Questions 1 and 2 are based on this passage. ?

In A Fine Brush on Ivory, his appreciation of novelist Jane Austen, Richard Jenkyns remarks that in ?Austen scholarship there are pressures that cause ordinary critical circumspection to break down. ?Principal among those pressures is the peculiar affection in which the person of Jane Austen is held by many readers. This affection is not altogether explained by admiration for her genius, nor is it entirely?a symptom of nostalgia for her orderly, decorous, vanished world. The impulse to know personally this?elusive, even mysterious, writer has led critics to approach her work in mostly biographical or historical?ways, often in defiance of other critical fashions, especially the various formal approaches that have dominated modern literary criticism.?

Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.?

1. According to the passage, critics approach Jane Austen’s work in biographical or historical ways for which of the following reasons??

A. They find her work particularly well suited to biographical and historical readings.?

B. They are unsatisfied with the formal approaches that have dominated modern literary criticism. ?

C. They feel the need to know the baffling writer personally.?

2. In the context in which it appears, “appreciation of” most nearly means?

A. gratitude toward?

B. awareness of?

C. appraisal of?

D. esteem of?

E. grasp of?

Questions 3 to 5 are based on this passage:?

In the absence of reliable data concerning the relationship between the material quality [i.e., physical condition] and the price of used books, it is impossible to offer statistically exact information for the?impact of the used-book market on the cost of reading in eighteenth-century England. Yet it can hardly ?be doubted that such an impact occurred, not only as a standard behavior of markets but inferentially?through the innovative design and packaging strategies that London booksellers increasingly resorted to from 1760 in order to identify (and no doubt also create) more finely differentiated classes of readers. Fortunately, we can also call on extensive, independent price lists for eighteenth-century books published in Britain to track differences in the cost of new and used volumes of the same title, edition, and format. To the extent that new list prices for successive editions of the same work in a uniform?format remain constant or increase at a lesser rate than market exercised a drag on book prices among?new and used copies any given title and edition can be used as proxy for material quality determinations in the two markets.?

3. The primary function of the first sentence of the passage is to?

A. propose a theory that the passage later disputes

B. articulate an argument that the passage goes on to support ?

C. point out a difficulty in evaluating a phenomenon?

D. explain why certain evidence has not been fully used?

E. identify a dispute concerning a historical issue.?

4. The passage suggests that in order to evaluate the “hypothesis,” it is necessary to have ?reliable data about?

A. changes in consumer prices as a whole over time ?

B. variation in the material quality of used books ?

C. income discrepancies among different classes of readers?

D. the rate at which used books entered the market. ?

E. the total number of books published in any given year?

5. Replacement of the phrase “exercised a drag on” with which of the following words would result in the least change in meaning??

A. forestalled?

B. denigrated?

C. circumvented?

D. admonished?

E. restrained

Question 6 is based on this passage:?

An herbal preparation frequently mentioned in ancient Mesopotamian texts as a treatment for ?arthritis has been formulated by modern scientists according to the ancient directions and has been ?found to have no effect on this condition. Clearly, therefore, there is no factual basis for the claim ?found in ancient texts that people taking this herbal preparation fared better than those resorting to other treatments for arthritis.??

6. Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the argument??

A. The various ancient texts that give precise formulas for the herbal preparation do not differ in ?the proportions they specify for the individual ingredients.?

B. All of the ingredients in the herbal preparation are naturally occurring substances, whereas many modern arthritis drugs contain synthetic chemicals.?

C. The herbal preparation was also used by ancient Mesopotamian people for certain conditions?other than arthritis, and scientists have found it ineffective against those conditions as well.?

D. Other treatments for arthritis that ancient Mesopotamian people frequently used instead of ?the herbal preparation have been found by scientists to aggravate the condition. ?

E. Many treatments for arthritis that were developed much more recently than the Mesopotamian?herbal remedy have also found ineffective by modern scientists.?

Questions 7 and 8 are based on this passage:

Some building fires produce “crazed glass”--windows marked with a distinctive web of tiny, tightly ?spaced, random cracks. For years, this effect was thought to result from the intense, rapid heating of?fires produced with accelerants. However, researchers studying the fires found crazed glass in a quarter of building fires, a surprisingly high percentage. Moreover, it appeared most often on the fire’s periphery, ?suggesting that it resulted from contact with water from firefighters’ hoses rather than rapid heating. Laboratory tests found that spraying cool water on glass heated to over 500℃ reliably produced crazing, while rapid heating never did. It turns out the effect results from thermal shock: as the glass cools, it contracts too rapidly to adjust smoothly.?

7. In the context of the passage as a whole, the primary function of the highlighted sentence is to ?

A. indicate that crazed glass had previously been overlooked in a significant number of fires?

B. emphasize the extent to which crazed glass tends to impede building fires ?

C. explain the researchers’ choice of method in conducting their laboratory tests?

D. present a finding that is difficult to reconcile with a particular explanation for crazed glass?

E. qualify the author’s initial assumptions regarding the distinctive characteristics of crazed glass ?

Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.?

8. According to the passage, which of the following is true regarding crazed glass resulting ?from building fires??

A. It displays a characteristic pattern of small cracks. ?

B. It does not occur in fires produced with acceleration.?

C. It generally occurs on the outer edges of the fire.?

Questions 9 and 10 are based on this passage:?

W. E. B. Du Bois’s exhibit of African American history and culture at the 1900 Paris Exposition ?Universelle attracted the attention of a world of sociological scholarship whose values his work ?challenged. Du Bois believed that Spencerian sociologists failed in their attempts to gain greater ?understanding of human deeds because their work examined not deeds but theories and because they ?gathered data not to effect social progress but theories and because they gathered data not to effect ?social progress but merely to theorize. In his exhibit, Du Bois sought to present cultural artifacts that would shift the focus of sociology from the construction of vast generalizations to the observation of?particular, living individual elements of society and the working contributions of individual people to a ?vast functioning social structure.?

9. The passage implies that Du Bois attributed which of the following beliefs to Spencerian ?sociologists??

A. Theorizing is important to the understanding of human actions. ?

B. Vast generalizations have limited value. ?

C. Data gathering is a relatively unimportant part of sociological research.?

D. Sociology should focus on the living elements of society rather than cultural artifacts.?

E. Particulars are more important than universals. ?

Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.?

10. The passage implies that Du Bois believed which of the following statements about sociology?

A. It should contribute to the betterment of society.?

B. It should study what people actually do.?

C. It should focus on how existing social structures determine individual behavior.