READING TEST 1
Duration: 60 minutes
Number of questions: 40
Directions: In this section of the test, you will read FOUR different passages, each followed by 10 questions about it. For questions 1-40, you are to choose the best answer A, B, C, or D for each question. Answer all questions following a passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage. You have 60 minutes to answer all the questions.
PASSAGE 1 – Questions 1-10
Basic to any understanding of Canada in 20 years after the Second World War is the country's impressive population growth. For every three Canadians in 1945, there were over five in 1996. In September 1966 Canada's population passed the 20 million mark. Most of this surging growth came from natural increase. The depression of the 1930's and the war had held back marriages and the catching – up process began after 1945. The baby boom continued through the decade of the 1950's, producing a population increase of nearly fifteen percent in the five years from 1951 to 1956. This rate of increase had been exceeded only once before in Canada's history, in the decade before 1911, when the prairies were being settled. Undoubtedly, the good economic conditions of the 1950's supported a growth in the population, but the expansion also derived from a trend toward earlier marriages and an increase in the average size of families. In 1957 the Canadian birth rate stood at 28 per thousand, one of the highest in the world.
After the peak year of 1957, the birth rate in Canada began to decline. It continued falling until in 1966 it stood at the lowest level in 25 years. Partly this decline reflected the low level of births during the depression and the war, but it was also caused by changes in Canadian society. Young people were staying at school longer, more women were working, young married couples were buying automobiles or houses before starting families, rising living standards were cutting down the size of families. It appeared that Canada was once more falling in step with the trend toward smaller families that had occurred all through the Western world since the time of the Industrial Revolution.
Although the growth in Canada's population has slowed down by 1966(the increase in the first half of the 1960's was only nine percent). Another large population wave was coming over the horizon. It would be composed of the children of the children who were born during the period of the high birth rate prior to 1957.
What does the passage mainly discuss?
- A. Educational changes in Canadian society
- B. Canada during the Second World War
- C. Population trends in postwar Canada
- D. Standards of living in Canada
- A. In the decade after 1911
- B. After 1945
- C. During the depression of the 1930's
- D. In 1966
- A. Canadians
- B. Years
- C. Decades
- D. Marriages
- A. new
- B. extra
- C. accelerating
- D. surprising
- A. tendency
- B. aim
- C. growth
- D. directive
- A. pointed
- B. dismal
- C. mountain
- D. maximum
- A. Α. 1966
- B. Β. 1957
- C. 1956
- D. 1951
- A. people being better educated
- B. people getting married earlier
- C. better standards of living
- D. couples buying houses
- A. families were larger
- B. population statistics were unreliable
- C. the population grew steadily
- D. economic conditions were bad
- A. horizon
- B. population wave
- C. nine percent
- D. first half
PASSAGE 2 – Questions 11-20
Are organically grown foods the best food choices? The advantages claimed for such foods over conventionally grown and marketed food products are now being debated. Advocates of organic foods a term whose meaning varies greatly – frequently proclaim that such products are safer and more nutritious than others.
The growing interest of consumers in the safety and more nutritional quality of the typical North American diet is a welcome development. However, much of this interest has been sparked by sweeping claims that the food supply is unsafe or in adequate in meeting nutritional needs. Although most of these claims are not supported by scientific evidence, the preponderance of written material advancing such claims makes it difficult for the general public to separate fact from fiction. As a result, claims that eating a diet consisting entirely of organically grown foods prevents or cures disease or provides other benefits to health have become widely publicized and form the basis for folklore.
Almost daily the public is besieged by claims for "no-aging" diets, new vitamins, and other wonder foods. There are numerous unsubstantiated reports that natural vitamins are superior to synthetic ones, that fertilized eggs are nutritionally superior to unfertilized eggs, that untreated grains are better than fumigated grains and the like.
One thing that most organically grown food products seem to have in common is that they cost more than conventionally grown foods. But in many cases consumers are misled if they believe organic foods can maintain health and provide better nutritional quality than conventionally grown foods. So there is real cause for concern if consumers, particularly those with limited incomes, distrust the regular food and buy and buy only expensive organic foods instead.
The word "organically" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to
- A. steadily
- B. slowly
- C. conventionally
- D. naturally
- A. Proponents
- B. Merchants
- C. Inspectors
- D. Consumers
- A. advantages
- B. advocates
- C. organic foods
- D. products
- A. interest in food safety and nutritional quality of the typical North American diet
- B. the nutritional quality of the typical North American diet
- C. the amount of healthy food grown in North America
- D. the number of consumers in North America
- A. It is accepted by most nutritionists
- B. It has been used only in recent years
- C. It has no fixed meaning
- D. It is seldom used by consumers
- A. unbelievable
- B. uncontested
- C. unpopular
- D. unverified
- A. improve
- B. monitor
- C. preserve
- D. restore
- A. organic foods can be more expensive but are often no better than conventionally grown foods
- B. many organic foods are actually less nutritious than similar conventionally grown foods
- C. conventionally grown foods are more readily available than organic foods
- D. too many farmers will stop using conventional methods to grow food crops
- A. careless
- B. mistaken
- C. thrifty
- D. wealthy
- A. Very enthusiastic
- B. Somewhat favorable
- C. Neutral
- D. Skeptical
