164 McGraw - Hill Exercise
Exercise 1
This passage is adapted from John Allen Paulos,
Innumeracy ©1988 Hill and Wang, a division
of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Paulos is a
mathematician discussing the role of mathematics in
American culture.
Line Without some appreciation of common large
numbers, it’s impossible to react with the proper
skepticism to terrifying reports that more than a
million American kids are kidnapped each year,
5 or with the proper sobriety to a warhead carrying
a megaton of explosive power—the equivalent of
a million tons (or two billion pounds) of TNT.
And if you don’t have some feeling for
probabilities, automobile accidents might
10 seem a relatively minor problem of local travel,
whereas being killed by terrorists might seem
to be a major risk when going overseas. As often
observed, however, the 45,000 people killed
annually on American roads are approximately
15 equal in number to all American dead in the
Vietnam War. On the other hand, the seventeen
Americans killed by terrorists in 1985 were
among the 28 million of us who traveled abroad
that year—that’s one chance in 1.6 million of
20 becoming a victim. Compare that with these
annual rates in the United States: one chance in
68,000 of choking to death; one chance in 75,000
of dying in a bicycle crash; one chance in 20,000
of drowning; and one chance in only 5,300 of
25 dying in a car crash.
Confronted with these large numbers and
with the correspondingly small probabilities
associated with them, the innumerate will
inevitably respond with the non sequitur, “Yes, but
30 what if you’re that one,” and then nod knowingly,
as if they’ve demolished your argument with
penetrating insight. This tendency to personalize
is a characteristic of many who suffer from
innumeracy. Equally typical is a tendency to
35 equate the risk from some obscure and exotic  The author regards the “reports” (line 3) with an
malady with the chances of suffering from heart
and circulatory disease, from which about 12,000
Americans die each week.
There’s a joke I like that’s marginally
40 relevant. An old married couple in their nineties
contact a divorce lawyer, who pleads with them
to stay together. “Why get divorced now after
seventy years of marriage?” The little old lady
finally pipes up in a creaky voice: “We wanted to
45 wait until the children were dead.”
ch04.indd 164
McGraw-Hill Education: SAT
A feeling for what quantities or time spans
are appropriate in various contexts is essential
to getting the joke. Slipping between millions
and billions or between billions and trillions
50 should in this sense be equally funny, but it isn’t,
because we too often lack an intuitive grasp for
these numbers.
A recent study by Drs. Kronlund and Phillips
of the University of Washington showed that
55 most doctors’ assessments of the risks of various
operations, procedures, and medications (even
in their own specialties) were way off the mark,
often by several orders of magnitude. I once
had a conversation with a doctor who, within
60 approximately 20 minutes, stated that a certain
procedure he was contemplating (a) had a one-
chance-in-a-million risk associated with it;
(b) was 99 percent safe; and (c) usually went
quite well. Given the fact that so many doctors
65 seem to believe that there must be at least eleven
people in the waiting room if they’re to avoid
being idle, I’m not surprised at this new evidence
of their innumeracy.
1
The primary purpose of this passage is to
A) warn against the dangers associated with daily
living in the United States
B) compare the costs of war-related activities to
the costs of domestic activities
C) discuss common misunderstandings about
statistical data
D) propose solutions to some problems in
American domestic and foreign policy
2
attitude of
A) journalistic objectivity
B) informed incredulity
C) intense alarm
D) lighthearted humor
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 CHAPTER 4 / THE SAT READING TEST 165

3 7
The activities listed in lines 21–25 serve primarily The passage suggests that the “exotic malady”
as examples of (lines 35–36) is an example of
A) underappreciated dangers A) a delusion that is slowly being dispelled
B) intolerable risks B) a risk that is wildly overestimated
C) medical priorities C) a peril that is rapidly growing
D) policy failures D) a disease that defies conventional treatment

4 8
The passage includes all of the following EXCEPT
A) ad hominem
B) verifiable statistics
Which choice provides the best evidence for the
answer to the previous question?
A) Lines 1–7 (“Without some . . . of TNT”)

C) amusing illustration B) Lines 12–16 (“As often . . . War”)

D) social assessment C) Lines 39–40 (“There’s a joke . . . relevant”)

D) Lines 58–64 (“I once . . . quite well”)

5
9
In line 32, the author’s use of the word
“penetrating” is an example of The author mentions the work of Drs. Kronlund
and Phillips (lines 53–58) primarily in order to
A) subtle euphemism
B) deliberate hyperbole A) warn against the risks of certain medical
procedures
C) sincere acclamation
B) highlight a promising medical breakthrough
D) ironic sarcasm
C) demonstrate the fallibility of medical experts
D) dispute a common medical theory
6
In line 32, “personalize” most nearly means
A) customize decoratively
B) describe insultingly
C) represent humanely
D) interpret out of context

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THE CRITICAL READER Exercise

PASSAGE 1
PASSAGE 2
PASSAGE 3
PASSAGE 4
PASSAGE 5
PASSAGE 6