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AP ELA Bizzard Bag 2014 - 2015 Text Comprehension and Analysis
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Rigid definitions in literature are, however, dangerous. At bottom, it is what we feel,
not what we think, that makes us put certain poems together and apart from others; and
feelings cannot be defined, but only related. If we define a poem, we say what we think
about it; and that may not sufficiently imply the essential thing the poem does for us.
Hence the definition is liable either to be too strict, or to admit work which does not
properly satisfy the criterion of feeling. It seems probable that, in the last resort,
classification in literature rests on that least tangible, least definable matter, style; for
style is the sign of the poem's spirit, and it is the spirit that we feel. If we can get some
notion of how those poems, which we call epic, agree with one another in style, it is likely
we shall be as close as may be to a definition of epic. I use the word "style," of course, in
its largest sense—manner of conception as well as manner of composition.
An easy way to define epic, though not a very profitable way, would be to say simply,
that an epic is a poem which produces feelings similar to those produced by Paradise
Lost or the Iliad, Beowulf or the Song of Roland. Indeed, you might include all the epics of
Europe in this definition without losing your breath; for the epic poet is the rarest kind of
artist. And while it is not a simple matter to say off-hand what it is that is common to all
these poems, there seems to be general acknowledgment that they are clearly separable
from other kinds of poetry; and this although the word epic has been rather badly abused.
For instance, The Faery Queene and La Divina Commedia have been called epic poems;
but I do not think that anyone could fail to admit, on a little pressure, that the experience
of reading The Faery Queene or La Divina Commedia is not in the least like the experience
of readingParadise Lost or the Iliad. But as a poem may have lyrical qualities without being
a lyric, so a poem may have epical qualities without being an epic. In all the poems which
the world has agreed to call epics, there is a story told, and well told. But Dante's poem
attempts no story at all, and Spenser's, though it attempts several, does not tell them
well—it scarcely attempts to make the reader believe in them, being much more
concerned with the decoration and the implication of its fables than with the fables
themselves. What epic quality, detached from epic proper, do these poems possess, then,
apart from the mere fact that they take up a great many pages? It is simply a question of
their style—the style of their conception and the style of their writing; the whole style of
their imagination, in fact. They take us into a region in which nothing happens that is not
deeply significant; a dominant, noticeably symbolic, purpose presides over each poem,
moulds it greatly and informs it throughout.
from "The Epic: An Essay" by Lascelles Abercrombie
1. In this passage, the author primarily attempts to
A. malign the works of Dante and Spenser.
B. dispute the current definition of literary "style."
C. challenge the trend toward rigid definitions in literature.
D. clarify the current definition of an epic.
E. create a new category of poetry.
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My grandmother had a reverence for the sun, a holy regard that now is all but gone out
of mankind. There was a wariness in her, and an ancient awe. She was a Christian in her
later years, but she had come a long way about, and she never forgot her birthright. As a
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child she had been to the Sun Dances; she had taken part in those annual rites, and by
them she had learned the restoration of her people in the presence of Tai-me. She was
about seven when the last Kiowa Sun Dance was held in 1887 on the Washita River above
Rainy Mountain Creek. The buffalo were gone. In order to consummate the ancient
sacrifice—to impale the head of a buffalo bull upon the medicine tree—a delegation of
old men journeyed into Texas, there to beg and barter for an animal from the Goodnight
herd. She was ten when the Kiowas came together for the last time as a living Sun Dance
culture. They could find no buffalo; they had to hang an old hide from the sacred tree.
Before the dance could begin, a company of soldiers rode out from Fort Sill under orders
to disperse the tribe. Forbidden without cause the essential act of their faith, having seen
the wild herds slaughtered and left to rot upon the ground, the Kiowas backed away
forever from the medicine tree. That was July 20, 1890, at the great bend of the Washita.
My grandmother was there. Without bitterness, and for as long as she lived, she bore a
vision of deicide.
Now that I can have her only in memory, I see my grandmother in several postures that
were peculiar to her: standing at the wood stove on a winter morning and turning meat in
a great iron skillet; sitting at the south window, bent above her beadwork, and
afterwards, when her vision failed, looking down for a long time into the fold of her
hands; going out upon a cane, very slowly as she did when the weight of age came upon
her; praying. I remember her most often at prayer. She made long, rambling prayers out
of suffering and hope, having seen many things. I was never sure that I had the right to
hear, so exclusive were they of all mere custom and company. The last time I saw her she
prayed standing by the side of her bed at night, naked to the waist, the light of a kerosene
lamp moving upon her dark skin. Her long, black hair, always drawn and braided in the
day, lay upon her shoulders and against her breasts like a shawl. I do not speak Kiowa, and
I never understood her prayers, but there was something inherently sad in the sound,
some merest hesitation upon the syllables of sorrow. She began in a high and descending
pitch, exhausting her breath to silence; then again and again—and always the same
intensity of effort, of something that is, and is not, like urgency in the human voice.
Transported so in the dancing light among the shadows of her room, she seemed beyond
the reach of time. But that was illusion; I think I knew then that I should not see her again.
Houses are like sentinels in the plain, old keepers of the weather watch. There, in a
very little while, wood takes on the appearance of great age. All colors wear soon away in
the wind and rain, and then the wood is burned gray and the grain appears and the nails
turn red with rust. The windowpanes are black and opaque; you imagine there is nothing
within, and indeed there are many ghosts, bones given up to the land. They stand here
and there against the sky, and you approach them for a longer time than you expect. They
belong in the distance; it is their domain.
Once there was a lot of sound in my grandmother's house, a lot of coming and going,
feasting and talk. The summers there were full of excitement and reunion. The Kiowas are
a summer people; they abide the cold and keep to themselves, but when the season turns
and the land becomes warm and vital they cannot hold still; an old love of going returns
upon them.
adapted from The Way To Rainy Mountain, by N. Scott Momaday. Used with permission.
Copyright © 1969 University of New Mexico Press.
2. What does the author believe concerning the traditional Sun Dance culture?
A. It was a vital aspect to the Kiowa's sense of identity.
B. It came to an end because of inevitable and necessary change.
C. The ancient tradition should be reintroduced.
D. It has little relevance in today's world
E. The ceremony involved an uncivilized practice.
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My hand is to me what your hearing and sight together are to you. In large measure we
travel the same highways, read the same books, speak the same language, yet our
experiences are different. All my comings and goings turn on the hand as on a pivot. It is
the hand that binds me to the world of men and women. The hand is my feeler with which
I reach through isolation and darkness and seize every pleasure, every activity that my
fingers encounter. With the dropping of a little word from another's hand into mine, a
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slight flutter of the fingers, began the intelligence, the joy, the fullness of my life. Like Job,
I feel as if a hand had made me, fashioned me together round about and moulded my
very soul.
In all my experiences and thoughts I am conscious of a hand. Whatever moves me,
whatever thrills me, is as a hand that touches me in the dark, and that touch is my reality.
You might as well say that a sight which makes you glad, or a blow which brings the
stinging tears to your eyes, is unreal as to say that those impressions are unreal which I
have accumulated by means of touch. The delicate tremble of a butterfly's wings in my
hand, the soft petals of violets curling in the cool folds of their leaves or lifting sweetly out
of the meadow-grass, the clear, firm outline of face and limb, the smooth arch of a horse's
neck and the velvety touch of his nose—all these, and a thousand resultant combinations,
which take shape in my mind, constitute my world.
Ideas make the world we live in, and impressions furnish ideas. My world is built of
touch-sensations, devoid of physical colour and sound; but without colour and sound it
breathes and throbs with life. Every object is associated in my mind with tactual qualities
which, combined in countless ways, give me a sense of power, of beauty, or of
incongruity: for with my hands I can feel the comic as well as the beautiful in the outward
appearance of things. Remember that you, dependent on your sight, do not realize how
many things are tangible. All palpable things are mobile or rigid, solid or liquid, big or
small, warm or cold, and these qualities are variously modified. The coolness of a waterlily rounding into bloom is different from the coolness of an evening wind in summer, and
different again from the coolness of the rain that soaks into the hearts of growing things
and gives them life and body. The velvet of the rose is not that of a ripe peach or of a
baby's dimpled cheek. The hardness of the rock is to the hardness of wood what a man's
deep bass is to a woman's voice when it is low. What I call beauty I find in certain
combinations of all these qualities, and is largely derived from the flow of curved and
straight lines which is over all things.
"What does the straight line mean to you?" I think you will ask. It means several things.
It symbolizes duty. It seems to have the quality of inexorableness that duty has. When I
have something to do that must not be set aside, I feel as if I were going forward in a
straight line, bound to arrive somewhere, or go on forever without swerving to the right
or to the left. That is what it means.
from The World I Live In by Helen Keller
3. The primary purpose of the passage is to
A. gain sympathy for the author's disabilities.
B. describe the experiences of the author.
C. vigorously refute false ideas about disabilities.
D. elaborate on the author's interpretation of duty.
E. emphasize the beauty of the natural world.
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What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief
sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from
the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist for our fellow-men—in the
first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for
all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of
sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend
on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give
in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. I am strongly drawn to the
simple life and am often oppressed by the feeling that I am engrossing an unnecessary
amount of the labour of my fellow-men. I regard class differences as contrary to justice
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and, in the last resort, based on force. I also consider that plain living is good for
everybody, physically and mentally.
To inquire after the meaning or object of one's own existence or of creation generally
has always seemed to me absurd from an objective point of view. And yet everybody has
certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavours and his judgments. In this
sense I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves—such an
ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on
my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully have been Truth,
Goodness, and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship which men of like mind, of
preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and
scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty. The ordinary objects of human
endeavour—property, outward success, luxury—have always seemed to me
contemptible.
My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted
oddly with my pronounced freedom from the need for direct contact with other human
beings and human communities. I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my
country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the
face of all these ties I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for
solitude—a feeling which increases with the years. One is sharply conscious, yet without
regret, of the limits to the possibility of mutual understanding and sympathy with one's
fellow-creatures. Such a person no doubt loses something in the way of geniality and
light-heartedness; on the other hand, he is largely independent of the opinions, habits,
and judgments of his fellows and avoids the temptation to take his stand on such insecure
foundations.
from The World As I See It by Albert Einstein, http://www.einsteinandreligion.com
4. Which of the following best summarizes the main topic of the passage?
A.
personal discovery
C.
B.
social bonding
D. social reform
E.
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personal achievement
social obligation
Gentlefolks in general have a very awkward rock ahead in life—the rock ahead of their
own idleness. Their lives being, for the most part, passed in looking about them for
something to do, it is curious to see—especially when their tastes are of what is called the
intellectual sort—how often they drift blindfold into some nasty pursuit. Nine times out of
ten they take to torturing something, or to spoiling something—and they firmly believe
they are improving their minds, when the plain truth is, they are only making a mess in
the house.
I have seen them (ladies, I am sorry to say, as well as gentlemen) go out, day after day,
for example, with empty pill-boxes, and catch newts, and beetles, and spiders, and frogs,
and come home and stick pins through the miserable wretches, or cut them up, without a
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pang of remorse, into little pieces. You see my young master, or my young mistress,
poring over one of their spiders' insides with a magnifying-glass; or you meet one of their
frogs walking downstairs without his head—and when you wonder what this cruel
nastiness means, you are told that it means a taste in my young master or my young
mistress for natural history. Sometimes, again, you see them occupied for hours together
in spoiling a pretty flower with pointed instruments, out of a stupid curiosity to know
what the flower is made of. Is its colour any prettier, or its scent any sweeter, when you
DO know?
But there! the poor souls must get through the time, you see—they must get through
the time. You dabbled in nasty mud, and made pies, when you were a child; and you
dabble in nasty science, and dissect spiders, and spoil flowers, when you grow up. In the
one case and in the other, the secret of it is, that you have got nothing to think of in your
poor empty head, and nothing to do with your poor idle hands. And so it ends in your
spoiling canvas with paints, and making a smell in the house; or in keeping tadpoles in a
glass box full of dirty water, and turning everybody's stomach in the house; or in chipping
off bits of stone here, there, and everywhere, and dropping grit into all the victuals in the
house; or in staining your fingers in the pursuit of photography, and doing justice without
mercy on everybody's face in the house.
It often falls heavy enough, no doubt, on people who are really obliged to get their
living, to be forced to work for the clothes that cover them, the roof that shelters them,
and the food that keeps them going. But compare the hardest day's work you ever did
with the idleness that splits flowers and pokes its way into spiders' stomachs, and thank
your stars that your head has got something it MUST think of, and your hands something
that they MUST do.
from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
5. The speaker's attitude toward the gentlefolk can best be described as one of
I.
II.
III.
IV.
unconditional admiration.
insincere flattery.
affectionate condescension.
bitter satire.
A. II only
B. I, II, III, and IV
C. III only
D. I, II, and IV
E. I, II, and III
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Ours is a world of efficiency. Although more obvious on the computer screen, and on
the command buttons and touch-sensitive levers of the machines we rely quite heavily
upon, efficiency expectations met in business and financial life insinuate themselves into
the intimacy of our private lives as well. As a result of efficiency expectations, we have
changed almost everything we inherited in our homes—kitchen, study, or bathroom—and
redefined our respective social or family roles. We do almost everything others used to do
for us. We cook (if warming up prefabricated dishes in a microwave oven still qualifies as
cooking), do the laundry (if selecting dirty sheets or clothes by color and fabric and
stuffing them into the machine qualifies as washing), type or desktop publish, transport
(ourselves, our children). Machines replaced servants, and we became their servants in
turn. We have to learn their language of instructions and to cope with the consequences
their use entails: increased energy demand, pollution, waste, and most important,
dependence. Ours is a world of brief encounters in which "How are you?" is not a
question reflecting concern or expecting a real answer, but a formula. Once it meant what
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it expressed and prefaced dialogue. Now it is the end of interaction, or at best the
introduction to a dialogue totally independent of the question. Where everyone living
within the model of literacy expected the homogeneous background of shared language,
we now find a very fragmented reality of sub-languages, images, sounds, body gestures,
and new conventions.
Despite the heavy investment society has made in literacy over hundreds of years,
literacy is no longer adopted by all as a desired educational goal. Neither is it actively
pursued for immediate practical or long-term reasons. People seem to acknowledge that
they need not even that amount of literacy imposed upon them by obligatory education.
For quite a few—speech writers, editors, perhaps novelists and educators—literacy is
indeed a skill which they aptly use for making a living. They know and apply rules of
correct language usage. Methods for augmenting the efficiency of the message they put in
the mouths of politicians, soap-opera actors, businessmen, activists and many others in
need of somebody to write (and sometimes even to think) for them are part of their
trade. For others, these rules are a means of exploring the wealth of fiction, poetry,
history, and philosophy. For a great majority, literacy is but another skill required in high
school and college, but not necessarily an essential component of their current and, more
importantly, future lives and work. This majority, estimated at ca. 75% of the population,
believes that all one has to know is already stored for them and made available as an
expected social service—mathematics in the cash register or pocket calculator, chemistry
in the laundry detergent, physics in the toaster, language in the greeting cards available
for all imaginable occasions, eventually incorporated, as spellers or writing routines, into
the word processing programs they use or others use for them.
from The Civilization of Illiteracy by Mihai Nadin
6. The first paragraph supports the author's conclusion that
A. family and social roles are affected more by society than by tradition.
B. increased efficiency has led to a more homogeneous society.
C. pollution and waste are unacceptable byproducts of efficiency.
D. interaction with machines has affected interaction between people.
E. traditional family life has been replaced by business and financial life.
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In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar
systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the
highest and most mendacious1 minute of "world history"—yet only a minute. After nature
had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.
One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched,
how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in
nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again,
nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that would lead
beyond human life. It is human, rather, and only its owner and producer gives it such
importance, as if the world pivoted around it. But if we could communicate with the
mosquito, then we would learn that he floats through the air with the same selfimportance, feeling within itself the flying center of the world. There is nothing in nature
so despicable or insignificant that it cannot immediately be blown up like a bag by a slight
breath of this power of knowledge; and just as every porter wants an admirer, the
proudest human being, the philosopher, thinks that he sees on the eyes of the universe
telescopically focused from all sides on his actions and thoughts.
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It is strange that this should be the effect of the intellect, for after all it was given only
as an aid to the most unfortunate, most delicate, most evanescent beings in order to hold
them for a minute in existence, from which otherwise, without this gift, they would have
every reason to flee as quickly as Lessing's son.2 That haughtiness which goes with
knowledge and feeling, which shrouds the eyes and senses of man in a blinding fog,
therefore deceives him about the value of existence by carrying in itself the most
flattering evaluation of knowledge itself. Its most universal effect is deception; but even
its most particular effects have something of the same character.
The intellect, as a means for the preservation of the individual, unfolds its chief powers
in simulation; for this is the means by which the weaker, less robust individuals preserve
themselves, since they are denied the chance of waging the struggle for existence with
horns or the fangs of beasts of prey. In man this art of simulation reaches its peak: here
deception, flattering, lying and cheating, talking behind the back, posing, living in
borrowed splendor, being masked, the disguise of convention, acting a role before others
and before oneself—in short, the constant fluttering around the single flame of vanity is
so much the rule and the law that almost nothing is more incomprehensible than how an
honest and pure urge for truth could make its appearance among men. They are deeply
immersed in illusions and dream images; their eye glides only over the surface of things
and sees "forms"; their feeling nowhere lead into truth, but contents itself with the
reception of stimuli, playing, as it were, a game of blindman's buff on the backs of things.
Moreover, man permits himself to be lied to at night, his life long, when he dreams, and
his moral sense never even tries to prevent this—although men have been said to have
overcome snoring by sheer will power.
What, indeed, does man know of himself! Can he even once perceive himself
completely, laid out as if in an illuminated glass case? Does not nature keep much the
most from him, even about his body, to spellbind and confine him in a proud, deceptive
consciousness, far from the coils of the intestines, the quick current of the blood stream,
and the involved tremors of the fibers? She threw away the key; and woe to the
calamitous curiosity which might peer just once through a crack in the chamber of
consciousness and look down, and sense that man rests upon the merciless, the greedy,
the insatiable, the murderous, in the indifference of his ignorance—hanging in dreams, as
it were, upon the back of a tiger. In view of this, whence in all the world comes the urge
for truth?
from "On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense" by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
1
false or untrue
In a famous letter to Johann Joachim Eschenburg (December 31, 1778), Lessing relates
the death of his infant son, who "understood the world so well that he left it at the first
opportunity."
2
7. The main idea of the final paragraph can best be summarized as
A. life is better lived in a state of ignorant bliss.
B. nature is an antagonistic enemy of humanity.
C. mankind will be better off once truth is discovered.
D. truth is by nature obscured from mankind.
E. humanity does not wish to know nature's truth.
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The world war represents not the triumph, but the birth of democracy. The true ideal
of democracy—the rule of a people by the demos, or group soul—is a thing unrealized.
How then is it possible to consider or discuss an architecture of democracy—the shadow
of a shade? It is not possible to do so with any degree of finality, but by an intention of
consciousness upon this juxtaposition of ideas—architecture and democracy—signs of the
times may yield new meanings, relations may emerge between things apparently
unrelated, and the future, always existent in every present moment, may be evoked by
that strange magic which resides in the human mind.
Architecture, at its worst as at its best, reflects always a true image of the thing that
produced it; a building is revealing even though it is false, just as the face of a liar tells the
thing his words endeavor to conceal. This being so, let us make such architecture as is
ours declare to us our true estate.
The architecture of the United States, from the period of the Civil War, up to the
beginning of the present crisis, everywhere reflects a struggle to be free of a vicious and
depraved form of feudalism, grown strong under the very ægis of democracy. The
qualities that made feudalism endeared and enduring; qualities written in beauty on the
cathedral cities of mediaeval Europe—faith, worship, loyalty, magnanimity—were either
vanished or banished from this pseudo-democratic, aridly scientific feudalism, leaving an
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inheritance of strife and tyranny—a strife grown mean, a tyranny grown prudent, but full
of sinister power the weight of which we have by no means ceased to feel.
Power, strangely mingled with timidity; ingenuity, frequently misdirected; ugliness, the
result of a false ideal of beauty—these in general characterize the architecture of our
immediate past; an architecture "without ancestry or hope of posterity," an architecture
devoid of coherence or conviction; willing to lie, willing to steal. What impression such a
city as Chicago or Pittsburgh might have made upon some denizen of those cathedralcrowned feudal cities of the past we do not know. He would certainly have been amazed
at its giant energy, and probably revolted at its grimy dreariness. We are wont to pity the
mediaeval man for the dirt he lived in, even while smoke greys our sky and dirt permeates
the very air we breathe: we think of castles as grim and cathedrals as dim, but they were
beautiful and gay with color compared with the grim, dim canyons of our city streets.
from Architecture and Democracy by Claude Fayette Bragdon
8. Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the second and third paragraphs?
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A.
Nations will slowly begin to develop the traits reflected in their architecture.
B.
Architecture of the Civil War era was modeled after mediaeval cathedrals.
C.
Architecture operates more like a mirror than a deceptive façade.
D.
Architecture is mainly influenced by a nation's experiences with war.
E.
The architecture of Europe is characterized by pseudo-democracy.
If there is any virtue in advertisements—and a journalist should be the last person to
say that there is not—the American nation is rapidly reaching a state of physical efficiency
of which the world has probably not seen the like since Sparta. In all the American
newspapers and all the American monthlies are innumerable illustrated announcements
of "physical-culture specialists," who guarantee to make all the organs of the body
perform their duties with the mighty precision of a 60 h.p. motor-car that never breaks
down. I saw a book the other day written by one of these specialists, to show how perfect
health could be attained by devoting a quarter of an hour a day to certain exercises. The
advertisements multiply and increase in size. They cost a great deal of money. Therefore
they must bring in a great deal of business. Therefore vast numbers of people must be
worried about the non-efficiency of their bodies, and on the way to achieve efficiency. In
our more modest British fashion, we have the same phenomenon in England. And it is
growing. Our muscles are growing also. Surprise a man in his bedroom of a morning, and
you will find him lying on his back on the floor, or standing on his head, or whirling clubs,
in pursuit of physical efficiency. I remember that once I "went in" for physical efficiency
myself. I, too, lay on the floor, my delicate epidermis separated from the carpet by only
the thinnest of garments, and I contorted myself according to the fifteen diagrams of a
large chart (believed to be the magna charta of physical efficiency) daily after shaving. In
three weeks my collars would not meet round my prize-fighter's neck; my hosier1 reaped
immense profits, and I came to the conclusion that I had carried physical efficiency quite
far enough.
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A strange thing—was it not?—that I never had the idea of devoting a quarter of an
hour a day after shaving to the pursuit of mental efficiency. The average body is a pretty
complicated affair, sadly out of order, but happily susceptible to culture. The average
mind is vastly more complicated, not less sadly out of order, but perhaps even more
susceptible to culture. We compare our arms to the arms of the gentleman illustrated in
the physical efficiency advertisement, and we murmur to ourselves the classic phrase:
"This will never do." And we set about developing the muscles of our arms until we can
show them off (through a frock coat) to women at afternoon tea. But it does not, perhaps,
occur to us that the mind has its muscles, and a lot of apparatus besides, and that these
invisible, yet paramount, mental organs are far less efficient than they ought to be; that
some of them are atrophied, others starved, others out of shape, etc. A man of sedentary
occupation goes for a very long walk on Easter Monday, and in the evening is so
exhausted that he can scarcely eat. He wakes up to the inefficiency of his body, caused by
his neglect of it, and he is so shocked that he determines on remedial measures. Either he
will walk to the office, or he will play golf, or he will execute the post-shaving exercises.
But let the same man after a prolonged sedentary course of newspapers, magazines, and
novels, take his mind out for a stiff climb among the rocks of a scientific, philosophic, or
artistic subject. What will he do? Will he stay out all day, and return in the evening too
tired even to read his paper? Not he. It is ten to one that, finding himself puffing for
breath after a quarter of an hour, he won't even persist till he gets his second wind, but
will come back at once. Will he remark with genuine concern that his mind is sadly out of
condition and that he really must do something to get it into order? Not he. It is a
hundred to one that he will tranquilly accept the status quo, without shame and without
very poignant regret. Do I make my meaning clear?
from Mental Efficiency by Arnold Bennett
1
one who sells hosiery and legwear
9. The main idea of the first paragraph is best supported by
A. anecdotal evidence of the powerful influence of advertisements.
B. affirmation of the importance of advertising in American society.
C. comparison of the American and British reactions to advertising.
D. objective analysis of the author's lack of physical efficiency.
E. detailed description of the "magna charta of physical efficiency."
(1)
(2)
He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no
need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for
himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment
to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he
has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision. And these
qualities he requires and exercises exactly in proportion as the part of his conduct which
he determines according to his own judgment and feelings is a large one. It is possible that
he might be guided in some good path, and kept out of harm's way, without any of these
things. But what will be his comparative worth as a human being? It really is of
importance, not only what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it.
Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and
beautifying, the first in importance surely is man himself. Supposing it were possible to
get houses built, corn grown, battles fought, causes tried, and even churches erected and
prayers said, by machinery—by automatons in human form—it would be a considerable
loss to exchange for these automatons even the men and women who at present inhabit
the more civilized parts of the world, and who assuredly are but starved specimens of
what nature can and will produce. Human nature is not a machine to be built after a
model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow
and develope itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which
make it a living thing.
It will probably be conceded that it is desirable people should exercise their
understandings, and that an intelligent following of custom, or even occasionally an
intelligent deviation from custom, is better than a blind and simply mechanical adhesion
to it. To a certain extent it is admitted, that our understanding should be our own: but
there is not the same willingness to admit that our desires and impulses should be our
own likewise; or that to possess impulses of our own, and of any strength, is anything but
a peril and a snare. Yet desires and impulses are as much a part of a perfect human being,
as beliefs and restraints: and strong impulses are only perilous when not properly
balanced; when one set of aims and inclinations is developed into strength, while others,
which ought to co-exist with them, remain weak and inactive. It is not because men's
desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak. There is no
natural connexion between strong impulses and a weak conscience. The natural
connexion is the other way. To say that one person's desires and feelings are stronger and
more various than those of another, is merely to say that he has more of the raw material
of human nature, and is therefore capable, perhaps of more evil, but certainly of more
good. Strong impulses are but another name for energy. Energy may be turned to bad
uses; but more good may always be made of an energetic nature, than of an indolent and
impassive one.
from On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
10. The main point established in the second paragraph is that
A. it is important for a person with strong impulses to wisely judge society's customs.
B. many people mistakenly believe that strong impulses overwhelm a weak
conscience.
C. strong and energetic impulses are crucial components of human nature.
D. it is impossible to compare people based on the strength of their natural impulses.
E. beliefs and restraints are important in developing a "perfect human being."
11. Which of the following statements best represents the author's main point in the first
paragraph?
A. A person's conduct is largely based on his or her own judgment and feelings about
society.
B. A person should follow his or her own path in life and avoid blindly accepting
society's dictates.
C. Machines have replaced human workers in fields such as construction and farming.
D. People should gather information, observe others, and use their best judgment
when making decisions.
E. Many men and women in the "civilized parts of the world" act more like machines
than living beings.
(1)
(2)
My grandmother had a reverence for the sun, a holy regard that now is all but gone out
of mankind. There was a wariness in her, and an ancient awe. She was a Christian in her
later years, but she had come a long way about, and she never forgot her birthright. As a
child she had been to the Sun Dances; she had taken part in those annual rites, and by
them she had learned the restoration of her people in the presence of Tai-me. She was
about seven when the last Kiowa Sun Dance was held in 1887 on the Washita River above
Rainy Mountain Creek. The buffalo were gone. In order to consummate the ancient
sacrifice—to impale the head of a buffalo bull upon the medicine tree—a delegation of
old men journeyed into Texas, there to beg and barter for an animal from the Goodnight
herd. She was ten when the Kiowas came together for the last time as a living Sun Dance
culture. They could find no buffalo; they had to hang an old hide from the sacred tree.
Before the dance could begin, a company of soldiers rode out from Fort Sill under orders
to disperse the tribe. Forbidden without cause the essential act of their faith, having seen
the wild herds slaughtered and left to rot upon the ground, the Kiowas backed away
forever from the medicine tree. That was July 20, 1890, at the great bend of the Washita.
My grandmother was there. Without bitterness, and for as long as she lived, she bore a
vision of deicide.
Now that I can have her only in memory, I see my grandmother in several postures that
were peculiar to her: standing at the wood stove on a winter morning and turning meat in
a great iron skillet; sitting at the south window, bent above her beadwork, and
afterwards, when her vision failed, looking down for a long time into the fold of her
hands; going out upon a cane, very slowly as she did when the weight of age came upon
her; praying. I remember her most often at prayer. She made long, rambling prayers out
of suffering and hope, having seen many things. I was never sure that I had the right to
hear, so exclusive were they of all mere custom and company. The last time I saw her she
prayed standing by the side of her bed at night, naked to the waist, the light of a kerosene
lamp moving upon her dark skin. Her long, black hair, always drawn and braided in the
day, lay upon her shoulders and against her breasts like a shawl. I do not speak Kiowa, and
I never understood her prayers, but there was something inherently sad in the sound,
some merest hesitation upon the syllables of sorrow. She began in a high and descending
pitch, exhausting her breath to silence; then again and again—and always the same
intensity of effort, of something that is, and is not, like urgency in the human voice.
Transported so in the dancing light among the shadows of her room, she seemed beyond
the reach of time. But that was illusion; I think I knew then that I should not see her again.
(3)
(4)
Houses are like sentinels in the plain, old keepers of the weather watch. There, in a
very little while, wood takes on the appearance of great age. All colors wear soon away in
the wind and rain, and then the wood is burned gray and the grain appears and the nails
turn red with rust. The windowpanes are black and opaque; you imagine there is nothing
within, and indeed there are many ghosts, bones given up to the land. They stand here
and there against the sky, and you approach them for a longer time than you expect. They
belong in the distance; it is their domain.
Once there was a lot of sound in my grandmother's house, a lot of coming and going,
feasting and talk. The summers there were full of excitement and reunion. The Kiowas are
a summer people; they abide the cold and keep to themselves, but when the season turns
and the land becomes warm and vital they cannot hold still; an old love of going returns
upon them.
adapted from The Way To Rainy Mountain, by N. Scott Momaday. Used with permission.
Copyright © 1969 University of New Mexico Press.
12. The atmosphere created in paragraph 3 contains all of the following elements EXCEPT
A. remoteness.
B. individuality.
C. primitiveness.
D. vigilance.
E. ancientness.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
I would have my fellow-critics consider what they are really in the world for. The critic
must perceive, if he will question himself more carefully, that his office is mainly to
ascertain facts and traits of literature, not to invent or denounce them; to discover
principles, not to establish them; to report, not to create.
It is so much easier to say that you like this or dislike that, than to tell why one thing is,
or where another thing comes from, that many flourishing critics will have to go out of
business altogether if the scientific method comes in, for then the critic will have to know
something besides his own mind. He will have to know something of the laws of that
mind, and of its generic history.
The history of all literature shows that even with the youngest and weakest author
criticism is quite powerless against his will to do his own work in his own way; and if this is
the case in the green wood, how much more in the dry! It has been thought by the
sentimentalist that criticism, if it cannot cure, can at least kill, and Keats was long alleged
in proof of its efficacy in this sort. But criticism neither cured nor killed Keats, as we all
now very well know. It wounded, it cruelly hurt him, no doubt; and it is always in the
power of the critic to give pain to the author—the meanest critic to the greatest author—
for no one can help feeling a rudeness. But every literary movement has been violently
opposed at the start, and yet never stayed in the least, or arrested, by criticism; every
author has been condemned for his virtues, but in no wise changed by it. In the beginning
he reads the critics; but presently perceiving that he alone makes or mars himself, and
that they have no instruction for him, he mostly leaves off reading them, though he is
always glad of their kindness or grieved by their harshness when he chances upon it. This,
I believe, is the general experience, modified, of course, by exceptions.
Then, are we critics of no use in the world? I should not like to think that, though I am
not quite ready to define our use. More than one sober thinker is inclining at present to
suspect that aesthetically or specifically we are of no use, and that we are only useful
historically; that we may register laws, but not enact them. I am not quite prepared to
admit that aesthetic criticism is useless, though in view of its futility in any given instance
it is hard to deny that it is so. It certainly seems as useless against a book that strikes the
popular fancy, and prospers on in spite of condemnation by the best critics, as it is against
a book which does not generally please, and which no critical favor can make acceptable.
This is so common a phenomenon that I wonder it has never hitherto suggested to
criticism that its point of view was altogether mistaken, and that it was really necessary to
judge books not as dead things, but as living things—things which have an influence and a
power irrespective of beauty and wisdom, and merely as expressions of actuality in
thought and feeling. Perhaps criticism has a cumulative and final effect; perhaps it does
some good we do not know of. It apparently does not affect the author directly, but it
may reach him through the reader. It may in some cases enlarge or diminish his audience
for a while, until he has thoroughly measured and tested his own powers. If criticism is to
affect literature at all, it must be through the writers who have newly left the startingpoint, and are reasonably uncertain of the race, not with those who have won it again and
again in their own way.
from Criticism and Fiction by William Dean Howells
13. The speaker in the passage can best be described as
A. an advocate for civil relationships between authors and critics.
B. a misanthrope who holds a poor opinion of people.
C. a critic who opposes the institution of literary criticism.
D. a former writer who has recently begun a career in criticism.
E. a critic who carefully evaluates his own profession.
(1)
(2)
(3)
Somewhere or other Byron makes use of the French word longeur,1 and remarks in
passing that though in England we happen not to have the word, we have the thing in
considerable profusion. In the same way, there is a habit of mind which is now so
widespread that it affects our thinking on nearly every subject, but which has not yet been
given a name. As the nearest existing equivalent I have chosen the word 'nationalism', but
it will be seen in a moment that I am not using it in quite the ordinary sense, if only
because the emotion I am speaking about does not always attach itself to what is called a
nation—that is, a single race or a geographical area. It can attach itself to a church or a
class, or it may work in a merely negative sense, against something or other and without
the need for any positive object of loyalty.
By 'nationalism' I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be
classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be
confidently labelled 'good' or 'bad'.2 But secondly—and this is much more important—I
mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond
good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests.
Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so
vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction
between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By 'patriotism' I
mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be
the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature
defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable
from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more
power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has
chosen to sink his own individuality.
It is also worth emphasising once again that nationalist feeling can be purely negative. .
. . When one grasps the implications of this, the nature of what I mean by nationalism
becomes a good deal clearer. A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of
competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist—that is, he may use
his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating—but at any rate his thoughts always
turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially
contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every
event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the upgrade and
some hated rival is on the downgrade. But finally, it is important not to confuse
nationalism with mere worship of success. The nationalist does not go on the principle of
simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he
persuades himself that it is the strongest, and is able to stick to his belief even when the
facts are overwhelmingly against him. Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by selfdeception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also—
since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself—unshakeably certain of
being in the right.
1
the French word for "length," applied to any tediously prolonged passage or scene in a
literary work.
2 (author's note) Nations, and even vaguer entities such as Catholic Church or the
proleteriat, are commonly thought of as individuals and often referred to as 'she'. Patently
absurd remarks such as 'Germany is naturally treacherous' are to be found in any
newspaper one opens and reckless generalization about national character ('The Spaniard
is a natural aristocrat' or 'Every Englishman is a hypocrite') are uttered by almost
everyone. Intermittently these generalizations are seen to be unfounded, but the habit of
making them persists, and people of professedly international outlook, e.g., Tolstoy or
Bernard Shaw, are often guilty of them.
adapted from "Notes on Nationalism" by George Orwell, http://www.george-orwell.org
14. The author assumes all of the following about the audience EXCEPT which of the following?
A. People identify themselves according to their nationality.
B. People naturally believe that being patriotic is good.
C. People interpret nationalism and patriotism similarly.
D. People are inclined to regard government suspiciously.
E. People tend to have much pride in their country.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
I have hoped against hope that some influential man (or woman) would take up our
cause and put us in the right way to remedy—for of course there is a remedy—for the
evils we are suffering from. But although one cannot open a newspaper without seeing
what all sorts and conditions of men are constantly agitating for and slowly but surely
obtaining—as in the miners' eight hour bill1—only very vague mention is ever made of the
under-paid, over-worked "Factory Girl." And I have come to the conclusion, sir, that as
long as we are silent ourselves and apparently content with our lot, so long shall we be
left in the enjoyment [?] of that lot.
The rates paid for work done by us are so fearfully low as to be totally inadequate to—I
had almost said keep body and soul together. Well, sir, it is a fact which I could prove, if
necessary, that we are compelled, not by our employers, but by stern necessity, in order
to keep ourselves in independence, which self-respecting girls even in our class of life like
to do, to work so many hours—I would rather not say how many—that life loses its
savour, and our toil, which in moderation and at a fair rate of remuneration would be
pleasurable, becomes drudgery of the most wearisome kind.
To take what may be considered a good week's wage the work has to be so close and
unremitting that we cannot be said to "live"—we merely exist. We eat, we sleep, we
work, endlessly, ceaselessly work, from Monday morning till Saturday night, without
remission. Cultivation of the mind? How is it possible? Reading? Those of us who are
determined to live like human beings and require food for mind as well as body are
obliged to take time which is necessary for sleep to gratify this desire. As for recreation
and enjoying the beauties of nature, the seasons come and go, and we barely have time
to notice whether it is spring or summer.
Certainly we have Sundays: but Sunday is to many of us, after our week of slavery, a
day of exhaustion. It has frequently been so in my case, and I am not delicate. This, you
will understand, sir, is when work is plentiful. Of course we have slack times, of which the
present is one (otherwise I should not have time to write to you). It may be said that we
should utilise these slack times for recruiting our bodies and cultivating our minds. Many
of us do so, as far as it is possible in the anxious state we are necessarily in, knowing that
we are not earning our "keep," for it is not possible, absolutely not possible, for the
average ordinary "hand" to earn enough in busy seasons, even with the overtime I have
mentioned, to make up for slack ones. "A living wage!" Ours is a lingering, dying wage.
from "A Living Wage for Factory Girls at Crewe, 5 May 1894" by Ada Nield Chew
1
a bill that limited miners' shifts to eight hours
15. In the first paragraph of the passage, the author suggests that
A.
the factory girls' silence has contributed to their situation.
B.
only men and women of influence can affect change in society.
C.
employers receive more favorable newspaper coverage than employees.
D. the factory girls should receive pay equivalent to the miners.
E.
the factory girls are generally contented with their jobs.