Reading Comprehension

The earliest ancestors of the flag were associated with divine power because

Read the passage and answer the following question.

NATIONAL FLAGS

 The flag, the most common symbol of national identity in the modern world, is also one of the most ancient. The traditional flag of fabric is still used to mark buildings, ships, and diplomatic caravans by national affiliation, but its visual design makes it adaptable for other roles as well. Most flags have a compact, rectangular shape and distinct visual symbolism. Their strong colors and geometric patterns are usually instantly recognizable even if miniaturized to less than a square centimeter. Images of flags can thus serve as identifying icons on airliners, television broadcasts, and computer displays.
Despite its simplicity the national flag as we know it today is in no way a primitive artifact It is, rather, the product of millennia of development in many corners of the globe. Historians believe it had two major ancestors, of which the earlier served to indicate wind direction. (A<)  Early human societies used very fragile shelters and boats. (B<) Their food sources were similarly vulnerable to disruption. (C<)  Even after various grains had been domesticated, people needed cooperation from the elements to assure good harvests. For all these reasons, they feared and depended on the power of the wind, which could bring warmth from one direction and cold from another.

Ascertaining the direction of the wind using a simple strip of cloth tied to the top of a post was more reliable than earlier methods, such as watching the rising of smoke from a fire or the swaying of field grasses. The association of these prototypes of the flag with divine power was therefore a natural one. (D<)  Tribes began to fix long cloth flutters to the tops of totems before carrying them into battle, believing that the magical assistance of the wind would be added to the blessings of the gods and ancestors represented by the totem itself.

These flutters may seem like close kin of our present-day flags, but the path through history from one to the other wanders through thousands of years and over several continents. The first known flag of a nation or ruler was unmarked: The king who established the Chou Dynasty in China (around 1000 B.C.) was reputed to have a white flag carried ahead of him. This practice may have been adopted from Egyptians even further in the past, but it was from China that it spread over trade routes through India, then across Arab lands, and finally to medieval Europe.

In Europe, the Chinese-derived flag met up with the modern flag’s second ancestor, the heraldic crest. The flags used in Asia may have been differentiated by color, but they rarely featured emblems or pictures. European nobles of the medieval period had, however, developed a system of crests (symbols or insignias specific to particular families) that were commonly mounted on hard surfaces, shields to be used in battle often displayed them especially prominently.

The production of these crests on flags permitted them to be used as heralds, meaning that they functioned as visual announcements that a member of an important household was present. While crests began to appear on flags as well as shields, the number of prominent families was also increasing. They required an ever greater number of combinations of stripes, crosses, flowers, and mythical animals to distinguish themselves. These survived as the basic components of flag design when small regional kingdoms were later combined into larger nation-states. They remain such for many European countries today.

Some nations, particularly those whose colors and emblems date back several hundred years, have different flags for different official uses. For example, the flag of Poland is a simple rectangle with a white upper half and red lower half. The colors themselves have been associated with Polish nationalism since the 1700s. They originated as the colors of the Piast family, which during its rule displayed a crest bearing a white eagle on a red field. Homage is paid to the Piast Dynasty in the Polish ensign, the flag officially used at sea. Unlike the familiar plain flag flown on land, the ensign has a red shield with a white eagle centered on its upper white stripe.

Directions: Choose the word/ words nearest in meaning from the given options for the word miniaturized in the passage is closest in meaning to

Read the passage and answer the following question.

NATIONAL FLAGS

 The flag, the most common symbol of national identity in the modern world, is also one of the most ancient. The traditional flag of fabric is still used to mark buildings, ships, and diplomatic caravans by national affiliation, but its visual design makes it adaptable for other roles as well. Most flags have a compact, rectangular shape and distinct visual symbolism. Their strong colors and geometric patterns are usually instantly recognizable even if miniaturized to less than a square centimeter. Images of flags can thus serve as identifying icons on airliners, television broadcasts, and computer displays.
Despite its simplicity the national flag as we know it today is in no way a primitive artifact It is, rather, the product of millennia of development in many corners of the globe. Historians believe it had two major ancestors, of which the earlier served to indicate wind direction. (A<)  Early human societies used very fragile shelters and boats. (B<) Their food sources were similarly vulnerable to disruption. (C<)  Even after various grains had been domesticated, people needed cooperation from the elements to assure good harvests. For all these reasons, they feared and depended on the power of the wind, which could bring warmth from one direction and cold from another.

Ascertaining the direction of the wind using a simple strip of cloth tied to the top of a post was more reliable than earlier methods, such as watching the rising of smoke from a fire or the swaying of field grasses. The association of these prototypes of the flag with divine power was therefore a natural one. (D<)  Tribes began to fix long cloth flutters to the tops of totems before carrying them into battle, believing that the magical assistance of the wind would be added to the blessings of the gods and ancestors represented by the totem itself.

These flutters may seem like close kin of our present-day flags, but the path through history from one to the other wanders through thousands of years and over several continents. The first known flag of a nation or ruler was unmarked: The king who established the Chou Dynasty in China (around 1000 B.C.) was reputed to have a white flag carried ahead of him. This practice may have been adopted from Egyptians even further in the past, but it was from China that it spread over trade routes through India, then across Arab lands, and finally to medieval Europe.

In Europe, the Chinese-derived flag met up with the modern flag’s second ancestor, the heraldic crest. The flags used in Asia may have been differentiated by color, but they rarely featured emblems or pictures. European nobles of the medieval period had, however, developed a system of crests (symbols or insignias specific to particular families) that were commonly mounted on hard surfaces, shields to be used in battle often displayed them especially prominently.

The production of these crests on flags permitted them to be used as heralds, meaning that they functioned as visual announcements that a member of an important household was present. While crests began to appear on flags as well as shields, the number of prominent families was also increasing. They required an ever greater number of combinations of stripes, crosses, flowers, and mythical animals to distinguish themselves. These survived as the basic components of flag design when small regional kingdoms were later combined into larger nation-states. They remain such for many European countries today.

Some nations, particularly those whose colors and emblems date back several hundred years, have different flags for different official uses. For example, the flag of Poland is a simple rectangle with a white upper half and red lower half. The colors themselves have been associated with Polish nationalism since the 1700s. They originated as the colors of the Piast family, which during its rule displayed a crest bearing a white eagle on a red field. Homage is paid to the Piast Dynasty in the Polish ensign, the flag officially used at sea. Unlike the familiar plain flag flown on land, the ensign has a red shield with a white eagle centered on its upper white stripe.

The author's opinion about species classification would best be described as

Directions: Read the passage and answer the following question.

SALAMANDERS AND SPECIES NAMES

 When reviewing the current journals of taxonomy, the science of organizing animals into neat little classifications, it is important to remember that names are a human convenience. Nature is not concerned with putting her creations into simple and objective categories. The classifications that we now have are the result of the scientists’ need to put some sort of order into what is a very chaotic situation. And although taxonomists have the best intentions when naming and classifying new or existing species, there are many occasions when naming a species causes quite a bit of confusion.

An excellent example of the problem with naming species is the case of Ensatina, a genus of salamander found in the Central Valley area of California. Central Valley is about 40 miles wide, and although salamanders do not live in the valley itself, they are found in the forests and mountains that ring the valley. At the southern tip of the valley live two distinct types of salamander—one salamander is characterized by its yellow and black spots, whereas the other is light brown in color and has no spots.

(A <) In biology, a species is typically defined as a group of animals that breed only with one another. (B <) Thus, any two animals that can breed belong to the same species, whereas animals that are unable to breed with one another are of a different species. (C <) The two Central Valley salamanders do not interbreed, which would seem to make it pretty clear that the salamanders should be classified as different species. (D <)

 But there is one interesting problem with these salamanders. A number of other salamanders inhabit the ring surrounding Central Valley. Moving north along the eastern side of the valley, the salamanders have fewer and fewer blotches. At the northern end of the valley, the salamanders appear to be a mixture of the two species; these salamanders are mostly brown, but they still have visible blotches.

Now, moving south along the western end of the valley, the salamanders have blotches that are more and more pronounced. Finally, by the time the southern tip of the valley is reached, the salamanders fully resemble the yellow and black spotted species. The salamanders in effect form an almost continuous ring around the outside of the Central Valley, and although the two distinct species at the “ends” of the ring do not interbreed, the salamanders can and do breed with “the intermediates” along the ring So although it is fairly clear that the salamanders at the ends of the ring are distinct species, what of the other salamanders found around the valley?

This situation presents quite a problem in classification. Most taxonomists have decided that the best solution is to put each of the intermediary salamanders into its own subspecies. However, this messy solution results in ten different species names for a salamander that is found only in the Central Valley. One can imagine how such a solution, applied to other species, could result in hundreds of thousands of subspecies for each species.

Further complicating the situation is the new evidence from genetic studies. It appears that the salamanders in Central Valley are all rather closely related, meaning that they all probably evolved from a common ancestor. A likely scenario is that the ancestral salamander species arrived at either the northern or southern tip of the valley and dispersed from there, with the offspring moving farther and farther down the eastern and western sides of the valley. In any case, the genetic evidence indicates a continuous gene flow along the Central Valley.

Directions: Choose the word nearest in meaning from the given options for the word launched in the passage.

Read the passage and answer the following question.

THE FIRST ENVIRONMENTALIST: RACHEL CARSON

Rachel Louise Carson received her degrees in marine biology from the Pennsylvania College for Women and in zoology from the Johns Hopkins University. Her true calling turned out to be much broader in range than the academic study of wildlife, however. As Carson’s career as a scientific writer progressed, she became interested in the effects of artificial chemicals on the natural environment. Through her published research, she was the first to direct public attention to the environmental damage caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides in agriculture. She is thus regarded as the public figure who launched the environmentalist movement.

Upon enrolling in college, Carson had initially intended to major in English and become a journalist or novelist. Her attentiveness to presentation allowed her to convey even rather dry facts in an evocative prose style that held the attention of the general reader. Wedded to her extensive academic training in biology, Carson’s talent for expressive writing positioned her ideally to bring scientific findings about ecology to a mass audience. She published a famous trilogy about the delicate and complex ecology of the sea, beginning with Under the Sea-Wind. That first volume took a large-scale approach, describing the living systems of the ocean in everyday, easily understood terms. Under the Sea-Wind was only a moderate commercial success, but it, along with Carson’s writings for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, set the stage for her second volume, published ten years after the first. The Sea Around Us made Rachel Carson a household name. It became not only a bestseller but also a National Book Award winner. In it, Carson examined more explicitly than before the effects of human action on the creatures of the ocean. The last book in the trilogy was The Edge of the Sea, in which Carson trained her writerly and scientific gaze on the shoreline of the East Coast to examine the endangered organisms that populated it.

These books established Carson as a public figure who advocated respect for the environment, but the work that would be her most lasting legacy was yet to come. She began to examine data on the effects of agricultural pesticides, spurred in part by a letter from two friends who owned a farm in Massachusetts and expressed concern that sprayed pesticides were causing harm to local wildlife. Carson’s research convinced her that high exposure to pesticides such as DDT threatened not only beneficial insects and birds but also people. She put her conclusions in a landmark fourth scientific volume, Silent Spring. In the famous image that gave the book its title, Carson hypothesized about an ecosystem in which the calling of birds had been silenced by poison in soil and groundwater.

Carson alleged that the regulations governing use of these chemicals were inadequate, though her positions were not as extreme as they are sometimes now characterized. She did not support the outright banning of pesticides. Rather, she objected to “indiscriminate” use, which is to say, use without any thought for caution and moderation. Eventually, Carson’s views were taken seriously at the highest levels of government. President John F. Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee solicited her advice on how to improve rules about pesticide use. She also testified before Congress. Through her influence, she assisted in bringing about far stricter controls on toxic chemicals such as DDT, which deteriorates slowly and thus remains in soil and groundwater for very long periods of time.

As discussed in the passage, a crest is

Read the passage and answer the following question.

NATIONAL FLAGS

 The flag, the most common symbol of national identity in the modern world, is also one of the most ancient. The traditional flag of fabric is still used to mark buildings, ships, and diplomatic caravans by national affiliation, but its visual design makes it adaptable for other roles as well. Most flags have a compact, rectangular shape and distinct visual symbolism. Their strong colors and geometric patterns are usually instantly recognizable even if miniaturized to less than a square centimeter. Images of flags can thus serve as identifying icons on airliners, television broadcasts, and computer displays.
Despite its simplicity the national flag as we know it today is in no way a primitive artifact It is, rather, the product of millennia of development in many corners of the globe. Historians believe it had two major ancestors, of which the earlier served to indicate wind direction. (A<)  Early human societies used very fragile shelters and boats. (B<) Their food sources were similarly vulnerable to disruption. (C<)  Even after various grains had been domesticated, people needed cooperation from the elements to assure good harvests. For all these reasons, they feared and depended on the power of the wind, which could bring warmth from one direction and cold from another.

Ascertaining the direction of the wind using a simple strip of cloth tied to the top of a post was more reliable than earlier methods, such as watching the rising of smoke from a fire or the swaying of field grasses. The association of these prototypes of the flag with divine power was therefore a natural one. (D<)  Tribes began to fix long cloth flutters to the tops of totems before carrying them into battle, believing that the magical assistance of the wind would be added to the blessings of the gods and ancestors represented by the totem itself.

These flutters may seem like close kin of our present-day flags, but the path through history from one to the other wanders through thousands of years and over several continents. The first known flag of a nation or ruler was unmarked: The king who established the Chou Dynasty in China (around 1000 B.C.) was reputed to have a white flag carried ahead of him. This practice may have been adopted from Egyptians even further in the past, but it was from China that it spread over trade routes through India, then across Arab lands, and finally to medieval Europe.

In Europe, the Chinese-derived flag met up with the modern flag’s second ancestor, the heraldic crest. The flags used in Asia may have been differentiated by color, but they rarely featured emblems or pictures. European nobles of the medieval period had, however, developed a system of crests (symbols or insignias specific to particular families) that were commonly mounted on hard surfaces, shields to be used in battle often displayed them especially prominently.

The production of these crests on flags permitted them to be used as heralds, meaning that they functioned as visual announcements that a member of an important household was present. While crests began to appear on flags as well as shields, the number of prominent families was also increasing. They required an ever greater number of combinations of stripes, crosses, flowers, and mythical animals to distinguish themselves. These survived as the basic components of flag design when small regional kingdoms were later combined into larger nation-states. They remain such for many European countries today.

Some nations, particularly those whose colors and emblems date back several hundred years, have different flags for different official uses. For example, the flag of Poland is a simple rectangle with a white upper half and red lower half. The colors themselves have been associated with Polish nationalism since the 1700s. They originated as the colors of the Piast family, which during its rule displayed a crest bearing a white eagle on a red field. Homage is paid to the Piast Dynasty in the Polish ensign, the flag officially used at sea. Unlike the familiar plain flag flown on land, the ensign has a red shield with a white eagle centered on its upper white stripe.

Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage.

Rachel Carson was a pioneering environmentalist who helped draw public attention to the effects of human activity on wildlife.|| |---| | ANSWER CHOICES| ||| |---|---| | (A) Carson at first considered majoring in English and becoming a nonscientific writer. | (D) Carson’s three books about ocean ecology increasingly focused on the dangers humans posed to marine life. | | (B) The government considered Carson a valued ex-pert and invited her input on ecological policy, | (E) Many scientists doubted Carson’s conclusions, causing her to write more books to support them. | | (C) The book Silent Spring has had both immediate and long-term influence on environmentalism, | (F) Carson did much of her research by talking to people with everyday experience using pesticides. |

Read the passage and answer the following question.

THE FIRST ENVIRONMENTALIST: RACHEL CARSON

Rachel Louise Carson received her degrees in marine biology from the Pennsylvania College for Women and in zoology from the Johns Hopkins University. Her true calling turned out to be much broader in range than the academic study of wildlife, however. As Carson’s career as a scientific writer progressed, she became interested in the effects of artificial chemicals on the natural environment. Through her published research, she was the first to direct public attention to the environmental damage caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides in agriculture. She is thus regarded as the public figure who launched the environmentalist movement.

Upon enrolling in college, Carson had initially intended to major in English and become a journalist or novelist. Her attentiveness to presentation allowed her to convey even rather dry facts in an evocative prose style that held the attention of the general reader. Wedded to her extensive academic training in biology, Carson’s talent for expressive writing positioned her ideally to bring scientific findings about ecology to a mass audience. She published a famous trilogy about the delicate and complex ecology of the sea, beginning with Under the Sea-Wind. That first volume took a large-scale approach, describing the living systems of the ocean in everyday, easily understood terms. Under the Sea-Wind was only a moderate commercial success, but it, along with Carson’s writings for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, set the stage for her second volume, published ten years after the first. The Sea Around Us made Rachel Carson a household name. It became not only a bestseller but also a National Book Award winner. In it, Carson examined more explicitly than before the effects of human action on the creatures of the ocean. The last book in the trilogy was The Edge of the Sea, in which Carson trained her writerly and scientific gaze on the shoreline of the East Coast to examine the endangered organisms that populated it.

These books established Carson as a public figure who advocated respect for the environment, but the work that would be her most lasting legacy was yet to come. She began to examine data on the effects of agricultural pesticides, spurred in part by a letter from two friends who owned a farm in Massachusetts and expressed concern that sprayed pesticides were causing harm to local wildlife. Carson’s research convinced her that high exposure to pesticides such as DDT threatened not only beneficial insects and birds but also people. She put her conclusions in a landmark fourth scientific volume, Silent Spring. In the famous image that gave the book its title, Carson hypothesized about an ecosystem in which the calling of birds had been silenced by poison in soil and groundwater.

Carson alleged that the regulations governing use of these chemicals were inadequate, though her positions were not as extreme as they are sometimes now characterized. She did not support the outright banning of pesticides. Rather, she objected to “indiscriminate” use, which is to say, use without any thought for caution and moderation. Eventually, Carson’s views were taken seriously at the highest levels of government. President John F. Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee solicited her advice on how to improve rules about pesticide use. She also testified before Congress. Through her influence, she assisted in bringing about far stricter controls on toxic chemicals such as DDT, which deteriorates slowly and thus remains in soil and groundwater for very long periods of time.

Directions: Look at the four squares [<] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

Therefore, strong winds could easily tear roofs from houses or cause high waves that imperiled travelers. Where would the sentence best fit?

Mark the square [<] to add the sentence to the passage.

Read the passage and answer the following question.

NATIONAL FLAGS

 The flag, the most common symbol of national identity in the modern world, is also one of the most ancient. The traditional flag of fabric is still used to mark buildings, ships, and diplomatic caravans by national affiliation, but its visual design makes it adaptable for other roles as well. Most flags have a compact, rectangular shape and distinct visual symbolism. Their strong colors and geometric patterns are usually instantly recognizable even if miniaturized to less than a square centimeter. Images of flags can thus serve as identifying icons on airliners, television broadcasts, and computer displays.
Despite its simplicity the national flag as we know it today is in no way a primitive artifact It is, rather, the product of millennia of development in many corners of the globe. Historians believe it had two major ancestors, of which the earlier served to indicate wind direction. (A<)  Early human societies used very fragile shelters and boats. (B<) Their food sources were similarly vulnerable to disruption. (C<)  Even after various grains had been domesticated, people needed cooperation from the elements to assure good harvests. For all these reasons, they feared and depended on the power of the wind, which could bring warmth from one direction and cold from another.

Ascertaining the direction of the wind using a simple strip of cloth tied to the top of a post was more reliable than earlier methods, such as watching the rising of smoke from a fire or the swaying of field grasses. The association of these prototypes of the flag with divine power was therefore a natural one. (D<)  Tribes began to fix long cloth flutters to the tops of totems before carrying them into battle, believing that the magical assistance of the wind would be added to the blessings of the gods and ancestors represented by the totem itself.

These flutters may seem like close kin of our present-day flags, but the path through history from one to the other wanders through thousands of years and over several continents. The first known flag of a nation or ruler was unmarked: The king who established the Chou Dynasty in China (around 1000 B.C.) was reputed to have a white flag carried ahead of him. This practice may have been adopted from Egyptians even further in the past, but it was from China that it spread over trade routes through India, then across Arab lands, and finally to medieval Europe.

In Europe, the Chinese-derived flag met up with the modern flag’s second ancestor, the heraldic crest. The flags used in Asia may have been differentiated by color, but they rarely featured emblems or pictures. European nobles of the medieval period had, however, developed a system of crests (symbols or insignias specific to particular families) that were commonly mounted on hard surfaces, shields to be used in battle often displayed them especially prominently.

The production of these crests on flags permitted them to be used as heralds, meaning that they functioned as visual announcements that a member of an important household was present. While crests began to appear on flags as well as shields, the number of prominent families was also increasing. They required an ever greater number of combinations of stripes, crosses, flowers, and mythical animals to distinguish themselves. These survived as the basic components of flag design when small regional kingdoms were later combined into larger nation-states. They remain such for many European countries today.

Some nations, particularly those whose colors and emblems date back several hundred years, have different flags for different official uses. For example, the flag of Poland is a simple rectangle with a white upper half and red lower half. The colors themselves have been associated with Polish nationalism since the 1700s. They originated as the colors of the Piast family, which during its rule displayed a crest bearing a white eagle on a red field. Homage is paid to the Piast Dynasty in the Polish ensign, the flag officially used at sea. Unlike the familiar plain flag flown on land, the ensign has a red shield with a white eagle centered on its upper white stripe.

Which of the sentences below best expresses the meaning of the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect answer choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

Directions: Read the passage and answer the following question.

SALAMANDERS AND SPECIES NAMES

 When reviewing the current journals of taxonomy, the science of organizing animals into neat little classifications, it is important to remember that names are a human convenience. Nature is not concerned with putting her creations into simple and objective categories. The classifications that we now have are the result of the scientists’ need to put some sort of order into what is a very chaotic situation. And although taxonomists have the best intentions when naming and classifying new or existing species, there are many occasions when naming a species causes quite a bit of confusion.

An excellent example of the problem with naming species is the case of Ensatina, a genus of salamander found in the Central Valley area of California. Central Valley is about 40 miles wide, and although salamanders do not live in the valley itself, they are found in the forests and mountains that ring the valley. At the southern tip of the valley live two distinct types of salamander—one salamander is characterized by its yellow and black spots, whereas the other is light brown in color and has no spots.

(A <) In biology, a species is typically defined as a group of animals that breed only with one another. (B <) Thus, any two animals that can breed belong to the same species, whereas animals that are unable to breed with one another are of a different species. (C <) The two Central Valley salamanders do not interbreed, which would seem to make it pretty clear that the salamanders should be classified as different species. (D <)

 But there is one interesting problem with these salamanders. A number of other salamanders inhabit the ring surrounding Central Valley. Moving north along the eastern side of the valley, the salamanders have fewer and fewer blotches. At the northern end of the valley, the salamanders appear to be a mixture of the two species; these salamanders are mostly brown, but they still have visible blotches.

Now, moving south along the western end of the valley, the salamanders have blotches that are more and more pronounced. Finally, by the time the southern tip of the valley is reached, the salamanders fully resemble the yellow and black spotted species. The salamanders in effect form an almost continuous ring around the outside of the Central Valley, and although the two distinct species at the “ends” of the ring do not interbreed, the salamanders can and do breed with “the intermediates” along the ring So although it is fairly clear that the salamanders at the ends of the ring are distinct species, what of the other salamanders found around the valley?

This situation presents quite a problem in classification. Most taxonomists have decided that the best solution is to put each of the intermediary salamanders into its own subspecies. However, this messy solution results in ten different species names for a salamander that is found only in the Central Valley. One can imagine how such a solution, applied to other species, could result in hundreds of thousands of subspecies for each species.

Further complicating the situation is the new evidence from genetic studies. It appears that the salamanders in Central Valley are all rather closely related, meaning that they all probably evolved from a common ancestor. A likely scenario is that the ancestral salamander species arrived at either the northern or southern tip of the valley and dispersed from there, with the offspring moving farther and farther down the eastern and western sides of the valley. In any case, the genetic evidence indicates a continuous gene flow along the Central Valley.

The phrase neat compartments most nearly means

Directions: Read the passage and answer the following question.

SALAMANDERS AND SPECIES NAMES

 When reviewing the current journals of taxonomy, the science of organizing animals into neat little classifications, it is important to remember that names are a human convenience. Nature is not concerned with putting her creations into simple and objective categories. The classifications that we now have are the result of the scientists’ need to put some sort of order into what is a very chaotic situation. And although taxonomists have the best intentions when naming and classifying new or existing species, there are many occasions when naming a species causes quite a bit of confusion.

An excellent example of the problem with naming species is the case of Ensatina, a genus of salamander found in the Central Valley area of California. Central Valley is about 40 miles wide, and although salamanders do not live in the valley itself, they are found in the forests and mountains that ring the valley. At the southern tip of the valley live two distinct types of salamander—one salamander is characterized by its yellow and black spots, whereas the other is light brown in color and has no spots.

(A <) In biology, a species is typically defined as a group of animals that breed only with one another. (B <) Thus, any two animals that can breed belong to the same species, whereas animals that are unable to breed with one another are of a different species. (C <) The two Central Valley salamanders do not interbreed, which would seem to make it pretty clear that the salamanders should be classified as different species. (D <)

 But there is one interesting problem with these salamanders. A number of other salamanders inhabit the ring surrounding Central Valley. Moving north along the eastern side of the valley, the salamanders have fewer and fewer blotches. At the northern end of the valley, the salamanders appear to be a mixture of the two species; these salamanders are mostly brown, but they still have visible blotches.

Now, moving south along the western end of the valley, the salamanders have blotches that are more and more pronounced. Finally, by the time the southern tip of the valley is reached, the salamanders fully resemble the yellow and black spotted species. The salamanders in effect form an almost continuous ring around the outside of the Central Valley, and although the two distinct species at the “ends” of the ring do not interbreed, the salamanders can and do breed with “the intermediates” along the ring So although it is fairly clear that the salamanders at the ends of the ring are distinct species, what of the other salamanders found around the valley?

This situation presents quite a problem in classification. Most taxonomists have decided that the best solution is to put each of the intermediary salamanders into its own subspecies. However, this messy solution results in ten different species names for a salamander that is found only in the Central Valley. One can imagine how such a solution, applied to other species, could result in hundreds of thousands of subspecies for each species.

Further complicating the situation is the new evidence from genetic studies. It appears that the salamanders in Central Valley are all rather closely related, meaning that they all probably evolved from a common ancestor. A likely scenario is that the ancestral salamander species arrived at either the northern or southern tip of the valley and dispersed from there, with the offspring moving farther and farther down the eastern and western sides of the valley. In any case, the genetic evidence indicates a continuous gene flow along the Central Valley.

Directions: There are four black squares [<] in the passage, indicating where the following sentence could be added.

This definition is widely accepted by biologists and zoologists, but its application isn’t always simple. Where would the sentence fit best?

Mark the square [<] to add the sentence to the passage.

Directions: Read the passage and answer the following question.

SALAMANDERS AND SPECIES NAMES

 When reviewing the current journals of taxonomy, the science of organizing animals into neat little classifications, it is important to remember that names are a human convenience. Nature is not concerned with putting her creations into simple and objective categories. The classifications that we now have are the result of the scientists’ need to put some sort of order into what is a very chaotic situation. And although taxonomists have the best intentions when naming and classifying new or existing species, there are many occasions when naming a species causes quite a bit of confusion.

An excellent example of the problem with naming species is the case of Ensatina, a genus of salamander found in the Central Valley area of California. Central Valley is about 40 miles wide, and although salamanders do not live in the valley itself, they are found in the forests and mountains that ring the valley. At the southern tip of the valley live two distinct types of salamander—one salamander is characterized by its yellow and black spots, whereas the other is light brown in color and has no spots.

(A <) In biology, a species is typically defined as a group of animals that breed only with one another. (B <) Thus, any two animals that can breed belong to the same species, whereas animals that are unable to breed with one another are of a different species. (C <) The two Central Valley salamanders do not interbreed, which would seem to make it pretty clear that the salamanders should be classified as different species. (D <)

 But there is one interesting problem with these salamanders. A number of other salamanders inhabit the ring surrounding Central Valley. Moving north along the eastern side of the valley, the salamanders have fewer and fewer blotches. At the northern end of the valley, the salamanders appear to be a mixture of the two species; these salamanders are mostly brown, but they still have visible blotches.

Now, moving south along the western end of the valley, the salamanders have blotches that are more and more pronounced. Finally, by the time the southern tip of the valley is reached, the salamanders fully resemble the yellow and black spotted species. The salamanders in effect form an almost continuous ring around the outside of the Central Valley, and although the two distinct species at the “ends” of the ring do not interbreed, the salamanders can and do breed with “the intermediates” along the ring So although it is fairly clear that the salamanders at the ends of the ring are distinct species, what of the other salamanders found around the valley?

This situation presents quite a problem in classification. Most taxonomists have decided that the best solution is to put each of the intermediary salamanders into its own subspecies. However, this messy solution results in ten different species names for a salamander that is found only in the Central Valley. One can imagine how such a solution, applied to other species, could result in hundreds of thousands of subspecies for each species.

Further complicating the situation is the new evidence from genetic studies. It appears that the salamanders in Central Valley are all rather closely related, meaning that they all probably evolved from a common ancestor. A likely scenario is that the ancestral salamander species arrived at either the northern or southern tip of the valley and dispersed from there, with the offspring moving farther and farther down the eastern and western sides of the valley. In any case, the genetic evidence indicates a continuous gene flow along the Central Valley.

Directions: Choose the word nearest in meaning from the given options for the word trained in the passage.

Read the passage and answer the following question.

THE FIRST ENVIRONMENTALIST: RACHEL CARSON

Rachel Louise Carson received her degrees in marine biology from the Pennsylvania College for Women and in zoology from the Johns Hopkins University. Her true calling turned out to be much broader in range than the academic study of wildlife, however. As Carson’s career as a scientific writer progressed, she became interested in the effects of artificial chemicals on the natural environment. Through her published research, she was the first to direct public attention to the environmental damage caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides in agriculture. She is thus regarded as the public figure who launched the environmentalist movement.

Upon enrolling in college, Carson had initially intended to major in English and become a journalist or novelist. Her attentiveness to presentation allowed her to convey even rather dry facts in an evocative prose style that held the attention of the general reader. Wedded to her extensive academic training in biology, Carson’s talent for expressive writing positioned her ideally to bring scientific findings about ecology to a mass audience. She published a famous trilogy about the delicate and complex ecology of the sea, beginning with Under the Sea-Wind. That first volume took a large-scale approach, describing the living systems of the ocean in everyday, easily understood terms. Under the Sea-Wind was only a moderate commercial success, but it, along with Carson’s writings for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, set the stage for her second volume, published ten years after the first. The Sea Around Us made Rachel Carson a household name. It became not only a bestseller but also a National Book Award winner. In it, Carson examined more explicitly than before the effects of human action on the creatures of the ocean. The last book in the trilogy was The Edge of the Sea, in which Carson trained her writerly and scientific gaze on the shoreline of the East Coast to examine the endangered organisms that populated it.

These books established Carson as a public figure who advocated respect for the environment, but the work that would be her most lasting legacy was yet to come. She began to examine data on the effects of agricultural pesticides, spurred in part by a letter from two friends who owned a farm in Massachusetts and expressed concern that sprayed pesticides were causing harm to local wildlife. Carson’s research convinced her that high exposure to pesticides such as DDT threatened not only beneficial insects and birds but also people. She put her conclusions in a landmark fourth scientific volume, Silent Spring. In the famous image that gave the book its title, Carson hypothesized about an ecosystem in which the calling of birds had been silenced by poison in soil and groundwater.

Carson alleged that the regulations governing use of these chemicals were inadequate, though her positions were not as extreme as they are sometimes now characterized. She did not support the outright banning of pesticides. Rather, she objected to “indiscriminate” use, which is to say, use without any thought for caution and moderation. Eventually, Carson’s views were taken seriously at the highest levels of government. President John F. Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee solicited her advice on how to improve rules about pesticide use. She also testified before Congress. Through her influence, she assisted in bringing about far stricter controls on toxic chemicals such as DDT, which deteriorates slowly and thus remains in soil and groundwater for very long periods of time.

Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage.

Using species classifications is a human convenience.|| |---| | ANSWER CHOICES| ||| |---|---| | (A) It is likely that the Central Valley salamanders were all descended from a common ancestor. | (D) Despite the difficulties found in species classification, there is a need for it in science. | | (B) Although scientists may have a need to place animals into classes, nature is not always so easily categorized.

Directions: Read the passage and answer the following question.

SALAMANDERS AND SPECIES NAMES

 When reviewing the current journals of taxonomy, the science of organizing animals into neat little classifications, it is important to remember that names are a human convenience. Nature is not concerned with putting her creations into simple and objective categories. The classifications that we now have are the result of the scientists’ need to put some sort of order into what is a very chaotic situation. And although taxonomists have the best intentions when naming and classifying new or existing species, there are many occasions when naming a species causes quite a bit of confusion.

An excellent example of the problem with naming species is the case of Ensatina, a genus of salamander found in the Central Valley area of California. Central Valley is about 40 miles wide, and although salamanders do not live in the valley itself, they are found in the forests and mountains that ring the valley. At the southern tip of the valley live two distinct types of salamander—one salamander is characterized by its yellow and black spots, whereas the other is light brown in color and has no spots.

(A <) In biology, a species is typically defined as a group of animals that breed only with one another. (B <) Thus, any two animals that can breed belong to the same species, whereas animals that are unable to breed with one another are of a different species. (C <) The two Central Valley salamanders do not interbreed, which would seem to make it pretty clear that the salamanders should be classified as different species. (D <)

 But there is one interesting problem with these salamanders. A number of other salamanders inhabit the ring surrounding Central Valley. Moving north along the eastern side of the valley, the salamanders have fewer and fewer blotches. At the northern end of the valley, the salamanders appear to be a mixture of the two species; these salamanders are mostly brown, but they still have visible blotches.

Now, moving south along the western end of the valley, the salamanders have blotches that are more and more pronounced. Finally, by the time the southern tip of the valley is reached, the salamanders fully resemble the yellow and black spotted species. The salamanders in effect form an almost continuous ring around the outside of the Central Valley, and although the two distinct species at the “ends” of the ring do not interbreed, the salamanders can and do breed with “the intermediates” along the ring So although it is fairly clear that the salamanders at the ends of the ring are distinct species, what of the other salamanders found around the valley?

This situation presents quite a problem in classification. Most taxonomists have decided that the best solution is to put each of the intermediary salamanders into its own subspecies. However, this messy solution results in ten different species names for a salamander that is found only in the Central Valley. One can imagine how such a solution, applied to other species, could result in hundreds of thousands of subspecies for each species.

Further complicating the situation is the new evidence from genetic studies. It appears that the salamanders in Central Valley are all rather closely related, meaning that they all probably evolved from a common ancestor. A likely scenario is that the ancestral salamander species arrived at either the northern or southern tip of the valley and dispersed from there, with the offspring moving farther and farther down the eastern and western sides of the valley. In any case, the genetic evidence indicates a continuous gene flow along the Central Valley.

Directions: Choose the word nearest in meaning from the given options for the word fix in the passage.

Read the passage and answer the following question.

NATIONAL FLAGS

 The flag, the most common symbol of national identity in the modern world, is also one of the most ancient. The traditional flag of fabric is still used to mark buildings, ships, and diplomatic caravans by national affiliation, but its visual design makes it adaptable for other roles as well. Most flags have a compact, rectangular shape and distinct visual symbolism. Their strong colors and geometric patterns are usually instantly recognizable even if miniaturized to less than a square centimeter. Images of flags can thus serve as identifying icons on airliners, television broadcasts, and computer displays.
Despite its simplicity the national flag as we know it today is in no way a primitive artifact It is, rather, the product of millennia of development in many corners of the globe. Historians believe it had two major ancestors, of which the earlier served to indicate wind direction. (A<)  Early human societies used very fragile shelters and boats. (B<) Their food sources were similarly vulnerable to disruption. (C<)  Even after various grains had been domesticated, people needed cooperation from the elements to assure good harvests. For all these reasons, they feared and depended on the power of the wind, which could bring warmth from one direction and cold from another.

Ascertaining the direction of the wind using a simple strip of cloth tied to the top of a post was more reliable than earlier methods, such as watching the rising of smoke from a fire or the swaying of field grasses. The association of these prototypes of the flag with divine power was therefore a natural one. (D<)  Tribes began to fix long cloth flutters to the tops of totems before carrying them into battle, believing that the magical assistance of the wind would be added to the blessings of the gods and ancestors represented by the totem itself.

These flutters may seem like close kin of our present-day flags, but the path through history from one to the other wanders through thousands of years and over several continents. The first known flag of a nation or ruler was unmarked: The king who established the Chou Dynasty in China (around 1000 B.C.) was reputed to have a white flag carried ahead of him. This practice may have been adopted from Egyptians even further in the past, but it was from China that it spread over trade routes through India, then across Arab lands, and finally to medieval Europe.

In Europe, the Chinese-derived flag met up with the modern flag’s second ancestor, the heraldic crest. The flags used in Asia may have been differentiated by color, but they rarely featured emblems or pictures. European nobles of the medieval period had, however, developed a system of crests (symbols or insignias specific to particular families) that were commonly mounted on hard surfaces, shields to be used in battle often displayed them especially prominently.

The production of these crests on flags permitted them to be used as heralds, meaning that they functioned as visual announcements that a member of an important household was present. While crests began to appear on flags as well as shields, the number of prominent families was also increasing. They required an ever greater number of combinations of stripes, crosses, flowers, and mythical animals to distinguish themselves. These survived as the basic components of flag design when small regional kingdoms were later combined into larger nation-states. They remain such for many European countries today.

Some nations, particularly those whose colors and emblems date back several hundred years, have different flags for different official uses. For example, the flag of Poland is a simple rectangle with a white upper half and red lower half. The colors themselves have been associated with Polish nationalism since the 1700s. They originated as the colors of the Piast family, which during its rule displayed a crest bearing a white eagle on a red field. Homage is paid to the Piast Dynasty in the Polish ensign, the flag officially used at sea. Unlike the familiar plain flag flown on land, the ensign has a red shield with a white eagle centered on its upper white stripe.

According to paragraph 3 of the passage, Carson was influenced to write Silent Spring by

Read the passage and answer the following question.

THE FIRST ENVIRONMENTALIST: RACHEL CARSON

Rachel Louise Carson received her degrees in marine biology from the Pennsylvania College for Women and in zoology from the Johns Hopkins University. Her true calling turned out to be much broader in range than the academic study of wildlife, however. As Carson’s career as a scientific writer progressed, she became interested in the effects of artificial chemicals on the natural environment. Through her published research, she was the first to direct public attention to the environmental damage caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides in agriculture. She is thus regarded as the public figure who launched the environmentalist movement.

Upon enrolling in college, Carson had initially intended to major in English and become a journalist or novelist. Her attentiveness to presentation allowed her to convey even rather dry facts in an evocative prose style that held the attention of the general reader. Wedded to her extensive academic training in biology, Carson’s talent for expressive writing positioned her ideally to bring scientific findings about ecology to a mass audience. She published a famous trilogy about the delicate and complex ecology of the sea, beginning with Under the Sea-Wind. That first volume took a large-scale approach, describing the living systems of the ocean in everyday, easily understood terms. Under the Sea-Wind was only a moderate commercial success, but it, along with Carson’s writings for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, set the stage for her second volume, published ten years after the first. The Sea Around Us made Rachel Carson a household name. It became not only a bestseller but also a National Book Award winner. In it, Carson examined more explicitly than before the effects of human action on the creatures of the ocean. The last book in the trilogy was The Edge of the Sea, in which Carson trained her writerly and scientific gaze on the shoreline of the East Coast to examine the endangered organisms that populated it.

These books established Carson as a public figure who advocated respect for the environment, but the work that would be her most lasting legacy was yet to come. She began to examine data on the effects of agricultural pesticides, spurred in part by a letter from two friends who owned a farm in Massachusetts and expressed concern that sprayed pesticides were causing harm to local wildlife. Carson’s research convinced her that high exposure to pesticides such as DDT threatened not only beneficial insects and birds but also people. She put her conclusions in a landmark fourth scientific volume, Silent Spring. In the famous image that gave the book its title, Carson hypothesized about an ecosystem in which the calling of birds had been silenced by poison in soil and groundwater.

Carson alleged that the regulations governing use of these chemicals were inadequate, though her positions were not as extreme as they are sometimes now characterized. She did not support the outright banning of pesticides. Rather, she objected to “indiscriminate” use, which is to say, use without any thought for caution and moderation. Eventually, Carson’s views were taken seriously at the highest levels of government. President John F. Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee solicited her advice on how to improve rules about pesticide use. She also testified before Congress. Through her influence, she assisted in bringing about far stricter controls on toxic chemicals such as DDT, which deteriorates slowly and thus remains in soil and groundwater for very long periods of time.

Directions: Choose the word nearest in meaning from the given options for the pronoun they in the passage.

Read the passage and answer the following question.

NATIONAL FLAGS

 The flag, the most common symbol of national identity in the modern world, is also one of the most ancient. The traditional flag of fabric is still used to mark buildings, ships, and diplomatic caravans by national affiliation, but its visual design makes it adaptable for other roles as well. Most flags have a compact, rectangular shape and distinct visual symbolism. Their strong colors and geometric patterns are usually instantly recognizable even if miniaturized to less than a square centimeter. Images of flags can thus serve as identifying icons on airliners, television broadcasts, and computer displays.
Despite its simplicity the national flag as we know it today is in no way a primitive artifact It is, rather, the product of millennia of development in many corners of the globe. Historians believe it had two major ancestors, of which the earlier served to indicate wind direction. (A<)  Early human societies used very fragile shelters and boats. (B<) Their food sources were similarly vulnerable to disruption. (C<)  Even after various grains had been domesticated, people needed cooperation from the elements to assure good harvests. For all these reasons, they feared and depended on the power of the wind, which could bring warmth from one direction and cold from another.

Ascertaining the direction of the wind using a simple strip of cloth tied to the top of a post was more reliable than earlier methods, such as watching the rising of smoke from a fire or the swaying of field grasses. The association of these prototypes of the flag with divine power was therefore a natural one. (D<)  Tribes began to fix long cloth flutters to the tops of totems before carrying them into battle, believing that the magical assistance of the wind would be added to the blessings of the gods and ancestors represented by the totem itself.

These flutters may seem like close kin of our present-day flags, but the path through history from one to the other wanders through thousands of years and over several continents. The first known flag of a nation or ruler was unmarked: The king who established the Chou Dynasty in China (around 1000 B.C.) was reputed to have a white flag carried ahead of him. This practice may have been adopted from Egyptians even further in the past, but it was from China that it spread over trade routes through India, then across Arab lands, and finally to medieval Europe.

In Europe, the Chinese-derived flag met up with the modern flag’s second ancestor, the heraldic crest. The flags used in Asia may have been differentiated by color, but they rarely featured emblems or pictures. European nobles of the medieval period had, however, developed a system of crests (symbols or insignias specific to particular families) that were commonly mounted on hard surfaces, shields to be used in battle often displayed them especially prominently.

The production of these crests on flags permitted them to be used as heralds, meaning that they functioned as visual announcements that a member of an important household was present. While crests began to appear on flags as well as shields, the number of prominent families was also increasing. They required an ever greater number of combinations of stripes, crosses, flowers, and mythical animals to distinguish themselves. These survived as the basic components of flag design when small regional kingdoms were later combined into larger nation-states. They remain such for many European countries today.

Some nations, particularly those whose colors and emblems date back several hundred years, have different flags for different official uses. For example, the flag of Poland is a simple rectangle with a white upper half and red lower half. The colors themselves have been associated with Polish nationalism since the 1700s. They originated as the colors of the Piast family, which during its rule displayed a crest bearing a white eagle on a red field. Homage is paid to the Piast Dynasty in the Polish ensign, the flag officially used at sea. Unlike the familiar plain flag flown on land, the ensign has a red shield with a white eagle centered on its upper white stripe.