ECAT Pre Computer Science MCQ Test With Answer for English Chapter 8 (Comprehension)

When her grandmother’s health began to deteriorate in the fall of 1994, Mary would make the drive from Washington, DC to Winchester every few days.

She hated highway driving, finding it ugly and monotonous. She preferred to take meandering back roads to her grandmother’s hospital. When she drove through the rocky town of Harpers Ferry, the beauty of the rough waters churning at the intersection of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers always captivated her.

Toward the end of her journey, Mary had to get on highway 81. It was here that she discovered a surprising bit of beauty during one of her trips. Along the median of the highway, there was a long stretch of wildflowers. They were thin and delicate and purple, and swayed in the wind as if whispering poems to each other.

The first time she saw the flowers, Mary was seized by an uncontrollable urge to pull over on the highway and yank a bunch from the soil. She carried them into her grandmother’s room when she arrived at the hospital and placed them in a water pitcher by her bed. For a moment her grandmother seemed more lucid than usual. She thanked Mary for the flowers, commented on their beauty and asked where she had gotten them. Mary was overjoyed by the ability of the flowers to wake something up inside her ailing grandmother.

Afterwards, Mary began carrying scissors in the car during her trips to visit her grandmother. She would quickly glide onto the shoulder, jump out of the car, and clip a bunch of flowers. Each time Mary placed the flowers in the pitcher, her grandmother’s eyes would light up and they would have a splendid conversation.

One morning in late October, Mary got a call that her grandmother had taken a turn for the worse. Mary was in such a hurry to get to her grandmother that she sped past her flower spot. She decided to turn around head several miles back, and cut a bunch. Mary arrived at the hospital to find her grandmother very weak and unresponsive. She placed flowers in the pitcher and sat down. She felt a squeeze on her fingers. It was the last conversation they had.

Which of the following accurately describe Mary’s personality?

I Impatient

II Drawn towards beauty

III Loving

In the early 1920's, settlers came to Alaska looking for gold. They traveled by boat to the coastal towns of Seward and Knik, and from there by land into the gold fields. The trail they used to travel inland is known today as the lditarod Trail, one of the National Historic Trails designated by the congress of the United States. The Iditarod Trail quickly became a major thoroughfare in Alaska, as the mail and supplies were carried across this trail. People also used it to get from place to place, including the priests, ministers, and judges who had to travel between villages down this trail was via god sled.

Once the gold rush ended, many gold-seekers went back to where they had come from, and suddenly there was much less travel on the lditarod Trail. The introduction of the airplane in the late 1920's meant dog teams were mode of transportation, of course airplane carrying the mail and supplies, there was less need for land travel in general. The final blow to the use of the dog teams was the appearance of snowmoniles.

By the mid 1960's most Alasknas didn't even know the lditarod Trail existed, or that dos teens had played a crucial role in Alaska's early settlements. Dorothy G.Page, a self-made historian, recognized how few people knew about the former use of sled dogs as working animals and about the Iditarod Trail's role in Alaska's colorful history. To she came up with the idea to have a god sled race over the Iditarod Trail. She presented her idea to an enthusiastic musher, as dog sled drivers are known, named Joe Redington, Sr. Soon the pages and the Redintons were working together to promote the idea of the Iditarod race.

Many people worked to make the first Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race a reality in 1967. The Aurora Dog Mushers Club, along with men from the Adult Camp in Sutton, helped clear years of overgrowth from the first nine miles of the Iditarod Trail. To raise interest in the race, a $25,000 purse was offered, with Joe Redington donating one acre of his land to help raise the funds. The short race, approximately 27 miles long, was put on a second time in 1969.

After these first two successful races, the goal was to lengthen the race a little further to the ghost town of Iditarod by 1973. However in 1972, the U.S. Army reopened the trail as a winter exercise, and so in 1973, the decision was made to take the race all the way to the city of Nome-over 1,000 miles. There were who believed it could bot be done and that it wad crazy to send a bunch out into vast, uninhabited Alaskan wilderness. But the race went! 22 mushers finished that year, and to date over 400 people have completed it.

Based on information in the passage, it can be inferred that because the U.S. Army reopened the Iditarod Trail in 1972,

On January 3, 1961, nine days after Christmas, Richard Legg, John Byrnes, and Richard McKinley were killed in a remote desert in eastern Idaho. Their deaths occurred when a nuclear reactor exploded at a top-secret base in the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS). Official reports state that the explosion and subsequent reactor meltdown resulted from the improper retraction of the control rod. When questioned about the events that occurred there, officials were very reticent. The whole affair, in fact, was discussed much, and seemed to disappear with time.

In order to grasp the mysterious nature of the NRTS catastrophe, it help to know a bit about how nuclear reactors work. After all, the generation of nuclear energy may strike many as an esoteric process. However, given its relative simplicity, the way in which the NRTS reactor functions is widely comprehensible. In this particular kind of reactor, a cluster of nine-ton uranium fuel rods are positioned lengthwise around a central control rod. The reaction begins with the slow removal of the control ro, which starts a controlled nuclear reaction and begins to heat the water in the reactor. This heat generates steam, which builds pressure inside the tank. As pressure builds, the steam looks for a place to escape. The only place this steam is able to escape is through the turbine. As it passes through the turbine on its way out of the tank, it turns the giant fan blades and produces energy.

On the morning of January 3, after the machine had been shut down for the holidays, the three men arrived at the station to restart the reactor. The control rod needed to be pulled out only four inches to be reconnected to the automated driver. However, records indicate that Byrnes yanked it out 23 inches, over five times the distance necessary. In milliseconds the reactor exploded. Legg was impaled on the ceiling; he would be discovered last. It took one week and a lead-shielded crane to remove his body. Even in full protective gear, workers were only able to work a minute at a time. The three men are buried in lead-lined coffins under concrete in New York, Michigan, and Arlington Cemetery, Virginia.

The investigation took nearly two years to complete. Did Byrnes have a dark motive? Or was it simply an accident? Did he know how precarious the procedure was? Other operators were questioned as to whether they knew the consequences of pulling the control rod out so far. They responded “Of course! We often talked about what we would do if we were at a radar station and the Russians came.

“We’d yank it out.”

Official reports are oddly ambiguous, but what they do not explain, gossip does. Rumors had it that there was tension between the men because Byrnes suspected the other two of being involved with his young wife. There is little doubt than he, like the other operators, knew exactly what would happen when he yanked the control rod.

The tone of the author can best be described as

On January 3, 1961, nine days after Christmas, Richard Legg, John Byrnes, and Richard McKinley were killed in a remote desert in eastern Idaho. Their deaths occurred when a nuclear reactor exploded at a top-secret base in the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS). Official reports state that the explosion and subsequent reactor meltdown resulted from the improper retraction of the control rod. When questioned about the events that occurred there, officials were very reticent. The whole affair, in fact, was discussed much, and seemed to disappear with time.

In order to grasp the mysterious nature of the NRTS catastrophe, it help to know a bit about how nuclear reactors work. After all, the generation of nuclear energy may strike many as an esoteric process. However, given its relative simplicity, the way in which the NRTS reactor functions is widely comprehensible. In this particular kind of reactor, a cluster of nine-ton uranium fuel rods are positioned lengthwise around a central control rod. The reaction begins with the slow removal of the control ro, which starts a controlled nuclear reaction and begins to heat the water in the reactor. This heat generates steam, which builds pressure inside the tank. As pressure builds, the steam looks for a place to escape. The only place this steam is able to escape is through the turbine. As it passes through the turbine on its way out of the tank, it turns the giant fan blades and produces energy.

On the morning of January 3, after the machine had been shut down for the holidays, the three men arrived at the station to restart the reactor. The control rod needed to be pulled out only four inches to be reconnected to the automated driver. However, records indicate that Byrnes yanked it out 23 inches, over five times the distance necessary. In milliseconds the reactor exploded. Legg was impaled on the ceiling; he would be discovered last. It took one week and a lead-shielded crane to remove his body. Even in full protective gear, workers were only able to work a minute at a time. The three men are buried in lead-lined coffins under concrete in New York, Michigan, and Arlington Cemetery, Virginia.

The investigation took nearly two years to complete. Did Byrnes have a dark motive? Or was it simply an accident? Did he know how precarious the procedure was? Other operators were questioned as to whether they knew the consequences of pulling the control rod out so far. They responded “Of course! We often talked about what we would do if we were at a radar station and the Russians came.

“We’d yank it out.”

Official reports are oddly ambiguous, but what they do not explain, gossip does. Rumors had it that there was tension between the men because Byrnes suspected the other two of being involved with his young wife. There is little doubt than he, like the other operators, knew exactly what would happen when he yanked the control rod.

Based on information in the final paragraph, which of the following statements would the author likely agree with?

Although cynics may like to see he government’s policy for women in terms of the party’s internal power struggles, it will nevertheless be churlish to deny that it represents a pioneering effect aimed at bringing about sweeping social reforms. In its language, scope and strategies, the policy documents displays a degree of understanding of women’s needs that is uncommon in government pronouncements. This is due in large part to the participatory process that marked its formulation, seeking the active involvement right from the start of women’s groups, academic institutions and non-government organizations with grass roots experience. The result is not just a lofty declaration of principles but a blueprint for a practical program of action. The policy delineates a series of concrete measures to accord women a decision-making role in the political domain and greater control over their economic status. Of especially far-reaching impart are the devolution of control of economic infrastructure to women, notably at the gram panchayat level, and the amendment proposed in the Act of 1956 to give women comparcenary rights.

And enlightened aspect of the policy is its recognition that actual change in the status of women cannot be brought about by the mere enactment of socially progressive legislation. Accordingly, it focuses on reorienting development programs and sensitizing administrations to address specific situations as, for instance, the growing number of households headed by women, which is a consequence of rural-urban migration. The proposal to create an equal-opportunity police force and give women greater control of police stations is an acknowledgement of the biases and callousness displayed by the generally all-male law-enforcement authorities in case of dowery and domestic violence. While the mere enunciation of such a policy has the salutary effect of sensitizing the administration as a whole, it does not make the task of its implementation any easier. This is because the changes it envisages in the political and economic status of woman strike at the root of power structures in society and the basis of man-woman relationship. There is also the danger that reservation for women in public life, while necessary for their greater visibility, could lapse into tokenism or become a tool in the hands of vote seeking politicians. Much will depend on the dissemination of the policy and the ability of elected representatives and government agencies to reorder their priorities.

Which of the following is opposite in meaning to ‘lofty’ as used in the passage?

The year 2006 was the golden anniversary, or the 50^th birthday, of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. This system, usually referred to as The Interstate Highway System, is a system of freeways named after the U.S. President who supported it. The system is the largest highway system in the world, consisting of 46,876 miles (75,440 km) of freeways. The construction of the interstate highway system is an important part of American history. It has played a major role in preserving and maintaining the America way of life.

The interstate highway system has several major functions. One of its major functions is to facilitate the distribution of US good. Because the intestate passes through many downtown areas, it plays an important role in the distribution of almost all goods in the United States. Nearly all products travel at least part of the way to their destination on the Interstate System. Another major function of the interstate is to facilitate military troop movement to and from airports, seaports, rail terminals and other military destinations. The Interstate highways are connected to route in the Strategic Highway Network, which is a system of highways that are vital to the U.S. Department of Defense.

Today, most of the Interstate system consists of newly constructed highways. The longest section of the Interstate system runs from Boston, Massachusetts to Seattle, Washington. It covers 3,020.54 miles. The shortest two-digit interstate is from Emery, North Caroline to Greensboro, North Caroline. It covers only 12.27 miles. All state capitals except five are served by the system. The five that are not directly served are Juneau, AK, Dover, DE, Jefferson City, MO, Carson City, NV, and Pierre, SD. The Interstate Highway System serves almost all major U.S. cities.

EACH Interstate highway is marked with a red, white, and blue shield with the word “Interstate,” the name of the state, and the route number. Interstate highways are named with one or two-digit numbers. North-south highways are designated with odd numbers; east-west highways are named with even numbers. The north-south Interstate highways begin in the west with the lowest odd number; the east-west highways begin in the south with the lowest even numbers. There all mile markers at each mile of the interstate system, starting at the westernmost or southernmost point on the highway. Every Interstate highway begins with the number “0”. Interchanges are numbered according to their location on the highway in relation to mileage; an exit between milepost 7 and milepost 8 would be designated “Exit 7.” This system allows drivers estimate the distance to a desired exit, which a road is leading off the highway. Despite the common acceptance of the numbering system on the Interstate highways, some states have adopted different numbering systems. For example, a portion of the Interstate 19 in Arizona is measured in kilometers instead of miles since the highway goes south to Mexico.

Since the Interstate highways are freeways-highways that do not have signs and cross streets – they have the highest speed limits in the nation. Most interstate highways have speed limits between 65 – 75 miles per hour (105 – 120 kilometers per hour), but some areas in Texas and Utah have an 80 mile-per-hour (130 kilometer-per-hour) speed limit.

The federal government primarily funds interstate highways. However, they are owned and operated by the individual states or toll authorities in the states. The federal government generally funds up to 90% of the cost of an Interstate highway, while the states pay the remainder of the cost.

If something is designated, it is

Philadelphia is a city known for many things. It is where the Declaration of independence was signed in 1776, and it was also the first capital of the United States. But one fact about Philadelphia is not so well-known: it is home to nearly 3,000 murals painted on the sides of homes and buildings around the city. In fact, it is said that Philadelphia has more murals than any other city in the world, with the exception of Rome. How did this come to be?

More than 20 years ago, a New Jersey artist named Jane Golden started a program pairing troubled youth with artists to paint murals on a few buildings around the city. Form this small project, something magical happened. The young people involved helped to create magnificent pieces of art, but there were other, perhaps more important benefits. The young people learned to collaborate and get along with many different kinds of people during the various steps required to paint and design a mural. They learned to be responsible, because they needed to follow a schedule to make sure the murals were completed. They also learned to take pride in their community. It is hard for any resident to see the spectacular designs and not feel proud to be a part of Philadelphia.

Take a walk around some of the poorest neighborhoods I Philadelphia, neighborhoods full of broken windows and littered front steps, and you will find beautiful works of art on the sides and fronts of buildings. Of course they murals are not just in poor neighborhoods, but more affluent ones as well. Special buses take tourists to different parts of the city to see the various murals, which range from huge portraits of historical heroes, to cityscapes, to scenes depicting the diverse ethnic groups that call Philadelphia home.

As a result of its success, the mural program created by Jane Golden has now become the nation’s largest public art program and a model for to troubled youth.

Based on information in the passage, it can be inferred that the author believes the two best reasons for other cities to adopt the mural programs are to