The Baxter house is located at the
end of the street. This house sits farther back from the curb than the other
houses. It is almost difficult to see from the road without peering behind the
deformed oak tree that has obscured it for years. Even so, the Baxter house
stands out from the other houses on the street. It is tall and white. However,
this white is no longer pristinely white, but a dingy grayish cram color. Long
vines hang from the tattered roof. The Baxter house is two stories tall and has
a large yard in the back that has never been mowed. The other houses on the
street are a mere one story and have been painted a variety of colors. The
newer, single story properties all appear to have been built around the same time;
the yards mostly being of the same size, and the houses appearing to be clones
of one another. Aside from the Baxter house at the end, this street is a
perfect slice of middle America. The inhabitants of the other houses wonder who
lives in the ancient, dilapidated house at the end of the street.
Based on its use in the passage,
which of the following statements accurately describes something that has been ‘obscured’?
But I do recommend some game as a part of
recreation. As long as I could see to play and sufficient tennis, I enjoyed
immensely the game of real or court skill, a very ancient game, requiring activates
as well as some pride, because for the first time, at any rate in the recent
history of the game, an amateur is champion of the sometimes criticized for
paying too much attention to games. Football is a national game of America as
well as in England but I do not suppose that either you or we think that our soldiers
fought any worse in the war of having been fond of football. I put games definitely
as a desirable part of recreation, and I would say: have one or more games of
which you are fond, but let them have any rate in youth be activity of the
whole body, as well as skill,
Sport shall be mentioned next. I have had a
liking for more than one form of sport, but an actual passion for salmon and
trout fishing. Salmon fishing, as I have enjoyed it, fishing not from a boat
but from one’s feet, either on the bank or wading deep in the stream, is a
glorious and sustained exercise for the whole body, as well as being an
exciting-sport; but many of my friends do not care for it. To them, I say, as
one who was fond of George Meredith’s Novels once said to be man who complained
that he should not read them, ‘why should you?’ if you do not care for fishing,
do not fish. Why should you? But if we are to be one equal term and you are be
one the same happy level as I hav3e been, then find something for yourself
which you like as much as I like fishing.
Football is a national game in:
Recent advances in science and technology have made it
possible for geneticists to find out abnormalities in the unborn foetus and
take remedial action to rectify some defects which would otherwise prove to be
fatal to the child. Though genetic engineering is still at its infancy,
scientists can now predict with greater accuracy a genetic disorder. It is not
yet an exact science since they are not in a position to predict when exactly a
genetic disorder will set in. While they have not yet been able to change the
genetic order of the gene in germs, they are optimistic and are holding out
that in the near future they might be successful in achieving this feat. They
have, however, acquired the ability in manipulating tissue cells. However,
genetic mis-information can sometimes be damaging for it may adversely affect
people psychologically. Genetic information may lead to a tendency to brand
some people as inferiors. Genetic information can therefore be abused and its
application in deciding the sex of the foetus and its subsequent abortion is
now hotly debated on ethical lines. But on this issue geneticists cannot be
squarely blamed though this charge has often been leveled at them. It is mainly
a societal problem. At present genetic engineering is a costly process of
detecting disorders but scientists hope to reduce the costs when technology
becomes more advanced. This is why much progress in this area has been possible
in scientifically advanced and rich countries like the U.S.A., U.K. and Japan.
It remains to be seen if in the future this science will lead to the
development of a race of supermen or will be able to obliterate disease from
this world.
Why, according to the author, is genetic misinformation
severely damaging?
When we are young, we learn that
tigers and sharks are dangerous animals. We might be scared of them because
they are big and powerful. As we get older, however, we learn that sometimes
the most dangerous animals are also the smallest animals. In fact, the animal
that kills the most people every year is one that you have probably killed
yourself many times: the mosquito.
While it may seem that all
mosquitoes are biters, this is not actually the case. Male mosquitoes eat plant
nectar. One the other hand, female mosquitoes feed on animal blood. They need
this blood to live and produce eggs. When a female mosquito bites a human
being, it transmits a small amount of saliva into the blood. The saliva may or
may not contain a deadly disease. The result of the bite can be as minor as an
itchy bump or as serious as death.
Because a mosquito can bite many
people in the course of its life, it can carry diseases from one person to
another very easily. Two of the most deadly diseases carried by mosquitoes are
malaria and yellow fever. More than 700 million people become sick from these
diseases every year. At least 2 million of these people will die from these
diseases.
Many scientists are working on
safer and better ways to kill mosquitoes, but so far, there is no sure way to
protect everyone in the world from their deadly bites. Mosquito nests can be
placed over beds to protect people against being bitten. These nets help people
stay safe at night, but they do not kill any mosquitoes. Mosquitoes have many
natural enemies like bats, birds, dragonflies, and certain kinds of fish.
Bringing more of these animals into places where mosquitoes live might help to
cut down the amount of mosquitoes in that area. This is a natural solution, but
is does not always work very well. Mosquitoes can also be killed with poisons
or sprays. Even though these sprays kill mosquitoes, they may also harm other
plants or animals.
Although mosquitoes may not seem
as scary as larger, more powerful animals, they are far more dangerous to human
beings. But things are changing. It is highly likely that one day scientists
will find a way to keep everyone safe from mosquitoes and the diseases they
carry.
Which of the following words best
described the author’s overall attitude towards the prospect of solving the
mosquito problem?
First introduced in 1927, The Hardy
Boys Mystery Stories are a series of books about the adventures of brothers
Frank and Joe Hardy, teenaged detectives who solve one baffling mystery after
another. The Hardy Boys were so popular among young boys that in 1930 a similar
series was created for girls featuring a sixteen-year-old detective named Nancy
Drew. The cover of each volume of The Hardy Boys states that he author of the
series is Franklin W. Dixon; the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories are supposedly
written by Carolyn Keene. Over the years, though, many fans of both series have
been surprised to find out that Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene are not
real people. If Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene never existed, then who
wrote The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries?
The Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew
books were written through a process called ghostwriting. A ghostwriter writes
a book according to a specific formula. While ghostwriters are paid for writing
the books, their authorship is not acknowledged, and their names do not appear
on the published books. Ghostwriters can write books for children or adults,
the content of which is unspecific. Sometimes they work on book series with a
lot of individual titles, such as The Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew series.
The initial idea for both The Hardy
Boys and the Nancy Drew series was developed by a man named Edward Stratemeyer,
who owned a publishing company that specialized in children’s book.
Stratemeyer noticed the increasing
popularity of mysteries among adult, and surmised that children would enjoy
reading mysteries about younger detectives with whom they could identify.
Stratemeyer first developed each book with an outline describing the plot and
setting. Once he completed the outline, Stratemeyer then hired a ghostwriter to
convert it into a book of slightly over 200 pages. After the ghostwriter had
written a draft of a book, he or she would send it back to Stratemeyer, who
would make a list of corrections and mail it back to the ghostwriter. The
ghostwriter would revise the book according to Stratemeyer’s instructions and
then return it to him. Once Stratemeyer approved the book, it was ready for
publication.
Because each series ran for so many
years, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys both had a number of different
ghostwriters producing books; however, the first ghostwrites for each series proved
to be the most influential. The initial ghostwriter for The Hardy Boys was a
Canadian journalist named Leslie McFarlane. A few years later, Mildred A. Wirt,
a young writer from lowa, began writing the Nancy Drew books. Although they
were using prepared outlines as guides, both McFarlane and Wirt developed the
characters themselves. The personalities of Frank and Joe Hardy and Nancy arose
directly from McFarlane’s and wirt’s imaginations. For example, Mildred Wirt
had been a star college athelete and gave Nancy similar athletic abilities. The
ghostwriters were also responsible for numerous plot and setting details.
Leslie McFarlane used elements of his small C fictional hometown.
Although The Hardy Boys and Nancy
Drew books were very popular with children, not everyone approved of them.
Critics thought their plots were unrealistic and even far-fetched, since most
teenagers did not experience the adventures Frank and Joe Hardy or Nancy Drew
did. The way the books were written also attracted criticism. Many teachers and
librarians objected to the ghostwriting process, claiming it was designed to
produce books quickly rather than create quality literature. Some libraries –
including the New York Public Library – even refused to include the books in
their children’s collections. Ironically, this decision actually helped sales
of his books, because children simply purchased them when they were unavailable
in local libraries.
Regardless of the debates about
their literary merit, each series of books has exerted an undeniable influence
on American and even global culture. Most Americans have never heard of Edward
Stratemeyer, Leslie McFarlane, or Mildred wirt, but people throughout the world
are familiar with Nancy Drew and Frank and Joe Hardy.
According to the passage, The Hardy
Boys and Nancy Drew books were created based on the idea that
I mystery books for adults are
popular
II children enjoy reading about
characters they can relate to
III girls and boys are not
interested in the same things
At the time Jane Austen’s novels
were published – between 1811 and 1818 – English literature was not part of any
academic curriculum. In addition, fiction was under strenuous attack. Certain
religious and political groups felt novels had the power to make so-called
immoral characters so interesting that young readers would identify with them;
these groups also considered novels to be of little practical use. Even
Coleridge, certainly no literary reactionary, spoke for many when the asserted
that “novel-reading occasions the destruction of the mind’s powers.”
These attitudes towards novels help
explain why Austen received little attention from early nineteenth-century
literary cities. (In any case a novelist published anonymously, as Austen was,
would not be likely to receive much critical attention.) The literary response
that was accorded to her, however, was often as incisive as twentieth-century
criticism. In his attack in 1816 on novelistic portrayals “outside of ordinary experience,”
for example. Scott made an insightful remark about the merits of Austen’s
fiction.
Her novels, wrote Scott, “present to
the reader an accurate and exact picture of ordinary everyday people and
places, reminiscent of seventeenth-century Flemish painting.” Scott did not use
the word ‘realism’, but he undoubtedly used a standard of realistic probability
in judging novels. The critic Whately did not use the word ‘realism’, either,
but he expressed agreement with Scott’s evaluation, and went on to suggest the possibilities
for moral instruction in what we have called Austen’s ‘realistic method’ her
characters, wrote Whately, are persuasive agents for moral truth since they are
ordinary persons “so clearly evoked that we feel an interest in their fate as
if it were our own.” Moral instruction, explained Whately, is more likely to be
effective when conveyed through recongnizably human and interesting characters
than when imparted by a sermonizing narrator. Whitely especially praised Austen’s
ability to create character who “mingle goodness and villainy, weakness and
virtue, as in life they are always mingled. “Whitely concluded his remarks by
comparing Austen’s art of characterization to Dickens’, starting his preference
for Austen’s.
Yet, the response of
nineteenth-century literary critics to Austen was not always so laudatory, and
often anticipated the reservations of twentieth-century literary critics. An
example of such a response was Lewes complaint in 1859 that Austen’s range of
subject and characters was too narrow. Praising her verisimilitude, Lewes added
that, nonetheless her focus was too often only upon the unlofty and the
commonplace. (Twentieth-century Marxists, on the other hand, were to complain
about what they saw as her exclusive emphasis on a lofty upper middle class.)
In any case having being rescued by literary critics from neglect and indeed
gradually lionized by them, Austen steadily reached, by the mid-nineteenth
century, the enviable pinnacle of being considered controversial.
How would you describe the synonym
of the word “Verisimilitude”?
Recent advances in science and technology have made it
possible for geneticists to find out abnormalities in the unborn foetus and
take remedial action to rectify some defects which would otherwise prove to be
fatal to the child. Though genetic engineering is still at its infancy,
scientists can now predict with greater accuracy a genetic disorder. It is not
yet an exact science since they are not in a position to predict when exactly a
genetic disorder will set in. While they have not yet been able to change the
genetic order of the gene in germs, they are optimistic and are holding out
that in the near future they might be successful in achieving this feat. They
have, however, acquired the ability in manipulating tissue cells. However,
genetic mis-information can sometimes be damaging for it may adversely affect
people psychologically. Genetic information may lead to a tendency to brand
some people as inferiors. Genetic information can therefore be abused and its
application in deciding the sex of the foetus and its subsequent abortion is
now hotly debated on ethical lines. But on this issue geneticists cannot be
squarely blamed though this charge has often been leveled at them. It is mainly
a societal problem. At present genetic engineering is a costly process of
detecting disorders but scientists hope to reduce the costs when technology
becomes more advanced. This is why much progress in this area has been possible
in scientifically advanced and rich countries like the U.S.A., U.K. and Japan.
It remains to be seen if in the future this science will lead to the
development of a race of supermen or will be able to obliterate disease from
this world.
At present genetic engineering can rectify all genetic
disorders. Is it?
