Reading comprehension (social sciences, psychology, business, law), history short,

medium 20-40 lines

Paragraph argument (time, calculation) short

Read actively
Read for general meaning
General structure in head

For any new story to get old there has to be an opening, a sudden tectonic jarring of a
discipline's conventional wisdom. Thomas Kuhn described this critical moment with the
now much weathered phrase "paradigm shift." It's the precise moment of the tilt
between an old worldview and a new one. And that's where we are now in the sub-
discipline of ancient-American archaeology, poised between those views held (as
always) by moss backed conservative traditionalists on the one side and young agitated
revolutionaries on the other.

According to the passage, the author of the passage regards the current debate in
ancient-American archaeology to be one in which

A. a compromise is imminent (about to happen)

B. both sides have reached an impasse (deadlock)
C. the conventional view is being challenged
D. archaeology will be forever changed
E. the traditionalists will be proven wrong.

Answers choices,

Extremes answer choices (ignore)

Irrelevant to the text (ignore)

Slightest harsh word (ignore)

Implicitly, explicitly (clearly mentioned), implies that

The outcome of the test was not forthcoming

- test was difficult

- test was not administered properly
For any new story to get old there has to be an opening, a sudden tectonic jarring of a
discipline's conventional wisdom. Thomas Kuhn described this critical moment with the
now much weathered phrase "paradigm shift." It's the precise moment of the tilt
between an old worldview and a new one. And that's where we are now in the sub-
discipline of ancient-American archaeology, poised between those views held (as
always) by moss backed conservative traditionalists on the one side and young agitated
revolutionaries on the other.

The phrase "new story" in the context of the passage means which of the following?

A. a plausible myth
B. a scientific dispute
C. a different way of perceiving events
D. a shift in the way a discipline conducts research
E. a popular narrative

For any new story to get old there has to be an opening, a sudden tectonic jarring of a
discipline's conventional wisdom. Thomas Kuhn described this critical moment with the
now much weathered phrase "paradigm shift." It's the precise moment of the tilt
between an old worldview and a new one. And that's where we are now in the sub-
discipline of ancient-American archaeology, poised between those views held (as
always) by moss backed conservative traditionalists on the one side and young agitated
revolutionaries on the other.

Which of the following would most likely represent a paradigm shift as described in the
paragraph?

A. An archaeologist claims to have unearthed remnants of an arrowhead that once

subjected to carbon-14 dating turn out to be produced not by human agency but
by natural geological forces.
B. Scientists discover that iridium, once only though to have extraterrestrial origins,
can now be found in the earth's mantle, thereby seriously challenging the
prevailing notion that iridium sediments corresponding to the Cretaceous period
must have come from a meteor.
C. Each year computers come up with a prime number that is larger than any
preceding prime number thus confirming the postulates of 19th Century
mathematicians that the number of prime numbers is infinite.
D. Using sophisticated equipment, astronomers have been able to determine that
the amount of dark matter in the universe may be nearly 25 times as great as the
amount of non-dark matter, a number almost double that of their last estimate.
E. A geologist claims that the continents are constantly moving on large plates that
are located miles underneath the surface of the earth, a claim that the scientific
community deems preposterous.
Galileo stuck lenses onto either end of an organ pipe; today's research telescopes,
while considerably more elaborate, still perform the same fundamental task of collecting
and focusing light. It's all astronomers have to go on: electromagnetic radiation from
distant objects, whether it arrives in the form of X rays or visible light or radio waves.
Scientists rely, for instance, on spectroscopy, the process of separating light emitted by
an object in space into its opponent wavelengths, as a prism does, then analyzing those
components. And they invent new tools to analyze the light. To probe deeper and
deeper into space, scientists must design better and better detectors, sensitive to the
faintest of emissions.

Can be inferred from the passage that spectroscopy

A. is one of the new tools

B. interprets information from distance objects
C. relies only on one end of the infrared spectrum
D. insufficient to describe the contours of objects in space
E. does not rely solely on light emissions

the author implies that the telescope Galileo had fashioned together

A. was too crude to yield reliable information (out of focus)

B. allowed for the collecting and focusing of light
C. was unable to process electromagnetic radiation (rotten fruit)
D. required a technical background to use (too broad)
E. was the first such invention (true but does not answer a question)

Wrong answer choices:

Out of scope

Extremes or assumes too much

Rotten fruit

Too broad/too narrow

True but doesnot answer question

Paragraph contain, “13 billion stars” options, many stars, few

The new school of political history that emerged in the 1960’s and 1970’s sought to go beyond the
traditional focus of political historians on leaders and government institutions by examining directly the
political practices of ordinary citizens. Like the old approach, however, this new approach excluded
women. The very techniques these historians used to uncover mass political behavior in the nineteenth
century United States—quantitative analyses of election returns, for example—were useless in analyzing
the political activities of women, who were denied the vote until 1920. By redefining “political activity,”
historian Paula Baker has developed a political history that includes women. She concludes that among
ordinary citizens, political activism by women in the nineteenth century prefigured trends in twentieth
century politics. Defining “politics” as “any action taken to affect the course of behavior of government
or of the community,” Baker concludes that, while voting and holding office were restricted to men,
women in the nineteenth century organized themselves into societies committed to social issues such as
temperance and poverty. In other words, Baker contends, women activists were early practitioners of
nonpartisan, issue-oriented politics and thus were more interested in enlisting lawmakers, regardless of
their party affiliation, on behalf of certain issues than in ensuring that one party or another won an
election. In the twentieth century, more men drew closer to women’s ideas about politics and took up
modes of issue-oriented politics that Baker sees women as having pioneered.

62. The primary purpose of the passage is to

(A) enumerate reasons why both traditional scholarly methods and newer scholarly methods have
limitations

(B) identify a shortcoming in a scholarly approach and describe an alternative approach -----

(C) provide empirical data to support a long-held scholarly assumption

(D) compare two scholarly publications on the basis of their authors’ backgrounds

(E) attempt to provide a partial answer to a long-standing scholarly dilemma

The new school of political history that emerged in the 1960’s and 1970’s sought to go beyond the
traditional focus of political historians on leaders and government institutions by examining directly the
political practices of ordinary citizens. Like the old approach, however, this new approach excluded
women. The very techniques these historians used to uncover mass political behavior in the nineteenth
century United States—quantitative analyses of election returns, for example—were useless in analyzing
the political activities of women, who were denied the vote until 1920. By redefining “political activity,”
historian Paula Baker has developed a political history that includes women. She concludes that among
ordinary citizens, political activism by women in the nineteenth century prefigured trends in twentieth
century politics. Defining “politics” as “any action taken to affect the course of behavior of government
or of the community,” Baker concludes that, while voting and holding office were restricted to men,
women in the nineteenth century organized themselves into societies committed to social issues such as
temperance and poverty. In other words, Baker contends, women activists were early practitioners of
nonpartisan, issue-oriented politics and thus were more interested in enlisting lawmakers, regardless of
their party affiliation, on behalf of certain issues than in ensuring that one party or another won an
election. In the twentieth century, more men drew closer to women’s ideas about politics and took up
modes of issue-oriented politics that Baker sees women as having pioneered.

63. The passage suggests which of the following concerning the techniques used by the new political
historians described in the first paragraph of the passage?

(A) They involved the extensive use of the biographies of political party leaders and political
theoreticians.

(B) They were conceived by political historians who were reacting against the political climates of the
1960’s and 1970’s.

(C) They were of more use in analyzing the positions of United States political parties in the nineteenth

(D) They were of more use in analyzing the political behavior of nineteenthcentury voters than in
analyzing the political activities of those who could not vote during that period.

(E) They were devised as a means of tracing the influence of nineteenthcentury political trends on
twentieth-century political trends.

64. It can be inferred that the author of the passage quotes Baker directly in the second paragraph
primarily in order to

(A) clarify a position before providing an alternative to that position

(B) differentiate between a novel definition and traditional definitions

(C) provide an example of a point agreed on by different generations of scholars

(D) provide an example of the prose style of an important historian

(E) amplify a definition given in the first paragraph

65. According to the passage, Paula Baker and the new political historians of the 1960’s and 1970’s
shared which of the following?

(A) A commitment to interest group politics

(B) A disregard for political theory and ideology

(C) An interest in the ways in which nineteenth-century politics prefigured contemporary politics

(D) A reliance on such quantitative techniques as the analysis of election returns

(E) An emphasis on the political involvement of ordinary citizens

66. Which of the following best describes the structure of the first paragraph of the passage?

(A) Two scholarly approaches are compared, and a shortcoming common to both is identified.

(B) Two rival schools of thought are contrasted, and a third is alluded to.

(C) An outmoded scholarly approach is described, and a corrective approach is called for.

(D) An argument is outlined, and counterarguments are mentioned.

(E) A historical era is described in terms of its political trends.

67. The information in the passage suggests that a pre-1960s political historian would have been most
likely to undertake which of the following studies?

(A) An analysis of voting trends among women voters of the 1920’s

(B) A study of male voters’ gradual ideological shift from party politics to issue-oriented politics

(C) A biography of an influential nineteenth-century minister of foreign affairs

(D) An analysis of narratives written by previously unrecognized women activists

(E) A study of voting trends among naturalized immigrant laborers in a nineteenth-century logging camp