READING TEST 9
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, to each question. Then, on your answer sheets, find the number of the question and fill in the space that corresponds to the letter of the answer you have chosen. Answer all questions following a passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage.
Time allowance: You have 60 minutes to answer all the questions, including the time to transfer your answers to the answer sheet.
PASSAGE 1 QUESTIONS 1 - 10
Phillis Wheatley was born in Gambia (in Africa) on May 8, 1753 and died in Boston on December 5, 1784.
When she was 7 or 8, she was sold as a slave to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston. She was named after the ship that brought her to America, The Phillis.
The Poetry Foundation describes her sale:
In August 1761, "in want of a domestic," Susanna Wheatley, purchased "a slender, frail female child for a trifle." The captain of the slave ship believed that the waif was terminally ill, and he wanted at least a small profit before she died. The family surmised the girl - who was "of slender frame and evidently suffering from a change of climate," nearly naked, with "no other covering than a quantity of dirty carpet above her" - to be "about seven years old from the circumstances of shedding her front teeth." (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/phillis-wheatley)
Phillis was very intelligent. The Wheatley Family taught her to read and write, and encouraged her to write poetry. Her first poem "On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin" was published when she was only twelve. In 1770, "An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of that Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Reverend and Learned George Whitefield" made her famous. It was published in Boston, Newport, and Philadelphia.
When she was eighteen, Phillis and Mrs. Wheatley tried to sell a collection containing twenty-eight of her poems. Colonists did not want to buy poetry written by an African. Mrs. Wheatley wrote to England to ask Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, for help. The Countess was a wealthy supporter of evangelical and abolitionist (anti-slavery) causes. She had Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral published in England in 1773. This book made Phillis famous in England and the thirteen colonies. She wrote a poem for George Washington in 1775, and he praised her work. They met in 1776. Phillis supported independence for the colonies during the Revolutionary War.
After her master died, Phillis was emancipated. She married John Peters, a free black man, in 1778. She and her husband lost two children as infants. John would be imprisoned for debt in 1784. Phillis and her remaining child died in December of 1784 and were buried in an unmarked grave. Nevertheless, the legacy of Phillis Wheatly lives on. She became the first African American and the first slave in the United States to publish a book. She proved that slaves or former slaves had a valuable voice in the Revolutionary era.
Câu 1: It can be inferred from the passage that the Countess of Huntingdon _______.
- A. didn't care about Phillis' poetry
- B. helped Phillis get her writings published
- C. believed in slavery
- D. was surprised that Phillis could read and write
- A. Who did Phillis marry?
- B. Where were Phillis' works published?
- C. What did Phillis prove?
- D. Why was Phillis a slave?
- A. when she published her poems in England
- B. after meeting the Countess of Huntingdon
- C. when she became wealthy
- D. after her master died
- A. illegal
- B. imaginary
- C. unsuccessful
- D. successful
- A. She was the first African-American slave to visit England.
- B. She was the first African-American slave to publish a book in the United States.
- C. She was the first African-American slave to be able to read and write.
- D. She was the first African-American slave to meet George Washington.
- A. her size
- B. the condition of her teeth
- C. her color
- D. her weight
- A. no longer a slave
- B. married
- C. a published poet
- D. still not able to read or write
- A. she would soon recover from her illness
- B. she was very intelligent
- C. she was worth a lot of money
- D. she would soon die
- A. A military general
- B. Somebody who Phillis admired greatly
- C. Phillis' husband
- D. A slave owner
- A. No one knows
- B. Africa
- C. Boston
- D. Virginia
PASSAGE 2 QUESTIONS 11 - 20
The conservatism of the early English colonists in North America, their strong attachment to the English way of doing things, would play a major part in the furniture that was made in New England. The very tools that the first New England furniture makers used were, after all, not much different from those used for centuries - even millennia: basic hammers, saws, chisels, planes, augers, compasses, and measures. These were the tools used more or less by all people who worked with wood: carpenters, barrel makers, and shipwrights. At most the furniture makers might have had planes with special edges or more delicate chisels, but there could not have been much specialization in the early years of the colonies.
The furniture makers in those early decades of the 1600s were known as "joiners", for the primary method of constructing furniture, at least among the English of this time, was that of mortise-and-tenon joinery. The mortise is the hole chiseled and cut into one piece of wood, while the tenon is the tongue or protruding element shaped from another piece of wood so that it fits into the mortise; and another small hole is then drilled (with the auger) through the mortised end and the tenon so that a whittled peg can secure the joint - thus the term "joiner". Panels were fitted into slots on the basic frames. This kind of construction was used for making everything from houses to chests.
Relatively little hardware was used during this period. Some nails - forged by hand - were used, but no screws or glue. Hinges were often made of leather, but metal hinges were also used. The cruder varieties were made by blacksmiths in the colonies, but the finer metal elements were imported. Locks and escutcheon plates - the latter to shield the wood from the metal key - would often be imported. Above all, what the early English colonists imported was their knowledge of, familiarity with, and dedication to the traditional types and designs of furniture they knew in England.
Câu 11: The phrase "attachment to" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______.
- A. control of
- B. distance from
- C. curiosity about
- D. preference for
- A. parallel
- B. simple
- C. projecting
- D. important
- A. a lock and a key
- B. a book and its cover
- C. a cup and a saucer
- D. a hammer and a nail
- A. to whittle a peg
- B. to make a tenon
- C. to drill a hole
- D. to measure a panel
- A. Mortises
- B. Nails
- C. Hinges
- D. Screws
- A. unable to make elaborate parts
- B. more skilled than woodworkers
- C. more conservative than other colonists
- D. frequently employed by joiners
- A. decorate
- B. copy
- C. shape
- D. protect
- A. designs
- B. types
- C. colonists
- D. all
- A. were highly paid
- B. based their furniture on English models
- C. used many specialized tools
- D. had to adjust to using new kinds of wood in New England
- A. Millennia
- B. Joiners
- C. Whittled
- D. Blacksmiths
