 |
| You are here: Home > MCAT Test > Sample MCAT Questions > Verbal Reasoning | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Sample MCAT Questions: Verbal Reasoning
DIRECTIONS: The questions are based on the accompanying passages. Read each passage carefully, then answer the following questions. Consider only the material within the passage. For each question, select the ONE BEST ANSWER and indicate your selection by marking the corresponding letter on the Answer Form.
Passage I (Questions 1-7)
The American flapper, who came into existence during the revolution of manners and morals described by Allen and who owes her name, in part, to the British flapper, came to be associated in the 1920s withthe illustrations of John Held, Jr., America's leading cartoonist of theJazz Age. In film the first flapper was Colleen Moore, who appeared in themovie Flapperdom in 1922, and was shortly joined by Clara Bow, the"It" girl, who came to be considered as the quintessence of the flapper.But it is Fitzgerald who is, over and over in the popular magazines of histime credited with inventing or discovering the flapper, as the followingsamples demonstrate. A 1921 article in Shadowland,entitled "Fitzgerald, Flappers and Fame," acknowledgesFitzgerald as "the recognized spokesman of the younger generation ... sincethe publication of his now famous flapper tale 'This Side of Paradise."'in a newspaper clipping from 1922 pasted in the Fitzgeralds' scrapbooks,Fitzgerald is called "The Flapper Laureate." Another from the same periodis headlined, "F. Scott Fitzgerald Tells How He Discovered the Flapper."Even into the 1930s editors and reviewers continued to associate Fitzgeraldwith his tales of the Jazz Age and to echo the call for the flapper stories.Magazine editors continued into the mid-i 930s to ask for the old Fitzgeraldstories of flappers and "flask gin," but by the mid-1920s he had given uphis creation for which he is now perhaps most often remembered in favor offictional individuals that he hoped would defy stereotyping. The popularmagazines of the Jazz Age, now in the bound periodicals section of most libraries,remain the most accessible shrine, though now perhaps a dusty one, to theFitzgerald Flapper.
B. The Novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald. C. F. Scott Fitzgerald: Creator of the American Flapper. D. America in the Post-World War I Decade.
C. It was originally an American term which was associated with the flapping arm movements of women who were dancing. D. No one is certain where the word "flapper" came from.
C. flappers had been associated in Britain with prostitution. D. the movies are primarily responsible for popularizing the flapper.
B. women's growing independence from the drudgeries of housekeeping. C. the postwar revolution in manners and morals. D. all of the above.
B. Fitzgerald was writing about flappers in the mid-1930s. C. Clara Bow was the first flapper in film. D. Fitzgerald wanted to continue writing about flappers but the public had tired of his stereotype.
II. Fitzgerald will be remembered for creating the flapper in fiction. III. John Held, Jr. was a better cartoonist than writer. IV. Fitzgerald gave up writing about the flapper because he wanted to create less stereotyped characters. B. I and III C. III and IV 7. The passage would support:
B. a conclusion that the flapper appeared both in fiction and in film. C. a conclusion that Fitzgerald was an autobiographical writer. D. a conclusion that the flapper was judged to be immoral by the middle-brow American reading public.
Therefore, drugs may not always serve primarily as reinforcers of behavior but may have important secondary reinforcing qualities as well. Regardless of the reasons for using a specific chemical agent, however, it should be understood that most drugs produce their effects via an alteration of brain neurochemistry, which can lead to other more long-term problems, especially if the drug is consumed on a chronic basis. Once an individual takes on the responsibility of using a given chemical agent chronically, then he/she is beginning to allow other variables to take over his/her own drug taking behavior, and to some degree will lose his/her ability to control this behavior. Taking drugs repeatedly means that one swallows, injects, sniffs, or smokes a given agent at certain times, in certain places and possibly with 'certain people. Each time a drug is taken all these events become cumulatively conditioned with the drug forming a conditioned-stimulus (cs) complex (learned associations). If repeated enough times, the drug takes on stimulus properties initiating certain effects psycho-logically. Thus, if one associates smoking behavior with feeling good with friends (peer control), then one may need to smoke when those friends are not present to feel good. Conversely, the presence of friends may also act as a stimulus to smoking. What occurs is that the use of the drug can come under environmental (stimulus) control and behavior comes under drug-induced stimulus control. Over time these events can merge to a point where drug taking becomes more and more contingent upon environmental events. The example of this stimulus-complex may be too simplistic, but one may be able to significantly reduce his/her pain by going through the drug taking ritual without administering the drug. Thus, the pharmacological effects of morphine, for example, may be elicited by going through the ritual including an injection of water. Counselors feel that some heroin addicts may be addicted to the needle, and thus the term, "needle freaks." Much of these effects are difficult to detect but have been verified in controlled human experiments. We should not take these effects lightly and should suspect that similar CS complex can occur with most drugs we take. Acute behaviorally effective doses of psychoactive drugs generally disrupt most learned behaviors. Thus, alcohol acutely disruptsthe ability of any individual to drive an automobile. However, if the individual continues to drive under the influence of alcohol, then two things can occur. First, the individual will develop behavioral tolerance to the alcohol. That is, such a person will learn to adapt to the drug state and will learn how to manage his/her automobile in spite of the pharmacological effects of alcohol. As this process continues, the learning of how to drive the car and how to get to certain places (to the ABC store) can also become contingent uponthe alcohol state. Thus, an individual may have difficulties finding theABC store when sober. This phenomena is called drug-induced slate dependent learning. Its premiseis that the retention of information learned under the drug state is contingentupon the reinstitution of the drug state. There are many examples of thiswith most psychoactive drugs. In fact, one might consider this a form ofdependence. Thus, a person may need to continue using a specific drug inorder to perform specific tasks learned under the drug state. Drugs that are abused by man appear to have very subtle but profound effects on specific neurotransmitter systems in the brain. In the normal state these chemicals, which are the means by which nerves communicate with each other, are in a very delicate balance allowing one to perceivehis/her environment and make adjustments to act in accordance with his/ herown needs. Psychoactive drugs tend to disrupt this balance, which in effectalters an individual's ability to respond in his/her environment. At this point there is 6ne theoretical model that suggests that the drug dependent person's neurochemical system is out of balance and that the individual uses a given drug to allow his/her neurochemical systems to function in a more normal fashion. This theory has been promoted as a mental health model in order to explain the success of chemotherapyin the control of several psychotic states. However, this has yet to be substantiated in the substance abuse area.
8. This passage deals with: II.the habitual drug use: the condition of drug effects as a prelude to dependency. III.learning aspects. IV. neurochemical aspects. B. I and III D. I, II, III, and IV
A. A drink here and there really does not hurt. B. Your first drink starts you on your way to drug abuse. C. A pleasurable state is associated with euphoria. D. Drug use follows certain patterns.
10. Human beings partake in drugs because of: C. depression due to marital pressure. D. all of the above.
11. Chemical agents consumed chronically: B. seem to act in a predictable fashion. C. modulate neurochemical mechanisms. D. have relatively short-term effects.
12. Once an individual is addicted: A. ritual becomes the order of the day. B. environmental conditions may play a dominant role. C. injection of a placebo replaces the chemical. D. the side effects decrease and use becomes less harmful.
B. certain tasks can be better performed while under the effects of drugs. C. certain tasks may be difficult to perform if not under the influence Qf drugs. D. behavioral tolerance will lessen the influence of drug affliction.
A. Many variables play a role in the effects exhibited by drugs. B. Drug users lose the ability to control their own drug taking behavior. C. Chemotherapy is the cure for drug use. D. Specific neurotransmitters are affected by drug use.
A. agents that make an individual feel that he/ she "can take on the world." B. primary and/or secondary reinforcers of behavior. C. crutches for persons who have low self-esteem. D. all of the above. Passage III (Questions 16-24)
For almost a thousand years Alexandria was the world's center of higher learning. The library eventually contained a half million scrolls, and the museum contained a zoo, botanical garden, astronomical observatory, anatomical exhibit, and treasures from around the world. Teaching was limited only to what was necessary to train researchers for the next generation.The main focus was on improving understanding so that each generation couldinherit a more advanced civilization. Teaching was not an end or good initself. The school of Alexandria was modeled after the Lyceumof Aristotle. What Aristotle received from Plato and what passed to the school at Alexandria was a sense of optimism and dedication in seeking the truth. We know that Plato marveled at the underlying principles of mathematics,such as the Pythagorean theorem, and that he tried to find underlying principles or "truths" in other fields of study. Aristotle's improvement was to take this idea of generalization apart and show that when deduction and induction were used alternately, we had a method of finding underlying principles. The first librarian was Herodotus of Ephesus, who with these new methods of logic, dared to edit Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. The second librarian was Eratosthenes of Cyrene who, to mention one specific item, measured the size of the earth. First, he measured the angle of the sun (six degrees) at midday on midsummer's day at Alexandria because he knew from previous trips to Syrene (near today's Aswan Dam) that the sun shone to the bottom of its wells (zero degrees) on that very day and time eachyear. Then, he only had to measure the distance between these two placesto calculate the circumference of the earth (60/360 = distance/circumference). The third librarian, Aristophanes of Byzantium, commissioned 70 scholars to translate the Bible into Greek; and this translation, used by Jesus Christ, became known as the Septuagint. (There is other evidence to suggest that the "flight into Egypt" took place in Alexandria.) The fourth librarian was Aristarchus of Samosthrace who developed the eight parts of speech and wrote commentaries on the works of Homer, Pindar, and Aristophanes of Athens. Returning to the faculty, we should not fail to acknowledge what we owe to Euclid beyond geometry. Euclid, who was commissioned to start a school of mathematics around 300 B.C., established a mode of accumulating understanding by starting with a few axioms and theories, stacking conclusions into workable structures of knowledge. Examples today would be the Periodic Chart of Elements, the Myers-Briggs Personality Types, and the concept of management schools, to name a few structures or inferential models in different disciplines. Apollonius and Archimedes were in the next generationof scholars. Whereas Apollonius gave us the conic sections, Archimedes gaveus number systems (myriads) capable of counting the sands of the earth. That same generation included Aristarchus of Samos who taught that the earth moved around the sun and whose name appeared in the margin of a book used by Copernicus while studying at Bologna in the seventeenth century. During the following century, Hipparchus of Nicea calculated the length of the year to within minutes and the length of the month to a few seconds. Around 150 A.D. Claudius Ptolemy wrote 13 books on astronomy, called the Almagest. This set also explained that finding a descriptive model for understanding was more important than accounting for every fact or observation. In hisbooks on astrology, he summarized the beliefs of the Greeks, Egyptians, andPersians and gave us the horoscopes and Zodiac signs used today. Also around150 A.D. Galen came to Alexandria to study. He was the authority on medicinefor more than a thousand years; when physicians found parts of a body todiffer from his descriptions, they concluded that the person was abnormal. During the early days of Alexandria, prisoners were dissected alive. However, evil was not limited to "pagans" but discrimination and killing occurred between Jews and Greeks, Christians and Egyptians, and so on. Around 400 A.D., a Christian mob under Cyril ripped the flesh off the mathematician Hypatia because her beliefs were not like theirs. Whereas understanding could be accumulated in libraries and transmitted by books from generation to generation, wisdom (seeing the importance of doing good for others, i.e. human truths) has to be reinspired again and again by individuals in each generation. Through the centuries, religion and classical humanism have contended to underwrite the meaning of wisdom. Sometimes, religion (morality) provided the rationale for justice, at other times, humanism (ethics). Whatever, the lesson from Alexandria's past is that whenever a true sense of the underlying principles of morality or ethics was not present, minorities and individuals suffered. Thus, during periods of ebbing or pluralistic religious beliefs (like today), ethics becomes necessary to form a behavioral consensus, to "hold these truths." Accordingly, the university's first mission is not to acquire new understandings nor to teach many students, but to reinspire wisdom at an effective level in each new generation.
A. It was basically a teacher-training school. B. It was an academy of philosophers. C. It was a natural history museum. D. It was mostly a scholarly research institute.
B.limited to mathematical proofs. C.underlying principles in any field. D.what was agreed to by consensus. 18. Eratosthenes was able to measure the angle of the sun at two distant places on the earth's surface simultaneously by: B. having two teams measure angles at the same time and date. C. calculating the transit of the sun between measurements. D. calculating the movement (turning) of the earth between measurements.
B. Jesus Christ knew the Greek version of the 'bible. C. Jesus Christ used the accentuation and punctuation of Alexandria. D. Jesus Christ was against plagiarism.
20. What statement best fits Claudius Ptolemy? A. He was an ancient astronomer. B. He was an ancient astrologer. C. He was both an astronomer and astrologer. D. He was a historian.
21. A key difference between understanding and wisdomis:
A. wisdom is ancient; understanding is modern. B. understanding can be accumulated across the generations; wisdom must be renewed in each generation. C. understanding deals with things, whereas wisdom deals with people. D. wisdom is subjective; understanding is objective.
22. The author's main point seems to be;
A. that the study of ethical truths is needed in today's religiously pluralistic world. B. that we should all have the wisdom to D. that people need both morality and ethics today.
23. From a historical point of view, this passage provides the reader with:
B. a running commentary of the 1000 years during which Alexandria was the world's center of learning. C. statements made by the great philosophers Aristotle and Plato regarding the teaching of wisdom to new generations. D. documentation regarding the destruction of the library of Alexandria by Omar I in 642 A.D.
B. Oman. D. Eratosthenes.
Passage IV (Questions 25-30)
Charles James Correll (February 2, 1890-September 26,1972), radio comedian and co-creator with Freeman Gosden of Amos 'n Andy was the son of Joseph Boland Correll and (though there are some inconsistencies about his mother's first name) Julia A. Fiss Correll. He was born in Peoria, Illinois, where he grew upin a stable, working class family. While still in school, he worked as anusher in a local vaudeville house and developed an interest in show business.After graduating from Peoria's public high school, he began to follow hisfather's trade as a bricklayer. In his spare time, however, he played pianoin Peoria's silent movie houses and sang, danced, and took small parts inlocal shows. In 1918, after being noticed by the director of a local show, Correll was offered a job with the Joe Bren Company of Chicago. Bren specialized in producing minstrel shows as fund-raisers for charitable groups in small cities. For the next 6 years Correll traveled the country, directing productions for Bren. In 1919, doing a show in Durham, North Carolina, he first met Freeman Gosden, who had just been hired by Bren and was to be trained by Correll. The two became friends, often sharing an apartment during summers when both men were in Chicago, preparing for the next season. In 1924 both men were brought to Bren's Chicago home office, Gosden to manage Bren's new circus division, Correll to manage the shows division. Sharing an apartment, Correll and Gosden began to write musical reviews together, and they worked up a "song and chatter" act. In March, 1925, they began an 8-month series of weekly appearances on Chicago's radio station WEGH. Soon they were doing occasional appearances in showsand on radio programs in St. Louis, in Columbus, Ohio, and other places inthe midwest. During the summer of 1925 they both resigned from the Bren Company and began concentrating on a career in vaudeville. However, the Chicago Tribune’s radio station offered them $200 a week, and in November, 1925, they began a series of nightly broadcastson WON. At the suggestion of the station's management, Correll and Gosden used their experiences with minstrel shows to work up a "radio comic strip" about two African American boys, and on January 12, 1926, Sam 'n Henry began a series of nightly 10-minute broadcasts on WON. The show was an immediate hit. In 1928, however, a rival Chicago newspaper lured Correll and Gosden away from WON, though the T ribune retained all rights to Sam 'n Henry and continued broadcasting the show with two new men. At the Chicago Daily News 's radio station WMAQ, on March 19, 1928, Correll and Gosden began broadcasting six nights a week with a 15-minute show about two African American men living in Harlem. Amos 'n Andy focused on the misadventures of Amos Jones, played by Freeman Gosden as energetic, enterprising, and honest, and Andrew H. Brown, played by Correll as indolent but good-hearted. Gradually, the team added characters, but until the 1940s all the writing and voices were done by Correll and Gosden. The show was a huge success, and with the help of the Tribune's publicitystaff, in 1929 Correll and Gosden even put out a book (All About Amos 'n Andy and Their Creators Correll and Gosden) to satisfy Chicago listeners' curiosity. Within a short time NBC was offeringCorrell and Gosden $100,000 a year, and on August 19, 1929, Pepsodent toothpastebegan sponsoring Amos 'n Andy NBC's Red network. Amos 'n Andy became network radio's first huge success. Within a few years, Correll and Gosden had moved to California where they appeared in movies, published books of Amos 'n Andy dialogue, and lived the life of Hollywood stars. Despite protests about the racial stereotyping of Amos 'n Andy, especially from the African American Press, Correll and Gosden's show remained popular throughout the Great Depressi6n and into the 1940s. Short, stocky, and dark haired (later gray), Correll became the relaxed, gregarious half of the partnership, balancing Freeman Gosden's more temperamental, difficult, and creative personality. Correll enjoyed his success. He bought a large, lavish home in Beverly Hills; he indulged in expensively stylish clothes, and became an enthusiastic golfer. After a divorce from his first wife, Marie Janes(whom he had married in 1927), he married the dancer, Alyce Mercedes McLaughlin in 1937. They eventually had four children. With World War II, listenership began to drop. In February, 1943, after changing networks and sponsors several times, Amos 'n Andy left the air. In October it returned as a half-hour weekly variety program featuring guest stars, an orchestra, outside writers, and a studio audience. This show continued with NBC until 1948 when Correll and Gosden, along with Jack Benny and other stars, left NBC. For $2.5 million Correll and Gosden sold CBS all the rights to Amos 'n Andy for the next 20 years, and they also received star salaries to play the chief parts. Within a few years, television ended the success of their variety show, but from 1954 into the 1960s, Correll and Gosden stayed onCBS radio with a new show, The Amos and Andy MusicHall, mixing skits with popular records. On November 25, 1960 they left the air permanently. In the mid-1950s, CBS developed a situation comedy based on Amos 'n Andy characters. Correll and Gosden were creative consultants, but the cast was entirely African American. The show had modest success with audiences, but it was embroiled in constant racial controversy. The NAACP protested the show vehemently,and the cast had frequent problems with the scripts. Neither Correll norGosden was prepared for the kind of bitterness that the TV show had engendered,and both men, especially Gosden, felt deeply wounded by some accusations. After the TV series ended and their last radio show was over, Correll and Gosden remained friends, living near each other in quiet retirement in their Beverly Hills homes. Correll continued throughout his life to maintain warm and friendly connections with his midwestern roots, and returning to Chicago, he died there at the age of 82.
B. Correll was independently wealthy and took up vaudeville because he could find nothing else that interested him D. Correll preferred his father's profession of bricklaying to show business, but he was better at entertainment than at bricklaying.
A. He was more even-tempered. B. He was more temperamental. C. He was a better pianist. D. He was the funniest.
27. What event marked the beginning of the first decline of popularity of the Amos 'n Andy Show?
A. The Great Depression. D. World War II.
28. What does the passage indicate happened to the Sam 'n Henry Show after Correll and Gosden left radio station WGN?
A. They carried their show with them to rival station, WMAQ. B. WGN retained rights to the show and continued it without Correll and Gosden. C. Correll and Gosden retained rights to the show but changed its name to the Amos 'n Andy Show D. The show was canceled.
A. Angry C. Wounded B. Vindictive D. Indifferent
30. In retirement, both Correll and Gosden were financially secure. What was the state of their friendship in the later years of their lives?
B. They remained friends and lived near each other inBeverly Hills. C. They quarreled bitterly over money and parted enemies. D. They occupied adjoining suites in the Beverly Hilton until Correll returned to Peoria. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Link to us | Contact us | Home Copyright 2008 The Eduers.com. All Rights Reserved |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
