Reading Practice Test 2

1. Which word/phrase in the sentence below is redundant and can be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence?After receiving two different results, the students decided to repeat the experiment again to hopefully find some consistency among them.

2. Read the text and answer the question. The Dark Forest Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness - a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.
But there was life, abroad in the land and defiant. Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapor that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged along behind. The sled was without runners. It was made of stout birch-bark, and its full surface rested on the snow. The front end of the sled was turned up, like a scroll, in order to force down and under the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave before it. On the sled, securely lashed, was a long and narrow oblong box. There were other things on the sled, blankets, an axe, and a coffee-pot and frying-pan; but prominent, occupying most of the space, was the long and narrow oblong box.
In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over, a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the Wild to like movement. Life is an offence to it, for life is movement; and the Wild aims always to destroy movement. It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does the Wild harry and crush into submission man - man who is the most restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that all movement must in the end come to the cessation of movement.
But at front and rear, unawed and indomitable, toiled the two men who were not yet dead. Their bodies were covered with fur and soft-tanned leather. Eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with the crystals from their frozen breath that their faces were not discernible. This gave them the seeming of ghostly masques, undertakers in a spectral world at the funeral of some ghost. But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.

In the paragraph that introduces the dogs and sleds, which element provides the most suspense?

3. Read the text and answer the question. The Dark Forest Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness - a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.
But there was life, abroad in the land and defiant. Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapor that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged along behind. The sled was without runners. It was made of stout birch-bark, and its full surface rested on the snow. The front end of the sled was turned up, like a scroll, in order to force down and under the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave before it. On the sled, securely lashed, was a long and narrow oblong box. There were other things on the sled, blankets, an axe, and a coffee-pot and frying-pan; but prominent, occupying most of the space, was the long and narrow oblong box.
In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over, a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the Wild to like movement. Life is an offence to it, for life is movement; and the Wild aims always to destroy movement. It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does the Wild harry and crush into submission man - man who is the most restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that all movement must in the end come to the cessation of movement.
But at front and rear, unawed and indomitable, toiled the two men who were not yet dead. Their bodies were covered with fur and soft-tanned leather. Eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with the crystals from their frozen breath that their faces were not discernible. This gave them the seeming of ghostly masques, undertakers in a spectral world at the funeral of some ghost. But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.

Which quote from the passage goes against the overall mood?

4. Read the text and answer the question.In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.
Now the trumpet summons us again - not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are - but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation" - a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.
Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shank from this responsibility - I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it -- and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.

How does JFK craft his approach to make it appeal to all citizens?

5. Read the text and answer the question. Goodbye Pencil, Hello KeyboardLook around a modern-day classroom today and you will certainly note many changes from the classrooms of the past. Overhead projectors and chalkboards have been replaced; desks rarely feature a piece of paper, but rather sport a computer monitor. In addition, the days of taking notes, filling out tests, and writing reports with a pen or pencil in hand is utterly obsolete, exchanged for keyboards.

In more than 40 states throughout the country, cursive writing and penmanship are no longer considered an essential part of the curriculum, and none of the major standardized tests require any type of handwriting. Instead, keyboarding skills have taken precedence. The ability to form clear curves and loops on the paper is now outdated; the ability to avoid the painfully slow “hunting and pecking” and type at least 50 words per minute has taken precedence.

The age-old tradition of handwriting is not going quietly in some parts of the nation as at least four states have gone to their legislatures with bills mandating instruction in cursive writing in public schools. Advocates of keeping penmanship skills as part of a curriculum point to a plethora of evidence to support their stance. According to their studies, handwriting training helps young students develop hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills, and even improve overall memory retention. Additional studies have indicated that students who wrote by hand not only wrote faster than on a standard keyboard, but also wrote higher quality sentences.

Opponents to cursive in the classroom, however, point out that today’s generations of students have been keyboarding since before they attended kindergarten. This form of communication is part of how their brains operate, and many find the feel of a pen or pencil in their hands uncomfortable, unwieldy, and generally unpleasant. Keyboarding is quicker, freeing up precious time to work on other projects, and is, inarguably, the preferred communication method of the modern student.

Which statement about schools is the most accurate?

6. DIRECTIONS: Read each passage and identify how the information is being organized.It is better to eat a variety of fresh fruit than it is to drink fruit juice from a bottle. Fresh fruit contains fiber, which makes your body absorb sugar more slowly so that it is easier to digest your food. Fruit juices, on the other hand, are not only a concentrated source of natural sugars, but many store‐bought juices contain a lot of added sugar, too.

 

7. DIRECTIONS: Read each passage and identify how the information is being organized.The butterfly has an interesting life cycle. It is hatched from an egg as a caterpillar. The caterpillar, called a larva, does nothing but eat until its pupa stage, when it seals itself up into a cocoon and goes through a transformation. It emerges from the cocoon as a butterfly, which is its adult stage. The adult butterfly lays eggs of its own and eventually dies.

 

8. Read the text and answer the question. Goodbye Pencil, Hello KeyboardLook around a modern-day classroom today and you will certainly note many changes from the classrooms of the past. Overhead projectors and chalkboards have been replaced; desks rarely feature a piece of paper, but rather sport a computer monitor. In addition, the days of taking notes, filling out tests, and writing reports with a pen or pencil in hand is utterly obsolete, exchanged for keyboards.

In more than 40 states throughout the country, cursive writing and penmanship are no longer considered an essential part of the curriculum, and none of the major standardized tests require any type of handwriting. Instead, keyboarding skills have taken precedence. The ability to form clear curves and loops on the paper is now outdated; the ability to avoid the painfully slow “hunting and pecking” and type at least 50 words per minute has taken precedence.

The age-old tradition of handwriting is not going quietly in some parts of the nation as at least four states have gone to their legislatures with bills mandating instruction in cursive writing in public schools. Advocates of keeping penmanship skills as part of a curriculum point to a plethora of evidence to support their stance. According to their studies, handwriting training helps young students develop hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills, and even improve overall memory retention. Additional studies have indicated that students who wrote by hand not only wrote faster than on a standard keyboard, but also wrote higher quality sentences.

Opponents to cursive in the classroom, however, point out that today’s generations of students have been keyboarding since before they attended kindergarten. This form of communication is part of how their brains operate, and many find the feel of a pen or pencil in their hands uncomfortable, unwieldy, and generally unpleasant. Keyboarding is quicker, freeing up precious time to work on other projects, and is, inarguably, the preferred communication method of the modern student.

What do advocates of keyboarding list as one of their main reasons?

9. Which word/phrase in the sentence below is redundant and can be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence?In 2014. researchers discovered and uncovered one of the biggest dinosaurs of all time, a new species of titanosaur, one of the largest species of dinosaurs to ever have walked on Earth.

10. DIRECTIONS: Read each passage and identify how the information is being organized.Nutrients are the things in healthy food that are good for your body. Foods that contain a lot of nutrients are called nutrient‐dense foods. Some nutrient‐dense foods include protein, fruits, vegetables, grains, and dairy.