Author: Anonymous

Answer the supporting details questions that follow the passage.      At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the United States lacked a strong educational system.  Apprenticeship in a trade was a major form of education, and formal schooling was largely limited to those who could afford to pay.  Even “free” schools often required the payment of tuition, and primary schools often required entering students to be literate already, barring students who had not been taught to read by their parents.  Many schools admitted students regardless of age, mixing as many as eighty pupils.  Few textbooks were available, and most learning amounted to monotonous repetition of facts.  School buildings were generally unpainted, overcrowded, and lacked blackboards or windows.    The major details of the passage are…

Choose the letter of the inference that is most firmly based on the given facts.       The dog snarled fiercely when it heard the door open, but when Tom walked in, it rolled onto its back to let Tom scratch its belly.  

Choose the letter of the inference that is most firmly based on the given facts.      When you stir sugar into a glass of water, the sugar granules break up into individual molecules that disperse throughout the water.  The resulting mixture is called a solution.  A solution forms when the particles of one substance are dispersed into another substance to make a uniform mixture.  Solutions can be mixtures of gases; mixtures of liquids; mixtures of gases and liquids; or mixtures of gases, liquids, or solids.  For example, fish get the oxygen they need from the oxygen dissolved in water.      A substance that can dissolve other substances is called a solvent.  The substance that dissolves in the solvent is called the solute.  Water is often called the “universal solvent” because it can dissolve a great variety of substances.  Most of the chemical processes of living things take place in water solutions.  In fact, life on Earth would not be possible without water.

Read the passage and answer the questions that follows.      It is estimated that one in five Americans will suffer from some form of depression at some point in their lives, while one in 20 can expect to have a recurring depressive disorder that can significantly impact the quality of their day-to-day activities.  Today, depression is diagnosed and, more often than not, treated medically with any number of prescriptions that strive to even out the highs and lows of bipolar disorders and the murky depths of chronic depression.  However, prior to the 1970s, depression was neither diagnosed nor treated as a disease-it was perceived as more of a character flaw or weakness.  Still, many sufferers of depression managed to find moderately effective ways to cope with their disease.  One of the most famous examples is Abraham Lincoln.      Lincoln’s depression probably originated from so much loss at an early age.  Before he was 10, he lost a favorite aunt and uncle, a newborn brother, and his mother.  Lincoln was not close to his father, but he was unusually close to his older sister, who also died when Lincoln was barely 18.  And it is difficult to imagine a presidency more difficult and prone to sorrow than that of Lincoln’s.  Consider the course of events.  He was elected president as the most inexperienced man in the history of that office, and more than a third of Lincoln’s constituents, primarily Southerners, refused to even acknowledge him as president.  Almost immediately, the bloodiest war America has ever seen broke out, eventually claiming 680,000 lives.  Lincoln was conversely vilified as either an incompetent coward of a bloodthirsty warmonger as general after general he had chosen failed to be effective.  In the midst of the war, Lincoln’s young son died, and his wife became temporarily insane.  Add, to all this, debilitating insomnia and chronic digestive problems, and it is a wonder that Abraham Lincoln was ever able to rise above his depression at all.  How did he do it?      “He loved to laugh,” one Lincoln biographer explains simply. Though the photographic images we have of Lincoln show a stern, even morose, man, his photographers often complained about Lincoln’s inability to hold still for more than 15 seconds before bursting into peals of laughter over the seriousness of posing for a portrait.  The image we see is a contrived graveness Lincoln forced himself to maintain for the 30 seconds of stillness needed for the exposure.  And the closest to Lincoln claimed that despite his often sad eyes, he demeanor was generally one of mirth and genuine amusement.  It was not uncommon for Lincoln to begin telling a humorous story (a pastime for which he was famous) and become so incapacitated with laughter that he could not finish.  In particular, Lincoln loved making fun of himself, especially his rather homely looks.  Once accused of being two-faced by a political rival, Lincoln responded, “If I had two faces, do you think I’d be wearing this one?”      Although Lincoln’s sense of humor could not eradicate his depression, it could help keep it at bay, allowing him to move through difficult times with a certain degree of calm optimism.  Lincoln famously once said, “People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.”  In our modern era of depression diagnoses, many might debate this point.  But for Abraham Lincoln in 1865, these words were a good dose of medicine.    A conclusion that can be drawn from this passage is that…

Read the following paragraph and determine the main idea of the passage.      When Chevrolet began to sell its Nova cars in Latin America, hardly anyone would buy them.  The company finally learned that Spanish speakers read the car’s name as the Spanish phrase “no va,” meaning “doesn’t go”!  Like Chevrolet, many American companies have learned the hard way that they need to know their customers’ language.  When Pepsi-Cola ran its “Come Alive with Pepsi” ads in China, the consumers laughed.  The company had not translated its slogan quite right.  In Chinese, it came out as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead.”   Which sentence is main idea?

Mapping is a form of outlining?

Read the following paragraph and determine the main idea of the passage.      First the good news:  Americans are definitely eating more healthful meals.  We are consuming greater amounts of such high-fiber foods as whole-grain breads, fruits, and vegetables, which are believed to help prevent certain cancers and other diseases.  At the same time, we are substituting relatively low-fat foods for higher-fat ones–for example, eating fish instead of red meat, drinking skim milk instead of whole.  The bad news is that our snack foods are not nearly as healthful.  Between meals, we often revert to eating large amounts of fat.  For instance, sales of ice cream and potato chips are going through the roof.  Another drawback of the snack foods is that they have almost no fiber.  As eating-behavior experts have concluded, we try super-hard to eat healthfully at mealtimes–but then undo some of the good work by “rewarding” ourselves with snacks that are bad for us.    Which sentence is main idea?

Behind, below, above, over would indicate which thought pattern?

The directions written on the tomb door were CRYPTIC.  Apparently only those who understood the puzzling code were meant to unlock the vault.

First, second, third, fourth would indicate which thought pattern?