ACT & College Preparation Course for the Christian Student

Last week I was reading the New York Times and, being somewhat bored, I visited the “dining” section. I love to compare the culinary offerings in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to New York City, New York. Of course, we don’t have the Red Rooster Harlem, serving gourmet Southern cuisine — what an oxymoron! — but we do have Hong Kong Buffet that lovingly serves amuse-bouche fried cheese sticks, a Johnstown favorite.

I remember attending my son’s wedding reception, so wonderfully hosted by his Indianapolis in-laws. There was a nice man with white gloves standing next to me. Not sure why he was there, I tried to shake his hand, which he politely did but kept standing there. I was handed a warm cloth by a man wearing white gloves. I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do with it — I am embarrassed to tell you what I do with small white clothes—but I saw that most folks were wiping their hands, and some pioneering souls were even wiping their faces. I, being a real trailblazer, went further. I wiped my hands, my face, nose, and when I was moving on to my ears my wife Karen stopped me with a glaring frown. I guess those things are not for ears.

Next, the nice man with a towel on his arm offered me one little bread roll that he parsimoniously placed on a plate that swallowed the pathetic thing. The nice man, no doubt discerning my disappointment, asked me if I wanted a couple more rolls, but my sweet wife, who occasionally helps me out this way, with somewhat too much enthusiasm replied, “No.”

Next the waiter — what was he really? — gave me something that looked a lot like a salad except that it had all kinds of red stuff, allegedly lettuce. It looked nothing like my personal favorite — an iceberg wedge smothered in real blue cheese dressing. I graciously gave my salad to my wife, hoping she would reciprocate by giving me her pigs in a blanket and rigatoni that every Johnstown wedding sports — but do you know what? Apparently these poor Indiana people have not yet discovered these foods of the gods. There were no pigs in a blanket and rigatoni at this Indianapolis wedding. I suppose nobody told these poor folks that wedding cuisine always includes these two items. In fact, if food has two motifs, if life is full of motifs, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, one fills one’s wedding reception and life with simple, tasty metaphors.

I am an inveterate Johnstown cuisine lover. My love affair, my wife Karen would say, has put 80 pounds on me in the last 21 years, but she is being ungenerous since I mostly eat her wonderful cooking. And what fine cooking it is! I remember the first meal Karen cooked for me in 1977. It was broiled chicken seasoned with salad dressing and boiled broccoli seasoned with lemon pepper. Until then, I had never eaten broiled chicken — my chicken was always fried — unless Big Momma served her famous chicken and dumplings. After that inaugural advent, I never had fried chicken again! Broccoli, southern style, was cooked longer than it took General Grant to capture Vicksburg, and I had heard of pepper (and used it liberally after I coated everything with salt) and lemons (which I put in my sweetened ice tea) — but never both together. Actually, my first meal was pretty good as were the next 33,000 or so she has cooked for me — my expanding waistline is a testament to my thorough conversion to Nouveau Yankee cuisine. Yummy good!

Well, anyway, the New York Times article argues that finally — finally — there is a vegetarian burger that rivals the most delicious Whopper or Quarter Pounder. Apparently, while the rest of us languish in the throes of the new Angus Quarter Pounder, inventive New York chefs have been working tirelessly to create the penultimate veggie burger. Food reviewer Jeff Gordinier is veritably overcome with joy when he writes “Veggie burgers . . . have explored into countless variations of good, and in doing so they’ve begun to look like a bellwether for the American appetite.”1

Bellwether for the American appetite? Excuse me, but I doubt it. Can you imagine cruising through the MacDonald’s drive through and asking for a veggie burger with fries and milk shake? Hmm. . . .

But excuse me. I respect vegetarians. More power to you. But why do you want to copy my food? Do I try to copy yours? Respectfully, I doubt, even in NYC, that one can find broccoli and asparagus that will match the effervescence of a Quarter Pounder with cheese. Nonetheless, “There is something very satisfying about holding one’s dinner in one’s hand.” Indeed. But it can’t be done. Not really. A meatless burger is an oxymoron and it can never be a dinner.

And here is another oxymoron — and this is where I am taking this — our society is desperate to emulate the Christian life. The Christian life, like the hamburger, is genuine, real, juicy, and full of protein. Lived in the right way, it can bring great life to a person and to his world. And it cannot be replaced by good feelings, good intentions, or other existential offerings. As Tolstoy writes in War and Peace, “Let us be persuaded that the less we let our feeble human minds roam, the better we shall please God, who rejects all knowledge that does not come from Him; and the less we seek to fathom what He has been pleased to conceal from us, the sooner will he vouchsafe its revelation to us through His divine Spirit.”2

ATH

General Math

Divide the number 126 into two parts so that one part is 8 more than the other.

The sum of two numbers is 25, and the larger is 3 less than three times the smaller. What are the numbers?

Mr. Y gave $6 to his three boys. To the second he gave 25 cents more than to the third, and to the first three times as much as to the second. How much did each receive?

Arthur bought some apples and twice as many oranges for 78 cents. The apples cost 3 cents apiece, and the oranges 5 cents apiece. How many of each did he buy?

Test-Taking

Insight

During the Test

There are also some things to keep in mind when you are TAKING the test.

• First, read the directions carefully!! I know you have seen this type of question over and over again, and I know that you have memorized the directions. But spend 30 seconds and review the directions.

• Remember to preview the test to see how much time you need to allot for each section. If the test is all multiple choice questions, it is good to know that immediately. If you have 45 questions and 45 minutes to answer those questions, then spend no more than 3 seconds on each question so you will have time to check your answers.

• Work on the “easiest” parts first. Pace yourself to allow time for the more difficult parts.

• Never leave a blank space. Guess!

• Write in the test booklet.

• Save time at the end of the exam to review your test and make sure you haven’t left out any answers or parts of answers.

CIENCE

Mathematic Calculations

Light has a velocity of 186,000 miles in a second. It takes about eight minutes to reach us from the sun. How far away is the sun?

8 X 186,000
600 X 186,000
8 X 60 X 186,000
None of the Above

Assume a straight bar electro-magnet in circuit, so that a current can be made intermittent, say, once a second. When the circuit is closed and the magnet is made, the field at once is formed and travels outward at the rate of 186,000 miles per second. When the current stops, the field adjacent is destroyed. Another closure develops the field again, which, like the other, travels outward; and so there may be formed a series of waves in the ether, each 186,000 miles long, with an electro-magnetic antecedent. If the circuit was closed 186,000 times a second, they would be but one mile long.

If the circuit were closed ten times a second, how long would the waves be?

18,600 miles long
186,000 miles long
350,000 miles long
The answer cannot be determined by the information given.

OCABULARY

Brave New World4

Aldous Huxley

Huxley’s vision of the future in his astonishing 1931 novel Brave New World continues to intrigue readers into the 21st century. Huxley’s world is one in which Western civilization has been maintained through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, where people are genetically designed to be useful to the ruling class.

Suggested Vocabulary Words

The Director opened a door. They were in a large bare room, very bright and sunny; for the whole of the southern wall was a single window. Half a dozen nurses, trousered and jacketed in the regulation white viscose-linen uniform, their hair aseptically hidden under white caps, were engaged in setting out bowls of roses in a long row across the floor. Big bowls, packed tight with blossom. Thousands of petals, ripe-blown and silkily smooth, like the cheeks of innumerable little cherubs, but of cherubs, in that bright light, not exclusively pink and Aryan, but also luminously Chinese, also Mexican, also apoplectic with too much blowing of celestial trumpets, also pale as death, pale with the posthumous whiteness of marble. (chapter 2)
An almost naked Indian was very slowly climbing down the ladder from the first-floor terrace of a neighboring house — rung after rung, with the tremulous caution of extreme old age. His face was profoundly wrinkled and black, like a mask of obsidian. The toothless mouth had fallen in. At the corners of the lips, and on each side of the chin, a few long bristles gleamed almost white against the dark skin. The long unbraided hair hung down in grey wisps round his face. His body was bent and emaciated to the bone, almost fleshless. Very slowly he came down, pausing at each rung before he ventured another step. (chapter 7)
Lenina alone said nothing. Pale, her blue eyes clouded with an unwonted melancholy, she sat in a corner, cut off from those who surrounded her by an emotion which they did not share. She had come to the party filled with a strange feeling of anxious exultation. (chapter 12)
But who was he to be pampered with the daily and hourly sight of loveliness? Who was he to be living in the visible presence of God? . , . Seeing them, the Savage made a grimace; but he was to become reconciled to them in course of time; for at night they twinkled gaily with geometrical constellations, or else, flood-lighted, pointed their luminous fingers (with a gesture whose significance nobody in England but the Savage now understood) solemnly towards the plumbless mysteries of heaven. (chapter 18)

NGLISH

Sentence Structure

German letter to America at beginning of World War I:

I do not know what is thought of this war in America. I assume there have been published in America the telegrams exchanged between the German Emperor, the Emperor of Russia, and the King of England, containing the history of the events that preceded the outbreak of the war, and which bears irrefutable testimony of how the Emperor, until the last moment, strove hard to preserve the peace.

These efforts had to be futile, as Russia, under all circumstances, had resolved upon war, and as England, which for decades had encouraged the anti-German nationalism in Russia and France, did not avail herself of the splendid opportunity offered her to prove her often-emphasized love of peace. . . .

When once the archives are opened the world will learn how often Germany extended to England her friendly hand, but England did not desire the friendship of Germany. Jealous of the development of Germany, and feeling that by German efficiency and German industry she has been surpassed in some fields, she had the desire to crush Germany by brute force, as she in former times subdued Spain, Holland, and France. She believed the moment had arrived, and therefore the entry of German troops into Belgium gave her a welcome pretext to take part in the war.

Germany, however, was forced to enter Belgium because she had to forestall the planned French advance, and Belgium only awaited this advance to join France. That only a pretext was involved as far as England is concerned is proved by the fact that already on the afternoon of Aug. 2, that is, prior to the violation of Belgium neutrality by Germany, Sir Edward Grey assured the French Ambassador unconditionally of the help of England in case the German fleet attacked the French coast.

Moral scruple, however, the English policy does not know. And thus the English people, who always posed as the protagonist of freedom and right, has allied itself with Russia, the representative of the most terrible barbarism, a country that knows no spiritual or no religious freedom, that tramples upon the freedom of peoples as well as of individuals. Already England is beginning to recognize that she has made a mistake in her calculations. . . .

Having strangled the news service of Germany to the whole world, and having opened the campaign against us with a falsehood, England will tell your countrymen that the German troops burned down Belgian villages and cities, but will pass over in silence the fact that Belgian girls gouged out the eyes of defenseless wounded. Officials of Belgian cities have invited our officers to dinner and shot and killed them across the table. Contrary to all international law, the whole civilian population of Belgium was called out, and after having at first shown friendliness, carried on in the rear of our troops a terrible warfare with concealed weapons.5

I assume there have been published in America the telegrams exchanged between the German Emperor, the Emperor of Russia, and the King of England.

I assume there have been published in America the telegrams exchanged among the German Emperor, the Emperor of Russia, and the King of England.
There have been published in America the telegrams exchanged between the German Emperor, the Emperor of Russia, and the King of England.
Exchanged between the German Emperor, the Emperor of Russia, and the King of England I assume there have been published in America the telegrams.
No change is necessary.

When once the archives are opened the world will learn how often Germany extended to England her friendly hand, but England did not desire the friendship of Germany.

When once the archives are opened the world will learn how often Germany extended to England her friendly hand; however, England did not desire the friendship of Germany.
When once the archives are opened the world will learn how often Germany extended to England their friendly hand, but England did not desire the friendship of Germany.
When once the archives are opened the world will learn how often Germany extended to England her friendly hand, but England did not desire the friendship of Germany.
No change is necessary.

Strangling the news service of Germany to the whole world, and having opened the campaign against us with a falsehood, England will tell your countrymen that the German troops burned down Belgian villages and cities, but will pass over in silence the fact that Belgian girls gouged out the eyes of defenseless wounded.

Having strangled the news service of Germany to the whole world, and having opened the campaign against us with a falsehood, England will tell your countrymen that the German troops burned down Belgian villages and cities, but will pass over in silence the fact that Belgian girls gouged out the eyes of defenseless wounded.
Having strangled the news service of Germany to the whole world, and having opened the campaign against us with a falsehood, England will tell your countrymen that the German troops burned down Belgian villages and cities, but will pass over in silence the fact that Belgian girls gouged out the eyes of defenseless wounded.
Having strangled the news service of Germany to the whole world, and having opened the campaign against us with a falsehood, furthermore England will tell your countrymen that the German troops burned down Belgian villages and cities, but will pass over in silence the fact that Belgian girls gouged out the eyes of defenseless wounded.
No change is necessary.

EADING

Infer from the Text

I was reading an essay by Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death. He reminds us that 1984 came and went and Orwell’s nightmare did not occur. The roots of liberal democracy had held.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another equally chilling apocalyptic vision: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression — Big Brother. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, volition, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to cherish the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. “What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of neglect. Orwell feared we would become a captive to ubiquitous culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture. As Huxley remarked in his sequel Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny ‘failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.’ In Orwell’s 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”6 (Based on Neil Postman’s foreword).

From the text the reader may infer that:

The author believes that Aldous Huxley is the best British author of the 19th century.
The author is opposed to banning books.
The author is concerned because culture has been trialized.
The author is probably an ecologically minded liberal.

The reader may infer:

The author is concerned about the future of the world.
The author likes science fiction.
The author thinks Huxley and Orwell say the same thing.
None of the above.

RITING

Problem Sentence	Problem Number	Correct Sentence
I believe that Nazi Germany started World War II.
Hitler attacked Stalin in 1941; he destroyed most of Russia’s military.
The German army attacked on July 22, 1941, but the Russian army is not ready
The German aoldier attacked the train station with a black SS uniform.
The surprise attack completely affected the outcome of the first year of fighting.
The German Army loved to fight and overwhelming its enemies.
You should know that Germany almost captured Moscow in 1941.
Every soldier finished their tour of duty.
Hitler and his generals enjoyed his victories.
Ultimately the German army won the Kiev campaign because they tried to.