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Birds have long played a central role in superstitions. However, the role birds have played varies greatly. While crows were thought to be in league with the devil, blue birds were usually considered signs of good fortune. Blue Jays, in contrast, were seldom assigned a positive role in superstition and legend. Most of the time, they were considered companions to the devil. According to one ancient superstition, blue jays were never seen on Fridays. Friday was their day to meet with the devil and pass on any useful gossip about souls who might be ready to go astray. Owls, in contrast, have played a number of different roles, some good, some bad. In several superstitions they are portrayed as wise counselors; in others, they are a sign that death is near.
Q. Which of the following choices best identifies the main idea of this passage?
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At one time, one could only trace one’s family ancestry by writing letters, visiting courthouses, and begging relatives for any crumb of information. However, today with the World Wide Web, the task has become much simpler. Much of the archived history of our lives and our ancestors’ lives is readily available on-line. In addition, there are specific software programs in existence that will walk you through the process of creating a family tree and take you to appropriate Internet sites for record information. Another alternative is hiring someone or some company to do your tree for you. Depending on your dedication and time, a method is available for you. You might think about tracing your family roots. It is fun for many and will let you in on your family’s past. Even if you find a skeleton in the closet, maybe you could just ignore that twig of your family tree.
Q. We may infer from the passage that
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According to the United States Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, everybody who is at least six months old should get a flu shot this year. This recommendation was first made last year. The AARP Bulletin reports that a vaccine called Fluzone High-Dose is now available, designed especially for people aged 65 years and older. Because older people produce less robust immune responses than younger people, scientists have produced this vaccine to give them better protection against the influenza virus. This is important because cases of the flu can involve very serious complications for older persons.
Q. Which of the following choices best identifies the main idea of this passage?
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Did you know that the surface of the water is elastic? When you venture deep into the Amazon Jungle, you may encounter a lizard-like creature that runs across the top of the water. He does not swim the water; he runs it like it is a solid surface. It is amazing to see! The combination of his light weight, the speed at which he runs, and the surface of the water giving slightly he maintains his precarious balance on top of the water.
Q. Identify the statement below that gives the most accurate statement of the central idea of this passage.
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The late 1980’s found the landscape of popular music in America dominated by a distinctive style of rock and roll known as Glam Rock or Hair Metal—so called because of the over-styled hair, makeup, and wardrobe worn by the genre’s ostentatious rockers. Bands like Poison, White Snake, and Motley Crue popularized glam rock with their power ballads and flashy style, but the product had worn thin by the early 1990’s. The mainstream public, tired of an act they perceived as symbolic of the superficial 1980’s, was ready for something with a bit of substance.
Q. The author’s description of glam rockers indicates that they
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Steamships were first introduced into the United States in 1807, and John Molson built the first steamship in Canada (then called British North America) in 1809. By the 1830’s dozens of steam vessels were in use in Canada. They offered the traveler reliable transportation in comfortable facilities-a welcome alternative to stagecoach travel, which at the best of times could only be described as wretched.
This commitment to dependable river transport became entrenched with the investment of millions of dollars for the improvement of waterways which included the construction of canals and lock systems. The Lachine and Welland canals, two of the most important systems were opened in 1825 and 1829, respectively.
By the time that Upper and Lower Canada were united into the Province of Canada in 1841. The public debt for canals was more than one hundred dollars per capita. But it may not seem such a great amount if we consider that improvements allowed steamboats to remain practical for most commercial transport in Canada until the mid– nineteenth century.
Q. Which of the following most accurately main purpose of the passage?
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One of the most popular literary figures in American literature is a woman who spent almost half of her long life in China, a country on a continent thousands of miles from the United States. In her lifetime she earned this country’s most highly acclaimed literary award: the Pulitzer Prize, and also the most prestigious form of literary recognition in the world, the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Pearl S. Buck was almost a household word throughout much of her lifetime because of her prolific literary output, which consisted of some eighty – five published works, including several dozen novels, six collections of short stories, fourteen books for children, and more than a dozen works of nonfiction.
When she was eighty years old, some twenty – five volumes were awaiting publication. Many of those books were set in China, the land in which she spent so much of her life. Her books and her life served as a bridge between the cultures of the East and the West. As the product of those two cultures, she became as the described herself, “mentally bifocal.”
Her unique background made her into an unusually interesting and versatile human being. As we examine the life of Pearl Buck, we cannot help but be aware that we are in fact meeting three separate people: a wife and mother, an internationally famous writer and a humanitarian and philanthropist.
One cannot really get to know Pearl Buck without learning about each of the three. Though honored in her lifetime with the William Dean Howell Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in addition to the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes. Pearl Buck as a total human being, not only a famous author. is a captivating subject of study.
Q. What is the author’s main purpose in the passage?
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Policymakers must confront the dilemma that fossil fuels continue to be an indispensable source of energy even though burning them produces atmospheric accumulations of carbon dioxide that increase the likelihood of potentially disastrous global climate change.
Currently, the technology that would capture carbon dioxide emitted by power plants and sequester it harmlessly underground or undersea instead of releasing it into the atmosphere might double the cost of generating electricity.
But because sequestration does not affect the cost of electricity transmission and distribution, delivered prices will rise less, by no more than 50 percent. Research into better technologies for capturing carbon dioxide will undoubtedly lead to lowered costs.
Q. The passage implies which of the following about the current cost of generating electricity?