Question 1

WINSLOW HOMER

Winslow Homer, one of the most prominent nineteenth–century painters, was responsible for raising watercolor to its position as an important medium in American art. Homer was a master of watercolor, and his best watercolor paintings equal his larger oil paintings in both structure and intensity. Through long practice, Homer understood and exploited the requirements of watercolor, which he applied where most appropriate—to the recording of immediate experience. He had great powers of visual analysis and never looked at a scene without seeing its underlying structure.

Some of Homer’s watercolors of the Adirondack woods, with their complicated weaving of vertical tree trunks against a background of deep autumnal tones, are demonstrations of masterful completeness. In one particular Adirondack painting, The Blue Boat (1892), all elements come together with perfect unity: the deep blue of the boat’s hull, the green and gold landscape, the alertness of the fishermen, the brilliant clouds and their reflections on the water. Furthermore, its design unites the structural elements with the artist’s enjoyment of marking and coloring the paper—all are blended as though in a single moment of vision and action.

Question 2

MORAINES

.. 1 …The term moraine refers to the rock debris carried or deposited by a glacier. The term applies to the debris moved along within the glacier or on its surface, the debris left behind after the glacier melts, and the landforms made up of these debris deposits. The debris transported by a glacier is produced either by erosion of the rock beneath the glacier or by erosion on the slopes rising above the surface of the glacier. Material eroded by the glacier is carried primarily at the base of the glacier and along the outer margins of the glacier.

.. 2 …While rivers sort transported rock according to size, a glacier transports its material like a factory conveyer belt, moving the largest blocks and the finest dust next to each other at the same rate of movement over the same distance. Thus, moraine debris remains unsorted both during its transport and after it has been deposited. This unsorted glacial material is called drift. Some moraines are composed only of coarse material and large boulders, while others contain large quantities of finer–grained material such as silt and clay.

.. 3 … Once the glacial ice has retreated, the moraine deposits are left exposed on the land surface. The various landforms—moraines—indicate the position of the debris within or on the glacier during the glacier’s movement. Their shape and composition also provide information about the shape, mass, and ice flow of the glacier.

Question 3

CULTURAL EVOLUTION

.. 1 … The history of life is the story of biological evolution on a changing planet, and at no time has change ever been as rapid as in the age of humans. The evolution of humans and their culture has had enormous consequences, making humans a new force in the history of life. Cultural evolution has occurred in stages, beginning with the nomads who hunted and gathered food on the African grasslands two million years ago. These hunter–gatherers made tools, organized communal activities, and divided labor. Next came the development of agriculture in several parts of the world 10 to 15 thousand years ago. Agriculture led to permanent settlements, the first cities, and trade among societies. An important cultural leap was the Industrial Revolution, which began in the eighteenth century. Since then, new technology has escalated exponentially, and so has the human impact on the planet.

.. 2 … Throughout this cultural evolution, from simple hunter–gatherers to high–tech societies, humans have not changed much biologically. Our knowledge is stored not in our genes but in the product of thousands of years of human experience. Cultural evolution has enabled us to defy our physical limitations and shortcut biological evolution. We no longer have to wait to adapt to our environment through natural selection; we simply change the environment to meet our needs. We are the dominant species of life and bring environmental change wherever we go.

Question 4

SHAKESPEARE’S ROMANCES

.. 1 … Shakespeare’s late comedies—including Cymbeline, The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale—are classified as romances. They are based on a tradition of romantic literature going back at least to ancient Greece, in which the central theme of love serves as the trigger for extraordinary adventures. Love is subjected to abnormal strains, often involving separation, jealousy, and other elements of tragedy. There are also fantastic journeys to exotic lands, and absurd coincidences and mistaken identities that complicate the plot, but everything is resolved in the traditional happy ending of comedy.

.. 2 … All of Shakespeare’s romances share a number of these classical themes, such as the theme of separation and reunion of loved ones, particularly family members. Daughters are separated from parents, and wives from husbands, in Cymbeline and The Winter’s Tale. Sons are separated from fathers in The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. The related idea of exile also occurs, with the banished characters—usually rulers or future rulers— restored to their rightful position at the end of the play. The theme of jealousy is prominent, with the conclusion that love requires patience in times of adversity. The characters are frequently subjected to long journeys, many involving shipwrecks. Magical developments arise and supernatural beings appear, most notably in The Tempest, in which the leading character is a sorcerer.

Question 5

WATER LOSS

.. 1 … Metabolic activities require a constant supply of certain materials such as water, oxygen, and salts, and cells must replace these materials by withdrawing them from the environment. Humans lose water by evaporation from respiratory and body surfaces and must replenish such losses by drinking water, by obtaining water from food, and by retaining metabolic water formed in cells by oxidation of foods, especially carbohydrates.

.. 2 … Humans obtain half of their total water requirement by drinking. With enough water to drink, the human body can withstand extremely high temperatures while preventing a rise in body temperature. When the surrounding air temperature rises, the body’s internal environment responds to this change by the evaporative cooling method of sweating. The ability to keep cool in this way was impressively demonstrated in the eighteenth century by a British scientist who stayed for 45 minutes in a room heated to 260 degrees Fahrenheit (126 degrees Celsius). He survived uninjured and his body temperature did not rise because he continuously drank water and sweated. A steak he had brought into the room with him, however, was thoroughly cooked.

.. 3 … Sweating rates may exceed three liters of water per hour under such conditions and cannot be tolerated unless the lost water is replaced. Without water to drink, the body will continue to sweat and lose water. When the water deficit exceeds 10 percent of the body weight, collapse occurs, and when the water deficit reaches about 15 to 20 percent, death occurs.

Question 1-4

MATHEMATICIANS

.. 1 … Like a painter or a poet, a mathematician is a creator of patterns, but mathematical patterns are made with ideas rather than paint or words. Mathematics allows great speculative freedom, and mathematicians can create any kind of system they want. However, in the end, every mathematical theory must be relevant to physical reality, either directly or by importance to the body of mathematics.Mathematicians are motivated by the belief that they may be able to create a pattern that is entirely new, one that changes forever the way that others think about the mathematical order.

.. 2 … Mathematicians have an exceptional ability to manage long chains of reasoning. They routinely develop theories from very simple contexts and then apply them to very complex ones. For example, they may develop a formula for the movement of an ameba and then try to apply it to successive levels of the animal kingdom, concluding with a theory of human walking.

.. 3 … An extended chain of reasoning may be intuitive, and many mathematicians report that they sense a solution long before they have worked out each step in detail. However, even when guided by intuition, they must eventually work out the solution in exact detail if they are to convince others of its validity. They must demonstrate the solution without any errors or omissions in definition or in line of reasoning. In fact, errors of omission (forgetting a step) or of commission (making some assumption that is untrue) can destroy the value of a mathematical contribution. The mathematician must be rigorous: no fact can be accepted unless it has been proved by steps conforming to universally accepted principles.

.. 4 … At the center of mathematical talent lies the ability to recognize significant problems and then to solve them. One source of delight for mathematicians is finding the solution to a problem that has long been considered insoluble. Other accomplishments are inventing a new field of mathematics and discovering links between otherwise separate fields of mathematics.

Question 5-8

WHITE–COLLAR CRIME

.. 1 … A variety of illegal acts committed by people in the course of their employment, for their own personal gain, are collectively known as white–collar crime. Embezzlement, theft, and trading securities on the basis of insider information are common forms of white–collar crime. The majority of cases involve low–level employees who steal because they are under temporary financial stress. Many plan to put the money back as soon as possible but may never do so. Their crimes are usually never discovered because the amounts of money are small, no one notices the loss, and law enforcement agencies have few resources for investigating this type of crime.

.. 2 … However, there are some very large cases of white–collar crime, such as multimillion– dollar stock market or banking scams that take years to discover and are extremely difficult and expensive to prosecute. In the 1980s, hundreds of executives of American savings and loan associations took advantage of a change in the law that allowed them to make unsecured loans to friends and relatives—which they then did, in the amount of $500 billion in unpaid debt. Only a few of those executives were prosecuted, and little of the money was recovered. American taxpayers ultimately covered the amount at a cost of about $4,000 per person.

.. 3 … White–collar crime is not confined to the business sector. Government employment, especially at the city level, also provides opportunities to line one’s pockets. For example, building inspectors accept bribes and kickbacks, auctioneers rig sales of seized property, and full–time employees receive welfare payments.

.. 4 … Although white–collar crime is less violent than street crime, it involves far more money and harm to the public than crimes committed by street criminals. It is likely that there are more criminals in the office suites than in the streets, yet the nature of white-collar crime makes it difficult to uncover the offenders. As the economy shifts from manufacturing to services and electronic commerce, opportunities for white–collar crime will multiply, while the technology needed to stop such crimes will lag behind.

Question 1-4

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IN ANIMALS

.. 1 … Social behavior is communication that permits a group of animals of the same species to become organized cooperatively. Social behavior includes any interaction that is a consequence of one animal’s response to another of its own species, such as an individual fighting to defend a territory. However, not all aggregations of animals are social. Clusters of moths attracted to a light at night or trout gathering in the coolest pool of a stream are groupings of animals responding to environmental signals. Social aggregations, on the other hand, depend on signals from the animals themselves, which stay together and do things together by influencing one another.

.. 2 … Social animals are not all social to the same degree. Some species cooperate only long enough to achieve reproduction, while others—such as geese and beavers—form strong pair bonds that last a lifetime. The most persistent social bonds usually form between mothers and their young. For birds and mammals, these bonds usually end when the young can fly, swim, or run and find enough food to support themselves.

.. 3 … One obvious benefit of social organization is defense—both passive and active—from predators. Musk oxen that form a passive defensive circle when threatened by a pack of wolves are much less vulnerable than an individual facing the wolves alone. A breeding colony of gulls practices active defense when they, alerted by the alarm calls of a few, attack a predator as a group. Such a collective attack will discourage a predator more effectively than individual attacks. Members of a town of prairie dogs cooperate by warning each other with a special bark when a predator is nearby. Thus, every individual in a social organization benefits from the eyes, ears, and noses of all other members of the group. Other advantages of social organization include cooperation in hunting for food, huddling for protection from severe weather, and the potential for transmitting information that is useful to the society.

Glossary: aggregation: gathering; group

Question 5-9

THE PRODUCTION OF COFFEE

.. 1 … All great coffee comes from the same tree, Coffea arabica. The distinguishing taste of coffee is a product of the climate, air, and soil in which it is grown. The perfect climate for coffee production exists between the latitudes of 25 degrees north and 25 degrees south of the equator. The coffee plant is particular about temperature, and changes of more than 20 degrees in twenty–four hours, or temperatures of over 70 degrees Fahrenheit, tend to have harmful effects on production. In general, coffee trees are comfortable where people are. If people feel too cold or hot, especially during flowering and fruit development, the trees are not likely to do well.

.. 2 … Altitude is an important factor, and most coffee–producing countries grade their coffees according to the altitude at which they were grown. The best–tasting coffees are grown at between five and eight thousand feet in elevation, in the thin air and rocky soil of places such as the mountain ridges of Central America and Africa.

.. 3 … Coffee trees require certain nutrients to produce beans in economically viable quantities; thus, soil chemistry is carefully watched in commercial operations. A soil rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium will yield a coffee more complex in character. Nitrogen in soil gives rise to coffee’s sparkling acidity; potassium produces fuller–bodied coffees; and phosphorus, while having no bearing on coffee in the final cup, helps the tree to develop a healthy root system. Generally, the more balanced the soil, the better the coffee.

.. 4 … Caring for the coffee tree is critical to the character of the final product. Stock for new coffee trees is usually grown from seeds produced by trees already growing on the farm. After the seeds germinate, the seedlings are transferred to nursery beds, which are typically kept under mesh netting that filters out direct sunlight. Young seedlings grow slowly, are very delicate, and require careful replanting. The transfer from nursery to plantation is a critical part of the process, and a seedling that is mishandled at this stage may die after it is replanted. Most varieties take at least three years before they begin producing fruit.