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In the 1500’s when the Spanish moved into what later was to become the
southwestern United States, they encountered the ancestors of the modern-day Pueblo,
Hopi, and Zuni peoples. These ancestors, known variously as the Basket Makers, the
Line Anasazi, or the Ancient Ones, had lived in the area for at least 2,000 years. They were
(5) an advanced agricultural people who used irrigation to help grow their crops.
The Anasazi lived in houses constructed of adobe and wood. Anasazi houses were
originally built in pits and were entered from the roof. But around the year 700 A.D.,
the Anasazi began to build their homes above ground and join them together into
rambling multistoried complexes, which the Spanish called pueblos or villages.
(10) Separate subterranean rooms in these pueblos ¡ª known as kivas or chapels ¡ª were set
aside for religious ceremonials. Each kiva had a fire pit and a hole that was believed to
lead to the underworld. The largest pueblos had five stories and more than 800 rooms.
The Anasazi family was matrilinear, that is, descent was traced through the female.
The sacred objects of the family were under the control of the oldest female, but the
(15) actual ceremonies were conducted by her brother or son. Women owned the rooms in
the pueblo and the crops, once they were harvested. While still growing, crops
belonged to the men who, in contrast to most other Native American groups, planted
them. The women made baskets and pottery; the men wove textiles and crafted
turquoise jewelry.
(20) Each village had two chiefs. The village chief dealt with land disputes and religious
affairs. The war chief led the men in fighting during occasional conflicts that broke out
with neighboring villages and directed the men in community building projects. The
cohesive political and social organization of the Anasazi made it almost impossible for
other groups to conquer them.

1. What does the passage mainly discuss?

The culture of the Anasazi people
European settlement in what became the southeastern United States
The construction of Anasazi houses
Political structures of Native American peoples

Barbed wire, first patented in the United States in 1867, played an important part in
the development of American farming, as it enabled the settlers to make effective
fencing to enclose their land and keep cattle away from their crops. This had a
Line considerable effect on cattle ranching, since the herds no longer had unrestricted use of
(5) the plains for grazing, and the fencing led to conflict between the farmers and the cattle
ranchers.
Before barbed wire came into general use, fencing was often made from serrated
wire, which was unsatisfactory because it broke easily when under strain, and could
snap in cold weather due to contraction. The first practical machine for producing
(10) barbed wire was invented in 1874 by an Illinois farmer, and between then and the end
of the century about 400 types of barbed wire were devised, of which only about a
dozen were ever put to practical use.
Modern barbed wire is made from mild steel, high-tensile steel, or aluminum. Mild
steel and aluminum barbed wire have two strands twisted together to form a cable
(15) which is stronger than single-strand wire and less affected by temperature changes.
Single-strand wire, round or oval, is made from high-tensile steel with the barbs
crimped or welded on. The steel wires used are galvanized ¡ª coated with zinc to make
them rustproof. The two wires that make up the line wire or cable are fed separately
into a machine at one end. They leave it at the other end twisted together and barbed.
(20) The wire to make the barbs is fed into the machine from the sides and cut to length by
knives that cut diagonally through the wire to produce a sharp point. This process
continues automatically, and the finished barbed wire is wound onto reels, usually
made of wire, in lengths of 400 meters or in weights of up to 50 kilograms.
A variation of barbed wire is also used for military purposes. It is formed into long
coils or entanglements called concertina wire.

11. What is the main topic of the passage?

Cattle ranching in the United States
A type of fencing
Industrial uses of wire
A controversy over land use

Under certain circumstances, the human body must cope with gases at greater-than-
normal atmospheric pressure. For example, gas pressures increase rapidly during a dive
made with scuba gear because the breathing equipment allows divers to stay
Line underwater longer and dive deeper. The pressure exerted on the human body increases
(5) by 1 atmosphere for every 10 meters of depth in seawater, so that at 30 meters in
seawater a diver is exposed to a pressure of about 4 atmospheres. The pressure of the
gases being breathed must equal the external pressure applied to the body ; otherwise
breathing is very difficult. Therefore all of the gases in the air breathed by a scuba
diver at 40 meters are present at five times their usual pressure. Nitrogen, which
(10) composes 80 percent of the air we breathe, usually causes a balmy feeling of
well-being at this pressure. At a depth of 5 atmospheres, nitrogen causes symptoms
resembling alcohol intoxication, known as nitrogen narcosis. Nitrogen narcosis
apparently results from a direct effect on the brain of the large amounts of nitrogen
dissolved in the blood. Deep dives are less dangerous if helium is substituted for
(15) nitrogen, because under these pressures helium does not exert a similar narcotic effect.
As a scuba diver descends, the pressure of nitrogen in the lungs increases. Nitrogen
then diffuses from the lungs to the blood, and from the blood to body tissues. The
reverse occurs when the diver surfaces ; the nitrogen pressure in the lungs falls and the
nitrogen diffuses from the tissues into the blood, and from the blood into the lungs. If
(20) the return to the surface is too rapid, nitrogen in the tissues and blood cannot diffuse
out rapidly enough and nitrogen bubbles are formed. They can cause severe pains,
particularly around the joints.
Another complication may result if the breath is held during ascent. During ascent
from a depth of 10 meters, the volume of air in the lungs will double because the air
(25) pressure at the surface is only half of what it was at 10 meters. This change in volume
may cause the lungs to distend and even rupture. This condition is called air embolism.
To avoid this event, a diver must ascend slowly, never at a rate exceeding the rise of
the exhaled air bubbles, and must exhale during ascent.

21. What does the passage mainly discuss?

The equipment divers use
The effects of pressure on gases in the human body
How to prepare for a deep dive
The symptoms of nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream

Each advance in microscopic technique has provided scientists with new perspectives
on the function of living organisms and the nature of matter itself. The invention of the
visible-light microscope late in the sixteenth century introduced a previously unknown
Line realm of single-celled plants and animals. In the twentieth century, electron microscopes
(5) have provided direct views of viruses and minuscule surface structures. Now another
type of microscope, one that utilizes x-rays rather than light or electrons, offers a
different way of examining tiny details; it should extend human perception still farther
into the natural world.
The dream of building an x-ray microscope dates to 1895 ; its development, however,
(10) was virtually halted in the 1940’s because the development of the electron microscope
was progressing rapidly. During the 1940’s, electron microscopes routinely achieved
resolution better than that possible with a visible-light microscope, while the
performance of x-ray microscopes resisted improvement. In recent years, however,
interest in x-ray microscopes has revived, largely because of advances such as the
(15) development of new sources of x-ray illumination. As a result, the brightness available
today is millions of times that of x-ray tubes, which, for most of the century, were the
only available sources of soft x-rays.
The new x-ray microscopes considerably improve on the resolution provided by optical
microscopes. They can also be used to map the distribution of certain chemical elements.
(20) Some can form pictures in extremely short times ; others hold the promise of special
capabilities such as three-dimensional imaging. Unlike conventional electron microscopy,
x-ray microscopy enables specimens to be kept in air and in water, which means that
biological samples can be studied under conditions similar to their natural state. The
illumination used, so-called soft x-rays in the wavelength range of twenty to forty
(25) angstroms(an angstrom is one ten-billionth of a meter), is also sufficiently penetrating
to image intact biological cells in many cases. Because of the wavelength of the x-rays
used, soft x-ray microscopes will never match the highest resolution possible with
electron microscopes. Rather, their special properties will make possible investigations
that will complement those performed with light- and electron-based instruments.

30. What does the passage mainly discuss?

The detail seen through a microscope
Sources of illumination for microscopes
A new kind of microscope
Outdated microscopic techniques

Perhaps the most striking quality of satiric literature is its freshness, its originality of
perspective. Satire rarely offers original ideas. Instead, it presents the familiar in a new
form. Satirists do not offer the world new philosophies. What they do is look at
Line familiar conditions from a perspective that makes these conditions seem foolish,
(5) harmful, or affected. Satire jars us out of complacence into a pleasantly shocked
realization that many of the values we unquestioningly accept are false. Don Quixote
makes chivalry seem absurd ; Brave New World ridicules the pretensions of science ; A
Modest Proposal dramatizes starvation by advocating cannibalism. None of these ideas
is original. Chivalry was suspect before Cervantes, humanists objected to the claims of
(10) pure science before Aldous Huxley, and people were aware of famine before Swift. It
was not the originality of the idea that made these satires popular. It was the manner of
expression, the satiric method, that made them interesting and entertaining. Satires are
read because they are aesthetically satisfying works of art, not because they are morally
wholesome or ethically instructive. They are stimulating and refreshing because with
(15) commonsense briskness they brush away illusions and secondhand opinions. With
spontaneous irreverence, satire rearranges perspectives, scrambles familiar objects into
incongruous juxtaposition, and speaks in a personal idiom instead of abstract platitude.
Satire exists because there is need for it. It has lived because readers appreciate a
refreshing stimulus, an irreverent reminder that they live in a world of platitudinous
(20) thinking, cheap moralizing, and foolish philosophy. Satire serves to prod people into an
awareness of truth, though rarely to any action on behalf of truth. Satire tends to
remind people that much of what they see, hear, and read in popular media is
sanctimonious, sentimental, and only partially true. Life resembles in only a slight
degree the popular image of it. Soldiers rarely hold the ideals that movies attribute to
(25) them, nor do ordinary citizens devote their lives to unselfish service of humanity.
Intelligent people know these things but tend to forget them when they do not hear
them expressed.

40. What does the passage mainly discuss?

Difficulties of writing satiric literature
Popular topics of satire
New philosophies emerging from satiric literature
Reasons for the popularity of satire