MCAT Passages

Day 1

  • {P1} The rationalizing of society can be conceptualized as the pursuit of efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control through technology. But rational systems inevitably spawn a series of irrationalities that result in the compromising and perhaps even the undermining of their rationality.

    {P2} Fast-food restaurants, which epitomize the rational model, proffer the fastest means of getting from a hungry state to a sated one, without surprises, at low cost, in a carnival-like setting suggesting that fun awaits the consumer at each visit. The wholesomeness of the food seems an insignificant consideration. Whereas in the past, working people were prepared to spend up to an hour preparing dinner, they now are impatient if a meal is not on the table within ten minutes. (For their part, some fast-food restaurants have developed chairs that become uncomfortable after about twenty minutes, to ensure that diners do not stay long.)

    {P3} Fast-food restaurants have preferentially recruited adolescent help, at least until recently, because this age group adjusts more easily than adults do to surrendering their autonomy to machines, rules, and procedures. Few skills are required on the job, so workers are asked to use only a minute portion of their abilities. This policy is irrational from the standpoint of the organization, since it could obtain much more from its employees for the money (however negligible) it pays them. These minimal skill demands are also irrational from the perspective of the employees, who are not allowed to think or to respond creatively to the demands of the work.

    {P4} These restrictions lead to high levels of resentment, job dissatisfaction, alienation, absenteeism, and turnover among workers in fast-food franchises. In fact, these businesses have the highest turnover rate of any industry in the U.S. The entire workforce of the fast-food industry turns over three times in a year. Although the simple, repetitive nature of the work makes it easy to replace those who leave, the organization would clearly benefit from keeping employees longer. The costs of hiring and training are magnified when the turnover rate is extraordinarily high.

    {P5} The application of the rational model to the house-building process in the 1950s and ’60s led to suburban communities consisting of nearly identical structures. Indeed, it was possible to wander into the residence of someone else and not to realize immediately that one was not at home. The more expensive developments were superficially more diversified, but their interior layouts assumed residents who were indistinguishable in their requirements.

    {P6} Furthermore, the planned communities themselves look very similar. Established trees are bulldozed to facilitate construction. In their place, a number of saplings, held up by posts and wire, are planted. Streets are laid out in symmetrical grid patterns. With such uniformity, suburbanites may well enter the wrong subdivision or become lost in their own.

    {P7} Many of Steven Spielberg’s films are set in such suburbs. Spielberg’s strategy is to lure the viewer into this highly repetitive world and then to have a completely unexpected event occur. For example, the film Poltergeist takes place in a conventional suburban household in which evil spirits ultimately disrupt the sameness. (The spirits first manifest themselves through another key element of the homogeneous society—the television set.) The great success of Spielberg’s films may be traceable to a longing for some unpredictability, even if it is bizarre and menacing, in increasingly routinized lives.

    Adapted from G. Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society. ©1993 by Pine Forge Press.

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    1. The author’s argument suggests that the primary motive of employers who make humans work with machines is to:

    (A) improve the quality of their products.

    (B) reduce the cost of wages and benefits.

    (C) avoid seeming to be behind the times.

    (D) increase the uniformity of procedures.

    2. A common thread in the discussion of fast food and the discussion of suburban housing is that people today:

    (A) are increasingly resistant to the regimentation of life.

    (B) expect their needs to be met at the lowest possible cost.

    (C) allow themselves to be treated as interchangeable.

    (D) are unable to discriminate among products that differ in quality.

    3. Information in the passage suggests that a rationalized travel agency would emphasize:

    (A) planned tours to popular attractions with accommodations at large hotels.

    (B) computerized systems to provide low-cost customized itineraries.

    (C) personnel trained to make reservations but with little experience as travelers.

    (D) procedures that encourage problem-solving initiatives by managers.

    4. Suppose that the employee responses to working conditions in fast-food franchises (paragraph 4) also apply to entry-level assembly line workers. In light of this information, the author’s main point in mentioning these responses is:

    (A) weakened, since the fast-food industry is not unique in suppressing creativity.

    (B) weakened, since the monotony of work is not necessarily related to employee dissatisfaction.

    (C) strengthened, since predictability and employee turnover are associated in another context.

    (D) strengthened, since low wages and job dissatisfaction are associated in another context.

  • {P1} Americans are a “positive” people. This is their reputation as well as their self-image. In the well-worn stereotype, they are upbeat, cheerful, and optimistic.

    {P2} Who would be churlish enough to challenge these happy features of the American personality? Take the business of positive “affect,” which refers to the mood they display to others through their smiles, their greetings, their professions of confidence and optimism. Scientists have found that the mere act of smiling can generate positive feelings within us, at least if the smile is not forced. In addition, recent studies show that happy feelings flit easily through social networks, so that one person’s good fortune can brighten the day even for only distantly connected others. Furthermore, psychologists agree that positive feelings can actually lengthen our lives and improve our health. People who report having positive feelings are more likely to participate in a rich social life, and social connectedness turns out to be an important defense against depression, which is a known risk factor for many physical illnesses.

    {P3} It is a sign of progress, then, that economists have begun to show an interest in using happiness rather than just the gross national product as a measure of an economy’s success. Happiness is, of course, a slippery thing to measure or define. Philosophers have debated what it is for centuries, and even if they were to define it simply as a greater frequency of positive feelings than negative ones, when they ask people if they are happy, they are asking them to arrive at some sort of average over many moods and moments.

    {P4} Surprisingly, when psychologists measure the relative happiness of nations, they routinely find that Americans are not, even in prosperous times and despite their vaunted positivity, very happy at all. A recent meta-analysis of over a hundred studies of self-reported happiness worldwide found Americans ranking only twenty-third. Americans account for two-thirds of the global market for antidepressants, which happen also to be the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States.

    {P5} How can Americans be so surpassingly “positive” in self-image and stereotype without being the world’s happiest and best-off people? The answer is that positivity is not so much their condition as it is part of their ideology—the way they explain the world and think they ought to function within it. That ideology is “positive thinking,” by which they usually mean two things. One is the generic content of positive thinking—that is, the positive thought itself—which can be summarized as “Things are pretty good right now, at least if you are willing to see silver linings, make lemonade out of lemons, etc., and things are going to get a whole lot better.”

    {P6} The second thing they mean by “positive thinking” is this practice of trying to think in a positive way. There is, they are told, a practical reason for undertaking this effort: positive thinking supposedly not only makes us feel optimistic but actually makes happy outcomes more likely. How can the mere process of thinking do this? In the rational explanation that many psychologists would offer today, optimism improves health, personal efficacy, confidence, and resilience, making it easier for us to accomplish our goals. A far less rational theory also runs rampant in American ideology—the idea that our thoughts can, in some mysterious way, directly affect the physical world. Negative thoughts somehow produce negative outcomes, while positive thoughts realize themselves in the form of health, prosperity, and success. For both rational and mystical reasons, then, the effort of positive thinking is said to be well worth our time and attention.

    Adapted from B. Ehrenreich, Bright-sided. ©2009 by Metropolitan Books.

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    1. According to the passage, positive feelings are:

    (A) universal

    (B) hereditary

    (C) contagious

    (D) ephemeral

    2. Suppose that economists do start using happiness instead of the gross national product as a measure of an economy’s success. Information presented in the passage would predict which of the following?

    I. The transition will be fraught with difficulty.
    II. The gross national product of the United States will appear to decrease.
    III. The economy of the United States will be seen as relatively less successful than today's.

    (A) I only

    (B) II only

    (C) I and III only

    (D) II and III only

    3. What best represents the author’s explanation for why Americans can be “so surpassingly ‘positive’ in self-image and stereotype without being the world’s happiest and best-off people?”

    (A) Americans’ positivity is not a true reflection of their affect.

    (B) Being “well-off” is not the same as being “happy.”

    (C) Stereotypes tend to be unwarranted generalizations.

    (D) Americans tend to have high rates of depression.

  • {P1} For someone used to contemporary academic writing, reading the chapter on color in William Gladstone’s Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age (1858) comes as rather a shock—the shock of meeting an extraordinary mind. It is therefore all the more startling that Gladstone’s nineteenth century tour de force comes to such a strange conclusion: Homer and his contemporaries perceived the world in something closer to black and white than to full Technicolor.

    {P2} No one would deny that there is a wide gulf between Homer’s world and ours: in the millennia that separate us, empires have risen and fallen, religions and ideologies have come and gone, and science and technology have transformed our intellectual horizons and almost every aspect of daily life beyond all recognition. Surely one aspect that must have remained exactly the same since Homer’s day, even since time immemorial, would be the rich colors of nature: the blue of sky and sea, the glowing red of dawn, the green of fresh leaves.

    {P3} Gladstone says things are not the same, for many reasons. One, Homer uses the same word to denote colors which, according to us, are essentially different. For example, he describes as “violet” the sea, sheep, and iron. Two, Homer’s similes are so rich with sensible imagery, we expect to find color a frequent and prominent ingredient, and yet his poppies have never so much as a hint of scarlet. Three, Gladstone notes, Homer uses “black” about 170 times, “white” 100 times, “red” thirteen, “yellow” ten, “violet” six times, and the other colors even less often. Four, Homer’s color vocabulary is astonishingly small. There doesn’t seem to be anything equivalent to our orange or pink in Homer’s color palette; most striking is the lack of any word that could be taken to mean “blue.”

    {P4} What is more, Gladstone proves that the oddities in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey could not have stemmed from any problems peculiar to Homer. “Violet-colored hair” was used by Pindar in his poems.

    {P5} Gladstone is well aware of the utter weirdness of his thesis—nothing less than universal color blindness among the ancient Greeks—so he tries to make it more palatable by evoking an evolutionary explanation for how sensitivity to colors could have increased over the generations. The perception of color, he says, seems natural to us only because humankind as a whole has undergone a progressive “education of the eye” over the last millennia. The eye’s ability to perceive and appreciate differences in color, he suggests, can improve with practice, and these acquired improvements are then passed on to offspring.

    {P6} But why, one may well ask, should this progressive refinement of color vision not have started much earlier than the Homeric period? Gladstone’s theory is that the appreciation of color as a property independent of a particular material develops only with the capacity to manipulate colors artificially. And that capacity, he notes, barely existed in Homer’s day: the art of dyeing was in its infancy, cultivation of flowers was not practiced, and almost all of the brightly colored objects we take for granted were entirely absent. Other than the ocean, people in Homer’s day may have gone through life without ever setting their eyes on a single blue object. Blue eyes, Gladstone explains, were in short supply; blue dyes, which are very difficult to manufacture, were practically unknown; and natural flowers that are truly blue are rare.

    {P7} Gladstone’s analysis was brilliant, but completely off course. Indeed, philologists, anthropologists, and even natural scientists would need decades to free themselves from the error of underestimating the power of culture.

    Adapted from G. Deutscher, Through the language glass: why the world looks different in other languages. ©2010 Metropolitan Books.

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    1. It can be inferred from the passage that the author believes which of the following about contemporary academic writing?

    (A) Academic papers are typically not especially brilliant.

    (B) Academics seldom address color perception in their papers.

    (C) Academics often reach very strange conclusions in their papers.

    (D) Academic papers are usually outdated soon after they are written.

    2. It has been suggested that the Iliad and the Odyssey were a patchwork of a great number of popular ballads woven together from different poets, rather than a single work by a poet named Homer. If true, how would this affect the opinions expressed in the passage?

    (A) It would strengthen Gladstone’s basic thesis.

    (B) It would weaken Gladstone’s basic thesis.

    (C) It would require a modification of Gladstone’s basic thesis.

    (D) It would not affect Gladstone’s basic thesis.

    3. Gladstone would predict which of the following about the children of an interior decorator who easily distinguishes among scarlet, burgundy, and fuchsia?

    (A) The children would be able to easily distinguish various versions of red.

    (B) The children would be drawn more to objects in various versions of red than to those of any other color.

    (C) The children would seldom bother mentioning what are to them obvious differences among various versions of red.

    (D) The children would need to practice distinguishing among various versions of red for years before achieving proficiency.

    4. Homer’s sky is starry, or broad, or great, or iron, or violet; but it is never blue. How does this affect the opinions expressed in the passage?

    I. It supports Gladstone’s claim regarding Homer’s use of color.
    II. It extends Gladstone’s claim regarding Homer’s focus on nature.
    III. It challenges Gladstone’s claim regarding Homer’s penchant for strange imagery.

    (A) I only

    (B) II only

    (C) I and III only

    (D) II and III only

  • Living in a Rational Society Answers

    D, C, A, C

    The Happy American Answers

    C, A, A

    Seeing Color Through Homer's Eyes Answers

    A, A, A, A

Day 2

  • {P1} In the United Kingdom, Physical Education (PE) is compulsory in state schools until students reach the age of 16. That is, sports are compulsory for as long as formal education is mandated by law. Because there are many children who don’t want to participate in PE classes, I believe that students should be allowed a choice. If their parents agree, why should they be forced to jump on a trampoline or do calisthenics? PE class is different from other classes because it involves what one does with one’s body. We acknowledge the right of individuals to control their own bodies—to determine whether and when they have an operation, to determine where they go and what they do. Why is this any different?

    {P2} It is a red herring to say that PE makes any serious difference to people’s health. There are more effective ways of ensuring a healthy population than pushing children to run laps around a freezing sports field once a week. For example, schools could be addressing the poor diets young people have today and encouraging them to walk or bicycle to school rather than rely on the car.

    {P3} Furthermore, sports are a waste of school time and resources. One or two PE lessons a week make very little difference to an individual’s health, but they make a huge difference in a school’s budget. Mandatory PE requires a whole extra department in schools, wasting a great deal of money and time that could be better spent on academics. It also requires schools to be surrounded by a large amount of land for playing fields, making it prohibitively expensive to build new schools in urban areas. Given the average current pupil–teacher ratios, the quality of teaching in PE classes is necessarily low, and the classes may even be dangerous to students who are not properly supervised. Our children are burdened enough in schools already, especially at the older end of the system, with multiple examinations. PE simply adds, needlessly, to this hectic schedule.

    {P4} Many people argue that playing team sports builds character, encourages students to work with others, teaches children how to win and lose with good grace, and builds strong school spirit through competition with other institutions. It is often, they say, the experience of playing on a team together which builds the strongest friendships at school, friendships which endure for years afterwards. Many say the same benefits derive from the common endurance of prison.

    {P5} Injuries sustained through school sport and the psychological trauma of being bullied for sporting ineptitude can mark people for years after they have left school. On that note, in an increasingly litigious age, a compulsory rather than voluntary sports program is a liability. More and more schools are avoiding team games such as rugby, soccer, hockey, and football due to the realistic fear of lawsuits. Teamwork can be better developed through music, drama, and community projects without the need to encourage an ultra-competitive ethos.

    {P6} As for the argument that without compulsory PE, many members of society wouldn’t find out that they had a talent for a sport or even that they enjoyed it, students can discover this aptitude outside of school, without also discovering the bullying and humiliation that comes with PE classes more than with other lessons. The aim of compulsory PE isn’t being fulfilled at present in any case, as “sick notes” are produced with alarming regularity by parents complicit in their children’s wish to avoid it. Greater efforts to enforce it will only result in more deceit, children missing school for the entire day, or, in the most extreme cases, children being withdrawn from state education.

    Adapted from A. Deane, “Physical Education, Compulsory,” Creative Commons. ©2011 Creative Commons.

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    1. What is the function of the statement in the first paragraph that “PE class is different from other classes”?

    (A) It is part of an argument why PE classes should be required.

    (B) It is part of an argument that PE classes improve people’s health.

    (C) It explains why students should only be exempt from PE with parental permission.

    (D) It explains why students should have a choice about whether to take PE while not having a choice about taking other compulsory classes.

    2. Which of the following assumptions is made by the author in relation to the argument about students’ hectic schedules?

    (A) PE tends not to have a final examination.

    (B) PE tends not to have a heavy homework burden.

    (C) Compulsory PE, if eliminated, would not be replaced by another compulsory course.

    (D) It is unfair to require students in the higher grades to prepare for multiple examinations.

    3. Assume as true that students are more likely to obtain specialist coaching at sports clubs outside of school than in school. How would this information be relevant to the passage?

    (A) It would restate an objection to compulsory physical education classes.

    (B) It would support a point about discovering sports aptitude made in rebuttal.

    (C) It would directly challenge one of the author’s claims.

    (D) It would contradict one of the author’s examples.

    4. The author’s central theme for the whole passage is:

    (A) opposing formal educational mandates.

    (B) describing the consequences of making PE compulsory.

    (C) presenting reasons for why PE should not be compulsory.

    (D) advocating that PE be abolished in UK state schools.

  • {P1} Although business people deserve more respect for their honesty than they receive, a common complaint is that they take advantage of consumers through dishonest advertising. Instead of providing useful information for making rational choices, advertisements often appeal to consumers’ emotions to persuade them to buy products regardless of need. This complaint is true and obvious to all but the most naïve people. Advertisements are designed to convince consumers to favor one product over others, and presenting solely unbiased and unemotional information would seldom be the best way to accomplish this goal.

    {P2} Thoughtful people recognize that politicians advertise themselves and their policy recommendations in similarly biased and emotional ways. The question is not whether businesspeople or politicians have the strongest moral commitment to truthfulness in advertising. Both groups will deviate from honest practices when they expect that the benefits of doing so will exceed the costs. The important question is “Who can most easily mislead their customers with emotional statements, unrealistic promises, and biased information: businesspeople or politicians?”

    {P3} People are less likely to be swayed by dishonesty and emotion when responding to business ads than when responding to political ads for two reasons. First, businesspeople are attempting to persuade people who are usually spending their own money; politicians are trying to persuade people who are deciding how they want to spend other people’s money. The motivation to minimize mistakes by carefully considering claims about costs and benefits before a decision is made and by evaluating those claims in light of post-decision experience is greater when one is bearing all of the cost of the decision than when others are bearing most of the cost.

    {P4} The second reason why misleading claims are less effective in promoting commercial products than in promoting political products is because the choices that consumers of commercial products make have more decisive effects on outcomes than do the choices of consumers of political products. When people purchase a product in the marketplace, they get the product they choose, and they get it because they chose it. The probability that a voter’s choice will be decisive is increasingly small in state and federal elections, and seldom greater than a fraction of one percent in most local elections. Given such a low probability of any one person’s vote determining the outcome of the election, voters have little motivation to be concerned about the accuracy of the political claims being made.

    {P5} One might think that professors would be more honest than both businesspeople and politicians when promoting their products’ value (that is, in their teaching and research). Unlike politicians, professors try to sell their products to customers who can decisively accept or reject them without being directly affected by how many others make different choices. However, many undergraduate students are glaringly indifferent to what professors have to say, so professors have more latitude than businesspeople to benefit from exaggerated and duplicitous claims.

    {P6} Professors have to be more restrained when publishing than when teaching because other professors will evaluate the truth of their published claims. It is true that academic promotions may be earned and scholarly reputations enhanced by exposing the errors in published work. However, professors are often less concerned with the truthfulness of articles written by other professors than one might think. Professors anxious to get their own articles and books published are often less interested in whether the publications they cite are correct than in whether the publications are accepted as correct by academics with views similar to their own—the people most likely to decide whether their books and articles will be published and cited.

    Adapted from D. Lee, “Why Businessmen Are More Honest than Preachers, Politicians, and Professors.” ©2010 The Independent Review.

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    1. Which of the following assumptions is most central to the author’s argument?

    (A) Most products are designed to appeal to naïve and emotional consumers.

    (B) Products are more likely to be purchased when they are advertised than when they are not.

    (C) If businesspeople manufactured only products that people need, there would be few products on the market.

    (D) If products were evaluated according to objective information about them, people would often not prefer one over the other.

    2. The author implies which of the following about businesspeople and politicians?

    (A) Neither are very thoughtful people.

    (B) Neither have a strong moral commitment to truthfulness.

    (C) Both have biased views about their customers and constituents, respectively.

    (D) Both are more concerned about advertising themselves than their products, respectively.

    3. Suppose a politician is re-elected despite lying about his voting record . The passage suggests which of the following explanations?

    (A) The politician made many contradictory statements during his or her campaign.

    (B) Voter demographics for the second election were significantly different than for the first.

    (C) Voters did not compare the politician’s behavior while in office with statements made during his or her campaign.

    (D) There was no consensus among voters regarding the costs and benefits of a second term in office for that politician.

    4. The author most likely mentions probability in his discussion of voting behavior as reasoning for which of the following (paragraph 4)?

    I. To explain low voter turnout in state and federal elections
    II. To explain the prevalence of politicians’ dishonesty
    III. To explain why voters do not carefully consider political claims

    (A) II only

    (B) III only

    (C) I and II only

    (D) I and III only

  • {P1} Imagine that someone offers you and some other anonymous person $100 to share. The rules are strict and known to both players. The two of you are in separate rooms and cannot exchange information. A coin toss decides which of you will propose how to share the money. If you are the proposer you can make a single offer of how to split the sum, and the other person—the responder—can say yes or no. If the responder’s answer is yes, the deal goes ahead. If the answer is no, neither of you gets anything. In both cases, the game is over and will not be repeated. What will you do?

    {P2} Instinctively, many people feel they should offer 50 percent, because such a division is “fair” and therefore likely to be accepted. More daring people, however, think they might get away with offering somewhat less than half of the sum.

    {P3} You may not be surprised to learn that two-thirds of the offers are between 40 and 50 percent. Only four in 100 people offer less than 20 percent. Proposing such a small amount is risky, because it might be rejected. More than half of all responders reject offers that are less than 20 percent. But why should anyone reject an offer as “too small”? The responder has just two choices: take what is offered or receive nothing. The only rational option for a selfish individual is to accept any offer. A selfish proposer who is sure that the responder is also selfish will therefore make the smallest possible offer and keep the rest. This game-theory analysis, which assumes that people are selfish and rational, tells you that the proposer should offer the smallest possible share and the responder should accept it. But this is not how most people play the game.

    {P4} The scenario just described, called the Ultimatum Game, was devised some twenty years ago. Experimenters subsequently studied the Ultimatum Game intensively in many places using diverse sums. The results proved remarkably robust. Behavior in the game did not appreciably depend on the players’ sex, age, schooling, or numeracy. Moreover, the amount of money involved had surprisingly little effect on results. Yet the range of players remained limited, because the studies primarily involved people in more developed countries and often university students.

    {P5} Recently, a cross-cultural study in fifteen small-scale societies showed that there were sizable differences in the way some people play the Ultimatum Game. Within the Machiguenga tribe (from the Amazon) the mean offer was considerably lower than in typical Western-type civilizations—26 percent instead of 45 percent. Conversely, many members of the Au tribe (from Papua New Guinea) offered more than 50 percent. Cultural traditions in gift giving, and the strong obligations that result from accepting a gift, play a major role among some tribes, such as the Au. Yet despite these cultural variations, the outcome was always far from what rational analysis would dictate for selfish players. Most people all over the world place a high value on fair outcomes.

    {P6} For a long time, theoretical economists postulated a being called Homo economicus—a rational individual relentlessly bent on maximizing a purely selfish reward. But the lesson from the Ultimatum Game and similar experiments is that real people are a crossbreed of H. economicus and H. emoticus, a complicated hybrid species that can be ruled as much by emotion as by cold logic and selfishness. An interesting challenge is to understand how Darwinian evolution would produce creatures instilled with emotions and behaviors that do not immediately seem geared toward reaping the greatest benefit for individuals or their genes.

    Adapted from K. Sigmund, E. Fehr, and M.A. Nowak, “The economics of fair play.” ©2002 by Scientific American, Inc.

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    1. Which of the following statements is NOT as strongly supported by the passage?

    (A) The rules of the Ultimatum Game are strict.

    (B) The results of the Ultimatum Game tend to be consistent.

    (C) Responders reject offers that are less than 20 percent because they consider such offers unfair.

    (D) Studies of the Ultimatum Game show sizable differences in the way some people play.

    2. In some trials of the Ultimatum Game, the proposed split is determined by a computer. When responders are aware of this, they are willing to accept considerably lower offers. Based on the passage, compared to the standard game played without a computer, these responses are more:

    (A) in keeping with what rational analysis would dictate.

    (B) out of keeping with what rational analysis would dictate.

    (C) in keeping with what one would expect from Homo emoticus.

    (D) in keeping with what researchers would expect of the responses from people of non-Western cultures.

    3. Assume a “fair” offer is defined as 50 percent, and responders behave rationally. Based on the discussion in paragraph 5, it can be reasonably assumed that the author believes that the Machiguenga tribe had a:

    (A) lower percentage of fair offers than both typical Western societies and rational selfish players.

    (B) higher percentage of fair offers than both typical Western societies, and rational selfish players.

    (C) lower percentage of fair offers than typical Western societies, and a higher percentage of fair offers than rational selfish players.

    (D) higher percentage of fair offers than typical Western societies, and a lower percentage of fair offers than rational selfish players.

    4. In the discussion of the Ultimatum Game, what is the significance of the statement that “the range of players remained limited” (paragraph 4)?

    (A) The limited sample did not allow the experimenters to generalize about all people.

    (B) Limiting the range of players allowed the experimenters to better control the outcome of the game.

    (C) Limitations on the game led to mistaken conclusions by experimenters at that time.

    (D) The limited sample allowed the experimenters to better control the range of variables in the experiment.

  • Physical Education in the UK Answers

    D, C, B, C

    The Honest Truth About Dishonesty Answers

    D, B, C, B

    The Ultimatum Game Answers

    C, A, C, A

Day 3

  • {P1} The tools we use to think change the ways in which we think. The invention of written language brought about a radical shift in how we process, organize, store, and transmit representations of the world. Although writing remains our primary information technology, today when we think about the impact of technology on our habits of mind, we think primarily of the computer.

    {P2} My first encounters with how computers change the way we think came soon after I joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the end of the era of the slide rule and the beginning of the era of the personal computer. At a lunch for new faculty members, several senior professors in engineering complained that the transition from slide rules to calculators had affected their students’ ability to deal with issues of scale. When students used slide rules, they had to insert decimal points themselves. The professors insisted that doing that required students to maintain a mental sense of scale, whereas those who relied on calculators made frequent errors in orders of magnitude. Additionally, the students with calculators had lost their ability to do “back of the envelope” calculations, and with that, an intuitive feel for the material.

    {P3} That same semester, I taught a course in the history of psychology. There, I experienced the impact of computational objects on students’ ideas about their emotional lives. My class had read Freud’s essay on slips of the tongue, with its famous first example: The chair of a parliamentary session opens a meeting by declaring it closed. The students discussed how Freud interpreted such errors as revealing a person’s mixed emotions. A computer science major disagreed with Freud’s approach. The mind, she argued, is a computer. And in a computational dictionary—like we have in the human mind—closed and open are designated by the same symbol, separated by a sign for opposition. Closed equals minus open. To substitute closed for open does not require the notion of ambivalence or conflict. “When the chairman made that substitution,” she declared, “a bit was dropped; a minus sign was lost. There was a power surge. No problem.” The young woman turned a Freudian slip into an information-processing error. An explanation in terms of meaning had become an explanation in terms of mechanism.

    {P4} Today, starting in elementary school, students use e-mail, word processing, computer simulations, and virtual communities. In the process, they are absorbing more than the content of what appears on their screens. They are learning new ways to think about what it means to know and understand.

    {P5} There are a number of areas where I see information technology encouraging changes in thinking. There can be no simple way of cataloging whether any particular change is good or bad. That is contested terrain. At every step we have to ask, as educators and citizens, whether current technology is leading us in directions that serve our human purposes. Such questions are not technical; they are social, moral, and political. For me, addressing that subjective side of computation is one of the more significant challenges for the next decade of information technology in higher education. Technology does not determine change, but it encourages us to take certain directions. If we make those directions clear, we can more easily exert human choice.

    Adapted from S. Turkle, How computers change the way we think. ©2004 by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

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    1. Based on the passage, the author most likely believes that it is important to understand the influence computers have on people because such understanding will:

    (A) enable people to make computers serve human purposes.

    (B) increase the importance of information technology in the next decade.

    (C) improve people’s ability to deal with issues of scale.

    (D) help prove that the human mind is a computational object.

    2. Which of the following passage assertions is presented as evidence that computers are affecting people’s conception of the mind?

    (A) Engineering students using calculators frequently make mistakes regarding orders of magnitude.

    (B) Students who used calculators lost their ability to do “back of the envelope” calculations.

    (C) A computer science major interpreted a Freudian slip as an information-processing error.

    (D) Addressing the subjective side of computation is a significant challenge for the next decade of information technology in higher education.

    3. Of the following scenarios, which represents an example most similar to what the author probably means by the opening statement, “The tools we use to think change the ways in which we think”?

    (A) After a power outage, a person creates a plan for coping with such events in the future.

    (B) An analysis of the sequences of clicks emitted by dolphins reveals structural similarity to aspects of human language.

    (C) A person gains a new appreciation for abstract painting after learning about a new theory of complementary colors.

    (D) An office manager increases productivity by installing new accounting software on the company’s computers.

    4. Which of the following passage assertions is most supported in the passage by evidence or examples?

    (A) Computational objects have an impact on students’ ideas about their emotional lives.

    (B) When students used slide rules, they had to insert decimal points themselves.

    (C) Students who used calculators lost their ability to do “back of the envelope” calculations.

    (D) The invention of written language brought about a radical shift in how we process, organize, store, and transmit representations of the world.

  • {P1} Deconstructionism, as applied to literary criticism, is a paradox about a paradox: It assumes that all discourse, even all historical narrative, is essentially disguised self-revelatory messages. Being subjective, the text has no fixed meaning, so when we read, we are prone to misread. Deconstructionism emerged from Paris and, notwithstanding its claim to universality, has an evident history. It is a manifestation of existential anxieties about presence and absence, reality and appearance. It developed via structuralism, with its emphasis on semantics and symbolism.

    {P2} From these sources it derived its fundamental premise: the endless slippage of the subject, the futility of any attempt to name reality. The premise suggests the disillusion attendant on the collapse of the two major forces in twentieth-century European thought: enlightened humanism and idealistic Marxism. Despite its origins, deconstructionism found its own best home in the United States, that historically dissociated construction of random meanings. (“America is deconstruction,” said its leading proponent, Jacques Derrida.)

    {P3} By the 1970s, deconstruction filled—perhaps better, emptied—the gap left in the humanities in the U.S. by the demise of the old “new criticism.” But what began as brilliant and creative analytic performances soon became classroom pedagogy. Throughout the decade, the seminar rooms on U.S. campuses—and then campuses worldwide—became workshops in deconstructionist practice. Junior misreaders worked away, becoming ever more like C.I.A. operatives, decoding false signals sent by a distant enemy, the writer.

    {P4} Deconstruction exalted itself with ever higher pretensions. As one academic critic exulted, “The history of literature is part of the history of criticism.” Deconstruction transformed everything into social commentary, easily making affinities with sexual and racial politics, two other militant philosophies that challenge the sanctity of text. It presented itself as a supra-ideological mode of analysis, exposing the ideological aberrations of others while seemingly possessing none itself.

    {P5} Any resistance that deconstructionists encountered was usually interpreted as censorious ignorance. As their approach prevailed, gangs of neodeconstructionists descended on the library with their critical services. One would demythologize, another decanonize, another dephallicize, another dehegemonize, another defame. Literature, as the deconstructionists frequently proved, had been written by entirely the wrong people for entirely the wrong reasons. Soon all that would be left of it would be a few bare bones of undecidable discourse and some tattered leather bindings. This frenzy would be called a conference of the Modern Language Association.

    {P6} The point that needs to be reaffirmed is that writing is an existential act, an imaginative exploration of ideas. It is, in fact, an expression of moral responsibility. Literature is not a subordinate category of social criticism. When writers are censored, imprisoned, killed, or threatened with death for their writings, it is not because their discourse is undecidable. If we are to take authors and their fate seriously, we must recognize that fiction is more than an opportunity for word games; we must honor it as a mode of radical discovery.

    {P7} We need an ambiance around writing that affirms its nature as creativity, as art, and that in a larger sense considers creativity a prime power in the making of intelligence, feeling, and morality. This was the position from which Jean-Paul Sartre with his freedom-affirming existentialism started the postwar debate of which deconstruction is a latter-day development. He started it because during the 1930s the word had been defamed and disfigured, the book burned, the writer erased, by forces that lay outside criticism, in history.

    Adapted from M. Bradbury, The scholar who misread history. ©1991 by New York Times.

    ________________________________________________________

    1. Which of the following statements best expresses the passage author’s message?

    (A) The true meaning of texts can never be decided.

    (B) Most literary criticism is now deconstructionism.

    (C) Deconstructionist and existentialist critics compete.

    (D) The most salient issue for literary critics should be creative merit.

    2. The passage implies that the declaration “America is deconstruction” (paragraph 2) means that:

    (A) the constant revisions typical of U.S. culture capture the spirit of deconstructionism.

    (B) literature produced in the U.S. is especially suited to analysis by deconstruction.

    (C) U.S. literary critics developed the scholarly methods adopted by deconstructionism.

    (D) U.S. higher education is controlled by the political agenda of deconstructionism.

    3. According to the views of the passage author, a responsible review of a stage production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar would probably:

    (A) point out evidence that the play promoted the interests of Shakespeare's gender and class.

    (B) argue that Shakespeare distorted history unintentionally because of his limited knowledge.

    (C) assume that Shakespeare's presentation of events reflected his artistic sensibility.

    (D) recommend the play as an entertaining introduction to Roman history.

    4. What is the author’s primary purpose in discussing deconstructionism in paragraphs 3, 4, and 5

    (A) To denounce its triviality in order to strengthen the case for a contrasting vision

    (B) To acknowledge its existentialist principles in order to propose an extension of these principles

    (C) To reveal its lack of sympathy for writers as an argument for a more courteous manner by critics

    (D) To contrast its analytic method with an evaluative approach that may prove equally interesting

  • {P1} Is there such a thing as free will? Perhaps the philosopher who has gotten closest to a sensible understanding of free will is Daniel C. Dennett, who thinks of the phenomenon as “the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes . . . the power of imagination, to see and imagine futures.”

    {P2} Over the last few decades, science has made small but significant advances in understanding the relationship between conscious and unconscious thought, and the data are beginning to paint a picture that seems to validate Dennett’s views. In the 1970s, Benjamin Libet wired people to an electroencephalogram and measured when they reported having a particular conscious thought about an action and when the nerve impulses corresponding to the initiation of the actual action started. Astoundingly, the subjects had actually made (unconsciously) the decision to act measurably earlier than when they became aware of it consciously. The conscious awareness, in a sense, was a “story” that the higher cognitive parts of the brain told to account for the action.

    {P3} So science may be showing us that free will is more a feeling than a real manifestation of independent will. As psychologist Dan Wegner put it, “We see two tips of the iceberg, the thought and the action, and we draw a connection.” Libet’s position is a bit more moderate and is akin to Dennett’s. Libet says that free will is a form of veto power, filtering and sometimes blocking decisions provisionally made at the unconscious level.

    {P4} Quantum mechanics is sometimes brought into discussions of free will by supporters of pseudoscience because it is very technical and, more important, incomprehensible enough to lend that aura of scientific credibility without committing one to specific details. Some philosophers and scientists suggest that perhaps free will can be explained by occasional quantum fluctuations that, by interfering with subcellular phenomena in the brain, create a partial decoupling of our decision-making processes from the standard macroscopic laws of causality. This is nonsense, not only because we have absolutely no evidence of “quantum fluctuations” (whatever they are) at the brain level, but because, even if they did happen, they would—at most—generate random, not free, will. And random will is not one of those varieties of free will that is, in Dennett’s words, “worth having.”

    {P5} Another source of confusion between science and philosophy when it comes to free will is to be found in the rather vague concept of “emergent properties,” for example, the notion of free will being an emergent property of the higher brain’s functions. Even though some scientists are predisposed to reject emergent properties, “emergence” can actually be studied scientifically and is a rather common phenomenon. For example, when hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water, the resulting molecule has emergent physical–chemical properties, in the sense that the temperatures marking transition states are not simple functions of the properties of the individual atoms.

    {P6} Some philosophers have argued that emergence restricts the limits of reductionism, not because it isn’t “physics all the way down,” but because, frankly, a quantum mechanical description of, say, the Brooklyn Bridge isn’t going to be very helpful. Emergence entails that certain phenomena are best studied, and understood, at some levels of analysis rather than others, and free will may well fall into this category. To say that it is an emergent property of the brain is not a call for magic or pseudoscience, just the realization that neurobiology and psychology are better positioned than quantum mechanics to understand it.

    Adapted from M. Pigliucci, Can there be a science of free will? ©2007 the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

    ______________________________________________________

    1. Based on the passage, which of the following elements of Dennett’s characterization of free will best corresponds to what Libet calls “decisions provisionally made at the unconscious level”?

    (A) Urges

    (B) Vetoes

    (C) Vetoes of vetoes

    (D) Imagining futures

    2. With which of the following statements about “emergent properties” does the passage information suggest that the passage author would be most likely to agree?

    (A) Psychology is well positioned to study emergent properties of the functioning of the brain.

    (B) Supporters of pseudoscience tend to favor detailed explanations of free will.

    (C) Free will is an emergent property that is decoupled from the standard macroscopic laws of causality.

    (D) Emergent properties of molecules are just as easy to study as the properties of their individual atoms.

    3. Assume that the phenomenon of happiness resists being described through reductionism. Given this assumption, and based on the passage, which of the following statements is most likely to be true?

    (A) A description of the phenomenon of happiness can only be given in terms of one level of analysis.

    (B) A description of the phenomenon of happiness can be given without referring to emergent properties.

    (C) A description of the phenomenon of happiness requires referring to technical aspects of quantum mechanics.

    (D) A description of the phenomenon of happiness is more helpful in terms of psychology than in terms of physics.

    4. Suppose that a scientist were to demonstrate to the passage author that quantum fluctuations occur at the subcellular level of the brain. Based on the fourth paragraph, is the author’s opinion that the quantum mechanical description of free will is “nonsense” likely to change?

    (A) Yes, because quantum fluctuations would have been clearly defined

    (B) Yes, because quantum fluctuations would be subject to standard laws of causality

    (C) No, because quantum fluctuations would still generate random will

    (D) No, because some scientists reject quantum mechanics

  • Tools for Thought Answers

    A, C, C, A

    Deconstructionism and Literature Answers

    D, A, C, A

    Does Free Will Exist? Answers

    A, A, D, C

Day 4

  • {P1} In a recent study, psychologist Anne Maass investigated the effects of courthouse architecture on the psychological well-being and cognitive processes of potential users. Specifically, she compared two courthouses located in Padova, Italy: the old courthouse, located in a former convent originally built in 1345, and the new courthouse, built in 1991 and designed by Gino Valle, an internationally known architect. Although serving or having served the same purpose, the two buildings have completely different styles—one is an old building with a rather residential look, warm colors, large windows, and a large wooden door, the other a massive, gray, semi-circular building, with narrow windows, and an entrance enclosed between two huge walls.

    {P2} When study participants were asked to imagine themselves accompanying a friend to the courthouse, they reported greater discomfort and stress when anticipating a trial in the modern building. However, contrary to predictions, this was true only when they were already familiar with the two buildings. It is possible that photographs reduced the actual impact of the architectural design, although this would contradict prior research by architect Gavin Stamp showing that distortions due to photographic presentation have negligible effects on preference. Another possibility for participants’ greater discomfort when imagining going to the new courthouse is that those with prior experience may have been exposed to the building from multiple angles, whereas unfamiliar participants received information only about the building’s facade.

    {P3} It is important to note that participants did not generally dislike the new building. From the standpoint of general aesthetic distinctions such as beauty versus ugliness, no differences emerged between the two buildings; if anything, the new building was seen by the participants as slightly more attractive. The data suggest that participants responded more to the intimidating nature of the building than to its beauty.

    {P4} The most important result of Maass’s research is that courthouse architecture was found to affect the estimated likelihood of conviction. Participants were more pessimistic about the trial outcome when they imagined entering the new building than when they imagined entering the old one. (This occurred regardless of whether participants had any prior familiarity with the respective buildings.) It remains unclear exactly which architectural features are responsible for the observed shift in likelihood of conviction estimates. The modern building differs on so many dimensions (size, color, shape, building materials, age, and so on) from the old building that it is impossible to isolate their individual impact. Also, it may be the interaction of features that creates the overall impression of the building as intimidating.

    {P5} How exactly do architectural features affect social-cognitive processes such as likelihood estimates? One possibility is that design features affect the emotional well-being or mood of the user which, in turn, biases his or her thought processes. For example, the architectural characteristics of the new courthouse seem to have made hypothetical users feel anxious and tense, and a bad mood has been shown to induce negative thoughts and expectations. However, building type affected perceived likelihood of conviction also for those participants who showed no enhanced discomfort in reaction to the new building.

    {P6} Another and more plausible possibility is that the design features of the new courthouse activated specific thoughts and mental associations related to conviction. For example, some participants spontaneously commented that the new building has greater resemblance to a prison than to a courthouse; others mentioned that the two high walls enclosing the entrance give the impression that those who enter the building are already convicted.

    Adapted from A. Maass, “Intimidating Buildings: Can courthouse architecture affect perceived likelihood of conviction?” Environment and Behavior. ©2000 by Sage Publications, Inc.

    _______________________________________________________

    1. According to Maass, people’s reactions to the two buildings were independent of:

    (A) whether or not they considered the buildings to be attractive.

    (B) what they knew of the history of the buildings.

    (C) the relative size of the buildings.

    (D) the influence of their peers.

    2. In the passage, the author justifies rejecting the emotional-mood-as-mediator explanation with which of these reasons:

    (A) emotions do not influence our expectations nearly as much as we think they do.

    (B) participants without negative emotions were affected in the same way as those with negative emotions.

    (C) the study did not measure and compare the participants’ moods before and after their imagined entry into the courthouse.

    (D) the study did not compare the mood of those entering the new building with the mood of those who imagined entering the new building.

    3. Which of the following examples is most consistent with Maass’s suggestion that the architectural design features can affect perceptions by activating “specific thoughts and mental associations” (final paragraph)?

    (A) A popular bank has décor, colors, and accents suggestive of gold.

    (B) An unpopular car wash does not have a drive-through design.

    (C) A popular restaurant has a children’s play area outside.

    (D) An unpopular grocery store has bad produce.

  • {P1} Today’s parents face a tough battle. Neighborhoods are a lot more complicated than they were in the 1960s: every culture, every religion, every idea, every different standard, lives right next door. Information is received at lightning speed via the Internet, and children can be caught up in this whirlwind, subjected to things that they are still too young to understand or are emotionally unfit to handle.

    {P2} Censorship seems to be an answer to the growing problem of how to care for and watch over our children. But books are meant for exploration, for questioning. Within a book’s pages, children are safe to explore their feelings and reflect on their own situations. Putting the right book into the hands of the right child has great value and changes lives. It can be empowering, motivating, and inspiring.

    {P3} Here in the United States, an ostensibly free country, one where people are encouraged and given the legal right to speak their minds, we have been balancing personal freedoms and rights. But our media challenge this balance every day. As consumers, we respect artists and allow them the freedom of expression. At the same time, we are aware that children are seeing some unsuitable situations—but we are not always in agreement about what we want our children to watch, hear, or read.

    {P4} One political solution is rating systems, intended to help parents pick appropriate material for their children based on content, theme, violence, language, nudity, sensuality, drug abuse, and other elements. However, the rating systems have not stopped today’s lyrics from becoming more explicit, our cable television system from containing more swearing and sexual content, and our movies from becoming bloodier and more violent. And despite all the warnings and all the ratings, children are still listening to these songs, watching these television shows, and renting these movies. The rating system may have convinced politicians, parents, and librarians that it could do the job of protecting their young. It may have given people a false sense of security. But in reality, it means nothing when no one is there to monitor children’s actions and discuss appropriate behavior.

    {P5} Parents have a vested interest in their children. Creating a home in which a child feels safe is their responsibility. Creating a home where a child can safely make mistakes is their responsibility. Home is the first place where a child learns right from wrong, good from bad, healthy from unhealthy. It is the parents’ job to give their child a good defense by helping them establish boundaries.

    {P6} School helps to reinforce these lessons. Teachers help children by challenging them, instructing them, and helping them move on to the next level of maturity and understanding. A teacher may know, before a parent, when a child is ready for the next level or is mature enough to handle a theme or topic. When there is communication and respect between parent and teacher, the child’s development is the winner.

    {P7} America is a free society and has plenty of forums where people can express their views: newspapers, radio, billboards, and the Internet. People can discuss their differences and learn from each other. Why shouldn’t we allow our children that same rich experience? Banning a book is about as helpful as using a match in a hurricane. It does not shed light on anything and gets blown around by a lot of wind. Nor does sticking a label on a problem make it go away. Only in discussing, in sharing comments and concerns, is there growth and understanding. Let us show our children that knowledge is the most empowering censor they can use.

    Adapted from L. Caravette, “Censorship: An unnecessary evil,” The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's Literature. ©2008 New Perspectives on Children's Literature.

    ________________________________________________

    1. Which of the following explains the relationship between the claim "Children’s lives should be very structured, so that they cannot be exposed to any uncontrolled sources of information" and the claims in the opening paragraph of the passage?

    (A) It provides an explanation for a difficulty implied in the opening paragraph.

    (B) It illustrates an example of the author’s preferred solution.

    (C) It both contradicts and resolves a difficulty implied in the opening paragraph.

    (D) It neither supports nor challenges claims made in the passage.

    2. The author’s attitude toward the censorship of children’s books is one of:

    (A) cautious support.

    (B) staunch neutrality.

    (C) general disapproval.

    (D) confused ambivalence.

    3. Which of the following is most like the rating systems described in paragraph 4?

    (A) Teachers’ grades and comments that appear on student assignments.

    (B) Library catalogs that classify books according to various fiction and non-fiction genres.

    (C) Road signs that inform drivers of dangers and speed limits.

    (D) Nutritional information about calories and vitamin content appearing on product packages.

    4. The author mentions both the legal right to speak our minds and our lack of agreement about what we want our children to watch, hear, and read most likely in order to:

    (A) illustrate the need for censorship.

    (B) explain why librarians should monitor what children read.

    (C) characterize the culture of the United States relative to that of other countries.

    (D) explain why rating systems have been developed

  • {P1} A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, was assembled in front of a wooden prison.

    {P2} The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as the site of a prison. Before this ugly edifice was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilized society, a prison. But, on one side of the portal was a wild rose-bush, covered with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom.

    {P3} This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history. It may serve to symbolize some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.

    {P4} The door of the jail being opened from within, there appeared, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle. He laid his right hand upon the shoulder of a young woman; until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free will. Hester Prynne bore in her arms an infant, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day.

    {P5} When the young woman- the mother of this child- stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around her townspeople and neighbors. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.

    {P6} The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. Those who had before known her and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. But the point which drew all eyes, so that both men and women, who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time- was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.

    _______________________________________________________

    1. Suppose there is a newcomer to the community in which Hester Prynne was imprisoned. The newcomer dresses lavishly, eats voraciously, and spends excessively. It is MOST LIKELY that the newcomer:

    (A) would be embraced as a new member of the community.

    (B) would be swiftly tried, convicted, and executed.

    (C) would be someone who shares and respects Puritan values.

    (D) would be met with disapproval by the community.

    2. Information in the passage tells the reader that which of the following are Hester Prynne’s two tokens of shame?

    (A) The letter “A” on her chest and her baby.

    (B) Her public humiliation and her baby.

    (C) The letter “A” on her chest and her criminal record.

    (D) Her ostentatious dress and her baby.

    3. Which of the following assertions best captures an idea from the passage?

    (A) Puritan society allowed only men to adorn bright colors during certain times of the year.

    (B) The townspeople were expecting Hester Prynne’s imprisonment to have more of a negative impact on her than it did.

    (C) Hester Prynne’s birth of a baby girl marked her formal incorporation into society as a valued mother.

    (D) The Scarlet Letter worn on Hester’ Prynne’s chest is an emblem worn by many of the women in the community.

    4. All of the following examples of imagery are mentioned, but which one is NOT used by the author to support the theme of dignity?

    (A) “halo of misfortune”

    (B) “she repelled him...and stepped into the open air”

    (C) “haughty smile”

    (D) “burning blush”

    5. Which of the following statements would the author most likely agree with?

    (A) Hester’s rejection of the grim and grisly town beadle underscores the danger of anarchy in small communities.

    (B) The sad-colored garments worn in the community are meant to portray the destitution of early Puritan society.

    (C) The rose-bush among the unsightly vegetation in front of the prison represents the merciful tendencies of Puritan society.

    (D) The rosebush symbolizes that there is a natural moral sense that transcends the strict and less understanding moral order of the Puritans.

    6. The author would most likely agree with which of the following statements about the prison system in modern-day society:

    (A) Eliminating most crime from society is possible with a strong prison system in place.

    (B) Creating a perfect society completely free of crime is unrealistic.

    (C) Prisons are unnecessarily expensive and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

    (D) Incarceration is inhumane and should be forbidden by governments internationally.

  • Designing Courthouses Answers

    A, B, A

    Censorship: An Unnecessary Evil Answers

    C, C, D, D

    Puritan Society Answers

    D, A, B, D, D, B

Day 5

  • {P1} Writer Thomas Hardy fits neatly into the general scheme of the literature of the second half of the nineteenth century, for he was about midway between writers Matthew Arnold and Walt Whitman. He believed in the efficacy of the knowledge given to one by an understanding of science; but he felt that new points of view should be impregnated with the ancient lore of the past. He believed that old wine should be kept in new bottles. He refused to follow the writers who called themselves realists into the morass of words that they accumulated in their attempts to portray life and character as they thought they were. Likewise, he refused to give himself to pure impressionism. He endeavored to preserve a balance between objective reality and his interpretation of it. He was in the old sense of the word a literary artist.

    {P2} Hardy, of course, read the events of human life in the light of his conception of the Immanent Will. He believed that the skein of circumstance, woven blindly and flung forth indifferently, caught up in its web all human beings from the emperor in his palace to the unconscious lout lying drunk in the ditch. But Hardy was not satisfied to hold this view conjecturally. He scanned the pages of philosophy, of science, and of history to be certain that he read life aright. From them he evolved a view of life which has been called scientific determinism. It seemed to him that men moved as automata, each within his own sphere. Unseen forces played upon them; unseen powers directed them.

    {P3} These forces, the physical manifestation of the metaphysical Immanent Will, were three in number, to which all others were subordinated. They were the power of heredity, the shaping power of education, and the influence of environment. From them there was no escape, for every choice seemingly made by the individual, Hardy thought, was dictated by so many thousand unseen circumstances so interwoven that it was almost impossible to realize the extent to which one was enmeshed in them. For evidence to substantiate this conclusion he could point to the past and to the present. The Greeks, for example, believed that the three Fates directed every action, no matter how minute, of mortals, and Immortals- of the peasant plodding in the field, and of Zeus waving his machinations on the cloud-kissed brow of Olympus. The Christian era had introduced into the intellectual world the contrary idea of Free Will; but the world had split on that interpretation of life during the Reformation, when John Calvin gave to the world from the dark caverns of his mind the gloomy doctrine of Predestination. In the nineteenth century, the western world was probably equally divided between the theory of Free Will maintained by the Roman Catholic Church and a few protestant denominations, and the theory of Predestination held by all churches stemming from Calvinism. Unexpectedly, aid from an unsought source came to those who maintained that human actions were predetermined, for the evolutionary theory, expounded by Darwin and Huxley, and the psychology which grew from it, gave weight to the idea that Predeterminism fitted better with facts than the theory of Free Will. Once an anthropomorphic God was out of the picture and His place taken by an evolving Consciousness, or whatever the mind of man chose to substitute, it was almost necessary to believe in a theory of life similar to that held by Hardy.

    _______________________________________________________

    1. A central thesis in the passage is that Hardy:

    (A) was persuaded by science that only heredity guided our choices.

    (B) embraced the cross-pollination of scientific, philosophical, and artistic views of human life.

    (C) favored Catholicism over Calvinism because it offered a more complete explanation of the divine.

    (D) preferred an anthropomorphic God over an evolving Consciousness.

    2. Which of the following arguments would strengthen the author’s claim about the relationship between predestination and evolutionary theory?

    (A) Evolutionary theory predicts change over time, not daily decision-making.

    (B) Calvinists believed in God and championed Predestination simultaneously.

    (C) Evolutionary theory is scientific, while Predestination often involves divine forces.

    (D) All human decisions are determined by the brain which is a byproduct of biological evolution.

    3. The author’s descriptions of “the emperor in his palace” and the “unconscious lout lying drunk in the ditch” are used by the author as support for which claim?

    (A) Hardy believed those who work hard are superior to those who are lazy.

    (B) Hardy believed that socioeconomic divides are inevitable.

    (C) Hardy believed that all walks of life are shaped by uncontrollable events.

    (D) Hardy believed that there were 3 manifestations of the Imminent Will.

    4. Which of the following endeavors would BEST exemplify the sense of impressionism alluded to in paragraph 1?

    (A) A sculpture of a young woman crying as she clutches the figure of a small baby in her arms.

    (B) A novel describing the day-to-day shopping habits of a middle-class housewife.

    (C) A poem detailing the dangerous and unsanitary working conditions of industrial society.

    (D) A painting of teenagers suspended in space to portray their social disconnection.

    5. According to the passage, which two viewpoints held contrary positions regarding the existence of Free-Will?

    (A) Catholicism and Calvinism

    (B) Calvinism and Evolutionary Theory

    (C) Evolutionary Theory and Psychology

    (D) Ancient Greek philosophy and science

    6. Based on the philosophical beliefs of Thomas Hardy described in the passage, what can be inferred about the beliefs of writers Matthew Arnold and Walt Whitman?

    (A) One believed in hedonism while the other believed in asceticism.

    (B) One valued ancient tradition while the other valued modern progress.

    (C) One preferred new bottles and the other preferred old wine.

    (D) One believed in fate and the other believed in free will.

  • {P1} From the very first stage of the postpartum period, infants show various emotional expressions such as crying and smiling, and their caregivers typically respond sensitively and automatically to these expressions. Many studies have investigated maternal physical and mental responses toward infants’ emotional expressions. For example, distress cries of infants evoke physiological responses in mothers, most of which involve accelerated cardiac activity, increased skin conductance, and a higher rate of respiration. Several researchers have suggested that this physiological arousal caused by infant cries functions as ‘preparation for action’. When a mother finds that her infant is crying, her stress response will prompt her to approach, pick up, and attempt to console her infant.

    {P2} Given that these stressful responses are a fairly typical feature of parenting, how are such responses modulated, and can they be decreased? Levenson suggests that positive emotions facilitate the process of recovery from physiological arousal provoked by negative emotions. This is called the undoing effect. Indeed, Fredrickson and Levenson showed that cardiovascular activity induced by watching a negative film returns to baseline more quickly when followed by watching a cheerful film than after a sad or neutral film. The stimulation of positive emotions associated with the undoing effect may result in the restoration of homeostatic balance. Homeostasis is dependent on the dual operation of both sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic nervous systems. When a person faces a stressful situation, sympathetic activity becomes dominant, causing an increase in skin conductance and heart rate, which helps prepare the person for an emergency. After the person is released from the stressful situation, parasympathetic activity becomes dominant and sympathetic activity decreases, with an associated reduction in skin conductance and heart rate, which is commonly associated with a person experiencing a (relatively) quiet, relaxed state.

    {P3} In the course of daily childrearing experiences, mothers experience stress reactions to their infants’ expressions of negative emotion, and subsequent positive emotional expressions of the infants may moderate or ameliorate these stress reactions. Although a number of researchers have suggested that positive infant emotional expressions are important for effective mother-infant interaction, exactly how infant smiling affects maternal physiological states remains unknown. Some functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have reported that infants’ positive emotional expressions activate various maternal brain regions, including those underlying the reward system, motor planning, and inhibition of negative emotion; the activation of these regions is thought to be necessary to initiate positive parenting behaviors. However, these studies emphasized the effects of infant smiling on changes from a calm maternal state. It is possible infant smiling might have stronger recovery effects on physiologically negative stressful states, by means of the undoing effect. These studies could therefore have underestimated the positive effects of infant smiling on maternal physiological states. Thus, it is necessary to examine whether and how infant smiling brings about positive recovery effects on mothers' physiologically stressful states, including those states caused by exposure to infants’ distress cries. In the present study, we investigated whether the happy smiling of infants attenuate their mothers' physiological responses to their preceding cries.

    _______________________________________________________

    1. Which of the following assumptions about maternal emotional response is made by the author?

    (A) Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an inadequate way to measure maternal stress.

    (B) Physiological responses measured in mothers directly correlate with the intensity of their stress.

    (C) Compared to men, women experience more physiological changes in response to distressed infants.

    (D) All mothers experience the same stress levels in response to their child crying.

    2. The main purpose of the author’s new study in paragraph 3 is BEST described as showing which of the following?

    (A) The impact of positive infant facial expressions on women with children.

    (B) The impact of positive infant facial expressions on their mothers.

    (C) The impact of negative infant facial expressions on women with children.

    (D) The impact of negative infant facial expressions on their mothers.

    3. According to the passage, homeostasis is achieved more quickly after physiological arousal provoked by negative emotions when followed by:

    (A) a positive emotion.

    (B) a difficult experience.

    (C) neutral thoughts

    (D) minimizing sensory stimulation.

    4. The undoing effect would predict which of the following about an individual exposed to pleasant music after seeing disturbing pictures?

    (A) Relief from stress with decreased heart rate and decreased skin conductance.

    (B) Relief from stress with decreased heart rate and increased skin conductance.

    (C) If they see the pictures again, they will no longer feel that they are disturbing.

    (D) The undoing effect applies only to maternal responses to infant stress.

    5. In the passage, the author illustrates the undoing effect with studies that measured responses to:

    (A) electrical stimulation

    (B) music

    (C) lighting

    (D) movies

    6. Assume that a sample of mothers is assigned randomly to one of two groups. The average nervous system levels (both sympathetic and parasympathetic) are the same for the groups at the start of the experiment. In both groups, each mother observes a video showing her own infant’s distress cry. Each mothers in Group A is then shown a video of her infant smiling happily, while each mother in Group B is shown a video of her infant with a neutral expression. The undoing effect would predict that after watching the video of the infant smiling happily, mothers in Group A would have:

    I. decreased sympathetic nervous system activity relative to themselves.
    II. increased heart rate and increased skin conductance relative to mothers in Group B.
    III. increased parasympathetic nervous system activity relative to mothers in Group B.

    (A) I only

    (B) III only

    (C) I and III only

    (D) I, II, and III

  • {P1} The greatest territorial expansion and the greatest power of the Hun Empire in the West was when the centre of their activities reached Pannonia under the leadership of Attila. Greek and Latin sources indicate that Attila was of royal lineage, a line which for generations had ruled the Huns. Attila was a great statesman who did great deeds. He was a wise ruler, a skilled diplomat, and a fair judge. With good reason he should be considered a prominent figure in the first millennium AD. The Hun land under Attila’s control consisted of four areas; the northern border of the kingdom stretched from the Hun’s homeland to the west of Germany. In the south, both Roman Empires (the Eastern Roman and the Western Roman Empire) were paying tribute to Attila. In terms of its territory and influence, Attila’s empire covered geographically almost all the four corners of the known world, from east to west and from north to south. The Hun territory ran from east to west - from Altai, Central Asia and the Caucasus to the Danube and the Rhine. The Hun’s Union in Central Asia contributed to the later emergence of the Kazakh nation and other Turkic peoples. By accumulating and concentrating power, the Hun ruler organized an invasion of Western Europe, in order to expand the territory of his state. And so the Catalaunian Fields in Champagne (Gaul) became the place for the decisive (major) battle. Parisians were frightened of Attila’s cruelty and anger, so they decided to send women and children and some belongings to a safe place. There St. Genovea turned up and she resolved to persuade women not to leave the city, in which they had been born and grown up, in the hour of danger and, moreover, to prepare themselves and their men to the defense. St. Genovea told the women to ask God for help and salvation. They listened to Genovea and decided to stay in the city and rely on God’s mercy.

    {P2} In the evaluation of the largest battle, a number of Western history scholars, both modern and contemporary, drew on information from the chroniclers of the early Middle Ages, and used them uncritically. The objective evaluation of historical reality is always difficult. A Belgian historian - Pirenn concluded that Attila, getting through the Rhine in the spring of 451 AD, devastated everything up to the Loire. Aetius stopped him with the help of the Germans near Troyes. The Franks, Burgundians and Visigoths and others were good allies. The military art of the Romans and German bravery decided everything here. Attila's death in 453 AD resulted in the collapse of Hun power, and thereby saved the West. In our opinion, the situation in Gaul can be explained by the over-large scale of Attila’s campaigns and the inability to restrain dozens of tribes and entities that were not related to the Huns socially and ethnically within the vast territory under the unified leadership. But let us return to the momentous meeting of 452 AD. In the spring of 453 AD, the ruler of the Hun Empire, Attila, died.

    ________________________________________________________

    1. Which of the following new pieces of evidence would weaken Pirenn’s explanations for the Hun defeat at Gaul?

    (A) The Germans were generally regarded as cowards.

    (B) The Hun army was greatly weakened by the time they reached the Loire.

    (C) Atilla’s campaign was smaller in scale than previously thought.

    (D) Both A and B

    2. Which of the following statements BEST expresses the passage author’s main message?

    (A) The Hunnic Empire was complex and ethnically diverse.

    (B) Attila led a powerful empire and came close to conquering Western Europe.

    (C) Attila was greatly feared throughout the West.

    (D) The Huns employed ultimately unsuccessful military tactics.

    3. The author mentions tributes paid to Attila by the Romans in order to support which of the following claims about the Huns? The Huns:

    (A) created a very sophisticated banking system.

    (B) had a vast sphere of influence and political power.

    (C) were unable to create a single, unified nation-state.

    (D) were feared and respected.

    4. Which of the following statements does the author NOT imply about Attila?

    (A) The Hun land under Attila’s control consisted of four areas.

    (B) There were people who were frightened of Attila’s cruelty and anger.

    (C) There are multiple sources that indicate that Attila was of royal lineage.

    (D) Attila was often cruel to his own people.

    5. Which of the following passage assertions is presented as evidence that Attila should be considered a prominent historical figure?

    (A) Parisians were frightened of Attila’s cruelty and anger.

    (B) Attila invaded Gaul.

    (C) Attila was of a royal lineage.

    (D) The greatest territorial expansion of the Hun Empire was under the leadership of Attila.

    6. Information in the passage MOST STRONGLY suggests that one scholarly disagreement about the Huns might entail:

    (A) The factors that led to the Huns failing to conquer Western Europe.

    (B) The influence Eurasian diet and religion on Hunnic culture.

    (C) The emergence of the Kazakh nation and other Turkic peoples.

    (D) The actual cause of Attila’s death in 453 AD.

  • Understanding Thomas Hardy Answers

    B, D, C, D, A, B

    Maternal Psychology Answers

    B, B, A, A, D, C

    Huns and Eurasian History Answers

    D, B, B, D, D, A

Day 6

  • {P1} Nigeria's energy need is on the increase, and its increasing population is not adequately considered in the government’s energy development program. The present urban-centered energy policy is deplorable, as cases of rural and sub-rural energy demand and supply do not reach the center stage of the country's energy development policy. People in rural areas depend on burning wood and traditional biomass for their energy needs, causing great deforestation, emitting greenhouse gases, and polluting the environment, thus creating global warming and environmental concerns. The main task has been to supply energy to the cities and various places of industrialization, thereby creating an energy imbalance within the country's socioeconomic and political landscapes. Comparing the present and ever increasing population with the total capacity of the available power stations reveals that Nigeria is not able to meet the energy needs of the people. The rural dwellers still lack electric power.

    {P2} The nature of Nigeria's energy crisis can be characterized by two key factors. The first concerns the recurrent severe shortages of the petroleum product market of which kerosene and diesel are the most prominent. Nigeria has five domestic refineries owned by the government with a capacity to process 450,000 barrels of oil per day, yet imports constitute more than 75% of petroleum product requirements. The state-owned refineries have hardly operated above a 40% capacity utilization rate for any extended period of time in the past two decades. The gasoline market is much better supplied than kerosene and diesel because of its higher political profile. This factor explains why the government has embarked on large import volumes to remedy domestic shortages of the product. The weaker political pressures exerted by the consumers of kerosene (the poor and low middle class) and diesel (industrial sector) on the government and the constraints on public financing of large-scale imports of these products, as in the case of gasoline, largely explain their more severe and persistent market shortages.

    {P3} The second dimension of Nigeria's energy crisis is exemplified by such indicators as electricity blackouts, brownouts, and pervasive reliance on self-generated electricity. This development has occurred despite abundant energy resources in Nigeria. The electricity market, dominated on the supply side by the state-owned Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), formerly called National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), has been incapable of providing minimum acceptable international standards of electricity service reliability, accessibility, and availability for the past three decades.

    {P4} Though the peak electricity demand has been less than half of the installed capacity in the past decade, load shedding occurs regularly. Power outages in the manufacturing sector provide another dimension to the crisis. In 2004, the major manufacturing firms experienced 316 outages. This increased by 26% in 2005, followed by an explosive 43% increase between 2006 and 2007. Though no published data exist, the near collapse of the generating system to far below 2,000 MW for prolonged periods of time suggests a reason for the number of outages in 2008 to be very high. This poor service delivery has rendered public supply a standby source, as many consumers who cannot afford irregular and poor quality service, substitute more expensive captive supply alternatives to minimize the negative consequences of power supply interruptions on their production activities and profitability. An estimated 20% of the investment into industrial projects is allocated to alternative sources of electricity supply.

    ____________________________________________________

    1. The author’s attitude toward the Nigerian government is best described as:

    (A) Critical

    (B) Neutral

    (C) Sympathetic

    (D) Optimistic

    2. In the discussion of Nigeria’s energy crisis, what is the significance of the statement, “The state-owned refineries have hardly operated above a 40% capacity utilization rate for any extended period of time in the past two decades.” (paragraph 2).

    (A) Nigeria has a surplus of crude oil.

    (B) Nigeria has been unable to satisfy petroleum product demand domestically.

    (C) Nigeria’s domestic energy crisis would be easily solved by free trade agreements.

    (D) Nigeria’s domestic energy crisis is primarily caused by its reliance on imports.

    3. Which of the following passage assertions is presented as a reason why the gasoline market is better supplied than kerosene?

    (A) because the electricity market is dominated on the supply side by the state-owned PHCN.

    (B) because consumers of kerosene are less likely to have the ability to influence energy policy.

    (C) because the major manufacturing firms experienced 316 outages in 2004.

    (D) because the Nigerian government has limited refinery capacity.

    4. Which of the following recommendations most clearly follows from ideas in the passage:

    (A) Nigeria would benefit from greater government regulation of energy companies.

    (B) Nigeria should focus on alternatives, such as solar and nuclear power.

    (C) Nigeria should more fully exploit domestic solutions to the energy crisis.

    (D) Nigeria should reduce the total amount of energy that its people consume.

    5. The author argues that the Nigerian government has been unable to provide reliable electrical power to its citizens. Extending the author’s reasoning, which of the following would provide the BEST evidence of an improvement in the Nigerian government’s delivery of electrical power?

    (A) An increase in the number of blackouts and brownouts.

    (B) An increase in export of petroleum products.

    (C) A decrease in the profits of manufacturing firms.

    (D) A decrease in reliance on self-generated electricity.

    6. The author uses “great deforestation” in Nigeria to support which of the following claims?

    (A) The Power Holding Company is incapable of supplying reliable service in urban areas.

    (B) People in rural areas lack electric power.

    (C) Petroleum imports exceed exports.

    (D) Diesel fuel suffers even greater shortages than gasoline.

  • {P1} While the origins and possible function of jealousy have been debated, most theorists agree on one defining feature: It requires a social triangle, arising when an interloper threatens an important relationship. A common assumption has been that the elicitation of jealousy involves, and perhaps requires, complex cognitive abilities, including appraisals about the meaning of the rival threat to one's self (e.g., self-esteem) and to one's relationship.

    {P2} One possibility is that jealousy first evolved in the context of sibling-parent relationships where dependent offspring compete for parental resources. An implication of this hypothesis is that jealousy may have a primordial or core form that can be triggered without complex cognition about the self or about the meaning of the social interaction. This primordial form of jealousy may be elicited by the relatively simple perception that an attachment figure or loved one's attention has been captured by a potential usurper, which suffices to elicit a motive to regain the loved one's attention and block the liaison. Primordial jealousy may serve as the building block for jealousy elicited by more complex cognitive processes. For example, in adult human relationships, the experience of jealousy is greatly impacted by additional appraisals about the meaning of the interaction (e.g., does this mean my mate will leave me? Am I unloveable?). In both primordial and complex cases of jealousy, there is a motivation to restore the relationship and remove the usurper. However, in the latter case, interpretations of the situation play a large role in the elicitation and experience of the emotion.

    {P3} The theory that jealousy can take a primordial form finds support from the small but emerging body of research on human infant jealousy. Several studies found that infants as young as 6-months of age show behaviors indicative of jealousy, for example, when their mothers interacted with what appeared to be another infant (but was actually a realistic looking doll). The infants did not display the same behaviors when their mothers attend to a nonsocial item (a book).

    {P4} The current experiment adapted a paradigm from human infant studies to examine jealousy in domestic dogs. The idea that dogs are capable of jealousy is congenial to the burgeoning body of research on animal social cognition that reveals that dogs have sophisticated social-cognitive abilities. For example, dogs can use a variety of human communicative signals (e.g., pointing, eye gaze) to determine the location of hidden food, are better at using social cues than chimpanzees, show some sensitivity to reward inequity when a partner is rewarded and they are not and appear aware of, and actively attempt to manipulate, the visual attention of their play partners.

    {P5} To evaluate dogs' jealous behaviors, thirty-six dogs were individually tested and videotaped while their owners ignored them and interacted with a series of three different objects. In the jealousy condition, the owner treated a stuffed dog, which briefly barked and wagged its tail, as if it were a real dog (e.g., petting, talking sweetly). In another condition, owners engaged in these same behaviors but did so towards a novel object (jack-o-lantern pail). This enabled us to test whether the elicitation of jealousy required that the owner show affection to an appropriate stimulus (what appeared to be a conspecific) or whether affectionate behaviors directed to a nonsocial stimulus would be enough to arouse jealous behaviors. In the third condition, the owner read aloud a children's book, which had pop-up pages and played melodies. This condition allowed us to test whether dogs' behaviors in the other conditions were indicative of jealousy per se (arising over the loss of affection and attention towards an interloper) or more general negative affect due to the loss of the owner's attention.

    {P6} As discussed earlier, the proposed function of jealousy is to break-up a potentially threatening liaison and protect the primary relationship. This motivates several types of behaviors including approach actions such as attempts to get physically or psychologically between the attachment and the interloper, attending to the threatening interaction, seeking attention from the attachment figure, as well as indicators of negative emotion such as aggression, particularly toward the interloper. Across social species, we would expect to see similar types of behaviors that serve the function of this motivational state.

    ______________________________________________________

    1. Based on the passage, the purpose of the third condition, in which the owner reads aloud a children’s book in front of the dog, is:

    (A) to determine whether the dog experiences jealousy when the owner’s attention is diverted.

    (B) to test if the dog can experience complex jealousy.

    (C) to detect if the dog is capable of experiencing jealousy of non-social objects.

    (D) to distinguish between jealousy and generally negative behavior.

    2. Which of the following BEST represents an example of primordial jealousy?

    (A) Steven worries that his date is flirting with another man because she thinks Steven is boring.

    (B) Trish wants to see her colleague, Pam, transferred to another branch because she thinks the supervisor finds Pam more charming.

    (C) Marshall cries because his mother is busy talking to the mailman.

    (D) Ted throws his phone against the wall because he was fired from his job.

    3. The author’s use of the “third condition” in the experiment involves the owner reading a book out loud. Which of the following potential results of that condition would be most problematic for the author’s theory.

    (A) The dog displays no negative behaviors.

    (B) The dog wags its tail because he thinks the owner is talking to him/her.

    (C) The dog barks to gain the owner’s attention.

    (D) Both B and C are equally problematic for the theory.

    4. An assumption the author makes about the dogs in the experiment is that:

    (A) dogs will sense when owners are more excited about the jack-o-lantern than about reading the book aloud.

    (B) dogs will not feel jealous when their owners are reading a book.

    (C) dogs will feel jealous when they see their owners giving affection to the jack 0 lanterns.

    (D) both B and C

    5. As discussed in the passage, the proposed function of jealousy is to break-up a potentially threatening liaison and protect the primary relationship. Suppose a scientist were to demonstrate that dogs exhibit aggressive behavior to establish social dominance. This information is likely to complicate the author’s experiment because:

    (A) aggressive dog behavior may have nothing to do with the owner.

    (B) the dog’s propensity for aggression could sometimes be incorrectly interpreted as jealousy.

    (C) the dog’s behavior may merely be an attempt to establish dominance over the third interloper.

    (D) All of the above.

    6. In both cases of complex and primordial jealousy:

    (A) there is a motivation to restore the relationship and remove the usurper.

    (B) the cognitive process is different but the resulting jealousy is the same.

    (C) infants as young as 6-months of age show behaviors indicative of both.

    (D) jealousy is triggered with complex cognition about the self.

  • {P1} The greatest problem of biology is understanding the divide that exists between life and matter. There seems to be an unbridgeable gulf between them, but how could life have emerged from matter if it is fundamentally different from it? The received view, today, is that life is but an extremely complex form of chemistry, which is equivalent to saying that there is no fundamental divide between them. Primordial genes and primordial proteins appeared spontaneously on the primitive Earth and gradually evolved into increasingly more complex structures, all the way up to the first cells, the basic units of life. The problem of which molecules came first has been the object of countless debates, but in a way it is a secondary issue. What really matters is that spontaneous genes and spontaneous proteins had the potential to evolve into the first cells. This however, is precisely what molecular biology does not support.

    {P2} The genes and proteins of the first cells had to have biological specificity, and specific molecules cannot be formed spontaneously. They can only be manufactured by molecular machines, and their production requires entities like sequences and codes that simply do not exist in spontaneous processes. That is what really divides matter from life. All components of matter arise by spontaneous processes that do not require sequences and codes, whereas all components of life arise by manufacturing processes that do require these entities. It is the signalling of these sequences and codes, or semiosis, that makes the difference between life and matter. It is semiosis that does not exist in the inanimate world, and that is why biology is not a complex form of chemistry.

    {P3} The problem of the origin of life becomes in this way the problem of understanding how the first molecular machines came into existence and started producing new types of molecules. We have seen that chemical evolution could spontaneously produce ‘bondmakers’, molecules that had the ability to stick subunits together, and we have also seen that some bondmakers could become ‘copymakers’ by sticking subunits together in the order provided by a template. The next step was the appearance of ‘codemakers’, and that is much more difficult to account for, but in principle it has the same logic and we can regard it as a natural event (ribosomes, for example, can still arise by self-assembly from their components). What really matters is that molecular machines could arise spontaneously, and once in existence they started producing molecules that cannot be formed spontaneously. More precisely, they started producing specific genes and specific proteins and that is what crossed the gulf that divides inanimate matter from life.

    {P4} The genetic code was the first organic code in the history of life, but was not the only one. We have seen that other organic codes came into existence, and that they account not only for the production of new biological objects but also for the organization of these objects into higher structures and for their interactions with the external world. Semiosis, in short, was not limited to the production of specific molecules. There are at least three different types of semiosis in Nature and we find codes at all levels of life, from the world of genes and proteins all the way up to mind and language. Physics and chemistry provide of course the building blocks of life, but what ‘animates’ matter is codes, and that is why there is a deep truth in the oversimplified statement that “life is semiosis”.

    ________________________________________________________

    1. Which of the following is LEAST analogous to the semiosis described in paragraph 4 and throughout the passage?

    (A) A device programmed to carry out a set of logical operations.

    (B) Traditional embroidery in chain stitch on a Persian rug.

    (C) Assorted gases expelled from a volcanic vent.

    (D) A figure-eight dance used by honey bees to communicate.

    2. The author’s central message for the whole passage is BEST summarized as:

    (A) Spontaneous genes and spontaneous proteins evolved into the first cells on earth.

    (B) What divides matter and life requires sequences and codes.

    (C) Life is not made up of complex chemical processes requiring sequences and codes.

    (D) Life requires a process directed by an intelligence.

    3. Suppose scientists discover a spongy substance on the bottom of the ocean that appears to eat small fish, expel waste, reproduce, and eventually die. The spongy substance does not contain any components that require coding or sequencing. Based on the passage, the author is most likely to classify the discovery as:

    (A) Primordial life

    (B) Life

    (C) The result of non-spontaneous processes

    (D) Matter

    4. Which of the following assumptions must the author make to preserve the logic of his main argument:

    (A) Codes can be found in all molecules.

    (B) Chemical evolution happens over extended time periods.

    (C) Molecular machines are not specific molecules.

    (D) Genetic codes were among the first organic codes.

    5. In paragraph 3, the author most likely mentions ‘bondmakers,’ ‘copymakers,’ and ‘codemakers,’ in order to:

    (A) Offer examples of molecular machines that are essential to life.

    (B) Rebut the common scientific view that molecular sequencing is a complex process.

    (C) Illustrate there are at least three different types of semiosis that exist in Nature.

    (D) Emphasize that components of matter arise by spontaneous processes.

    6. It can be inferred from the passage that in the scientific community the author’s definition of life is:

    (A) widely accepted

    (B) an alternative perspective

    (C) part of the controversy over which molecules came first

    (D) fairly unimportant

  • Energy and Sustainable Development in Nigeria

    A, B, B, C, D, B

    Primordial and Complex Jealousy

    D, C, C, B, D, A

    What is Life?

    B, B, D, C, A, B

Day 7

  • {P1} An interesting finding in our study of antenatal depression and anxiety among women in Pakistan was the correlation between the occupation of pregnant women and antenatal depression and anxiety. In contrast to studies in western populations, which mention employment as a strong protective factor against major depression in pregnancy, our study found that pregnant women employed outside the home were actually more depressed and anxious than pregnant housewives. A study in Karachi, Pakistan apparently contradicts our findings by concluding that housewives, in general, are more depressed than working women. Several factors might explain this contradiction. Most studies with such findings mention education as an important protective factor against antenatal anxiety and depression. Therefore, the lower educational level of housewives compared to working women was associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression. However, our study included respondents from low and lower-middle socioeconomic classes, and 54% of the women in our sample were educated to less than the 10th grade level. So even most of the working women may not have been educated highly enough for their employment status to have a positive effect on their mental health. Secondly, in recent years inflation has increased and socioeconomic conditions have deteriorated in Pakistan, and these changes have led to increased stress and the pressures on working women to meet the economic needs of their household. This increased stress, combined with the demands of pregnancy, might be responsible for greater depression and anxiety in working women compared to housewives, who are relatively protected from work stress. Finally, another factor might also be operative in the social environment of Pakistan. In many orthodox Pakistani families, most of which belong to lower and lower-middle social classes, working women are highly stigmatized. In this socioeconomic setting, the home is considered the appropriate place for women, and being an obedient wife and a loving mother are considered their appropriate roles. Negative attitudes among relatives towards their work might contribute to depression and anxiety among working pregnant women from the lower and lower-middle social classes who participated in our study; housewives, in contrast, may have been protected from such discrimination.

    {P2} A novel and important finding in our study is the relationship between the gender of previous children and the level of antenatal depression and anxiety. Having daughters was significantly associated with antenatal depression and anxiety, whereas having sons was a protective factor. In Pakistan the family system is predominantly patriarchal. Women are treated as second-class citizens and denied certain social rights. Among the consequences of this social structure are honor killings, the bride price and dowry, the disputed status of female testimony, forced marriages and denial of a woman’s right to have a career. Parents view their sons as bread-earners and agents of continuation of the family name, and view their daughters as an economic burden. This is partly due to the tradition of providing a large dowry when a daughter marries, especially in India and Pakistan. The dowry may be in the form of land, money, jewelry or household items. Even after birth, sons are given preference over daughters with respect to access to healthcare and educational opportunities. Considering these societal pressures, pregnant women who have already given birth to one or more daughters are not only concerned about their future offspring’s gender, but are also subject to harassment, taunting and stigmatization by their family and relatives.

    ______________________________________________________________

    1. Suppose a brand new study showed that women who were NOT pregnant experienced more stress if they were housewives than if they were working. What would the implications of this study be for the author’s study and the other study done in Karachi?

    (A) It would show that the author’s study is wrong and the Karachi study is more valid.

    (B) It would show that the Karachi study is wrong and the author’s study is more valid.

    (C) It would show that both the author’s study and the Karachi study are wrong.

    (D) It would neither support nor contradict either the author’s or the Karachi study.

    2. According to the passage, which of the following cultural factors has been shown to affect antenatal depression and anxiety in Western populations?

    (A) Employment is a strong protective factor against major depression in pregnancy.

    (B) Housewives, in general, are more depressed than working women.

    (C) Education increases antenatal anxiety and depression.

    (D) Working women in orthodox families are highly stigmatized.

    3. Based on the passage, which of the following social changes is MOST LIKELY to cause a decrease in antenatal depression and anxiety?

    (A) an increase in the number of women in the workforce.

    (B) a decrease in the number of women in the workforce.

    (C) a decrease in the stigmatization of women in the workforce.

    (D) an increase in the percentage of newborns who are female.

    4. The main function of the statement in paragraph 2, “pregnant women who have already given birth to one or more daughters are not only concerned about their future offspring’s gender, but are also subject to harassment, taunting and stigmatization by their family and relatives” is to:

    (A) emphasize that women in Pakistan face severe gender discrimination.

    (B) clarify the patrilineal context in which pregnant women in Pakistan live.

    (C) justify the strong preference women show for having boys instead of girls.

    (D) show the multiple ways that the Patriarchal system creates stress on pregnant mothers who have previously had girls.

    5. In the passage, which of the following facts does the author NOT use to support their explanation for the increased incidence of antenatal depression and anxiety in women who have previously had girls?

    (A) Females are perceived to have less credibility.

    (B) Daughters do not carry the family name.

    (C) Girls are often denied the right to work.

    (D) Economic inflation increases stress on working women.

    6. The passage author’s study found that pregnant women in Pakistan employed outside the home are more depressed and anxious than housewives. Other studies in Pakistan have found that women employed outside the home are less depressed. The apparently contradictory findings are MOST LIKELY viewed by the author as being:

    (A) the result of differences in the gender of prior offspring.

    (B) due to differences in the economy and education of the working women.

    (C) the different specific locations of the studies.

    (D) the author’s own study having more accurate data.

  • {P1} Utilitarianism is a philosophic conception of politics and ethics. For the Utilitarian, politics and ethics are interwoven into the science of moral duty; in other words, political philosophy and ethics are inseparable. A political action is valuable only insofar as it keeps in mind the ethical good of the people with which it is concerned; consequently, the welfare of the people in general was the supreme consideration of the Utilitarian philosopher.

    {P2} To bring about this welfare, two courses of action must be pursued simultaneously: first, all hindrances to the betterment of the people must be removed; second, ideas and laws which will induce the betterment of the people must be promulgated. To accomplish these two outcomes there is needed, obviously, an adequate knowledge of human nature. This knowledge, the Utilitarian says, includes a knowledge of the motives of human action and of the ideal that animates human beings; and in order that one may acquire this knowledge correctly, it is necessary that he seek the facts dispassionately and scientifically through the mechanism of the senses. Superficial analysis should be discouraged, wild flights of the imagination discountenanced, and unverified assumptions discarded, for such mistaken methods produce only haphazard views of social life. Observation, experimentation, and sound generalization are absolutely necessary to the Utilitarian; wishful thinking, random guesswork, and loose generalization must be studiously avoided. “Utilitarian ethics,” said ethicist William L. Davidson, “is analytic, descriptive, and inductive, resting on ascertained facts; and its aim has reference to the right use of the facts, so as to advance social progress and for the concrete purpose of improving the existing conditions of life.” Ethical facts are of infinitely more importance to the Utilitarian thinker than ethical theories, no matter how ideal they may be or what their source.

    {P3} At this point the intuitional thinker takes issue with the Utilitarian; for in denying the power of innate ideas, the Utilitarian by implication has ignored the Absolute, whether it be in the form of God, a Principle, or an Ideal. But the Utilitarian is not seriously alarmed by the seeming lack of an Absolute in his philosophy, for he believes that if all the ascertainable data of life can be found, analyzed, and applied, the superstructure of Truth will stand forth complete and unassailable. “Know the truth and the truth will set you free” might well be his motto. In the meantime, while the intuitional thinker elaborates rare webs from his inner being, the Utilitarian seeks to know the nature of man- his character, his wants, his limitations, and his possibilities.

    {P4} The Utilitarian is intellectual. Utilitarians believe: first, that pleasure and pain are the mainsprings of human action; second, that the five senses give them a reasonably correct and complete account of the world around them; third, that all relationships between things in the external world are comprehensible to the human mind; fourth, that cause and effect are natural and not supernatural; and fifth, that ideas are not innate but acquired through experience and education. Utilitarianism as a mode of thinking is rational in its procedure; pragmatic in its attitude toward truth; scientific in its method; and skeptical in its consideration of conclusions. Occasionally he mounts to sublime heights in his perceptions; at times he descends to aridity and spiritual death. But at all times he keeps before himself one purpose- the scientific search for truth.

    _________________________________________________________

    1. The significance of the statement “Utilitarians believe...that the five senses give them a reasonably correct and complete account of the world around them” is that Utilitarians:

    (A) believe in the power of observation.

    (B) do not believe in a greater deity.

    (C) value their health above all else.

    (D) believe in unlimited human capacity.

    2. Based on the passage, a Utilitarian will always value:

    (A) ethics over politics

    (B) imagination to reason

    (C) theory to actuality

    (D) statistics to anecdotes

    3. Which of the following statements about utilitarian beliefs is NOT assumed by the author?

    (A) Laws that impede social progress should be revoked.

    (B) Laws that impede social welfare should be revoked.

    (C) Human nature is naturally inclined to promote the social welfare.

    (D) Human motives should be studied and incentivized for social welfare.

    4. A common thread in the discussion of Utilitarian ethics is that the morality of one’s actions:

    (A) depends on the consequences of those actions.

    (B) is directly determined by a rigid set of laws.

    (C) must lead to the fulfillment of one’s personal happiness.

    (D) can change depending on the intent behind the action.

    5. According to the logic of the author’s argument, if Utilitarians did not deny the power of innate ideas, then they would:

    (I) no longer ignore God.

    (II) have less reason to adopt the scientific method.

    (III)no longer believe that ethical acts are those that promote the general welfare of the people.

    (IV) be less likely to reject the existence of Human Nature.

    (A) I only

    (B) I and II

    (C) II and III

    (D) all of the above

    6. Which of the following statements about killing people is MOST in line with Utilitarian ethics according to the author?

    (A) It is always intrinsically wrong.

    (B) It diminishes society’s overall welfare, so it should be forbidden.

    (C) It destroys the personal happiness of the victim, so it should be forbidden.

    (D) It should be allowed as a punishment for harming others.

  • {P1} On 13 August 2009 I deactivated my Facebook social networking account. The world remained on its axis but Facebook’s slightly sinister prediction that my friends would miss me turned out to be correct. A torrent of emails and text messages arrived in the days following, asking where I had gone. Many asked me to justify why I left, some out of curiosity and some out of shock.

    {P2} What most concerns me is not primarily a privacy issue, in the sense of concerns about the availability of one’s private information in the public domain — though this is a part of it. Instead, I will describe a psychological problem that results from an ontological consideration of identity online and a phenomenological account of encountering the other. As Ken Hillis argues, the online avatar — and I use this term loosely to include the Facebook profile — is not identical with the user. Although the user identifies with this avatar, there is a distance maintained between the two; the avatar is a middle-ground between image and agent. This is a simple point. However, things start to get more complicated when we consider what this means for encounters between users. If the user is not identical with their avatar, then they are in a relation with only that avatar and the other user’s avatar when communicating or interacting online.

    {P3} In terms of voyeurism, the result is, I believe, that the main issue is not that of the user being watched, but of the user doing the watching. First, it is obviously the case that users can control what content they post on their profiles. Second, given that the avatar is not identical with the user, what is being seen by the voyeur is not only controlled content but exists at a remove from the other user. As such, the other user remains out of sight; the user cannot enter into a direct relation with the other user, only with the other user’s avatar. Given these conditions, the problem of voyeurism lies in the direction of voyeurism from the user to the other user’s avatar; again: it is the watching not the being watched that is the main cause of concern.

    {P4} Facebook allows us to gather substantial amounts of information about other people — people we know to varying degrees. More than this, it makes possible the monitoring of communications between different people, communications that may or may not have anything to do with the person who has access to them. Also, and perhaps the most uncomfortable element, it is possible to see the photograph albums of users who are not ‘friends’ — in either the traditional or Facebook sense of the word — if they are commented upon by those who are. We are in danger of sleepwalking into a state of voyeurism, whereby we cease to see the difference between what ought to be seen and what can be seen. Without wanting to exaggerate the point, this somnambulist voyeurism represents a perturbing psychological phenomenon; this desire/need to watch others is a disturbing anxiety, an unhealthy and inauthentic relationship with others.

    ---------------------------------------------------------

    1. Based on the passage, the author most likely believes the most meaningful social interactions are:

    (A) direct and mutual

    (B) in-depth and emotional

    (C) based on an authentic avatar

    (D) with an open mind

    2. The passage suggests that the author would LEAST likely opt to become an online user on which of the following?

    (A) A chatroom where political topics are debated.

    (B) An open source encyclopedia written collaboratively by users.

    (C) A professional networking site where people post their resumes.

    (D) A forum where users ask and receive gardening advice.

    3. Which of the following passage assertions does the author present as evidence that Facebook users do not have authentic social interactions?

    (A) It is possible to see the photo albums of users who are not ‘Friends’.

    (B) Facebook users often have little control over their privacy.

    (C) Users gather substantial information about other users.

    (D) The author was bombarded with emails questioning why he left.

    4. Which of the following issues does the author fail to consider in his reasoning?

    (A) That Facebook friends can actually care about each other.

    (B) That many Facebook interactions are between people with close relationships in real life.

    (C) That users can protect their privacy against unwanted voyeurs.

    (D) All of the above.

    5. According to the views of the passage author, which one of the following Facebook users would be MOST concerning?

    (A) A user monitors the activity of her 18-year old daughter, who just left for college.

    (B) A user pines after his love interest, who doesn’t know he exists.

    (C) A user limits her Facebook interactions to only real life family and friends.

    (D) A user markets his comic book company on his profile to attract readers.

    6. Which of the following BEST represents the author’s central concern about using Facebook?

    (A) The avatar is not an accurate representation of the actual user.

    (B) Facebook is an unhealthy culture of voyeurism with no direct interaction.

    (C) Users do not actually communicate with one another directly.

    (D) There are no boundaries between what is personal and private.

  • Antenatal Depression and Anxiety in Pakistan

    D, A, C, D, D, B

    Utilitarianism Ethics

    A, D, C, A, B, B

    Reflections on Leaving Facebook

    A, A, A, B, B, B

Day 8

  • {P1} The first publication of Leaves of Grass by now famous poet, Walt Whitman, was a failure. People like to believe that they can recognize excellence when they see it; but the fact remains that they cannot and will not, unless it assumes a familiar form. It is quite simple for university professors and literary critics to praise Whitman and his book today; it was impossible for them to do so in 1860.

    {P2} The first quality in the book to repel readers was the verse form; in the poetry of Whitman there was no apparent pattern. His poems seemed to be prose passages cut up and arranged to look like verse. After the academic critics accepted Whitman, many learned justifications were put forward concerning his verse. One professor argued that in rejecting the rhythm of the line (the usual rhythm in conventional verse) for the rhythm of the phrase (the rhythm of natural speech), Whitman was simply following a good American custom of ignoring verse patterns as the eye sees them and following the sound as the ear hears it. Another maintained that Whitman consciously combined rhythmic features of prose and conventional verse in order to evolve a new form. A number have expended considerable energy trying to show that assonance, alliteration, and parallelism (features found in much conventional poetry) are not missing from Whitman’s verse. But all hasten to argue that the verse form in Leaves of Grass is not as unorthodox as it appears.

    {P3} The second quality in the book to repel readers was the obvious confusion shown by Whitman between nature and art. All great poetry from the golden age of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides to the middle of the nineteenth century is marked by careful discrimination between raw nature and art. Aristotle laid down the principle that “the most beautiful colors, laid on confusedly will not give so much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait; Longinus said that “Nature fills the place of good fortune, Art that of good judgement,” and that too many images “make for confusion rather than intensity”; and Demetrius wrote that “not all possible points should be punctiliously and tediously elaborated, but some should be left for the comprehension and inference of the hearer.” The great ancient critics, apparently, believed that the primary function of the artist was to select from nature certain details which would be representative, vivid, and coherent, and which could be architectonically organized. The artist had to differentiate sharply between nature (whether it was human or physical) and art which was the representation of nature, organized and processed into a coherent art form.

    {P4} But Whitman made no such fine differentiation. Whitman believed the poet is merely “the channel of thoughts and things without increase or diminution.” The “absurd error” of considering nature and art as distinct was never made by Whitman. As a result, Leaves of Grass was definitely something new in the literary world, for it was an attempt to reproduce life precisely as the poet saw it, with no effort made to select material or organize it.

    {P5} The third quality in Leaves of Grass to repel readers was the intense individualism of the poet. Of all arts, poetry is one of the most egoistic. The world accepts the fact, for no one questions Shakespeare’s bland assertion that as long as his verse lives his mistress will live. “I celebrate myself, and sing myself,” Whitman wrote in Song of Myself; and from that theme he rarely departed. No poet has used the personal pronoun I as frequently as has Whitman.

    ______________________________________________________________

    1. Suppose a new artist emerged whose work was loved by some critics and hated by others. Which potential explanation for the different attitudes about this artist is the author most likely to agree with?

    “The critics who praise this new artist ...”

    (A) “are more open minded about new things.”

    (B) “are more aware of artists like Whitman who were initially rejected.”

    (C) “have been exposed to work similar to the new artist’s work.”

    (D) “are less analytical and intellectual.”

    2. Which of the following assertions is NOT consistent with ideas in the passage?

    (A) Leaves of Grass eventually became a highly regarded book of poems.

    (B) Prose poems were uncommon when Leaves of Grass was published.

    (C) Whitman’s poetry was less coherent than people were used to.d

    (D) It was a common belief that poetry should always mirror nature exactly as it appears.

    3. The author’s central argument suggests that the primary reason people initially do not recognize art, that eventually becomes famous, as being good is that:

    (A) academia is invariably several decades behind the development of culture.

    (B) art is meant for the collective good, and is less appealing when overly individualistic.

    (C) Leaves of Grass was poorly written, when compared to most classical poetry.

    (D) people are less likely to appreciate art that is less familiar.

    4. The author quotes the views of other critics in order to support which claim about Whitman’s poetry?

    (A) that the imagery was too inclusive

    (B) that it lacked patterned verse

    (C) that it distorted nature

    (D) that it was publicly repudiated

    5. Information in the passage suggests that Whitman’s poetry in Leaves of Grass was most likely characterized by:

    (A) themes of individual political autonomy.

    (B) jumbled and disordered natural imagery.

    (C) unusual grammatical structure.

    (D) overly simplistic language.

    6. In the discussion of the first unsuccessful publication of Leaves of Grass, which of the following is NOT mentioned as a reason for the book’s initial failure?

    (A) lack of structure

    (B) imagery

    (C) offensive content

    (D) egoism

  • {P1} Studies have found that participants can accurately distinguish political affiliation based on photos of faces. One study found that these effects seem to have been driven by traits attributed to the faces; specifically, power (a composite of ratings of dominance and facial maturity) and warmth (a composite of ratings of likeability and trustworthiness). Republican faces were perceived as more powerful than Democrats and, to the extent that a face was perceived as powerful, it was more likely to be categorized as Republican. On the other hand, the warmer a face was perceived, the more likely it was to be categorized as a Democrat. Other studies have also found relationships between facial traits and perceived political ideology. For example, one study found that conservative politicians in Finland were more attractive than candidates on the political left. In yet another study, politicians judged to be conservative were more attractive, intelligent-looking, and of higher social class than those judged to be more liberal. These judgments can have electoral consequences.

    {P2} Although the extant research has provided important information about factors that may underlie categorizations of faces according to political party affiliation, it may be limited in some critical ways. These studies focus primarily on the target in isolation from the perceiver. It is important to note that this research draws from ideas based in an ecological theory of perception adapted to theories of ecological social perception. These theories argue that faces signal certain things to perceivers about what the target may afford. A target may appear, for instance, more or less trustworthy or dominant, which may lead the perceiver to trust or fear that person, accordingly. However, it is likely that the accuracy of categorizing ambiguous targets is driven at least in part by the perceivers' identities, dispositions, or states. For example, it is known that perceptions of ambiguous group members may be influenced by perceivers' attitudes toward the groups or exposure to members of the group. One study found that heterosexual perceivers who had more experience with gay men were better at categorizing gay faces. Similarly, it is plausible that categorizations and trait ascriptions of Democrat and Republican faces may differ based on the political ideology of the perceiver/judge. There does exist some evidence that other perceiver identities and ideologies influence categorizations and judgments based on political affiliation. For instance, one study found that people categorized faces as political ingroup or outgroup members largely as a function of likeability. Another recent study found that perceiver gender influences ratings towards male and female politicians.

    {P3} Target political affiliation may interact with perceiver identity in another important way. In addition to accurate perceptions of political ideology, one study found that participants were more likely to classify faces as outgroup members than as ingroup members. These findings are consistent with a more general ingroup overexclusion effect. The ingroup overexclusion effect is thought to be a result of motivated social cognitions related to social identity, such that people tend to be protective of the ingroup. As a result of this protectiveness, perceivers may show a default bias toward categorizing others as outgroup members. This may be the case especially when groups are perceptually ambiguous. For example, one group of scholars have observed an ingroup over-exclusion effect for racially ambiguous targets, finding that Northern Italians (who had strongly identified as such) were more likely to exclude ambiguous targets that had a mix of Northern and Southern Italian features.

    _________________________________________________________

    1. The author’s mentioning of over exclusion and the Northern Italian study strengthen the author’s central argument because:

    (A) ingroup behavior emphasizes the importance of individual identity in making judgments.

    (B) the Northern Italy study completely debunks the ecological theory of perception.

    (C) the fact that ambiguity leads people to exclude more than include shows judgment inaccuracy.

    (D) previous studies had failed to present the perceiver with ambiguities that were real to life.

    2. With regard to perception of other’s political affiliations, which of the following ideas presented in the passage is LEAST supported by the passage with evidence?

    (A) the ingroup overexclusion effect.

    (B) impact of perceivers’ political ideologies.

    (C) the impact of gender.

    (D) the theory of ecological social perception.

    3. The author's general attitude toward studies that have focused on the “target in isolation from the perceiver” as described in paragraph 2 can best be described as:

    (A) general disapproval

    (B) general support

    (C) balanced criticism

    (D) condescending dismissal

    4. According to the passage, which of the following individuals is most likely to engage in overexclusion?

    (A) a member of an ingroup who feels a strong sense of group identity.

    (B) a member of ingroup who has more exposure to the outgroup.

    (C) a member of an outgroup who is accustomed to the practice of exclusion.

    (D) a member of an outgroup who is jealous of the ingroup.

    5. Imagine a group of people is presented with a photo of a man. According to the passage, which of the following features will most likely lead the group to believe the person in the photo is a Republican?

    (A) Republican paraphernalia

    (B) a friendly face

    (C) Caucasian features

    (D) an expensive suit

    6. Which of the following potential study results would support the author’s central claim with new evidence not already provided by the studies the author describes?

    (A) perceiver judgment of another’s religious affiliation is predicted by physical attributes and overall demeanor.

    (B) perceiver judgment of another’s political affiliation is predicted by physical attributes and overall demeanor.

    (C) perceiver political ideology alters the relationship between perception of another’s political affiliation and perceived traits.

    (D) perceiver religious ideology alters the relationship between perception of another’s religious affiliation and perceived traits.

  • {P1} Ecological patterns and processes are influenced by human activities in two main ways: directly, by the transformation of land into infrastructure and productive areas, or indirectly, through the byproducts of human activities that might disperse away from their causal source and degrade ecosystem functions. Direct modifications of the land through human infrastructure (human settlements, transportation pathways, and power lines) and productive areas (agriculture, aquaculture, forestry, and cattle ranching) have increased globally during the last century as a result of accelerated human population growth.

    {P2} Several studies have analyzed the patterns of direct human modification of the land surface as a proxy measure of human influence on natural ecosystems. Although human modification indices do not convey the entire human effect expressed as changes historically accumulated over natural ecosystems, they are useful to infer the spatial pattern and extent of the capacity of humans to transform the earth through land use. Many studies analyze how diverse ecological regions have different capacity to respond to landscape transformations, but only a few of them analyze how the physical geography (defined, for example, as biomes or ecoregions) affects the spatial patterns of human modification.

    {P3} Mexico is an ecologically heterogeneous country that hosts a diverse array of ecosystems ranging from hyper-arid deserts to tropical rainforests, which have evolved as a consequence of the country’s complex topography. Mexico is also one of the biologically megadiverse countries of the world, with high endemism for birds, mammals, and reptiles. In principle, it would be expected that human developments and land transformations in Mexico follow the country’s complex environmental mosaic, with regions where environmental conditions are more favorable for human settlement and occupation (given a particular level of technological development) showing a larger human footprint.

    {P4} But land settlements and landscape transformations are not only the result of physical geography; there are also technological and historical components. The historic dimension is especially relevant in countries such as Mexico, with a long history of human occupation and well-documented civilization collapses. Indeed, despite the common misperception that Europeans found a New World that was largely unoccupied and wild, what Spaniards found in Mexico was a densely populated territory with well-developed agricultural settlements and large urban centers that heavily impacted their respective hinterlands. When Europeans arrived to Mesoamerica the population of the larger territory of what we now call Mexico was in the order of tens of millions of people. Although the native population was devastated by European diseases, the encomienda system, and 16th Century droughts, its geographical distribution at the time of Spanish conquest conditioned the subsequent land occupation and landscape transformations.

    {P5} The ability of humans to transform the face of the earth has been referred to as the ¨human footprint.¨ The Human Footprint Index (HF) is calculated by adding all major large-scale anthropogenic transformations over the land surface. It uses four variables to summarize the effects of human modification: population density, land use change, access areas, and electric infrastructure. This index has been used and modified at different scales, but always following the main idea that the intensity of human influence is the result of the type of activity, the area that each activity occupies, and the accumulation of activities within large areas. Its values distributed on a map reveal the major patterns of human influence over the broad landscape. The advantages of the HF index lie in the fact that it uses publicly available geographic data for the majority of countries and hence it is easily reproducible by different researchers in different regions, and its calculations are statistically simple, with an explicative clarity that can be easily understood.

    ______________________________________________________________

    1. Suppose there is a strong correlation between historic distribution of pre-Hispanic settlements and regions with high human footprint values. In the face of such evidence, which of the following facts, if true, would most weaken the theory that pre-Hispanic settlements should be considered as an impact on human development?

    (A) Geography is also correlated with human footprint values.

    (B) Pre-Hispanic populations settled in regions with favorable climate, vegetation, and topography.

    (C) European colonies seriously weakened pre-Hispanic culture and settlements.

    (D) The societies of the pre-Hispanic era were not nearly as technologically advanced as today.

    2. Which of the following statements is most supported by the passage?

    (A) Land transformation and human settlement greatly degrades environmental ecosystems.

    (B) The Human Footprint Index is a proxy measure of indirect human activity.

    (C) Mexico’s history prior to European colonization greatly shaped its landscape transformation.

    (D) Direct human activity degrades ecosystems more than indirect human activity.

    3. Which of the following best expresses the passage author’s central message?

    (A) Physical geography, as well as historical factors, may greatly impact human development.

    (B) The effect of human development on physical geography is an important area of study.

    (C) The human footprint is a subjective measure of landscape transformation in research.

    (D) National history and ecological diversity are not paid enough attention by scientists.

    4. The author mentions Mexico’s history of “human occupation and well-documented civilization collapses” in paragraph 4 most likely in order to:

    (A) emphasize an important factor in Mexico’s landscape transformation.

    (B) criticize previous studies for failing to take note of Mexico’s historical legacy.

    (C) introduce a completely new theory for human development in Mexico.

    (D) explain how patterns of human development are often the result of oppression.

    5. Which of the following statements is NOT as strongly supported by the passage? Mexico’s landscape transformations are in part driven by:

    (A) forestry

    (B) drought

    (C) agriculture

    (D) disease

    6. Suppose you are asked to design a research study that would be viewed by the academic community as novel. Which of the following research studies would the passage author claim is the LEAST novel research question? A study investigating how the human footprint:

    (A) is affected by large-scale climate in biomes such as deserts or tropical rainforests.

    (B) produces ecological patterns and changes in response to agriculture and forestry.

    (C) is impacted by the geography of the region.

    (D) is shaped by ecoregions containing distinct species and vegetation.

  • {P1} I believe the best understanding of the difference between science and art in the nineteenth century is to be found in a man who was not an artist but a rationalist. Scientist and writer Thomas Henry Huxley argued that the intellectual content of art is altogether different from the intellectual content of science. In art it is truth to nature. But this truth is relative for it depends entirely upon the intellectual culture of the person to whom art is addressed. No man ever understands Shakespeare until he is old, though the youngest may admire him, the reason being that he satisfies the artistic instinct of the youngest and harmonizes with the ripest and richest experiences of the oldest. In science, intellectual content is truth to fact and the deductions and generalizations which can be made from facts.

    {P2} The pleasures, however, that one receives from either art or science, Huxley said, have a common source. These pleasures arise from the satisfaction one receives in tracing the central theme of whatever he is interested in at the moment in all its endless variations as it appears and reappears to demonstrate the truth of unity in variety. Whether it be a problem in mathematics, an experiment in morphology, a chess game, a primitive drawing, a sophisticated painting, a simple ballad, a complex poem, a homely refrain, or a fugue by Bach, the process of comprehending the symbols used to express the idea is both intellectual and esthetic. The process is intellectual because it is the intellect which comprehends the laws governing any particular science or art; and it is esthetic because it is the feelings which determine the amount of emotional pleasure one can derive from them. But the ends of the two are different. Science has as its end the attainment of truth. Art has for its end the attainment of pleasure. “The subjects of all knowledge are divisible into the two groups,” said Huxley, “matters of science and matters of art; for all things with which the reasoning faculty alone is occupied, come under the province of science. And in the broadest sense, and not in the narrow and technical sense in which we are now accustomed to use the word art, all things feelable, all things which stir our emotions, come under the term of art.”

    {P3} I believe science is slowly destroying art. It can be said that science has created a hard, materialistic philosophy of life. If it destroyed art only, that would not be so bad; but science also destroys the highest aspirations of the human soul. Love is reduced to a biologic law; family relationships are explained by psychology; ideals are resolved into the yearnings of frustration; and God is metamorphosed into a tribal deity. Once the veil of mystery that enshrouds these great primary instincts of the human soul is ruthlessly snatched away, life loses the qualities which have made it beautiful and significant in the past. Despair takes the place of hope; resignation takes the place of resolution; sex takes the place of love; atheism takes the place of religion. Wise and intelligent men become cynics and common men become hedonists. Duty and morality are forgotten in the mad struggle to forget a life thus deprived of the ideals which before had made it endurable. To eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge can be as disastrous today as it was ages ago in the Garden of Eden.

    ______________________________________________________________

    1. The author makes an allusion to the “tree of knowledge” in paragraph 3 in order to support which point?

    (A) the scientific pursuit of knowledge has its detrimental effects.

    (B) artistic metaphors can be used to make a point about science as an endeavor.

    (C) those who believe in scientific truth can never believe in religious truth also.

    (D) all knowledge can be divided into the categories of science and art.

    2. Which of the following CANNOT be inferred from the passage? “The author believes that:

    (A) science is a large source of immorality in society because it is incompatible with religion.

    (B) science and art have nothing in common.

    (C) both science and art are great sources of pleasure for members of society.

    (D) art is less destructive than science since it does not over-explain certain human experiences.

    3. Which of the following hypothetical scenarios best represents the type of research results that the passage author believes is typical of science?

    (A) artificial intelligence gives widowed, elderly patients companionship and care.

    (B) electron microscopes yield captivating and beautiful images of cell bodies.

    (C) neuroscientists discover synaptic pathways that are involved with happiness.

    (D) an engineer designs a lethal weapon that will drastically increase casualties in conflict.

    4. Suppose a scientist were to demonstrate to the passage author that scientific progress is significantly associated with an increase in the production of great works of art. Based on the third paragraph, is the author’s general opinion about the negative impacts of science likely to change?

    (A) Yes, because it would show that science does not lead to the death of art.

    (B) Yes, because it would show that science has positive effects too.

    (C) No, because the author would not trust the word of a scientist.

    (D) No, because its effect on art is not the author’s primary concern.

    5. Which one of the following is an idea attributed to Huxley that arguably contradicts another idea also attributed to Huxley?

    (A) “All things which stir our emotions, come under the term of art.”

    (B) “In science, intellectual content is truth to fact.”

    (C) “Science is slowly destroying art.”

    (D) “Science has as its end the attainment of truth.”

    6. According to Huxley, the pleasure derived from science compares with the pleasure derived from art in the following way:

    (A) true pleasure is derived only from art and not from science.

    (B) there are distinct types of pleasure that one derives from either science or art.

    (C) science offers intellectual pleasure while art offers esthetic pleasure.

    (D) the type of pleasure offered by both science and art are similar if not the same.

  • Walt Whitman: Poet of the People

    C, D, D, A, B, C

    Political Attitudes

    A, B, C, A, D, C

    The Human Footprint of Mexico

    B, C, A, A, A, B

    What Separates Science From Art?

    A, B, C, D, A, D

Day 9

  • {P1} Vincent Eri’s novel, The Crocodile, is the coming-of-age tale of Hoiri, a member of the Toaripi coastal people of the Gulf District in Papua, who reaches manhood against the backdrop of Australian colonial rule. The novel gives the foreigner encyclopaedic information about commerce, education and history of the tribe, about the vegetation, and village life; about marriage customs and rituals. Indeed, much of the narrative is devoted to providing the reader with a thick description of Toaripi customs and practices based in the village of Moveave.

    {P2} Yet Eri’s novel is much more than a fictionalised anthropological account of Toaripi life. The Crocodile gives dramatic form to the devastating entry of white man’s civilisation into the Papuan universe, and presents us with a society at the verge of disintegration. The narrative proceeds along two arcs: one relating to the tribal laws and their internal contestations and the other, the decomposition of those already fluid social mores by Australian colonialism. The first arc revolves around the mysterious death of Hoiri’s young wife Mitoro, presumed to be taken and killed by the eponymous crocodile, and involves the complex actions and motivations of sorcerers—mesiri men—thought to be tribesmen from a neighbouring clan. The second arc consists of the hardships endured by the Papuans under the Australian colonial government. They are exploited as domestic workers and as labour for government officers— kiaps—who regularly patrol the interior in the effort to ‘pacify’ and ‘civilise’ the natives. The literary tension produced by the two narrative arcs constitutes the novel’s profound critique of the effects of colonial rule. Notably, this is a novel where the enchanted world shares narrative space and ontological reality with Euro-Australian colonial and capitalist realities. In its most commented upon scene, Hoiri wages an attack on the evil sorcerer crocodile, where literal and metaphoric crocodiles are somehow the same. But having only injured the crocodile/sorcerer, Hoiri remains confused about how to deal with the mesiri he holds responsible for his family member’s death. He cannot pursue a ‘traditional’ course of action both because of his father’s deaconship—the church frowns upon such ‘superstitions’—and because white kiap law forbids ‘primitive’ payback law.

    {P3} Significantly, Australian colonial laws are not the only authority Hoiri encounters. Despite Hoiri’s suspicion of white ways, he comes under the spell of the white man’s commodity culture on a visit to the colonial capital of Port Moresby. His father and uncle buy clothing and some canvas sail, in the process suffering racial harassment from the white store clerk. The episode reveals both an enchantment with gleaming commodities and resentment at the racist colonial environment. Hoiri’s uncle, meanwhile, astutely perceives the underlying relationship between things and labour in a colonial economy: ‘White people are very clever aren’t they? They bring all these wonderful things here and also make the money that one needs to buy them. We’ve got to work for them to get the money to buy them with’. The money economy thus functions to erode traditional trading and labour practices and deepen colonial authority.

    1. The author mentions Hoiri’s experiences with the crocodile in paragraph 2 most likely in order to support which point?

    (A) Hoiri is caught in the clash between two cultural universes that have competing values.

    (B) Papuan sovereignty can be imagined and asserted against white rule.

    (C) The ecosystem in which the Toaripi people lived was dangerous.

    (D) Resisting colonial cultural hegemony and political power was futile.

    2. According to the passage, which of the following best describes the main goal of The Crocodile?

    (A) to catalogue Toaripi customs and practices in the Gulf District of Papua.

    (B) to demonstrate the encroachment of colonial systems on the Toaripi way of life.

    (C) to protest the exploitative and racist behaviour of the kiaps.

    (D) to show the difficulties faced by a newly decolonized, sovereign government.

    3. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as having a negative effect on Papuan society?

    (A) kiap justice

    (B) labor practices

    (C) traditional customs

    (D) imported goods

    4. Of the following premises, which best represents an example most similar to what the author probably means by the phrase, “literary tension,” in paragraph 2? A novel that:

    (A) revisits the ancient spice trade routes that resulted in cross-cultural cuisine.

    (B) captures the experience of a teenage girl being adopted by parents of another culture.

    (C) explores the consequences of religious conflict between neighboring cultures.

    (D) illuminates the social experience of an ethnic minority under authoritarian rule.

    5. Suppose that currently, the majority of the population in modern Papua still identify with particular clans, observe tribal laws, and earn livelihoods from subsistence-based agriculture. Based on the passage, the author of The Crocodile would probably view these realities as:

    (A) Negative, considering the economic and social progress anticipated by colonialism.

    (B) Negative, a sign that Papua has not been able to recover from colonial rule.

    (C) Positive, a sign that Papua is has balanced both modern and traditional values.

    (D) Positive, a sign that Papua was able to resist social disintegration under colonial rule.

    6. Which of the following assertions best captures a key idea in the passage? Vincent Eri’s novel, The Crocodile, illustrates how Australian colonialism in Papua:

    (A) reinvigorated local cultures by encouraging native communal and familial values.

    (B) asserted control through government and religious authority.

    (C) established a strong national identity through a unified educational system.

    (D) conquered Papua through the ‘divide and rule’ colonial stratagem.

  • {P1} Studies of adaptation tend to privilege literature over film but not the other way around (and assume that a film adaptation has a certain responsibility to remain faithful to the spirit of the text upon which it is based). The main purpose of Hsiu-Chuang Deppman’s book, Adapted for the Screen: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Fiction and Film, I would argue, is to provide some alternative thoughts besides this assumption of how film and fiction should be viewed in adaptation studies. Deppman is interested in how filmmakers have gone about the business and art of transposition from one medium to another. This transposition and the processes involved in it in turn enrich our understanding of the interconnectedness of the cultural contexts of texts and artists in Chinese films and fictions. In other words, Deppman does not simply deal with the issue of what can be transferred in moving from fiction to film (namely, narrative) and what cannot be. More importantly, she investigates the distinctive ideological goals of writer and filmmaker that contribute to the differences between texts and films.

    {P2} Deppman looks at connections between film and fiction in the context of various Chinese communities on the one hand, and contemplates their differences on the other hand. For example, one case study that Deppman uses to illustrate ‘gender politics’ is the adaptation of Su Tong’s novel, Wives and Concubines, into Zhang Yimou’s film, Raise the Red Lantern. Deppman argues that ‘Zhang draws from the strengths of Su’s plot and reconfigures the story’s narrative codes, notably transforming a key symbolic site in the novel – a defunct well in a back garden – into a rooftop death chamber’. As a result, ‘Zhang’s new metaphor illustrates the important directorial option of changing the staging of the story to maximize the cinematic effect’. The well in the novella and the compound roof in the film not only map out key theoretical differences between the two texts, but the distinct approaches to the exploitation of women also reflect profoundly different conceptions of the relationship between art and society. ‘These two metaphorical spaces’, Deppman suggests, ‘not only juxtapose the fluidity of feminine ambivalence with the solidity of the patriarch’s iron rule, but also open up very distinct imaginary space for the reader and the viewer’.

    {P3} Many scholars argue that the one thing that literature and film have in common is narrative. By narrative, I mean a series of events, sequentially connected by virtue of their involving a continuing set of characters. Deppman questions this assumption in her book. One example is the adaptation of Liu Yichang’s novel, Intersection, into Wong Kar-wai’s film, In the Mood for Love. In Deppman’s analysis, Wong appears to radically distill Liu’s novel into nothing other than three frames containing three separate quotations: the opening shot, an intertitle, and a concluding still. Instead of reconstructing the literary narrative, Wong creates a new story line, thereby challenging the assumption shared by many adaptation scholars that narrative is the property that makes the two media commensurable. Liberating filmic adaptation from almost every question of fidelity, Wong’s style pushes us to recognise what Deppman calls abstract adaptation, a style that creates a new theoretical dialogue about how film and literature can intersect to reproduce aesthetic resonances. Deppman refuses to privilege one reading (or form) over another and remains focused on the distinct ways in which they have been received.

    ______________________________________________________________

    1. What is the function of the statement in the first paragraph that, “Deppman does not simply deal with the issue of what can be transferred in moving from fiction to film”?

    (A) It builds up to the alternative view that writer and filmmaker can have distinct goals.

    (B) It is part of an argument that most adaptation scholars are mistaken in their views.

    (C) It explains why Deppman is not taken seriously as an academic in adaptation studies.

    (D) It clarifies a misconception that many have about Deppman’s views on adaptation.

    2. According to the passage, Deppman’s contribution to the field of adaptation studies:

    (A) explains why adaptation scholars harbor biases toward filmmakers.

    (B) is controversial because it broadens the scope of what is considered adaptation.

    (C) is limited because it applies only to the field of modern Chinese fiction and film.

    (D) challenges the assumption that adaptation should privilege literature over film.

    3. Which of the following is LEAST likely to be considered a film adaptation by Deppman?

    (A) A French film that uses the exact same dialogue and plot as Les Miserables.

    (B) An Indian film that completely changes and rewrites the entire storyline of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

    (C) A silent film adapting a dialogue-heavy novella that takes place in a murder trial.

    (D) A filmmaker and writer who coincidentally create similar work with no exposure to each other’s work.

    4. Because of changes in technology, it may soon become common for filmic versions to precede textual versions, and for literary work to be created as adaptations of films. Which position would Deppman be most likely to argue?

    (A) The reversal should help to privilege film over literature.

    (B) The writer should feel compelled to preserve the essence of the film.

    (C) Books should be seen as adaptations if the author claims that they are.

    (D) Literary works should always be privileged over films.

    5. Which of the following conclusions is most strongly implied by the passage?

    (A) Deppman believes narrative is the only property that makes film and the written novel commensurable.

    (B) Deppman would recognize more works as adaptations than other scholars.

    (C) Deppman believes that a film adaptation should be guided by the original written work.

    (D) Deppman would require that a film adaptation of a book should be based in the same context.

    6. A central message the author is trying to convey about Deppman’s view on film adaptation is that the task of adaptation:

    (A) is to create a new art form while retaining a common narrative with the original text.

    (B) is not simply to reproduce an original text, but to appreciate the dissimilarity of two art forms.

    (C) is to completely disregard all elements of the original text in order to create an independent work.

    (D) is to allow the filmmaker to engage in an exercise of criticism by analyzing literary symbolism.

  • {P1} Disaster risk is expressed in terms of potential loss of lives, deterioration of health status and livelihoods, and potential damage to assets and services due to the impact of existing natural hazards. Disaster risk reduction (DRR) is a systematic approach to identifying, assessing, and reducing disaster risk, and it helps minimize the vulnerability of a society or community. It also prevents or mitigates the adverse effects of natural disasters, facilitating a sustainable development process. The Second World Conference on Disaster Reduction was held in Kobe (Hyogo), Japan in January 2005, which adopted the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005–2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters. It has provided a unique opportunity to promote a strategic and systematic approach to reducing vulnerabilities and risks. HFA states that all countries must use knowledge, innovation, and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels. Moreover, it suggests that disasters can be reduced substantially if people are well informed and motivated about measures they can take to reduce vulnerability.

    {P2} Poverty drives people to live in high risk marginal areas of mountains and river valleys, which makes them vulnerable to disasters. Heavy disaster losses suffered from earthquakes and tsunamis or landslides and floods create additional poverty among a large number of people by destroying their houses, productive lands, other personal assets, and livelihood. Hence, poverty is both cause and consequence of disasters in underdeveloped or developing countries. DRR is particularly important for sustaining the attainment of all development goals, since it provides a safety net for the hard-earned development gains of a developing country. In Nepal, it is a great challenge to protect infrastructure and public and individual properties from frequent landslide, flood, and earthquake disasters. Each year hundreds of people are killed and a large amount of public and private properties are destroyed in landslide, flood, fire, and avalanche disasters. Each large-scale disaster sets the country back several years in terms of the development efforts. When scarce resources such as time, energy, expertise, and funding are suddenly diverted in relief and recovery work, the overall development activities are delayed significantly.

    {P3} The disaster statistics of Nepal always motivate and justify the urgent need of DRR works in Nepal. Therefore, Nepal has also adopted HFA and so far the Government of Nepal has formally adopted policies guided by DRR and implemented the DRR in its various development as well as education programs. In Nepal, the World Disaster Reduction Campaign for 2006-2007 was initiated and many programs such as school curricula for disaster risk education, community based disaster management at the village level, disaster mitigation plans at the district level etc. have been implemented. Similarly, raising awareness within school communities is a well implemented program in the schools of Nepal. This awareness activity includes training of teachers, organizing disaster quiz competitions among schools and local youth clubs, school contests on disaster risk reduction knowledge, campaigning for disaster safety in communities, and turning school students into catalysts and initiators in many more community based disaster awareness activities.

    ______________________________________________________________

    1. Which of the following would most strengthen the author’s argument that DRR is justified in Nepal?

    (A) Evidence that the international community would fund the effort.

    (B) Examples of the types of programs that would be implemented.

    (C) Alternate points of view on alternative strategies.

    (D) Data showing the effectiveness of such programs elsewhere.

    2. Which of the following statements best represents the overall message of the passage?

    (A) Nepal’s slow economic development can be explained by the frequent occurrence of natural disasters.

    (B) There are strategic approaches that have been developed and may be used to help Nepal deal with its frequent natural disasters.

    (C) There are many different types of natural disasters that occur in Nepal, such as landslides, debris flows, floods, earthquakes, and snow avalanches.

    (D) The HFA has provided a unique opportunity to promote strategic and systematic approaches to reducing natural disaster vulnerabilities and risks in Nepal.

    3. Assume that recent data demonstrate that since 2006, the degree of devastation caused by natural disasters in Nepal has not improved at all. This information would:

    (A) strengthen the passage because the author’s statement about Nepal being disaster prone would be correct.

    (B) strengthen the argument that Nepal has a need for strategic approaches to natural disaster prevention.

    (C) weaken the passage because DRR has been implemented in Nepal since 2006 with no change in the extent of damage post-disaster.

    (D) weaken the argument that poverty causes disasters.

    4. Which of the following claims made in the text is potentially inconsistent with another claim made in paragraph 2?

    (A) Nepal in the Himalayan region is one of the most disaster prone countries in the world.

    (B) Disasters can be reduced substantially if people are well informed and motivated about measures they can take to reduce vulnerability.

    (C) Each large-scale disaster sets the country back several years in terms of the development efforts.

    (D) Raising awareness within school communities is a well implemented program in the schools of Nepal.

    5. Which of the following best captures the attitude of the author in regards to addressing the natural disaster problems in Nepal?

    (A) skeptical

    (B) frustrated

    (C) optimistic

    (D) apathetic

    6. What is a weakness in the argument the author makes to support their conclusion about the relation of poverty to disasters?

    (A) The author fails to explain how people are affected by disasters.

    (B) The author assumes that the situation in Nepal will generalize to all underdeveloped countries.

    (C) The author fails to consider the role of poverty in causing disasters.

    (D) The author fails to consider the role that disasters play in causing poverty.

  • {P1} Kant says that one’s duty to oneself consists in a prohibition against making oneself a plaything of mere inclinations. This is a truly persuasive argument regarding human dignity, because the essence of human dignity must be considered to be never to deal with a person as a thing. It seems that the domination of a person by drug-induced happiness should be regarded as a clear violation of human dignity, because it is equal to debasing a person to a plaything of inclinations. Hence, human dignity is taken away in exchange for a sense of happiness induced by a drug. Let us go on further. In the case of drug-induced happiness, those people are deprived of the “freedom to feel unhappiness” and are degraded to a plaything of mere inclinations; hence, they are considered to be devoid of “human dignity.” This means that a life with dignity necessarily requires that one’s “freedom to feel unhappiness” be totally guaranteed in one’s actual life. “A life with dignity” means a life that is not dominated by the sense of happiness.

    {P2} A life with dignity has two characteristics: First, as has already been discussed above, a life with dignity is free from domination by a sense of happiness, regardless of whether or not it is acquired by means of drugs. Moreover, a life with dignity should also be free from domination by our own strong desire to experience that kind of happiness. The former domination comes from the outside and the latter originates from inside oneself. Second, a life with dignity is free from domination by the sense of unhappiness. This idea is more familiar to us than the first. A life with dignity should be free from the domination of negative thoughts about one’s existence or one’s own value. People sometimes fall victim to this kind of self-negation when experiencing such hardships as severe and repeated abuse, the death of loved ones, or devastating disasters. In these cases, human dignity means the belief that whatever their suffering and hardships, all human beings have a possibility to escape from domination by the sense of unhappiness and to regain the sense of self-affirmation at some point in their future life. Hence it might be allowed to use psychoactive drugs like SSRIs to medically support this recovery process for a limited period of time, paying special attention to the danger of domination by a sense of happiness.

    {P3} Consider if the heart of a person who was in the depths of despair is filled with a sense of happiness caused by a perfect happiness drug. As a result, a drug-induced happiness dominates the person, and he/she is deprived of a life with dignity. A person who was dominated by despair and the sense of unhappiness becomes able to escape from that mental state and to begin an effort to regain the sense of self-affirmation. If such medication can provide the person with an opportunity to explore his/her life with a sense of affirmation, it should be considered good news. This is not deprivation of human dignity, because it enables that person to escape from the domination of the sense of unhappiness. Hence, I do not claim that the use of existing psychoactive drugs such as SSRIs immediately deprives us of human dignity, or that its use ought to be prohibited. What I raise an alarm over is the use of a hypothetical perfect happiness drug that could fill our heart with complete happiness, and what I have done so far has been a philosophical investigation of the relationship between human dignity and the manipulation of the sense of happiness, using a perfect happiness drug as an example.

    ______________________________________________________________

    1. Which of the following is an example of someone the author would MOST LIKELY consider to be living “a life without dignity”?

    (A) An optimist who sees the bright side of bad situations.

    (B) A sensual hedonist who values pleasure above all else.

    (C) A cynical pessimist who sees the negatives in the world.

    (D) An unfeeling sociopath who doesn’t feel much either way.

    2. What is the function of the phrase, “hence, they are considered to be devoid of “human dignity.” in paragraph 1?

    (A) It is building up to the argument that SSRIs are completely unethical.

    (B) It is building up to the argument that drug-induced happiness is necessary.

    (C) It is a logical step in an attempt to explain the relationship between human dignity and drug-induced happiness.

    (D) It is a logical step in an attempt to explain the relationship between organic happiness and drug-induced happiness.

    3. One of the author’s central arguments is that a life of dignity is a life free from:

    (A) domination by a sense of happiness

    (B) domination by a sense of unhappiness

    (C) domination by either a sense of happiness or unhappiness

    (D) drug use

    4. Which of the following is an assumption that underlies the author’s attempt to “raise an alarm” about SSRIs?

    (A) The use of SSRIs is totally unsafe.

    (B) Experiencing some unhappiness is necessary in order to have dignity.

    (C) Happiness drugs are useful when used by people who are “dominated by despair.”

    (D) Definitions of happiness are the same from culture to culture.

    5. It can be inferred from the passage that the author believes that SSRIs:

    (A) Should be used to provide temporary relief from despair.

    (B) Are completely unnatural.

    (C) Result in gross distortions of reality.

    (D) Should be illegal.

    6. Suppose the author meets a woman who says “I don’t need alcohol to be happy. I am happy all the time anyway.” The author is most likely to view this woman as:

    (A) being self-righteous.

    (B) lacking in dignity.

    (C) being dishonest about how happy she is.

    (D) having more dignity than the person who uses alcohol to increase their happiness.

  • Post-Colonialism in Papuan Culture Answers

    A, B, C, B, D, B

    Film Adaptation of Chinese Literature Answers

    A, D, D, C, B, B

    Disaster Risk Knowledge in Nepal Answers

    D, B, C, B, C, B

    The Ethics of Drug-Induced Happiness Answers

    D, C, C, B, A, B

Day 10

  • {P1} The most important opponent with which the spirit of capitalism has historically had to struggle was traditional views on wealth during the time of Catholic Feudalism. A man does not “by nature” wish to earn more and more money, and historically simply wished to live as he was accustomed to live and to earn as much as is necessary for survival. Whenever modern capitalism began its work of increasing the productivity of human labour by increasing its intensity, it encountered the immensely stubborn resistance of this leading trait of pre-capitalistic labour. The emergence of new religious forces, specifically Protestantism, and the ethical ideas of duty based upon them, have in the past always been among the most important formative influences on the formation of rational economic conduct. In this case, we are dealing with the connection of the spirit of modern economic capitalism with the rational ethics of ascetic Protestantism. The spirit of capitalism was born out of the Protestant reformation of the Catholic Church.

    {P2} In order to understand the connection between the fundamental religious ideas of ascetic Protestantism and its maxims for everyday economic conduct, it is necessary to understand the religious teachings of English Puritanism, which were derived from the Calvinist reformation of the Catholic church. Waste of time was the first and deadliest of sins. Loss of time through sociability, idle talk, luxury, even more sleep than is necessary for health is worthy of absolute moral condemnation. It did not yet hold, as modern ethos has it, that time is money, although the proposition was true in a spiritual sense. Time was infinitely valuable because every hour lost was lost to labor for the glory of God. Wealth was thus bad ethically only in so far as it was a temptation to idleness and sinful enjoyment of life, and its acquisition was bad only when it was with the purpose of later living merrily and without care. The emphasis on ascetic importance of a fixed “calling” provided an ethical justification of the modern specialized division of labour. Worldly Protestant asceticism acted powerfully against the spontaneous enjoyment of possessions; it restricted consumption, especially of luxuries. On the other hand, it had the psychological effect of maximizing the acquisition of goods from the inhibitions of traditionalistic Catholic ethics. It broke the bonds of the impulse of acquisition in that it looked upon it as directly willed by God. The campaign against the temptations of the flesh, and the dependence on external things, was not a struggle against rational acquisition, but against irrational use of wealth. Over against the glitter and ostentation of Catholic feudal magnificence which, resting on an unsound economic basis, prefers a sordid elegance to sober simplicity, they set the clean and solid comfort of the middle-class home as an ideal.

    {P3} When the limitation of consumption in asceticism is combined with a release of acquisitive activity, the inevitable practical result is obvious: accumulation of capital through ascetic compulsion to save. Asceticism condemned the pursuit of riches for their own sake; but the attainment of it as a fruit of labour in a calling was a sign of God’s blessing. The greater simplicity of life, in combination with great wealth, led to an excessive propensity to accumulation. As far as the influence of the Puritan outlook extended, it favored the development of a rational bourgeois economic life; it was the most important and consistent influence in the development of that life. It stood at the cradle of modern economic man.

    ______________________________________________________________

    1. Which of the following is not part of the author’s chain of argument about how the spirit of capitalism was born out of the Protestant reformation of the Catholic Church?

    (A) Protestant asceticism promoted the accumulation of savings.

    (B) The Catholic tradition discouraged superfluous wealth.

    (C) Acquiring riches via labor was a sign of God’s blessing in Asceticism.

    (D) The Catholic Church rested on an unsound economic base.

    2. Which of the following statements best expresses the passage author’s central message?

    (A) Certain religious ideas greatly guided the development of modern day capitalism.

    (B) Economic systems play an important role in shaping religious traditions.

    (C) The teachings of acetic Protestantism condone and condemn materialism simultaneously.

    (D) Religious traditions ultimately slowed the creation of a capitalist social system.

    3. In paragraph 2, the author writes that Protestant asceticism “had the psychological effect of maximizing the acquisition of goods from the inhibitions of traditionalistic Catholic ethics.” Consider a farmer who increases the hourly pay of his workers in order to speed up the rate of harvest. Which of the following outcomes reflects what the author probably means by “traditionalistic ethics?” In response to more hourly pay, the Catholic workers will:

    (A) Work less because working hard is a sin.

    (B) Work less because the sufficient amount of pay needed would be earned in less time.

    (C) Work more to show the farmer appreciation for the increase in pay.

    (D) Work more because one works for the glory of God.

    4. Which of the following assumptions does the author make?

    (A) Capitalism was fueled by people’s desire luxury, glitter, and elegance.

    (B) Saving was more important than spending to the rise of Capitalism.

    (C) Catholic feudalism generated more total wealth than Protestantism.

    (D) Protestantism promoted social inequalities that justified the economic inequalities of Capitalism.

    5. Based on the passage, adherents of ascetic Protestantism would consider which of the following hypothetical behaviors to be the most sinful?

    (A) Choosing a job that forbids religious expression in the workplace

    (B) Failing to perform the best at one’s job

    (C) Opting to only work part-time to spend more time with family

    (D) Interfering with the ability of others to work

    6. According to the passage, which of the following was prohibited by Catholic traditionalism (paragraph 1) that obstructed development of capitalism?

    (A) The temptation to sinful enjoyment of life.

    (B) Loss of time through sociability, idle talk, and luxury.

    (C) Working more than necessary to satisfy basic needs.

    (D) The irrational use of personal wealth.

  • {P1} In contrast to how Westerners view knowledge as solely for the individual, non-Westerners tend to view knowledge as communal. What is learnt is meant to be shared. Professor Sharan B. Merriam, an expert in adult education, gives a wonderful illustration from Islam of this principle: If a village has no doctor, then the villagers pool together their resources to send one of their youth to medical school so that when he returns, the community will have a doctor.

    {P2} Another characteristic of learning cross culturally is that it does not stop once the person has left a formal institution. In fact, the majority of learning happens outside of formal institutions. One can learn about nature and the cycles of life through gardening, for instance. Professor Merriam contrasts this type of learning with learning geared towards bettering one’s vocation which is prevalent in Western culture. There is a remunerative aspect tied to learning in that the learner acquires skills to help him produce more or faster. Additionally, in contrast to Western culture, non-Western cultures view learning as lifelong. It only ends when the person dies. Thus, learning occurs solely for the sake of learning.

    {P3} Finally, learning is holistic, incorporating the whole person beyond just the mind. Neuroanthropologist Greg Downey’s article, “Balancing between cultures,” attests to this as he alludes to the fact that learning the Brazilian martial art of capoeira has influenced the way he carries his body. His sense of balance had been shaped by the many many hours of training that he spent practicing bananeira, a dynamic handstand that required the doer to ignore his natural inclination to look down to maintain his balance, instead demanding that he keep his eyes on his adversary at all times. The art of yoga is yet another example of how learning goes beyond the mind-body dichotomy that we have established in Western society. Yoga seeks to balance the mind, body, and spirit in an effort to move the whole person towards enlightenment.

    {P4} What it means to be educated even varies across cultures. In one longitudinal study, conducted by education scholar Esther Prins, for Salvadoran adult learners, being educated encompassed not just book knowledge, but rather a holistic melding of social knowledge as well. Treating others with respect regardless of their station in life was considered one of the hallmarks of an educated person. Professor Prins conducted interviews of 12 Salvadoran adults from rural El Salvador, none of whom had had more than six years of schooling. One of the participants recounted an incident in which he went into a bank and was asked by a bank employee to “put his cebolleta here.” Though the term in this case referred to signature, it is considered insulting and would never have been used with someone of higher status. Thus, whilst the bank employee was educated in the technical sense, he was not an educated person in the Salvadoran sense.

    {P5} Other participants corroborated the importance of learning proper social etiquette as part of their education. One participant claimed that before the literacy classes, she did not have the correct vocabulary to address people. She claimed that people often looked down on the campesinos, those from the country, because of the seemingly brusque way in which they interacted with others.

    ______________________________________________________________

    1. Which of the following assumptions is most critical to the main point the author is making about the Brazilian practice of Capoeira?

    (A) Westerners do not engage in physical activities similar to Capoeira.

    (B) Capoeira improves a person’s physical balance.

    (C) Brazilians no longer practice Capoeira as frequently as before.

    (D) Capoeira is a form of education.

    2. The author’s argument suggests that the primary motive of people in Western culture who pursue education is to:

    (A) formally pursue a vocation for individual gain.

    (B) accumulate higher social status and respect.

    (C) obtain economic independence and security.

    (D) remain competitive in a capitalist economy.

    3. Which of the following ideas about attitudes in non-Western cultures does the author try to support by discussing Yoga?

    (A) learning is a lifelong process.

    (B) mannerisms can indicate educational status.

    (C) years of schooling is not enough to make you an “educated person”.

    (D) less intellectual endeavors are valued as a form of enlightenment.

    4. Suppose that public schools across the United States have implemented mandatory interfaith “prayer” hours at the start of the school day. In light of this information, the author’s position would be:

    (A) strengthened, since it would reveal similarity between non-Western and Western education.

    (B) strengthened, because it would show that the Western education is holistic.

    (C) weakened, since prayer would make school education less formal.

    (D) weakened, since prayer is a spiritual endeavor that goes beyond intellectual training.

    5. In the country of Dimonbaru, it is inappropriate to engage in workplace formality with colleagues of the same professional status. Suppose a renowned neurosurgeon from Boston works in Dimonbaru, and he is viewed as uneducated for greeting his fellow physician colleagues in a very formal manner. This is an illustration of which of the following scholarly findings mentioned in the passage?

    (A) Sharan B. Merriam’s finding that non-western education often rejects formality.

    (B) Sharan B. Merriam’s finding that non-western education often rejects individualism.

    (C) Esther Prin’s finding that education sometimes involves social knowledge.

    (D) Esther Prin’s finding that treating others with respect is a sign of being educated.

    6. Which statement best captures the overarching theme of the passage? “Western education …

    (A) overly emphasizes the importance of vocational skills."

    (B) does not take into account spirituality."

    (C) is more narrow than in some other cultures."

    (D) is not as focused on the greater community."

  • {P1} Historically, sociologists have argued that what makes democracies effective is active citizen participation in civic affairs. They developed what was called a psycho-cultural approach to the study of political phenomena. According to the psycho-cultural approach, individual values and beliefs explain why some societies appeared more vibrant than others in creating associations and, consequently, why democracies differed in efficiency despite sharing similar institutions like universal suffrage, division of power, a political constitution, free elections, and so forth. Similarly and more recently, the work of sociologist Robert Putnam on Italian regional and local governments argued that regions in Northern Italy were better governed because of a longer tradition of civic associations compared to the regions in Southern Italy. Putnam explains the relationship between strong networks of citizen participation and positive institutional performance in terms of “social capital” — the informal networks, norms of reciprocity and trust that are fostered among individual members of the same association.

    {P2} While the two studies cited above stress the importance of values and belief systems, several social scientists have more recently articulated a structural perspective to explain the importance of associations more broadly. From this perspective, social networks have emerged as a key factor in understanding modern associations. Within the literature that focuses on associations as networks, tension has emerged between two approaches. On the one hand, scholars have highlighted the role of social networks, and of friendship in particular, for explaining why people participate in associations. On the other hand, scholars have stressed the importance of identity processes in explaining the growth of associations. People join because the association provides them with a new identity and new circles of friends that they are interested in acquiring. With some notable exceptions, both approaches draw heavily from research on social movements.

    {P3} The research of Sociologist Doug McAdam showed that activists who participated in the 1964 Mississippi summer camp were more likely to have friends already at the camp. McAdam analyzed the role of networks by studying the centrality of the people recruited to participate in the summer camp, further confirming the importance of pre-existing ties. On the other hand, sociologist Eugene Weber has articulated, on historical and institutional grounds, a view counter to the importance of pre-existing friendship ties for explaining participation. Weber describes the ways in which the French state facilitated the creation of a national identity among the locally identified members of the population by enabling contact among the soon-to-become “French'' individuals from the country's provinces. National universities, military service, corporations, and administrative bodies all facilitate the meeting of people from various parts of the state's territory. With contact comes the opportunity for the development of social relations, and the formation of such relations confirms one's loyalty to the nation. Membership in these institutions promotes new identities, which in turn influence participation.

    {P4} While Weber's argument focuses on institutions rather than associations, a similar argument about the importance of identity has been advanced by another set of social movement scholars interested in processes of identity formation and collective action. Sociologist Deborah Minkoff, for instance, has argued that those in certain disadvantaged categories such as gays and lesbians, the elderly, and women, lacked access to the infrastructure that facilitates generation of ties between members. Mobilization of these groups creates identities that then produced social ties. Further reinforcing this argument and providing a more formalized approach to it, some sociologists have used data from online communities to show the existence of a non-network growth model for communities and, by extension, for associations. In this case individuals join because they share a common interest with the community. The new relationships individuals form with members of the association subsequently helped to promote a new identity.

    ______________________________________________________________

    1. Paragraph 4 includes the assertion that “gays and lesbians, the elderly, and women, lacked access to the infrastructure that facilitates generation of ties between members.” This passage uses this assertion to support which of the following?

    (A) That pre-existing social ties create strong associations.

    (B) That formal institutions are critical to building social ties.

    (C) That identity formation is important to the creation of social ties.

    (D) That the psycho-cultural approach emphasized values.

    2. What is the best summary of the way that the author characterizes the various theories of associations?

    (A) One theory emphasizing social networks, and another divided theory emphasizing individual values.

    (B) One theory emphasizing individual values, and another divided theory emphasizing social networks.

    (C) One theory emphasizing individual values, one theory emphasizing systemic beliefs, and one theory emphasizing social networks.

    (D) Three theories all ascribing political association to collective belief systems and social ties.

    3. Paragraph 2 discusses tension between two approaches regarding associations as networks. Which of the following, if true, would lend some support to both of these approaches? People are most likely to join associations when:

    (A) Group membership is allowed only by referral by an existing member.

    (B) People in the group all share the same values and beliefs.

    (C) There are no more than a few close friends already in the group.

    (D) There is at least one acquaintance in the group but no close friends.

    4. The author’s attitude toward the view that pre-existing social ties promote participation in associations is one of:

    (A) Cautious support.

    (B) Objective neutrality.

    (C) Subtle disapproval.

    (D) Confused ambivalence.

    5. Which of the following major assumptions does Eugene Weber make in his conclusions about pre-existing friendships and associations in paragraph 3?

    (A) Pre-existing friendships are based on values that stifle participation in associations.

    (B) Governments cannot build loyalty without relying on pre-existing friendships.

    (C) New social relations formed within associations are more important than pre-existing social relations.

    (D) Creating a national identity is essential for free political participation.

    6. Suppose that, historically, one American Confederate army battalion enlisted soldiers who were from the same region, while another battalion enlisted soldiers from many regions. Which of the following predictions about desertion rates is consistent with the theory supported by the research of McAdam in paragraph 3?

    I. Lower desertion and higher participation is predicted in battalions from many regions.
    II. Lower desertion and higher participation is predicted in battalions from the same region.
    III. Equal desertion rates in all battalions is predicted due to compulsory social ties imposed by the state.

    (A) II only.

    (B) I and II.

    (C) I only.

    (D) III only.

  • {P1} Politically motivated fearmongering about vaccination is putting children in our community in danger. During the Republican presidential primaries leading up to the 2012 election, former representative Michelle Bachmann criticized Governor Rick Perry’s mandate for the HPV vaccine, which protects against a cancer-causing virus. She claimed at the time that she had met parents who believed that the vaccine gave their daughters “mental retardation.” These statements introduced a new precedent of injecting issues of vaccine safety into presidential politics. The American Academy of Pediatrics made emphatic statements at the time to clarify that the HPV vaccine does not cause mental retardation, but by this point the damage had been done: fear had taken hold in parents’ minds.

    {P2} In 2015, with the presidential election around the corner and a widespread measles outbreak on our minds, the dangerous mix of immunization paranoia and politics continues. Senator Rand Paul, physician and presidential hopeful, claims to have met “many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines,” a statement that is dubious at best. His words are grounded in a fraudulent study that has long since been retracted and its author now discredited. Governor Chris Christie has also entered into the debate by stating, “parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that’s the balance that the government has to decide.” By employing the rhetoric of individual rights and a fear of big government, those in public office often attempt to score cheap political points and win public acceptance. Politicians like Senator Paul and Governor Christie are brandishing discredited ideas as tenable arguments against clear evidence-based recommendations to vaccinate, sowing confusion amongst parents.

    {P3} According to the World Health Organization, measles is a leading cause of death worldwide, despite the universal availability of a widely researched and safe vaccine against it. The disease killed over 145,000 individuals, most of them children under 5 years of age, in 2013. Immunization against diseases like measles not only protects those that receive the vaccines but also helps to protect those who are not eligible to receive them, such as young infants and children with deficient immune systems. It is these children who are also at the highest risk of grave complications ranging from encephalitis to pneumonia, and depend on the rest of us to protect them.

    {P4} It is no secret that vaccination rates across the country are falling. Based on CDC data, the nationwide measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rate among 19-35 month-olds is 91.9%, down from a rate of 92.3% in 2006. Rates are falling most in Ohio, Missouri, West Virginia, Connecticut and Virginia. More and more parents will choose to opt out of immunizing their children for fear of side effects, thanks to the dissemination of groundless claims. In response to the current epidemic, the American Academy of Pediatrics has released a recent statement once again exhorting parents to vaccinate their children, reiterating what they have said for decades: the measles vaccine is safe and effective.

    {P5} We are already burdened with a wide number of celebrities, discredited researchers, and physicians relying on anecdotes and hearsay who are more than willing to use the vaccine controversy to gain quick publicity. Politicians should be clear to the public on the proven science of vaccines and should avoid muddying the waters further. It would be better for the candidates, too: it is widely believed that Michelle Bachmann lost credibility because of her statements on vaccines in 2008. Senator Paul and Governor Christie should learn a lesson from her failure and be willing to communicate a clear message to the public: vaccines are safe and are effective at protecting against dangerous diseases. Unnecessary vaccine exemptions put our greatest asset – our children – at risk.

    ______________________________________________________________

    1. Suppose that a national program, initially launched in 2006, in which 19-35 month-old babies were given free vaccinations in rural areas, was recently ended because it was too expensive. How would this new information impact the author’s main point about the consequences of politicization of vaccine safety on vaccination rates?

    (A) It would be strengthened, since the drop in vaccinations has likely led to an increase in infant deaths.

    (B) It would be strengthened, since politicization of vaccine safety has led to defunding of key programs.

    (C) It would be weakened, since the drop in vaccination rates is explained by lesser availability of vaccines in rural areas.

    (D) It would be weakened, since rural constituents are more likely to hold conservative values.

    2. The passage author’s main message is best described by which of the following statements? Politicians are disseminating fear about vaccines due to their:

    (A) ignorance

    (B) economic greed

    (C) opportunism

    (D) conservatism

    3. Which of the following assumptions is most central to the author’s argument?

    (A) Recent decreases in vaccinations are largely due to politicians’ dissemination of false information.

    (B) Politician Michelle Bachmann's statements are the only reason vaccines became a political issue.

    (C) There is no longer a need for the medical community to research the effectiveness of vaccines.

    (D) The general public is not intelligent enough to be able to judge what is false from what is credible.

    4. The function of paragraph 3 mentioning the World Health Organization’s assessment of worldwide deaths due to measles is to:

    (A) suggest that American politicization of vaccine safety has global consequences.

    (B) illustrate the global disparity that exists among children in terms of vaccine access.

    (C) argue that misinformation about vaccine safety is an international phenomenon.

    (D) emphasize the importance of preventing potentially fatal diseases with vaccination.

    5. Which of the following hypothetical politicians is acting most consistent with the author’s recommendations?

    (A) one that encourages parents to exercise their choice

    (B) one that never mentions the issue of vaccination

    (C) one that reaffirms what their voters already believe

    (D) one that argues for zero exemptions from government required vaccination

    6. It can be inferred from the author’s discussion of individual choice in paragraph 2 that the author believes that such rights:

    (A) are political values that are being exploited by politicians to frame the vaccine debate.

    (B) should be temporarily restricted to halt the rise of vaccine-preventable diseases.

    (C) cannot be preserved without policies that protect public health.

    (D) are more important than our desire to vaccinate.

  • {P1} In the present essay, I understand philosophy as an “immanent practice,” which is found in the work of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. This practice is contrary to a philosophy that aims at something transcendental – beyond or above life. “Thought is creation, not will to truth,” writes Deleuze.

    {P2} Seen in this light, Buddhism is not a philosophy, in the sense that it operates with trans-empirical states of being: the divine or a God. A Buddhist is one who has woken up or who experiences an enlightened consciousness. The thinking and practices in Buddhism, therefore, are controlled by will to truth, i.e., by the demands of this “God” or the reality of an “enlightened consciousness.” On the other hand, a pessimist claims that suffering is the “immediate object of our life … evil is precisely that which is positive,” as philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer writes. He continues, “… all happiness and satisfaction, is negative, that is, the mere elimination of a desire and the ending of a pain.” Happiness is the absence of the positive element, i.e., pain. Thus, pessimism corresponds with Buddhism, since the latter also claims that life is suffering.

    {P3} The tragedy is where the pessimist and the Buddhist part. The Buddhist believes that one can find happiness if one follows the teaching of the Buddha; the pessimist does not share such a belief. However, regardless of the similarities and differences, I question the underlying premises of both Buddhism and pessimism: whether all human beings really seek a predefined meaning; whether the main object of life really is suffering per se – and, if so, whether this suffering might be overcome by referring to a higher form of reality. For a simple example, why should the feeling of pain and suffering be more authentic than the feelings of joy and happiness? The problem is metaphysical. My thesis is that a religion (or a rigid pessimistic philosophy), in general, is less receptive, less open; that it encourages less vulnerability and awareness, because of its embedded “will to truth.” Philosopher Deleuze would say, “We write only at the frontiers of our knowledge, at the border which separates our knowledge from our ignorance and transforms the one into the other.” In other words, philosophy as presented here becomes an a posteriori test of what is in the midst of coming into being.

    {P4} An immanent philosophy as presented here, therefore, is open to what – at the present moment – is outside our experience or system of knowledge. It questions its ignorance in order to know more, but it does not claim that another world exists before it encounters this world. “By and large, it is painful to think,” says philosopher Arne Næss, which is not the same as saying that life is painful per se. It is painful to be confronted with one’s ignorance. It is, therefore, through questioning that one moves beyond pessimism and Buddhism and becomes a philosopher. The philosophical creation begins with inventing a problem. This questioning is missing in pessimism and Buddhism, because both apparently know what is true and not true. A true detective does not exclude anything; he remains open to whatever. He questions what he does not know. Thus, the invention of a problem activates the creation of new solutions. The mystery is only a mystery due to one’s ignorance. The philosopher (or true detective) questions his or her ignorance.

    ______________________________________________________________

    1. The statement in paragraph 2 that “Evil is precisely that which is positive” is meant to show that ...

    (A) The author believes that evil is a good thing.

    (B) Pessimists believe that evil is a good thing.

    (C) Pessimists are evil.

    (D) Pessimists view evil as inherent to existence and desire.

    2. A commonality between Buddhism and pessimism cited by the passage author is that:

    (A) “will to truth” is a central dogma.

    (B) suffering is fundamental to human existence.

    (C) both are forms of immanent practice.

    (D) happiness is a higher form of reality.

    3. Which of the following scenarios would the author say is LEAST similar to engaging in “immanent practice” as discussed in paragraph 1? An individual who:

    (A) believes in science and self-identifies as a staunch atheist.

    (B) views a vegetarian lifestyle as the only way to serve humanity.

    (C) votes for the same political party regardless of the platform.

    (D) views religious prayer as the only way to cleanse the mind, body, and higher spirit.

    4. In paragraph 4, the author quotes philosopher Arne Næss in order to:

    (A) present an alternative perspective on human suffering.

    (B) explain why Buddhists and pessimists are so focused on suffering as a way of life.

    (C) illustrate how suffering is viewed similarly across many different philosophies.

    (D) expose a contradiction in the tenets of immanent philosophy.

    5. Which of the following is a weakness in the author’s argument?

    (A) The author presumes that Buddhism and pessimism are identical.

    (B) The author does not question the assumptions of Buddhism.

    (C) The author does not consider whether religion makes people happy.

    (D) The author presents a definition of “Immanent Practice” that is self-contradictory.

    6. Which of the following statements best expresses the passage author’s personal belief system? A true philosopher should:

    (A) operate within a framework that nothing is known or certain.

    (B) reject absolutisms and remain open.

    (C) accept that reality is not always as it appears.

    (D) view happiness and suffering as equally authentic.

  • The Roots of Capitalism Answers

    D, A, B, B, C, C

    Adult Learning Across Cultures Answers

    D, A, D, D, C, C

    Sociology of Participation Answers

    C, B, C, B, C, A

    Let's Stop Playing Politics With Vaccines Answers

    C, C, A, D, B, A

    Buddhism and Pessimism Answers

    D, B, D, A, D, B