0

Reading Comprehension (SAT) - 1

Attempted 0/16 Correct 0 Score 0

The contrast between the two descriptions of the prairie is essentially one between

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

These passages present two perspectives of the prairie, the grasslands that covered much of the central plains of the United States during the nineteenth century.

Passage 1

We came upon the Prairie at sunset. It would be difficult to say why, or how – though it was possibly from having heard and read so much about it – but the effect on me was disappointment. Towards the setting sun, there lay stretched out before my view a vast expanse of level ground, unbroken (save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great blank) until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip, mingling with its rich colors and mellowing in its distant blue. There it lay, a tranquil sea or lake without water, if such a simile be admissible, with the day going down upon it: a few birds wheeling here and there, solitude and silence reigning paramount around, but the grass was not yet high; there were bare–black patches on the ground and the wild flowers that the eye could see were poor and scanty. Great as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest. I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration that the open landscape of a Scottish moor, or even the rolling hills of our English downlands, inspires. It was lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all else, as I should instinctively were heather moorland beneath my feet. On the Prairie I should often glance towards the distant and frequently receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed. It is not a scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I think (at all events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure or to covet the looking–on again, in after years.

Passage 2

In herding the cattle on horseback, we children came to know all the open prairie round about and found it very beautiful. On the uplands, a short, light–green grass grew, intermixed with various resinous weeds, while in the lowland grazing grounds luxuriant patches of blue joint, wild oats, and other tall forage plants waved in the wind. Along the streams, cattails and tiger lilies nodded above thick mats of wide–bladed marsh grass.
Almost without realizing it, I came to know the character of every weed, every flower, every living thing big enough to be seen from the back of a horse. Nothing could be more generous, more joyous, than these natural meadows in summer. The flash and ripple and glimmer of the tall sunflowers, the chirp and gurgle of red–winged blackbirds swaying on the willow, the meadow larks piping from grassy bogs, the peep of the prairie chick and the wailing call of plover on the flowery green slopes of the uplands made it all an ecstatic world to me. It was a wide world with a big, big sky that gave alluring hints of the still more glorious unknown wilderness beyond.
Sometimes we wandered away to the meadows along the creek, gathering bouquets of pinks, sweet williams, tiger lilies, and lady's slippers. The sun flamed across the splendid serial waves of the grasses and the perfumes of a hundred spicy plants rose in the shimmering midday air. At such times the mere joy of living filled our hearts with wordless satisfaction.
On a long ridge to the north and west, the soil, too wet and cold to cultivate easily, remained for several years. Scattered over these clay lands stood small wooded groves that we called "tow–heads." They stood out like islands in the waving seas of grasses. Against these dark green masses, breakers of blue joint radiantly rolled. To the east ran the river; plum trees and crab apples bloomed along its banks. In June, immense crops of wild strawberries appeared in the natural meadows. Their delicious odor rose to us as we rode our way, tempting us to dismount.
On the bare upland ridges lay huge antlers, bleached and bare, in countless numbers, telling of the herds of elk and bison that had once fed in these vast savannas. On sunny April days, the mother fox lay out with her young on southward sloping swells. Often we met a prairie wolf, finding in it the spirit of the wilderness. To us it seemed that just over the next long swell toward the sunset the shaggy brown bison still fed in myriads, and in our hearts was a longing to ride away into the "sunset regions" of our pioneer songs.

  1. misfortune and prosperity

  2. homesickness and anticipation

  3. resignation and joy

  4. bleakness and richness

  5. exhaustion and energy


Correct Option: D
Explanation:

The author of passage 1 believes there is nothing much of natural beauty, while the author of passage 2 feels exactly the opposite.

The author of Passage 1 qualifies his judgment of the prairie by

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

These passages present two perspectives of the prairie, the grasslands that covered much of the central plains of the United States during the nineteenth century.

Passage 1

We came upon the Prairie at sunset. It would be difficult to say why, or how – though it was possibly from having heard and read so much about it – but the effect on me was disappointment. Towards the setting sun, there lay stretched out before my view a vast expanse of level ground, unbroken (save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great blank) until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip, mingling with its rich colors and mellowing in its distant blue. There it lay, a tranquil sea or lake without water, if such a simile be admissible, with the day going down upon it: a few birds wheeling here and there, solitude and silence reigning paramount around, but the grass was not yet high; there were bare–black patches on the ground and the wild flowers that the eye could see were poor and scanty. Great as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest. I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration that the open landscape of a Scottish moor, or even the rolling hills of our English downlands, inspires. It was lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all else, as I should instinctively were heather moorland beneath my feet. On the Prairie I should often glance towards the distant and frequently receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed. It is not a scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I think (at all events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure or to covet the looking–on again, in after years.

Passage 2

In herding the cattle on horseback, we children came to know all the open prairie round about and found it very beautiful. On the uplands, a short, light–green grass grew, intermixed with various resinous weeds, while in the lowland grazing grounds luxuriant patches of blue joint, wild oats, and other tall forage plants waved in the wind. Along the streams, cattails and tiger lilies nodded above thick mats of wide–bladed marsh grass.
Almost without realizing it, I came to know the character of every weed, every flower, every living thing big enough to be seen from the back of a horse. Nothing could be more generous, more joyous, than these natural meadows in summer. The flash and ripple and glimmer of the tall sunflowers, the chirp and gurgle of red–winged blackbirds swaying on the willow, the meadow larks piping from grassy bogs, the peep of the prairie chick and the wailing call of plover on the flowery green slopes of the uplands made it all an ecstatic world to me. It was a wide world with a big, big sky that gave alluring hints of the still more glorious unknown wilderness beyond.
Sometimes we wandered away to the meadows along the creek, gathering bouquets of pinks, sweet williams, tiger lilies, and lady's slippers. The sun flamed across the splendid serial waves of the grasses and the perfumes of a hundred spicy plants rose in the shimmering midday air. At such times the mere joy of living filled our hearts with wordless satisfaction.
On a long ridge to the north and west, the soil, too wet and cold to cultivate easily, remained for several years. Scattered over these clay lands stood small wooded groves that we called "tow–heads." They stood out like islands in the waving seas of grasses. Against these dark green masses, breakers of blue joint radiantly rolled. To the east ran the river; plum trees and crab apples bloomed along its banks. In June, immense crops of wild strawberries appeared in the natural meadows. Their delicious odor rose to us as we rode our way, tempting us to dismount.
On the bare upland ridges lay huge antlers, bleached and bare, in countless numbers, telling of the herds of elk and bison that had once fed in these vast savannas. On sunny April days, the mother fox lay out with her young on southward sloping swells. Often we met a prairie wolf, finding in it the spirit of the wilderness. To us it seemed that just over the next long swell toward the sunset the shaggy brown bison still fed in myriads, and in our hearts was a longing to ride away into the "sunset regions" of our pioneer songs.

  1. pointing out his own subjectivity

  2. commenting on his lack of imagination

  3. mentioning his physical fatigue

  4. apologizing for his prejudices against the landscape

  5. indicating his psychological agitation


Correct Option: A
Explanation:

The scene could not stimulate author's imagination.

One aspect of Passage 2 that might make it difficult to appreciate it is the author's apparent assumption that readers will

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

These passages present two perspectives of the prairie, the grasslands that covered much of the central plains of the United States during the nineteenth century.

Passage 1

We came upon the Prairie at sunset. It would be difficult to say why, or how – though it was possibly from having heard and read so much about it – but the effect on me was disappointment. Towards the setting sun, there lay stretched out before my view a vast expanse of level ground, unbroken (save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great blank) until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip, mingling with its rich colors and mellowing in its distant blue. There it lay, a tranquil sea or lake without water, if such a simile be admissible, with the day going down upon it: a few birds wheeling here and there, solitude and silence reigning paramount around, but the grass was not yet high; there were bare–black patches on the ground and the wild flowers that the eye could see were poor and scanty. Great as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest. I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration that the open landscape of a Scottish moor, or even the rolling hills of our English downlands, inspires. It was lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all else, as I should instinctively were heather moorland beneath my feet. On the Prairie I should often glance towards the distant and frequently receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed. It is not a scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I think (at all events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure or to covet the looking–on again, in after years.

Passage 2

In herding the cattle on horseback, we children came to know all the open prairie round about and found it very beautiful. On the uplands, a short, light–green grass grew, intermixed with various resinous weeds, while in the lowland grazing grounds luxuriant patches of blue joint, wild oats, and other tall forage plants waved in the wind. Along the streams, cattails and tiger lilies nodded above thick mats of wide–bladed marsh grass.
Almost without realizing it, I came to know the character of every weed, every flower, every living thing big enough to be seen from the back of a horse. Nothing could be more generous, more joyous, than these natural meadows in summer. The flash and ripple and glimmer of the tall sunflowers, the chirp and gurgle of red–winged blackbirds swaying on the willow, the meadow larks piping from grassy bogs, the peep of the prairie chick and the wailing call of plover on the flowery green slopes of the uplands made it all an ecstatic world to me. It was a wide world with a big, big sky that gave alluring hints of the still more glorious unknown wilderness beyond.
Sometimes we wandered away to the meadows along the creek, gathering bouquets of pinks, sweet williams, tiger lilies, and lady's slippers. The sun flamed across the splendid serial waves of the grasses and the perfumes of a hundred spicy plants rose in the shimmering midday air. At such times the mere joy of living filled our hearts with wordless satisfaction.
On a long ridge to the north and west, the soil, too wet and cold to cultivate easily, remained for several years. Scattered over these clay lands stood small wooded groves that we called "tow–heads." They stood out like islands in the waving seas of grasses. Against these dark green masses, breakers of blue joint radiantly rolled. To the east ran the river; plum trees and crab apples bloomed along its banks. In June, immense crops of wild strawberries appeared in the natural meadows. Their delicious odor rose to us as we rode our way, tempting us to dismount.
On the bare upland ridges lay huge antlers, bleached and bare, in countless numbers, telling of the herds of elk and bison that had once fed in these vast savannas. On sunny April days, the mother fox lay out with her young on southward sloping swells. Often we met a prairie wolf, finding in it the spirit of the wilderness. To us it seemed that just over the next long swell toward the sunset the shaggy brown bison still fed in myriads, and in our hearts was a longing to ride away into the "sunset regions" of our pioneer songs.

  1. have seen nineteenth-century paintings or photographs of the prairie

  2. connect accounts of specific prairie towns with their own experiences of the prairie

  3. be able to visualize the plants and the animals that are named

  4. recognize the references to particular pioneer

  5. understand the children's associations with the flowers that they gathered


Correct Option: C
Explanation:

Lot of plants and animals, specific to the prairie, have been mentioned that the reader may not be well conversant with.

In Passage 1, the word 'tamed' most nearly means

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

These passages present two perspectives of the prairie, the grasslands that covered much of the central plains of the United States during the nineteenth century.

Passage 1

We came upon the Prairie at sunset. It would be difficult to say why, or how – though it was possibly from having heard and read so much about it – but the effect on me was disappointment. Towards the setting sun, there lay stretched out before my view a vast expanse of level ground, unbroken (save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great blank) until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip, mingling with its rich colors and mellowing in its distant blue. There it lay, a tranquil sea or lake without water, if such a simile be admissible, with the day going down upon it: a few birds wheeling here and there, solitude and silence reigning paramount around, but the grass was not yet high; there were bare–black patches on the ground and the wild flowers that the eye could see were poor and scanty. Great as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest. I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration that the open landscape of a Scottish moor, or even the rolling hills of our English downlands, inspires. It was lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all else, as I should instinctively were heather moorland beneath my feet. On the Prairie I should often glance towards the distant and frequently receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed. It is not a scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I think (at all events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure or to covet the looking–on again, in after years.

Passage 2

In herding the cattle on horseback, we children came to know all the open prairie round about and found it very beautiful. On the uplands, a short, light–green grass grew, intermixed with various resinous weeds, while in the lowland grazing grounds luxuriant patches of blue joint, wild oats, and other tall forage plants waved in the wind. Along the streams, cattails and tiger lilies nodded above thick mats of wide–bladed marsh grass.
Almost without realizing it, I came to know the character of every weed, every flower, every living thing big enough to be seen from the back of a horse. Nothing could be more generous, more joyous, than these natural meadows in summer. The flash and ripple and glimmer of the tall sunflowers, the chirp and gurgle of red–winged blackbirds swaying on the willow, the meadow larks piping from grassy bogs, the peep of the prairie chick and the wailing call of plover on the flowery green slopes of the uplands made it all an ecstatic world to me. It was a wide world with a big, big sky that gave alluring hints of the still more glorious unknown wilderness beyond.
Sometimes we wandered away to the meadows along the creek, gathering bouquets of pinks, sweet williams, tiger lilies, and lady's slippers. The sun flamed across the splendid serial waves of the grasses and the perfumes of a hundred spicy plants rose in the shimmering midday air. At such times the mere joy of living filled our hearts with wordless satisfaction.
On a long ridge to the north and west, the soil, too wet and cold to cultivate easily, remained for several years. Scattered over these clay lands stood small wooded groves that we called "tow–heads." They stood out like islands in the waving seas of grasses. Against these dark green masses, breakers of blue joint radiantly rolled. To the east ran the river; plum trees and crab apples bloomed along its banks. In June, immense crops of wild strawberries appeared in the natural meadows. Their delicious odor rose to us as we rode our way, tempting us to dismount.
On the bare upland ridges lay huge antlers, bleached and bare, in countless numbers, telling of the herds of elk and bison that had once fed in these vast savannas. On sunny April days, the mother fox lay out with her young on southward sloping swells. Often we met a prairie wolf, finding in it the spirit of the wilderness. To us it seemed that just over the next long swell toward the sunset the shaggy brown bison still fed in myriads, and in our hearts was a longing to ride away into the "sunset regions" of our pioneer songs.

  1. composed

  2. trained

  3. subdued

  4. captured

  5. befriended


Correct Option: C
Explanation:

Can be derived from “its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest”.

In Passage 1, the reference to 'eyestrain' conveys a sense of

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Passage 1

Talk to those people who first saw films when they were silent, and they will tell you the experience was magical. The silent films had extraordinary powers to draw members of an audience into the story, and an equally potent capacity to make their imaginations work. It required the audience to become engaged – to supply voices and sound effects. The audience was the final, creative contributor to the process of making a film.
The finest films of the silent era depended on two elements that we can seldom provide today – a large and receptive audience and a well–orchestrated score. For the audience, the fusion of picture and live music added up to more than the sum of the respective parts.
The one word that sums up the attitude of the silent filmmakers is enthusiasm, conveyed most strongly before formulas took shape and when there was more room for experimentation. This enthusiastic uncertainty often resulted in such accidental discoveries as new camera or editing techniques. Some films experimented with players; the 1916 film Regeneration, for example, by using real gangsters and streetwalkers, provided startling local color. Other films, particularly those of Thomas Ince, provided tragic endings as often as films by other companies supplied happy ones.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of silent films survive today in inferior prints that no longer reflect the care that the original technicians put into them. The modern versions of silent films may appear jerky and flickery, but the vast picture palaces did not attract four to six thousand people a night by giving them eyestrain. A silent film depended on its visuals; as soon as you degrade those, you lose elements that go far beyond the image on the surface. The acting in silent movies was often very subtle, very restrained, despite legends to the contrary.

Passage 2

Mime opens up a new world to the beholder, but it does so insidiously, not by purposely injecting points of interest in the manner of a tour guide. Audiences are not unlike visitors to a foreign land who discover that the modes, manners, and thoughts of its inhabitants are not meaningless oddities, but are sensible in context.
I remember once when an audience seemed perplexed at what I was doing. At first, I tried to gain a more immediate response by using slight exaggerations, I soon realized that these actions had nothing to do with the audience's understanding of the character. What I had believed to be a failure of the audience to respond in the manner, I expected was, in fact, only their concentration on: what I was doing; they were enjoying a gradual awakening – a slow transference of their understanding from their own time and place to one that appeared so unexpectedly before their eyes. This was evidenced by their growing response to succeeding numbers. Mime is an elusive art, as its expression is entirely dependent on the ability of the performer to image a character and to re–create that character for such performance. As a mime, I am a physical medium, the instrument upon which the figures of my imagination play their dance of life. The individuals in my audience also have responsibilities – they must be alert collaborators. They cannot sit back, mindlessly complacent, and wait to have their emotions titillated by mesmeric musical sounds or visual rhythms or acrobatic feats, or by words that tell them what to think. Mime is an art that, paradoxically, appeals both to those who respond instinctively to entertainment and to those whose appreciation is more analytical and complex. Between these extremes lie those audiences conditioned to resist any collaboration with what is played before them, and these the mime must seduce despite themselves. There is only one way to attack those reluctant minds – take them unaware! They will be delighted at an unexpected pleasure.

  1. irony regarding the incompetence of silent film technicians

  2. regret that modern viewers are unable to see high quality prints of silent films

  3. resentment that the popularity of picture palaces has waned in recent years

  4. pleasure in remembering a grandeur that has passed

  5. amazement at the superior quality of modern film technology


Correct Option: B
Explanation:

It is clearly mentioned that due to the inferior prints of silent films, viewers can’t experience the same pleasure today. They are eyestrains today; they were the opposite when prints were new.

What additional information could reduce the apparent similarity between these two art forms?

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Passage 1

Talk to those people who first saw films when they were silent, and they will tell you the experience was magical. The silent films had extraordinary powers to draw members of an audience into the story, and an equally potent capacity to make their imaginations work. It required the audience to become engaged – to supply voices and sound effects. The audience was the final, creative contributor to the process of making a film.
The finest films of the silent era depended on two elements that we can seldom provide today – a large and receptive audience and a well–orchestrated score. For the audience, the fusion of picture and live music added up to more than the sum of the respective parts.
The one word that sums up the attitude of the silent filmmakers is enthusiasm, conveyed most strongly before formulas took shape and when there was more room for experimentation. This enthusiastic uncertainty often resulted in such accidental discoveries as new camera or editing techniques. Some films experimented with players; the 1916 film Regeneration, for example, by using real gangsters and streetwalkers, provided startling local color. Other films, particularly those of Thomas Ince, provided tragic endings as often as films by other companies supplied happy ones.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of silent films survive today in inferior prints that no longer reflect the care that the original technicians put into them. The modern versions of silent films may appear jerky and flickery, but the vast picture palaces did not attract four to six thousand people a night by giving them eyestrain. A silent film depended on its visuals; as soon as you degrade those, you lose elements that go far beyond the image on the surface. The acting in silent movies was often very subtle, very restrained, despite legends to the contrary.

Passage 2

Mime opens up a new world to the beholder, but it does so insidiously, not by purposely injecting points of interest in the manner of a tour guide. Audiences are not unlike visitors to a foreign land who discover that the modes, manners, and thoughts of its inhabitants are not meaningless oddities, but are sensible in context.
I remember once when an audience seemed perplexed at what I was doing. At first, I tried to gain a more immediate response by using slight exaggerations, I soon realized that these actions had nothing to do with the audience's understanding of the character. What I had believed to be a failure of the audience to respond in the manner, I expected was, in fact, only their concentration on: what I was doing; they were enjoying a gradual awakening – a slow transference of their understanding from their own time and place to one that appeared so unexpectedly before their eyes. This was evidenced by their growing response to succeeding numbers. Mime is an elusive art, as its expression is entirely dependent on the ability of the performer to image a character and to re–create that character for such performance. As a mime, I am a physical medium, the instrument upon which the figures of my imagination play their dance of life. The individuals in my audience also have responsibilities – they must be alert collaborators. They cannot sit back, mindlessly complacent, and wait to have their emotions titillated by mesmeric musical sounds or visual rhythms or acrobatic feats, or by words that tell them what to think. Mime is an art that, paradoxically, appeals both to those who respond instinctively to entertainment and to those whose appreciation is more analytical and complex. Between these extremes lie those audiences conditioned to resist any collaboration with what is played before them, and these the mime must seduce despite themselves. There is only one way to attack those reluctant minds – take them unaware! They will be delighted at an unexpected pleasure.

  1. Silent Film audiences were also accustomed to vaudeville and theatrical presentations.

  2. Silent films could show newsworthy events as well as dramatic entertainment.

  3. Dialogue in the form of captions was integrated into silent films.

  4. Theaters running silent films gave many musicians steady jobs.

  5. Individual characters created for silent films became famous in their own right.


Correct Option: A
Explanation:

Correct Answer: Silent Film audiences were also accustomed to vaudeville and theatrical presentations.

The contrast between the two passages reflects primarily the biases of a

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

These passages present two perspectives of the prairie, the grasslands that covered much of the central plains of the United States during the nineteenth century.

Passage 1

We came upon the Prairie at sunset. It would be difficult to say why, or how – though it was possibly from having heard and read so much about it – but the effect on me was disappointment. Towards the setting sun, there lay stretched out before my view a vast expanse of level ground, unbroken (save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great blank) until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip, mingling with its rich colors and mellowing in its distant blue. There it lay, a tranquil sea or lake without water, if such a simile be admissible, with the day going down upon it: a few birds wheeling here and there, solitude and silence reigning paramount around, but the grass was not yet high; there were bare–black patches on the ground and the wild flowers that the eye could see were poor and scanty. Great as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest. I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration that the open landscape of a Scottish moor, or even the rolling hills of our English downlands, inspires. It was lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all else, as I should instinctively were heather moorland beneath my feet. On the Prairie I should often glance towards the distant and frequently receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed. It is not a scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I think (at all events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure or to covet the looking–on again, in after years.

Passage 2

In herding the cattle on horseback, we children came to know all the open prairie round about and found it very beautiful. On the uplands, a short, light–green grass grew, intermixed with various resinous weeds, while in the lowland grazing grounds luxuriant patches of blue joint, wild oats, and other tall forage plants waved in the wind. Along the streams, cattails and tiger lilies nodded above thick mats of wide–bladed marsh grass.
Almost without realizing it, I came to know the character of every weed, every flower, every living thing big enough to be seen from the back of a horse. Nothing could be more generous, more joyous, than these natural meadows in summer. The flash and ripple and glimmer of the tall sunflowers, the chirp and gurgle of red–winged blackbirds swaying on the willow, the meadow larks piping from grassy bogs, the peep of the prairie chick and the wailing call of plover on the flowery green slopes of the uplands made it all an ecstatic world to me. It was a wide world with a big, big sky that gave alluring hints of the still more glorious unknown wilderness beyond.
Sometimes we wandered away to the meadows along the creek, gathering bouquets of pinks, sweet williams, tiger lilies, and lady's slippers. The sun flamed across the splendid serial waves of the grasses and the perfumes of a hundred spicy plants rose in the shimmering midday air. At such times the mere joy of living filled our hearts with wordless satisfaction.
On a long ridge to the north and west, the soil, too wet and cold to cultivate easily, remained for several years. Scattered over these clay lands stood small wooded groves that we called "tow–heads." They stood out like islands in the waving seas of grasses. Against these dark green masses, breakers of blue joint radiantly rolled. To the east ran the river; plum trees and crab apples bloomed along its banks. In June, immense crops of wild strawberries appeared in the natural meadows. Their delicious odor rose to us as we rode our way, tempting us to dismount.
On the bare upland ridges lay huge antlers, bleached and bare, in countless numbers, telling of the herds of elk and bison that had once fed in these vast savannas. On sunny April days, the mother fox lay out with her young on southward sloping swells. Often we met a prairie wolf, finding in it the spirit of the wilderness. To us it seemed that just over the next long swell toward the sunset the shaggy brown bison still fed in myriads, and in our hearts was a longing to ride away into the "sunset regions" of our pioneer songs.

  1. grown man and a little boy

  2. journalist and a writer of fiction

  3. passing visitor and a local resident

  4. native of Europe and a native of the United States

  5. weary tourist and an energetic farm worker


Correct Option: C
Explanation:

We know for certain that the author of passage 1 is a native of Scotland and a visitor to the prairie. What we know for certain is that the latter is a native of the prairie. This is most likely to be the true contrasting factor.

In creating an impression of the prairie for the reader, the author of Passage 1 makes use of

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

These passages present two perspectives of the prairie, the grasslands that covered much of the central plains of the United States during the nineteenth century.

Passage 1

We came upon the Prairie at sunset. It would be difficult to say why, or how – though it was possibly from having heard and read so much about it – but the effect on me was disappointment. Towards the setting sun, there lay stretched out before my view a vast expanse of level ground, unbroken (save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great blank) until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip, mingling with its rich colors and mellowing in its distant blue. There it lay, a tranquil sea or lake without water, if such a simile be admissible, with the day going down upon it: a few birds wheeling here and there, solitude and silence reigning paramount around, but the grass was not yet high; there were bare–black patches on the ground and the wild flowers that the eye could see were poor and scanty. Great as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest. I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration that the open landscape of a Scottish moor, or even the rolling hills of our English downlands, inspires. It was lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all else, as I should instinctively were heather moorland beneath my feet. On the Prairie I should often glance towards the distant and frequently receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed. It is not a scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I think (at all events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure or to covet the looking–on again, in after years.

Passage 2

In herding the cattle on horseback, we children came to know all the open prairie round about and found it very beautiful. On the uplands, a short, light–green grass grew, intermixed with various resinous weeds, while in the lowland grazing grounds luxuriant patches of blue joint, wild oats, and other tall forage plants waved in the wind. Along the streams, cattails and tiger lilies nodded above thick mats of wide–bladed marsh grass.
Almost without realizing it, I came to know the character of every weed, every flower, every living thing big enough to be seen from the back of a horse. Nothing could be more generous, more joyous, than these natural meadows in summer. The flash and ripple and glimmer of the tall sunflowers, the chirp and gurgle of red–winged blackbirds swaying on the willow, the meadow larks piping from grassy bogs, the peep of the prairie chick and the wailing call of plover on the flowery green slopes of the uplands made it all an ecstatic world to me. It was a wide world with a big, big sky that gave alluring hints of the still more glorious unknown wilderness beyond.
Sometimes we wandered away to the meadows along the creek, gathering bouquets of pinks, sweet williams, tiger lilies, and lady's slippers. The sun flamed across the splendid serial waves of the grasses and the perfumes of a hundred spicy plants rose in the shimmering midday air. At such times the mere joy of living filled our hearts with wordless satisfaction.
On a long ridge to the north and west, the soil, too wet and cold to cultivate easily, remained for several years. Scattered over these clay lands stood small wooded groves that we called "tow–heads." They stood out like islands in the waving seas of grasses. Against these dark green masses, breakers of blue joint radiantly rolled. To the east ran the river; plum trees and crab apples bloomed along its banks. In June, immense crops of wild strawberries appeared in the natural meadows. Their delicious odor rose to us as we rode our way, tempting us to dismount.
On the bare upland ridges lay huge antlers, bleached and bare, in countless numbers, telling of the herds of elk and bison that had once fed in these vast savannas. On sunny April days, the mother fox lay out with her young on southward sloping swells. Often we met a prairie wolf, finding in it the spirit of the wilderness. To us it seemed that just over the next long swell toward the sunset the shaggy brown bison still fed in myriads, and in our hearts was a longing to ride away into the "sunset regions" of our pioneer songs.

  1. reference to geological processes

  2. description of its inhabitants

  3. evocation of different but equally attractive areas

  4. comparison with other landscapes

  5. contrast to imaginary places


Correct Option: D
Explanation:

“I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration that the open landscape of a Scottish moor” makes the answer choice an easy give away. 

In Passage 2, the author's references to things beyond his direct experience indicate the

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

These passages present two perspectives of the prairie, the grasslands that covered much of the central plains of the United States during the nineteenth century.

Passage 1

We came upon the Prairie at sunset. It would be difficult to say why, or how – though it was possibly from having heard and read so much about it – but the effect on me was disappointment. Towards the setting sun, there lay stretched out before my view a vast expanse of level ground, unbroken (save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great blank) until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip, mingling with its rich colors and mellowing in its distant blue. There it lay, a tranquil sea or lake without water, if such a simile be admissible, with the day going down upon it: a few birds wheeling here and there, solitude and silence reigning paramount around, but the grass was not yet high; there were bare–black patches on the ground and the wild flowers that the eye could see were poor and scanty. Great as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest. I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration that the open landscape of a Scottish moor, or even the rolling hills of our English downlands, inspires. It was lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all else, as I should instinctively were heather moorland beneath my feet. On the Prairie I should often glance towards the distant and frequently receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed. It is not a scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I think (at all events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure or to covet the looking–on again, in after years.

Passage 2

In herding the cattle on horseback, we children came to know all the open prairie round about and found it very beautiful. On the uplands, a short, light–green grass grew, intermixed with various resinous weeds, while in the lowland grazing grounds luxuriant patches of blue joint, wild oats, and other tall forage plants waved in the wind. Along the streams, cattails and tiger lilies nodded above thick mats of wide–bladed marsh grass.
Almost without realizing it, I came to know the character of every weed, every flower, every living thing big enough to be seen from the back of a horse. Nothing could be more generous, more joyous, than these natural meadows in summer. The flash and ripple and glimmer of the tall sunflowers, the chirp and gurgle of red–winged blackbirds swaying on the willow, the meadow larks piping from grassy bogs, the peep of the prairie chick and the wailing call of plover on the flowery green slopes of the uplands made it all an ecstatic world to me. It was a wide world with a big, big sky that gave alluring hints of the still more glorious unknown wilderness beyond.
Sometimes we wandered away to the meadows along the creek, gathering bouquets of pinks, sweet williams, tiger lilies, and lady's slippers. The sun flamed across the splendid serial waves of the grasses and the perfumes of a hundred spicy plants rose in the shimmering midday air. At such times the mere joy of living filled our hearts with wordless satisfaction.
On a long ridge to the north and west, the soil, too wet and cold to cultivate easily, remained for several years. Scattered over these clay lands stood small wooded groves that we called "tow–heads." They stood out like islands in the waving seas of grasses. Against these dark green masses, breakers of blue joint radiantly rolled. To the east ran the river; plum trees and crab apples bloomed along its banks. In June, immense crops of wild strawberries appeared in the natural meadows. Their delicious odor rose to us as we rode our way, tempting us to dismount.
On the bare upland ridges lay huge antlers, bleached and bare, in countless numbers, telling of the herds of elk and bison that had once fed in these vast savannas. On sunny April days, the mother fox lay out with her young on southward sloping swells. Often we met a prairie wolf, finding in it the spirit of the wilderness. To us it seemed that just over the next long swell toward the sunset the shaggy brown bison still fed in myriads, and in our hearts was a longing to ride away into the "sunset regions" of our pioneer songs.

  1. unexpected dangers of life on the unsettled prairie

  2. psychological interweaving of imagination and the natural scene

  3. exaggerated sense of mystery that is natural to children

  4. a predominant influence of sight in experiencing a place

  5. permanence of the loss of the old life of the prairie


Correct Option: B
Explanation:

The flow of this passage is exactly opposite to the flow of passage I. Here the scene stimulates the author's imagination.

In the second paragraph of Passage 2, the author most likely describes a specific experience in order to

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Passage 1

Talk to those people who first saw films when they were silent, and they will tell you the experience was magical. The silent films had extraordinary powers to draw members of an audience into the story, and an equally potent capacity to make their imaginations work. It required the audience to become engaged – to supply voices and sound effects. The audience was the final, creative contributor to the process of making a film.
The finest films of the silent era depended on two elements that we can seldom provide today – a large and receptive audience and a well–orchestrated score. For the audience, the fusion of picture and live music added up to more than the sum of the respective parts.
The one word that sums up the attitude of the silent filmmakers is enthusiasm, conveyed most strongly before formulas took shape and when there was more room for experimentation. This enthusiastic uncertainty often resulted in such accidental discoveries as new camera or editing techniques. Some films experimented with players; the 1916 film Regeneration, for example, by using real gangsters and streetwalkers, provided startling local color. Other films, particularly those of Thomas Ince, provided tragic endings as often as films by other companies supplied happy ones.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of silent films survive today in inferior prints that no longer reflect the care that the original technicians put into them. The modern versions of silent films may appear jerky and flickery, but the vast picture palaces did not attract four to six thousand people a night by giving them eyestrain. A silent film depended on its visuals; as soon as you degrade those, you lose elements that go far beyond the image on the surface. The acting in silent movies was often very subtle, very restrained, despite legends to the contrary.

Passage 2

Mime opens up a new world to the beholder, but it does so insidiously, not by purposely injecting points of interest in the manner of a tour guide. Audiences are not unlike visitors to a foreign land who discover that the modes, manners, and thoughts of its inhabitants are not meaningless oddities, but are sensible in context.
I remember once when an audience seemed perplexed at what I was doing. At first, I tried to gain a more immediate response by using slight exaggerations, I soon realized that these actions had nothing to do with the audience's understanding of the character. What I had believed to be a failure of the audience to respond in the manner, I expected was, in fact, only their concentration on: what I was doing; they were enjoying a gradual awakening – a slow transference of their understanding from their own time and place to one that appeared so unexpectedly before their eyes. This was evidenced by their growing response to succeeding numbers. Mime is an elusive art, as its expression is entirely dependent on the ability of the performer to image a character and to re–create that character for such performance. As a mime, I am a physical medium, the instrument upon which the figures of my imagination play their dance of life. The individuals in my audience also have responsibilities – they must be alert collaborators. They cannot sit back, mindlessly complacent, and wait to have their emotions titillated by mesmeric musical sounds or visual rhythms or acrobatic feats, or by words that tell them what to think. Mime is an art that, paradoxically, appeals both to those who respond instinctively to entertainment and to those whose appreciation is more analytical and complex. Between these extremes lie those audiences conditioned to resist any collaboration with what is played before them, and these the mime must seduce despite themselves. There is only one way to attack those reluctant minds – take them unaware! They will be delighted at an unexpected pleasure.

  1. dispel some misconceptions about what a mime is like

  2. show how challenging the career of a mime can be

  3. portray the intensity required to see the audience's point of view

  4. explain how unpredictable mime performances can be

  5. indicate the adjustments an audience must make in watching mime


Correct Option: C
Explanation:

In the experience narrated, the mime artist is initially disappointed as she feels the lack of appreciation from the viewers. Later on she realizes that they are possibly so involved that they have even forgotten to clap.

In Passage 2, last paragraph, the author's description of techniques used in the types of mime performances is

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Passage 1

Talk to those people who first saw films when they were silent, and they will tell you the experience was magical. The silent films had extraordinary powers to draw members of an audience into the story, and an equally potent capacity to make their imaginations work. It required the audience to become engaged – to supply voices and sound effects. The audience was the final, creative contributor to the process of making a film.
The finest films of the silent era depended on two elements that we can seldom provide today – a large and receptive audience and a well–orchestrated score. For the audience, the fusion of picture and live music added up to more than the sum of the respective parts.
The one word that sums up the attitude of the silent filmmakers is enthusiasm, conveyed most strongly before formulas took shape and when there was more room for experimentation. This enthusiastic uncertainty often resulted in such accidental discoveries as new camera or editing techniques. Some films experimented with players; the 1916 film Regeneration, for example, by using real gangsters and streetwalkers, provided startling local color. Other films, particularly those of Thomas Ince, provided tragic endings as often as films by other companies supplied happy ones.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of silent films survive today in inferior prints that no longer reflect the care that the original technicians put into them. The modern versions of silent films may appear jerky and flickery, but the vast picture palaces did not attract four to six thousand people a night by giving them eyestrain. A silent film depended on its visuals; as soon as you degrade those, you lose elements that go far beyond the image on the surface. The acting in silent movies was often very subtle, very restrained, despite legends to the contrary.

Passage 2

Mime opens up a new world to the beholder, but it does so insidiously, not by purposely injecting points of interest in the manner of a tour guide. Audiences are not unlike visitors to a foreign land who discover that the modes, manners, and thoughts of its inhabitants are not meaningless oddities, but are sensible in context.
I remember once when an audience seemed perplexed at what I was doing. At first, I tried to gain a more immediate response by using slight exaggerations, I soon realized that these actions had nothing to do with the audience's understanding of the character. What I had believed to be a failure of the audience to respond in the manner, I expected was, in fact, only their concentration on: what I was doing; they were enjoying a gradual awakening – a slow transference of their understanding from their own time and place to one that appeared so unexpectedly before their eyes. This was evidenced by their growing response to succeeding numbers. Mime is an elusive art, as its expression is entirely dependent on the ability of the performer to image a character and to re–create that character for such performance. As a mime, I am a physical medium, the instrument upon which the figures of my imagination play their dance of life. The individuals in my audience also have responsibilities – they must be alert collaborators. They cannot sit back, mindlessly complacent, and wait to have their emotions titillated by mesmeric musical sounds or visual rhythms or acrobatic feats, or by words that tell them what to think. Mime is an art that, paradoxically, appeals both to those who respond instinctively to entertainment and to those whose appreciation is more analytical and complex. Between these extremes lie those audiences conditioned to resist any collaboration with what is played before them, and these the mime must seduce despite themselves. There is only one way to attack those reluctant minds – take them unaware! They will be delighted at an unexpected pleasure.

  1. disparaging

  2. astonishing

  3. sorrowful

  4. indulgent

  5. sentimental


Correct Option: D
Explanation:

Mime is an elusive art. The performance needs indulgence both of the performer and the watcher.

In the passage 1, 'Regeneration' and the films of Thomas Ince are presented as examples of

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Passage 1

Talk to those people who first saw films when they were silent, and they will tell you the experience was magical. The silent films had extraordinary powers to draw members of an audience into the story, and an equally potent capacity to make their imaginations work. It required the audience to become engaged – to supply voices and sound effects. The audience was the final, creative contributor to the process of making a film.
The finest films of the silent era depended on two elements that we can seldom provide today – a large and receptive audience and a well–orchestrated score. For the audience, the fusion of picture and live music added up to more than the sum of the respective parts.
The one word that sums up the attitude of the silent filmmakers is enthusiasm, conveyed most strongly before formulas took shape and when there was more room for experimentation. This enthusiastic uncertainty often resulted in such accidental discoveries as new camera or editing techniques. Some films experimented with players; the 1916 film Regeneration, for example, by using real gangsters and streetwalkers, provided startling local color. Other films, particularly those of Thomas Ince, provided tragic endings as often as films by other companies supplied happy ones.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of silent films survive today in inferior prints that no longer reflect the care that the original technicians put into them. The modern versions of silent films may appear jerky and flickery, but the vast picture palaces did not attract four to six thousand people a night by giving them eyestrain. A silent film depended on its visuals; as soon as you degrade those, you lose elements that go far beyond the image on the surface. The acting in silent movies was often very subtle, very restrained, despite legends to the contrary.

Passage 2

Mime opens up a new world to the beholder, but it does so insidiously, not by purposely injecting points of interest in the manner of a tour guide. Audiences are not unlike visitors to a foreign land who discover that the modes, manners, and thoughts of its inhabitants are not meaningless oddities, but are sensible in context.
I remember once when an audience seemed perplexed at what I was doing. At first, I tried to gain a more immediate response by using slight exaggerations, I soon realized that these actions had nothing to do with the audience's understanding of the character. What I had believed to be a failure of the audience to respond in the manner, I expected was, in fact, only their concentration on: what I was doing; they were enjoying a gradual awakening – a slow transference of their understanding from their own time and place to one that appeared so unexpectedly before their eyes. This was evidenced by their growing response to succeeding numbers. Mime is an elusive art, as its expression is entirely dependent on the ability of the performer to image a character and to re–create that character for such performance. As a mime, I am a physical medium, the instrument upon which the figures of my imagination play their dance of life. The individuals in my audience also have responsibilities – they must be alert collaborators. They cannot sit back, mindlessly complacent, and wait to have their emotions titillated by mesmeric musical sounds or visual rhythms or acrobatic feats, or by words that tell them what to think. Mime is an art that, paradoxically, appeals both to those who respond instinctively to entertainment and to those whose appreciation is more analytical and complex. Between these extremes lie those audiences conditioned to resist any collaboration with what is played before them, and these the mime must seduce despite themselves. There is only one way to attack those reluctant minds – take them unaware! They will be delighted at an unexpected pleasure.

  1. formulaic and uninspired silent films

  2. profitable successes of a flourishing industry

  3. suspenseful action films drawing large audiences

  4. unusual products of a readiness to experiment

  5. daring applications of an artistic philosophy


Correct Option: D
Explanation:

The examples of Thomas’s movies were evidence of readiness to experiment.

The incident described in the second paragraph of Passage 2 shows the author of this passage to be similar to the silent filmmakers of Passage 1 in the way she

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Passage 1

Talk to those people who first saw films when they were silent, and they will tell you the experience was magical. The silent films had extraordinary powers to draw members of an audience into the story, and an equally potent capacity to make their imaginations work. It required the audience to become engaged – to supply voices and sound effects. The audience was the final, creative contributor to the process of making a film.
The finest films of the silent era depended on two elements that we can seldom provide today – a large and receptive audience and a well–orchestrated score. For the audience, the fusion of picture and live music added up to more than the sum of the respective parts.
The one word that sums up the attitude of the silent filmmakers is enthusiasm, conveyed most strongly before formulas took shape and when there was more room for experimentation. This enthusiastic uncertainty often resulted in such accidental discoveries as new camera or editing techniques. Some films experimented with players; the 1916 film Regeneration, for example, by using real gangsters and streetwalkers, provided startling local color. Other films, particularly those of Thomas Ince, provided tragic endings as often as films by other companies supplied happy ones.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of silent films survive today in inferior prints that no longer reflect the care that the original technicians put into them. The modern versions of silent films may appear jerky and flickery, but the vast picture palaces did not attract four to six thousand people a night by giving them eyestrain. A silent film depended on its visuals; as soon as you degrade those, you lose elements that go far beyond the image on the surface. The acting in silent movies was often very subtle, very restrained, despite legends to the contrary.

Passage 2

Mime opens up a new world to the beholder, but it does so insidiously, not by purposely injecting points of interest in the manner of a tour guide. Audiences are not unlike visitors to a foreign land who discover that the modes, manners, and thoughts of its inhabitants are not meaningless oddities, but are sensible in context.
I remember once when an audience seemed perplexed at what I was doing. At first, I tried to gain a more immediate response by using slight exaggerations, I soon realized that these actions had nothing to do with the audience's understanding of the character. What I had believed to be a failure of the audience to respond in the manner, I expected was, in fact, only their concentration on: what I was doing; they were enjoying a gradual awakening – a slow transference of their understanding from their own time and place to one that appeared so unexpectedly before their eyes. This was evidenced by their growing response to succeeding numbers. Mime is an elusive art, as its expression is entirely dependent on the ability of the performer to image a character and to re–create that character for such performance. As a mime, I am a physical medium, the instrument upon which the figures of my imagination play their dance of life. The individuals in my audience also have responsibilities – they must be alert collaborators. They cannot sit back, mindlessly complacent, and wait to have their emotions titillated by mesmeric musical sounds or visual rhythms or acrobatic feats, or by words that tell them what to think. Mime is an art that, paradoxically, appeals both to those who respond instinctively to entertainment and to those whose appreciation is more analytical and complex. Between these extremes lie those audiences conditioned to resist any collaboration with what is played before them, and these the mime must seduce despite themselves. There is only one way to attack those reluctant minds – take them unaware! They will be delighted at an unexpected pleasure.

  1. required very few props

  2. used subtle technical skills to convey universal truths

  3. learned through trial and error

  4. combined narration with visual effects

  5. earned a loyal audience of followers


Correct Option: C
Explanation:

Both the silent film makers and the mime artist have gradually learnt by trying out stuff.

Both authors indicate that the experience of a beautiful landscape involves

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

These passages present two perspectives of the prairie, the grasslands that covered much of the central plains of the United States during the nineteenth century.

Passage 1

We came upon the Prairie at sunset. It would be difficult to say why, or how – though it was possibly from having heard and read so much about it – but the effect on me was disappointment. Towards the setting sun, there lay stretched out before my view a vast expanse of level ground, unbroken (save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great blank) until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip, mingling with its rich colors and mellowing in its distant blue. There it lay, a tranquil sea or lake without water, if such a simile be admissible, with the day going down upon it: a few birds wheeling here and there, solitude and silence reigning paramount around, but the grass was not yet high; there were bare–black patches on the ground and the wild flowers that the eye could see were poor and scanty. Great as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest. I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration that the open landscape of a Scottish moor, or even the rolling hills of our English downlands, inspires. It was lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all else, as I should instinctively were heather moorland beneath my feet. On the Prairie I should often glance towards the distant and frequently receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed. It is not a scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I think (at all events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure or to covet the looking–on again, in after years.

Passage 2

In herding the cattle on horseback, we children came to know all the open prairie round about and found it very beautiful. On the uplands, a short, light–green grass grew, intermixed with various resinous weeds, while in the lowland grazing grounds luxuriant patches of blue joint, wild oats, and other tall forage plants waved in the wind. Along the streams, cattails and tiger lilies nodded above thick mats of wide–bladed marsh grass.
Almost without realizing it, I came to know the character of every weed, every flower, every living thing big enough to be seen from the back of a horse. Nothing could be more generous, more joyous, than these natural meadows in summer. The flash and ripple and glimmer of the tall sunflowers, the chirp and gurgle of red–winged blackbirds swaying on the willow, the meadow larks piping from grassy bogs, the peep of the prairie chick and the wailing call of plover on the flowery green slopes of the uplands made it all an ecstatic world to me. It was a wide world with a big, big sky that gave alluring hints of the still more glorious unknown wilderness beyond.
Sometimes we wandered away to the meadows along the creek, gathering bouquets of pinks, sweet williams, tiger lilies, and lady's slippers. The sun flamed across the splendid serial waves of the grasses and the perfumes of a hundred spicy plants rose in the shimmering midday air. At such times the mere joy of living filled our hearts with wordless satisfaction.
On a long ridge to the north and west, the soil, too wet and cold to cultivate easily, remained for several years. Scattered over these clay lands stood small wooded groves that we called "tow–heads." They stood out like islands in the waving seas of grasses. Against these dark green masses, breakers of blue joint radiantly rolled. To the east ran the river; plum trees and crab apples bloomed along its banks. In June, immense crops of wild strawberries appeared in the natural meadows. Their delicious odor rose to us as we rode our way, tempting us to dismount.
On the bare upland ridges lay huge antlers, bleached and bare, in countless numbers, telling of the herds of elk and bison that had once fed in these vast savannas. On sunny April days, the mother fox lay out with her young on southward sloping swells. Often we met a prairie wolf, finding in it the spirit of the wilderness. To us it seemed that just over the next long swell toward the sunset the shaggy brown bison still fed in myriads, and in our hearts was a longing to ride away into the "sunset regions" of our pioneer songs.

  1. artistic production

  2. detached observation of appearances

  3. emotional turmoil

  4. stimulation of the imagination

  5. fanciful reconstruction of bygone times


Correct Option: D
Explanation:

This stands out as the correct answer choice because both authors believe that a thing of beauty should result in immense stimulation of imagination. One finds something that doesn't, the other finds something that does.

The author of Passage 1 uses the phrase 'enthusiastic uncertainty' to suggest that the filmmakers were

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Passage 1

Talk to those people who first saw films when they were silent, and they will tell you the experience was magical. The silent films had extraordinary powers to draw members of an audience into the story, and an equally potent capacity to make their imaginations work. It required the audience to become engaged – to supply voices and sound effects. The audience was the final, creative contributor to the process of making a film.
The finest films of the silent era depended on two elements that we can seldom provide today – a large and receptive audience and a well–orchestrated score. For the audience, the fusion of picture and live music added up to more than the sum of the respective parts.
The one word that sums up the attitude of the silent filmmakers is enthusiasm, conveyed most strongly before formulas took shape and when there was more room for experimentation. This enthusiastic uncertainty often resulted in such accidental discoveries as new camera or editing techniques. Some films experimented with players; the 1916 film Regeneration, for example, by using real gangsters and streetwalkers, provided startling local color. Other films, particularly those of Thomas Ince, provided tragic endings as often as films by other companies supplied happy ones.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of silent films survive today in inferior prints that no longer reflect the care that the original technicians put into them. The modern versions of silent films may appear jerky and flickery, but the vast picture palaces did not attract four to six thousand people a night by giving them eyestrain. A silent film depended on its visuals; as soon as you degrade those, you lose elements that go far beyond the image on the surface. The acting in silent movies was often very subtle, very restrained, despite legends to the contrary.

Passage 2

Mime opens up a new world to the beholder, but it does so insidiously, not by purposely injecting points of interest in the manner of a tour guide. Audiences are not unlike visitors to a foreign land who discover that the modes, manners, and thoughts of its inhabitants are not meaningless oddities, but are sensible in context.
I remember once when an audience seemed perplexed at what I was doing. At first, I tried to gain a more immediate response by using slight exaggerations, I soon realized that these actions had nothing to do with the audience's understanding of the character. What I had believed to be a failure of the audience to respond in the manner, I expected was, in fact, only their concentration on: what I was doing; they were enjoying a gradual awakening – a slow transference of their understanding from their own time and place to one that appeared so unexpectedly before their eyes. This was evidenced by their growing response to succeeding numbers. Mime is an elusive art, as its expression is entirely dependent on the ability of the performer to image a character and to re–create that character for such performance. As a mime, I am a physical medium, the instrument upon which the figures of my imagination play their dance of life. The individuals in my audience also have responsibilities – they must be alert collaborators. They cannot sit back, mindlessly complacent, and wait to have their emotions titillated by mesmeric musical sounds or visual rhythms or acrobatic feats, or by words that tell them what to think. Mime is an art that, paradoxically, appeals both to those who respond instinctively to entertainment and to those whose appreciation is more analytical and complex. Between these extremes lie those audiences conditioned to resist any collaboration with what is played before them, and these the mime must seduce despite themselves. There is only one way to attack those reluctant minds – take them unaware! They will be delighted at an unexpected pleasure.

  1. excited to be experimenting in a new field

  2. delighted at the opportunity to study new technology

  3. optimistic inspite of the obstacles that faced them

  4. eager to challenge existing conventions

  5. eager to please but unsure of what the public wanted


Correct Option: A
Explanation:

The enthusiastic uncertainty was about experimenting in a new field. The excitement from the experimental approach can be directly inferred from the lines.

The author of Passage 2 most likely considers the contrast of mime artist and tour guide appropriate because both

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Passage 1

Talk to those people who first saw films when they were silent, and they will tell you the experience was magical. The silent films had extraordinary powers to draw members of an audience into the story, and an equally potent capacity to make their imaginations work. It required the audience to become engaged – to supply voices and sound effects. The audience was the final, creative contributor to the process of making a film.
The finest films of the silent era depended on two elements that we can seldom provide today – a large and receptive audience and a well–orchestrated score. For the audience, the fusion of picture and live music added up to more than the sum of the respective parts.
The one word that sums up the attitude of the silent filmmakers is enthusiasm, conveyed most strongly before formulas took shape and when there was more room for experimentation. This enthusiastic uncertainty often resulted in such accidental discoveries as new camera or editing techniques. Some films experimented with players; the 1916 film Regeneration, for example, by using real gangsters and streetwalkers, provided startling local color. Other films, particularly those of Thomas Ince, provided tragic endings as often as films by other companies supplied happy ones.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of silent films survive today in inferior prints that no longer reflect the care that the original technicians put into them. The modern versions of silent films may appear jerky and flickery, but the vast picture palaces did not attract four to six thousand people a night by giving them eyestrain. A silent film depended on its visuals; as soon as you degrade those, you lose elements that go far beyond the image on the surface. The acting in silent movies was often very subtle, very restrained, despite legends to the contrary.

Passage 2

Mime opens up a new world to the beholder, but it does so insidiously, not by purposely injecting points of interest in the manner of a tour guide. Audiences are not unlike visitors to a foreign land who discover that the modes, manners, and thoughts of its inhabitants are not meaningless oddities, but are sensible in context.
I remember once when an audience seemed perplexed at what I was doing. At first, I tried to gain a more immediate response by using slight exaggerations, I soon realized that these actions had nothing to do with the audience's understanding of the character. What I had believed to be a failure of the audience to respond in the manner, I expected was, in fact, only their concentration on: what I was doing; they were enjoying a gradual awakening – a slow transference of their understanding from their own time and place to one that appeared so unexpectedly before their eyes. This was evidenced by their growing response to succeeding numbers. Mime is an elusive art, as its expression is entirely dependent on the ability of the performer to image a character and to re–create that character for such performance. As a mime, I am a physical medium, the instrument upon which the figures of my imagination play their dance of life. The individuals in my audience also have responsibilities – they must be alert collaborators. They cannot sit back, mindlessly complacent, and wait to have their emotions titillated by mesmeric musical sounds or visual rhythms or acrobatic feats, or by words that tell them what to think. Mime is an art that, paradoxically, appeals both to those who respond instinctively to entertainment and to those whose appreciation is more analytical and complex. Between these extremes lie those audiences conditioned to resist any collaboration with what is played before them, and these the mime must seduce despite themselves. There is only one way to attack those reluctant minds – take them unaware! They will be delighted at an unexpected pleasure.

  1. are concerned with conveying factual information

  2. employ artistic techniques to communicate their knowledge

  3. determine whether others enter a strange place

  4. shape the way others perceive a new situation

  5. explore new means of self-expression


Correct Option: D
Explanation:

The tour guide is not an artist, nor is he so much concerned with self expression.

- Hide questions