Passage 1

No sooner had the first intrepid male aviators safely returned to Earth than it seemed that women, too, had been smitten by an urge to fly. From mere spectators, they became willing passengers and finally pilots in their own right, plotting their skills and daring line against the hazards of the air and the skepticism of their male counterparts.

In doing so, they enlarged the traditional bounds of a women’s world, won for their sex a new sense of competence and achievement, and contributed handsomely to the progress of aviation. But recognition of their abilities did not come easily. “Men do not believe us capable.”

The famed aviator Amelia Earhart once remarked to a friend. “Because we are women, seldom are we trusted to do an efficient job.” Indeed old attitudes died hard: when Charles Lindbergh visited the Soviet Union in 1938 with his wife, Anne-herself a pilot and gifted proponent of aviation – he was astonished to discover both men and women flying in the Soviet Air Force. Such conventional wisdom made it difficult for women to raise money for the up – to date equipment they needed to compete on an equal basis with men.

Yet they did compete, and often they triumphed finally despite the odds. Ruth Law, whose 590-mile flight from Chicago to Hornell, New York, set a new nonstop distance record in 1916, exemplified the resourcefulness and grit demanded of any woman who wanted to fly.

And when she addressed the Aero Club of America after completing her historical journey, her plainspoken words testified to a universal human motivation that was unaffected by gender: “My flight was done with no expectation of reward,” she declared, “just purely for the love of accomplishment.”

1. Which of the following is the best title for this passage?

2. According to the passage, women pilots were successful in all of the following EXCEPT ……….

3. What can be inferred from the passage about the United States Air Force in 1938?

4. In their efforts to compete with men, early women pilots had difficulty in ……….

5. According to the passage, who said that flying was done with no expectation of reward?

Passage 2

The term “virus” is derived from the Latin word for poison or slime. It was originally applied to the noxious stench emanating from swamps that was thought to cause a variety of diseases in the centuries before microbes were discovered and specifically linked to illness. But it was not until almost the end of the nineteenth century that a true virus was proven to be the cause of a disease.

The nature of viruses made them impossible to detect for many years even after bacteria had been discovered and studied. Not only are viruses too small to be seen with a light microscope, they also cannot be detected through their biological activity, except as it occurs in conjunction with other organisms. In fact, viruses show no traces of biological activity by themselves. Unlike bacteria, they are not living agents in the strictest sense. Viruses are very simple pieces of organic material composed only of nucleic acid, either DNA or RNA, enclosed in a coat of protein made up of simple structural units. (Some viruses also contain carbohydrates and lipids.) They are parasites, requiring human, animal, or plant cells to live. The virus replicates by attaching to a cell and injecting its nucleic acid. Once inside the cell, the DNA or RNA that contains the virus’ genetic information, takes over the cell’s biological machinery, and the cell begins to manufacture viral proteins rather than its own.

1.Which of the following is the best title for the passage.

2. Before microbes were discovered, it was believed that some diseases were caused by ………. .

3. What is the word “proven” in paragraph 1 closest in meaning to?

4.What is the word “nature” in paragraph 2 closest in meaning to?

5. The author implies that bacteria were investigated earlier than viruses because ………. .

6. All of the following may be components of a virus EXCEPT ………. .

Passage 3

Jonas Salk is the American physician and medical researcher who developed the first safe and effective vaccine for poliomyelitis. Salk received his MD. in 1939 from New York University College of Medicine, where he worked with Thomas Francis Jr., who was studying how to develop vaccines from killed viruses. Salk joined Francis in 1942 at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and became part of a group that was working to develop a vaccine against influenza.

In 1947, Salk became associate professor of bacteriology and head of the Virus Research Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he began research on poliomyelitis. Working with scientists from other universities in a program to classify the various strains of the polio virus, Salk corroborated other studies in identifying three separate strains. He then demonstrated that killed virus of each of the three, although incapable of producing the disease, could induce antibody formation in monkeys.

In 1952, he conducted field tests of his killed-virus vaccine, first on children who had recovered from polio and then on subjects who had not had the disease. The results of both tests showed that the children’s antibody levels rose significantly and no subjects contracted polio from the vaccine. His findings were published the following year in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In 1954, a mass field trial was held, and the vaccine, injected by needle, was found to safely reduce the incidence of polio. On April 12, 1955, the vaccine was released for use in the United States.

Salk served successively as professor of bacteriology, preventive medicine, and experimental medicine at Pittsburgh, and in 1963, he became fellow and director of the Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, later called the Salk Institute. Among many other honors, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.

1. What is the main idea of the passage?

2. In the first paragraph, what was Thomas Francis Jr. studying

3. Which sentence in the second paragraph describes Salk’s first work at the University of Pittsburgh?

4. Which word is closest in meaning to the word “corroborated” in paragraph 2?

5. All of the following statements about the killed virus vaccine are true EXCEPT it ………. .

6.What does the word “findings” in paragraph 3 refer to?

7. From the passage, it can be inferred that the experimental polio vaccine was given to people by ………. .

8. In the passage, it is implied that the Salk Institute was originally ………. .

9. Where in the passage could the following sentence best fit?

Thousands of children and adults were free from the fears of contracting this terrible disease.

Passage 4

The word synthesize means to produce by combining separate elements. Thus, synthesized sound is sound that a musician builds from component elements. A synthesized sound may resemble a traditional acoustic musical timbre, or it may be completely novel and original. One characteristic is common to all synthesized music, however. The sound qualities themselves, as well as the relationships among the sounds, have been “designed,” or “composed,” by a musician.

Many people believe that synthesized music imitates traditional musical instruments and ensembles. They believe that synthesized music is created mechanically without control by a musician. These ideas are not true.

A builder of a traditional musical instrument assembles a collection of acoustic elements whose interrelationships cannot change. For example, a violin has four strings positioned over a fingerboard and coupled through the bridge to the violin’s body. Violinists bring the strings into contact with the fingerboard and a bow to cause the strings to vibrate. The resultant sound is resonated by the hollow body of the violin. However, violinists do not change the relationship of the strings to the bridge, nor that of the bridge to the body. Nor, do they reconfigure its slightly hour-glass shape.

Synthesists, on the other hand, view their instrument as a collection of parts that they configure to produce the sounds they want. They call this “programming,” or “patching,” and they may do this before or during performance. The parts that synthesists work with depend on the design of the instruments that they are using. In general synthesizers include elements that generate and combine waveforms and that shape loudness of the sounds. Other sound-producing and -processing elements, which can exist as electronic circuits or as built-in computer programs, may also be available. To control these elements, a synthesist may use a combination of a conventional keyboard and other manual control devices, such as wheels, sliders, and joysticks.

93. According to the passage, what do component elements of synthesizers include?

2. It can be inferred from the passage that many people ………. .

3.According to the passage, the interrelationships of acoustical elements in traditional musical instruments ……… .

4. All of the following contribute to the sound of a violin EXCEPT ………. .

5.Where in the passage would the following sentence best fit?

This, in turn, vibrates the air and sends the sound to the listener’s ears.

6. What does the word “its” in paragraph 3 refer to?

7.What is the main idea of the passage?

8. According to the passage, what are wheels, sliders, and joysticks?