red and a Granny Smith apple as green because they reflect light of different wavelengths. However, color is not merely a property of an external physical object but rather the result of an interaction among that object, the light that shines on it, and, finally but most significantly, the manner in which the human eye and brain make sense of the reflected light stimulus. Thus, the study of color can properly fall as much within the realm of psychology as that of physics.

Experience is one psychological factor that informs our perception of color. For example, a child eating by a campfire that emits a great deal of yellow light may believe that the melted Cheddar cheese served on white bread on a white paper plate is actually a white cheese like Swiss or Monterey Jack. This occurs because the yellow light reflects off both the plate and the bread, which the child knows are white, and off the cheese, which the child isn’t sure about. All the objects therefore appear to be the same color, and the child assumes that color is white. On the other hand, an adult with experience viewing things in firelight would intuitively adjust her perception to account for the yellow light and would not make the same mistake.

Color is also perceived differently depending on its context. The noted abstract painter Josef Albers produced an influential body of work based on this phenomenon, including his series Homage to the Square featuring nested squares of different colors. In one psychological experiment testing perception, the letter X is presented against two colored backgrounds. Although the letter is identical each time it is presented, it appears olive green in one context and lavender in the other context. This effect is achieved when the X is given a low-saturation blue color, or gray-blue, and the backgrounds are also low-saturation colors with hues on either side of blue on the color wheel. Because blue falls between purple and green on the color wheel, a gray-blue X against a gray-purple background will look gray-green, or olive, and the same X against an olive background will look gray-purple, or lavender. In a similar manner, an intermediate color will look different against different primary color backdrops; teal, for instance, will look green against a blue background and blue against a green background.

Other subjective factors also influence the experience of color. These include cultural norms (Westerners most often name blue as their favorite color, whereas in China red is preferred) and simply what we learn about color. Consider that if a child learns that stop signs are “red,” the child will call them “red.” Another person in that society will also have learned to call stop signs “red.” However, whether the two people are experiencing the same color is unknown since that experience exists only in the mind. Therefore, if one were to tell an interior designer that color is an immutable physical property of objects, one would meet with skepticism. Before placing the electric blue sofa in a client’s living room, the designer considers the color of light the various light fixtures will emanate, the colors of the carpet and walls, and her client’s feelings about electric blue, which after all may not even be the same color in the client’s mind as it is in the designer’s.
2. Which of the following statements best expresses the main idea of the passage?
  1. Color is primarily a psychological construct, and therefore the study of physics is not relevant to an understanding of how color is perceived.
  2. The phenomenon of color is a combined effect of the wavelength of light that shines on an object, the wavelength of light reflected by the object, and the human mind’s perception of the light stimulus that comes to the eye.
  3. Scientists have determined that although people may perceive color differently in different situations, color is an immutable characteristic of objects.
  4. Creative professionals, such as artists and interior designers, view color significantly differently than do scientists.
  5. To say that an object is a particular color is meaningless because color is a subjective perception influenced by experience, culture, and context and cannot therefore be ascertained to be a specific physical characteristic.
3. The author would be most likely to agree with which of the following ideas?
  1. When attempting to achieve a particular aesthetic effect, a graphic designer should consider how the color used for the border of an advertisement will appear next to the color of the text.
  2. A decorator working for a client in China would not purchase an electric blue sofa for that individual’s living room, because blue is not a preferred color in China.
  3. Companies designing packaging for their products should avoid using gray tones because these would cause different customers to see the colors differently, thereby rendering the brand message inconsistent.
  4. Because red is a primary color, a wall should not be painted red if a sofa of an intermediate color will be placed against it, as the sofa’s color may be distorted by its proximity to the wall.
  5. Artists often explore the interaction of adjacent colors when juxtaposing different forms in the composition of their paintings.
4. Consider each of the following choices separately and select all that apply. According to the passage, which of the following accurately describes human perception of color?
  1. A low-saturation color against a low-saturation background of an adjacent hue on the color wheel will appear a similar shade as the other adjacent hue.
  2. An intermediate color against a background that is one of the intermediate color’s component primary colors will be difficult to distinguish from that background.
  3. Letters written in an intermediate color or in a low-saturation color are more likely to be misread by children than by adults.