Passage 25

Because the American Civil War coincided with technological innovations in pictorial recording and reproduction, it was perceived through new informational forms—engravings and photographs. Historians have emphasized the photograph, retrospectively attributing significance to its representational detail, clarity, and authenticity. But the possible subject matter for photographs was limited by the extremely slow exposure time and precarious development process of the period. Moreover, the limitations of pictorial reproduction made photographic salons or were distributed in albums and stereograph cards. Photographs stand as invaluable pictorial records for historians; for the public during the Civil War, however, the engravings in the illustrated press outweighed in their accessibility and immediacy the comparatively expensive photographic albums and cards.

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For the following question, consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.

1. Which of the following statements about engravings of Civil War scenes can be inferred from the passage?

A. They could be reproduced far more cheaply than photographs.

B. Their subject matter was typically more limited than that of photographs.

C. They are often based on photographs.

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For the following question, consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.

2. Which of the following technological limitations does the passage mention as affecting the subject matter of Civil War photographs?

A. The tricky development process

B. The long exposure time required

C. The expense of generating reproductions

LP 3

Based on evidence from tree rings, pollen samples and other records, scientists have for a long time assumed that interglacials—warm interludes between ice ages—were as mild and uniform as the Holocene, the present interglacial, has been for all of its 8,000 to 10,000 years. But new research in Greenland has put this assumption into question.

Researchers on two teams, the Greenland Ice-Core Project (GRIP) and the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2), have analyzed two different cylinders of ice, each about two miles in depth, pulled up from the Greenland ice sheet. Such ice cores trap gases, bits of dust, and other chemicals that were present in the snow that fell over Greenland for thousands of years and then became compressed into ice. By studying these components, scientists have obtained a detailed archive of many aspects of climate, including air temperatures, snowfall, and concentrations of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere.

Findings from the upper sections of the cores have confirmed what scientists already knew: climate during the last ice age fluctuated rapidly. But scientists were astonished by findings from the lower sections of the GRIP core, which provided a close look at an interglacial period other than our own, the Eemian interglacial, a period that lasted from 135,000 to 115,000 years ago. Data from GRIP seem to indicate that the Eemian climate swung at least as wildly as the climate of ice age periods.

Researchers’ clues to the Eemian climate come from measurements of the ratios of two slightly different types of oxygen, isotopes oxygen-16 and oxygen-18, preserved in the GRIP core. These ratios register the fluctuations of air temperatures over the seasons and years. When the air was warm, vapor containing the heavier isotope, oxygen-18, condensed and formed precipitation, in the form of snow, more readily than did vapor containing oxygen-16. Thus, snow that fell during warmer periods contains proportionally more oxygen-18 than snow deposited during cold spells. Evidence of rapid climate shifts was also drawn from other sources, such as measurements of amounts of dust and calcium ions in the ice layers during cold periods: winds were strong, causing calcium-rich dust from loess deposits, which are composed of loose surface sediment, to blow across the ice sheet. Thus, differing amounts of dust in the layers also indicate changing climatic conditions.

However, finds from the lower section of GISP 2 do not confirm those of GRIP. The wild climate swings shown by GRIP in the last interglacial are not seen in the GISP2 core. According to a GISP 2 scientist, the weight of flowing glacial ice above has stressed the lower sections of both cores. This may have deformed the lower ice, disrupting its annual layers and thereby causing the discrepancy between the records. Still, some climatologists believe GRIP’s record may be the more reliable of the two. It was drilled closer to a location called the ice divide, where stresses would have been lower, they say.

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3. The passage is primarily concerned with

A. refuting certain scientific theories about Earth’s climatic history

B. outlining new findings concerning Earth’s climate during ice ages

C. discussing new research that may challenge a long-held scientific assumption about Earth’s climatic history

D. describing the climatic changes that occurred when Earth moved from an ice age into an interglacial period

E. reconciling conflicting evidence concerning climatic changes.

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4. Which of the following describes research that is most clearly analogous to the testing done by GRIP scientists?

A. Scientists studying the formation of the Sahara desert measure the rate of topsoil erosion in the region

B. Scientists seeking to determine the age of a particular fossil measure the percentage of its carbon atoms that have decayed

C. Scientists researching vision in flies measure and compare the amounts of vitamin A found in the retinas of several fly species.

D. Scientists investigating the development of life on Earth measure and compare the amount of oxygen used by various organisms along the evolutionary scale.

E. Scientists plotting the fluctuations in rainfall in the early rain forests measure the presence of certain gases trapped in tree rings of older trees.

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5. According to the passage, which of the following is the most accurate statement of what scientists believed, prior to the GRIP findings, about Earth’s climate?

A. Over the course of Earth’s history, interglacials have become progressively milder

B. Earth’s overall climate has been generally mild since the planet’s formation

C. During both interglacials and ice ages, Earth’s climate has fluctuated violently.

D. During ice ages, Earth’s climate has been highly variable, whereas during interglacials it has been mild and stable.

E. During interglacials, Earth’s climate has been highly variable, whereas during ice ages it has been uniformly cold and icy.

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6. The passage suggests that which of the following is most likely to have been true of the oxygen-16 and oxygen-18 isotopes found in the lower sections of the GRIP core?

A. There was significantly more isotope oxygen-18 than isotope oxygen-16 in the ice layers.

B. There was significantly more isotope oxygen-16 than isotope oxygen-18 in the ice layers.

C. Ratios of isotopes oxygen-18 and oxygen-16 varied in the ice layers.

D. Layers containing isotope oxygen-18 placed stress on the layers containing isotope oxygen-16, possibly distorting them.

E. Isotope oxygen-16, being lighter, was located mainly in the upper layers, whereas oxygen-18 had settled into the lower layers.

Boldface 11

Archaeologists recently excavated a collection of copper tools from a grave in India. Although the tools were similar to others from the same culture, each tool found in the grave was significantly larger than any other known tool of the corresponding type produced by the same culture. Since the larger size would have made many of the tools extremely unwieldy, the tools were probably made specifically for ceremonial burial.?Tools made for ceremonial burial would be expected to have none of the wear that comes from use, and indeed these tools showed no such wear.

7. In the argument given, the two highlighted portions play which of the following roles?

A. The first is introduced as evidence that apparently supports a position the argument opposes, the second is that position.

B. The first is introduced as evidence that apparently supports a position the argument opposes, the second is the position the argument seeks to support.

C. The first is the position the argument seeks to support, the second provides evidence to support that position.

D. The first provides evidence for the position the argument seeks to support, the second is a position that the argument seeks to disprove.

E. The first provides evidence for the position the argument seeks to support, the second is that position.

Passage 23

Only since the late 1960s have literary scholars attempted to establish an accurate and systematic literary history of women novelists. Many previous histories suffered from “Great Traditionalism,” an approach that, by limiting itself to a group of women writers termed “great,” ignored the diversity among women novelists. These histories excluded the minor novelists, who are the links in the chain that binds literary generations together, and who allow us to see the continuities in women’s writing. Given the distortions produced by this concentration on “great” writers, as well as the obviously problematic tendency of many literary scholars to apply stereotypes of femininity, it was not surprising that some literary scholars in the early 1960s evaded the important issue of women’s sexual identity entirely, focusing instead on the form and style of women’s writing. Such an approach, while insightful and very valuable, did not consider the crucial connection between women’s writing and changes in their legal and economic status.

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8. According to the passage, some literary scholars in the early 1960s tended to do which of the following in their considerations of women novelists’ works?

A. Attack the traditional distinction between “great” women novelists and those women novelists considered less important

B. Consider sexual identity when evaluating the works of “great” women novelists but not the works of minor women novelists

C. Ignore the issue of the sexual identity of women novelists altogether

D. Address issues of form and style more frequently when discussing “great” women novelists than when discussing minor women novelists

E. Apply more stringent stylistic standards when evaluating minor women writers than when evaluating the group of women writers

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9. Information in the passage suggests that literary histories that adhere to “Great Traditionalism” have which of the following flaws?

A. They overemphasize the issue of sexual identity in women’s writing

B. They overemphasize the degree of continuity between literary generations

C. They do not help to explain the connection between different generations of women novelists

D. They denigrate the achievements of “great” female novelists in comparison with those of male novelists.

E. They do not incorporate the insights of literary histories produced before the late 1960s.

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10. The attitude of the author of the passage toward the approach taken toward women novelists by “some literary scholars in the early 1960s” can best be described as

A. disinterested and aloof

B. condescending and dismissive

C. respectful but critical

D. favorable but brusque

E. interested but puzzled