Passage 1

The sensory neurons keep the brain informed of what is happening outside and inside the body through a variety of sensory pick-up units called receptors. Some of these, lying at or near the skin surface, may be especially sensitive to tissue damage (causing pain), or light contact (producing a touch sensation), or pressure, or temperature, either hot or cold. Other receptors on the tongue and in the nose respond to chemicals that produce tastes and odors. In the retina of the eye, rodlike receptors respond to light of varying intensities, while conelike receptors respond to color. Receptors in the ear respond to minute vibrations caused by sound waves striking the eardrum. Other receptors are embedded deep in the walls of the intestines; when the intestines contract vigorously because of the presence of indigestible food or gas, these receptors transmit waxing and waning signals pain, which are interpreted as cramps. Still, other receptors lodged in the muscles, ligaments and tendons fire off signals to the brain any time a muscle contracts or a joint moves or is subjected to added pressure or tension.

1) Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

2) Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as a reaction related to the reception units?

3) Why are some of these units prone to tissue damage?

4) According to the text the intestine interprets the receptors’ warning signals as … .

5. What happens when each time a muscle contracts?

6. This passage would most likely be found in a textbook on

Passage 2

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.

1. 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?

9. Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word “resemble” in paragraph 1

10. which of the following is closest in meaning to the word “coupled” in paragraph 3?

Passage 3

Most of the intelligent land animals have prehensile, grasping organs for exploring their environment—hands in man and his anthropoid relatives, the sensitive inquiring trunk in the elephant.  One of the surprising things about the porpoise is that his superior brain is unaccompanied by any type of manipulative organ. He has, however, a remarkable range-finding ability involving some sort of echo-sounding. Perhaps this acute sense—far more accurate than any man has been able to devise artificially—brings him greater knowledge of his watery surroundings than might at first seem possible. Human beings think of intelligence as geared to things. The hand and the tool are to us the unconscious symbols of our intellectual attainment. It is difficult for us to visualize another kind of lonely, almost disembodied intelligence floating in the wavering green fairyland and of the sea—an intelligence possible near or comparable to our own but without hands to build, to transmit knowledge by writing, or to alter by one hairsbreadth the planet’s surface. Yet at the same time there are indications that this is a warm, friendly, and eager intelligence quite capable of coming to the assistance of injured companions and striving to rescue them from drowning. Porpoises left the land when mammalian brains were still small and primitive. Without the stimulus provided by agile exploring fingers, these great mammals have yet taken a divergent road toward intelligence of a high order. Hidden in their sleek bodies is an impressively elaborated instrument, the reason for whose appearance is a complete enigma. It is as though both man and porpoise were each part of some great eye which yearned to look both outward on eternity and inward to the sea’s heart that fertile entity like the mind in its swarming and grotesque life.

1. According to the author, in which way are porpoises better equipped than man?

2. The passage suggests that a man’s failure to understand the intelligence of the porpoise is due to

3. Which statement about porpoises does the author make?

4. Which of the following does the author use to make his ideas clear?

5. Which literary device appears in the last sentence?

6. The word “enigma” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to…….

7. The passage is primarily about……….

Passage 4

During the late Middle Ages, oil paint took hold as the artistic medium of choice because it was effective, flexible, and resilient relative to the wax-based, watercolor, fresco, or tempera paints prevalent at the time. Although contemporary commercially prepared paints contain a mixture of pigments and linseed oil, poppy oil paints are also available to connoisseurs. The original recipes developed in medieval European monasteries relies on fast-drying bases derived from various organic oils predominantly valued for their medicinal qualities. The pigments are insoluble, lightproof, and chemically inert powders ground in the base. Occasionally, varnish can be added to increase the paste’s ability to reflect light and to cover pictures with a protective seal. The resulting stiff, resinous compounds are often packaged in flexible metal or plastic tubes. Historically, yellow pigments have been added to the oil, and then the paste was layered over tin foil to imitate the appearance of gold leaf.

Despite the numerous experiments to accelerate the drying process, oil paints dry comparatively slowly with little color alteration. An important advantage of color stability is that tones and undertones are easy to blend, match, transpose, and grade, and mistakes and smudges are simple to correct. Due to the creamy consistency of most mixtures, artists can exploit their viscosity in thick applications, sprays, thin trickles, and three-dimensional blobs. The purification by boiling and filtering and bleaching of oils can impart varied hues to powdered pigments, while drying time can be reduced by adding metallic oxides. Professional painters who mix their own medium usually have their own trademark methods of mixing materials that art experts recognize as a part of an artist’s creative work.

The thickness of the paste also plays an important role in defining the stages of painting a picture. After the basic design is sketched in pencil or charcoal, the broad background or foreground areas of the canvas are covered with thin, diluted paint on top of the primer. A thicker paint, often with added varnish, is subsequently used to refine and outline the foundation. The width of the brush depends on the type of paint the artist chooses to use, and stiff bristles are usually found in narrow brushes for making sharp lines, while softer brushes of animal hair can be employed in broad strokes.

1. What does the passage mainly discuss?

2. It can be inferred from the passage that oil paintings

3. The word “connoisseurs” is closest in meaning to

4. According to the passage, medieval monks extracted oil

5. The phrase “the base” is closest in meaning to

6. The purpose of paragraph 2 is to illustrate……………….

7. The word “viscosity” is closest in meaning to…………

8. Which of the following is not mentioned as components of oil painting?

9. The word “trademark” is closest in meaning to

10. The author of the passage implies that an oil painting