1. The world is complex and interconnected, and the
evolution of our communications system from a
broadcast model to a networked one has added a new
dimension to the mix. The Internet has made us all less
5 dependent on professional journalists and editors for
information about the wider world, allowing us to seek
out information directly via online search or to receive
it from friends through social media. But this enhanced
convenience comes with a considerable risk: that we
10 will be exposed to what we want to know at the expense
of what we need to know. While we can find virtual
communities that correspond to. our every curiosity,
there’s little pushing us beyond our comfort zones
to or into the unknown, even if the unknown may have
15 serious implications for our lives. There are things we
should probably know more about-like political and
religious conflicts in Russia or basic geography. But even
if we knew more than we do, there’s no guarantee that
the knowledge gained would prompt us to act in a
20 particularly admirable fashion.

Q-1 The passage indicates that internet users tend to seek information in a manner that is

Q-2 Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

2. Chimps do it, birds do it, even you and I do it.
Once you see someone yawn, you are compelled to
do the same. Now it seems that wolves can be added
to the list of animals known to spread yawns like a
5 contagion. Among humans, even thinking about yawning can
trigger the reflex, leading some to suspect that catching
a yawn is linked to our ability to empathize with other
humans. For instance, contagious yawning activates the
10 same parts of the brain that govern empathy and social
know-how. And some studies have shown that humans
with more fine-tuned social skills are more likely to catch
a yawn. Similarly, chimpanzees, baboons and bonobos
15 often yawn when they see other members of their species
yawning. Chimps (Pan troglodytes) can catch yawns
from humans, even virtual ones. At least in primates,
contagious yawning seems to require an emotional
connection and may function as a demonstration of
20 empathy. Beyond primates, though, the trends are less
clear-cut. One study found evidence of contagious
yawning in birds but didn’t connect it to empathy.
A 2008 study showed that dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)
could catch yawns from humans, and another showed
25 that dogs were more likely to catch the yawn of a familiar
human rather than a stranger. But efforts to see if dogs
catch yawns from each other and to replicate the results
have so far had no luck.

Q-1 The passage indicates that the people most likely to catch yawns are

Q-2  Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

Q-3 The passage indicates that the connection between empathy and yawning in birds and dogs, in comparison to humans, is

Q-4 Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

3. The following passage is adapted from George Orwell,
“Keep the Aspidistra Flying.” first published in 1936.
Gordon, the protagonist, is a poet.
Gordon walked homeward against the rattling wind.
which blew his hair backward and gave him more of a
‘good’ forehead than ever. His manner conveyed to the
passers-by – at least, he hoped it did-that if he wore
5 no overcoat it was from pure caprice.
Willowbed Road, NW, was dingy and depressing,
although it contrived to keep up a kind of mingy
decency. There was even a dentist’s brass plate on one
of the houses. In quite two-thirds of them, amid the
10 lace curtains of the parlor window, there was a green
card with ‘Apartments’ on it in silver lettering, above
the peeping foliage of an aspidistra.*
Mrs. Wisbeach, Gordon’s landlady, specialized in
‘single gentlemen.’ Bed-sitting-rooms, with gaslight laid
15 on and find your own heating, baths extra (there was a
geyser), and meals in the tomb-dark dining-room with
the phalanx of clotted sauce-bottles in the middle of
the table. Gordon, who came home for his midday dinner,
paid twenty-seven and six a week.
20 The gaslight shone yellow through the frosted transom
above the door of Number 31. Gordon took out his key
and fished about in the keyhole – in that kind of house
the key never quite fits the lock. The darkish little
hallway – in reality it was only a passage – smelt of
25 dishwater and cabbage. Gordon glanced at the japanned
tray on the hall-stand. No letters, of course. He had
told himself not to hope for a letter, and nevertheless
had continued to hope. A stale feeling, not quite a pain,
settled upon his breast. Rosemary might have written!
30 It was four days now since she had written. Moreover,
he had sent out to magazines and had not yet had returned
to him. The one thing that made the evening bearable
was to find a letter waiting for him when he got home.
But he received very few letters – four or five in a week
35 at the very most. On the left of the hall was the never-used parlor,
then came the staircase, and beyond that the passage ran
down to the kitchen and to the unapproachable lair
inhabited by Mrs. Wisbeach herself. As Gordon came in,
40 the door at the end of the passage opened a foot or so.
Mrs. Wisbeach’ s face emerged, inspected him briefly
but suspiciously, and disappeared again. It was quite
impossible to get in or out of the house, at any time
before eleven at night, without being scrutinized in this
45 manner. Just what Mrs. Wisbeach suspected you of it
was hard to say. She was one of those malignant
respectable women who keep lodging-houses. Age
about forty-five, stout but active, with a pink, fine-
featured, horribly observant face, beautifully grey hair,
50 and a permanent grievance. In the familiar darkness of his room, Gordon felt for
the gas-jet and lighted it. The room was medium-sized,
not big enough to be curtained into two, but too big to
be sufficiently warmed by one defective oil lamp. It had
55 the sort of furniture you expect in a top floor back.
White-quilted single-bed; brown lino floor-covering;
wash-hand-stand with jug and basin of that cheap white
ware which you can never see without thinking of
chamberpots. On the window-sill there was a sickly
60 aspidistra in a green-glazed pot. Up against this, under the window, there was a
kitchen table with an inkstained green cloth. This was Gordon’s ‘writing’ table. It was only after a bitter.
struggle that he had induced Mrs. Wisbeach to give him
65 a kitchen table instead of the bamboo occasional
table – a mere stand for the aspidistra – which she
considered proper for a top floor back. And even now
there was endless nagging because Gordon world never
allow his table to be ‘tidied up.’ The table was m-a
70 permanent mess. It was almost covered with a muddle
of papers, perhaps two hundred sheets, grimy and .
dog-eared, and all written on and crossed out and written
on again – a sort of sordid labyrinth of papers to which
only Gordon possessed the key. There was a film of
75 dust over everything. Except for a few books on the
mantelpiece, this table, with its mess of papers, was the
sole mark Gordon’s personality had left on the room.
*a bulbous plant with broad leaves, often used as a houseplant.

Q-1 Based on the passage, “that kind of house” (line 22) is one that is

Q-2 Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

Q-3 The passage indicates that the encounter between Gordon and Mrs. Wisbeach was

Q-4 Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question

Q-5 The narrator indicates that the papers in Gordon’s room were

Q-6  Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

4. The following passage is adapted from Wiebke
Brauer, “The Miracle of Space,” Cl 2014 by Smart
Magazine. Imagine a world where you share the available
space with others: without signs, sidewalks, or bicycle
Janes. A vision otherwise known as shared space –
and one that becomes more and more relevant with
5 the crowding of our cities. While this might sound like
urban science fiction or, possibly, impending chaos
mixed with survival of the fittest, this particular
concept is the declared dream of many traffic planners.
Shared space means streets freed of signs and
10 signals; streets solely governed by right of way, leaving
road users to their own devices. In order to restructure
public space, it removes all superfluous interventions
and contradictory guidelines. Many countries are
currently in the process of installing – or at least
15 discussing – such ‘lawless’ areas: Germany and the
Netherlands, Denmark and the UK, Switzerland and
the USA, but also Australia and New Zealand.
One could argue that shared spaces have been
around for a long time, simply under different terms
20 and titles. Back in the 1970s, for example, residents
enjoyed mixed traffic areas, traffic calming, and play
streets. And yet, these were not quite the same:
Shared space involves a new and radical push for equal
rights of all road users, pedestrian and otherwise. And
25 while it was British urban designer Ben Hamilton-
Baillie who coined the actual term, the concept itself
was developed in the mid-l 990s under former Dutch
traffic manager Hans Monderman. Shortly before his
death in 2006, Monderman explained the basic tenets
30 of shared space as such: “The problem with traffic
engineers is that when there’s a problem with a road,
they always try to add something. To my mind, it’s
much better to remove things.”
Indeed, studies have shown that in many places –
35 where signs and traffic lights have been removed and
where each and every one is responsible for their own
actions in ungoverned space – the rate of accidents
goes down. The reason: the traditional strict separation
between cars, cyclists, and pedestrians encourages
40 clashes at crossings. And although shared space
requires cars to lower their speed, it also cuts down
on journey times since it encourages a continuous
flow of traffic instead of bringing it to a halt through
traffic signals.
45 Monderman was utterly convinced that shared space
would work anywhere in the world because, underneath
it all, people are basically the same, despite any cultural
differences. In an interview, he stated that “emotions
and issues are the same everywhere. You should be able
50 to read a street like a book. If you insist on
constantly guiding people and treating them like
idiots, you shouldn’t be surprised if they act like
idiots after a while.” At the same time, the threat of looming idiocy
55 is not the most pressing reason for a future traffic
management rethink. Recent city planning, for
example, has evolved along the same lines around
the world: think highways and flyovers dissecting the
city’s natural fabric, dedicated pedestrian zones, and
60 large shopping malls. Clear-cut boundaries between
driving, work, life, and shopping are emphasized by
a thicket of signs. The result ultimate, well-ordered
bleakness. At night, you might find yourself in an
empty, soulless pedestrian zone. A lot of the time,
65 urbanization simply translates as uniformity.
In recent years, however, city and traffic planners
have decided to tackle this issue with “road space
attractiveness” measures to breathe new spirit into
lifeless satellite towns. Their goal: a new definition
70 of space and mobility against the background that
the notion of “might is right” – and only if those in
power stick to the rules – is more than outdated.
The unregulated and unorthodox approach of shared
space makes it obvious to each and every individual
75 that this concept requires cooperation, that sharing
is the new having. Critics of Monderman and Hamilton-Baillie
have voiced that no rules implies the inevitable
return of “might is right.” Yet who says that chaos
80 reigns in the absence of order? That’s a questionable
statement. Shared space certainly requires a new
mindset and we can’t expect a swift shift away from
traditional traffic planning – bigger, further, faster.
But the vision of no more set traffic cycles, fewer
85 linear and predefined patterns, of freely flowing and
intermingling participants in an open and boundless
space, is equally unfettered and fascinating. A vision
in the spirit of Pericles who wrote around 450 BC
that “you need freedom for happiness and courage
90 for freedom.”

Q-1 The passage indicates that in areas where traffic signals are removed, traveling becomes

Q-2 According to the author, recent city planning has primarily resulted in

Q-3 Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

5. This passage is adapted from a 1950 speech by Dean
Acheson, who served as Secretary of State from 1949
to 1953 and strongly Influenced United States foreign
policy during the Cold War.
However much we may sympathize with the
Soviet citizens who for reasons bedded deep in history
are obliged to live under it, we are not attempting to
change the governmental or social structure of the Soviet
5 Union. The Soviet regime, however, has devoted a major
portion of its energies and resources to the attempt to
impose its system on other peoples. In this attempt it
has shown itself prepared to resort to any method or
stratagem, including subversion, threats, and even
10 military force.
Therefore, if the two systems are to coexist, some
acceptable means must be found to free the world from
the destructive tensions and anxieties of which it has
been the victim in these past years and the continuance
15 of which can hardly be in the interests of any people.
I wish, therefore, to speak to you about those points
of greatest difference which must be identified and
sooner or later reconciled if the two systems are to live
together, if not with mutual respect, at least in
20 reasonable security.
It is now nearly five years since the end of hostilities,
and the victorious Allies have been unable to define the
terms of peace with the defeated countries. This is a
grave, a deeply disturbing fact. For our part, we do not
25 intend nor wish, in fact we do not know how, to create
satellites. Nor can we accept a settlement which would
make Germany, Japan, or liberated Austria satellites of
the Soviet Union. The experience in Hungary, Rumania,
and Bulgaria has been one of bitter disappointment and
30 shocking betrayal of the solemn pledges by the wartime
Allies. The Soviet leaders joined in the pledge at Tehran
that they looked forward “with confidence to the day
when all peoples of the world may live free lives,
untouched by tyranny, and according to their varying
35 desires and their own consciences.” We can accept
treaties of peace which would give reality to this pledge
and to the interests of all in security.
With regard to the whole group of countries which
we are accustomed to thinking of as the satellite area, the
40 Soviet leaders could withdraw their military and police
force and refrain from using the shadow of that force to
keep in power persons or regimes which do not command
the confidence of the respective peoples, freely expressed
through orderly representative processes.
45 In this connection, we do not insist that these
governments have any particular political or social
complexion. What concerns us is that they should be
truly independent national regimes, with a will of their
own and with a decent foundation in popular feeling.
50 The Soviet leaders could cooperate with us to the
end that the official representatives of all countries are
treated everywhere with decency and respect and that
an atmosphere is created in which these representatives
could function in a normal and helpful manner,
55 conforming to the accepted codes of diplomacy·
These are some of the things which we feel
that Soviet leaders could do which would permit the
rational and peaceful development of the coexistence
of their system and ours. They are not things that go to
60 the depths of the moral conflict. They have been ·
formulated by us, not as moralists but as servants of
government, anxious to get on with the practical.
problems that lie before us and to get on with term in
a manner consistent with mankind’s deep longing for a
65 respite from fear and uncertainty.
Nor have they been formulated as a one-sided
bargain. A will to achieve binding, peaceful settlements
would be required of all participants. All would have
to produce unmistakable evidence of their good faith.
70 All would have to accept agreements in the observance
of which all nations could have real confidence.
The United States is ready, as it has been and always
will be, to cooperate in genuine efforts to find peaceful
settlements. Our attitude is not inflexible, our opinions
75 are not frozen, our positions are not and will not be
obstacles to peace. But it takes more than one to
cooperate. If the Soviet Union could join in doing these
things I have outlined, we could all face the future with
greater security. We could look forward to more than
BO the eventual reduction of some of the present tensions.
We could anticipate a return to a more normal and
relaxed diplomatic atmosphere and to progress in the
transaction of some of the international business which
needs so urgently to be done.

Q-1 What is the author’s main point about regimes in the satellite area?

Q-2 Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

Q-3 The author uses Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria (lines 28-29) as examples of

Q-4 The author describes the Soviet Union as a regime characterized by

Q-5 Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

6. The following passage is adapted from “Scientists
Discover Salty Aquifer, Previously Unknown Microbial
Habitat Under Antarctica: e 201 S by Dartmouth College.
Using an airborne imaging system for the first time
in Antarctica, scientists have discovered a vast network
of unfrozen salty groundwater that may support previously
unknown microbial life deep under the coldest, driest
5 desert on our planet. The findings shed new light on
ancient climate change on Earth and provide strong
evidence that a similar briny aquifer could support
microscopic life on Mars. The scientists used SkyTEM,
an airborne electromagnetic sensor, to detect and map
10 otherwise inaccessible subterranean features.
The system uses an antennae suspended beneath
a helicopter to create a magnetic field that reveals the
subsurface to a depth of about 1,000 feet. Because a
helicopter was used, large areas of rugged terrain could
15 be surveyed. The SkyTEM team was funded by the
National Science Foundation and led by researchers
from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK),
and Dartmouth College, which oversees the NSF’s SkyTEM project.
20 “These unfrozen materials appear to be relics of
past surface ecosystems and our findings provide
compelling evidence that they now provide deep
subsurface habitats for microbial life despite extreme
environmental conditions,” says lead author Jill Mikucki,
25 an assistant professor at UTK. “These new belowground
visualization technologies can also provide insight
on glacial dynamics and how Antarctica responds to
responds to climate change.” Co-author Dartmouth Professor Ross Virginia is
30 SkyTEM’s co-principal investigator and director of
Dartmouth’s Institute of Arctic Studies. “This project is
studying the past and present climate to, in part,
understand how climate change in the future will affect
biodiversity and ecosystem processes,” Virginia says.
35 “This fantastic new view beneath the surface will help
us sort out competing ideas about how the McMurdo
Dry Valleys have changed with time and how this history
influences what we see today.” The researchers found that the unfrozen brines form
40 extensive, interconnected aquifers deep beneath glaciers
and lakes and within permanently frozen soils. The
brines extend from the coast to at least 7.5 miles inland
in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, the largest ice-free region
in Antarctica. The brines could be due to freezing and/or
45 deposits. The findings show for the first time that the
Dry Valleys’ lakes are interconnected rather than isolated;
connectivity between lakes and aquifers is important in
sustaining ecosystems through drastic climate change,
such as lake dry-down events. The findings also challenge
50 the assumption that parts of the ice sheets below the
pressure melting point are devoid of liquid water.
In addition to providing answers about the biological
adaptations of previously unknown ecosystems that
persist in the extreme cold and dark of the Antarctic
55 winter, the new study could help scientists to
understand whether similar conditions might exist
elsewhere in the solar system, specifically beneath the
surface of Mars, which has many similarities to the Dry
Valleys. Overall, the Dry Valleys ecosystem – cold,
60 vegetation-free and home only to microscopic animal
and plant life – resembles, during the Antarctic summer,
conditions on the surface on Mars. SkyTEM produced images of Taylor Valley along
the Ross Sea that suggest briny sediments exist at
65 subsurface temperatures down to perhaps -68°F, which
is considered suitable for microbial life. One of the
studied areas was lower Taylor Glacier, where the data
suggest ancient brine still exists beneath the glacier.
That conclusion is supported by the presence of Blood
70 Falls, an iron-rich brine that seeps out of the glacier and
hosts an active microbial ecosystem. Scientists’ understanding of Antarctica’s
underground environment is changing dramatically as
research reveals that subglacial lakes are widespread
75 and that at least half of the areas covered by the ice
sheet are akin to wetlands on other continents. But
groundwater in the ice-free regions and along the
coastal margins remains poorly understood

Q-1 The passage indicates that the “unfrozen salty groundwater” (line 3) was once

Q-2 Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question

Q-3 Based on the passage, a novel finding of the SkyTEM project was that

Q-4 Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question

7. The following passage is adapted from Jane Austen,
Northanger Abbey, originally published in 1817.
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in
her infancy would have supposed her born to be an
heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father
and mother, her own person and disposition, were all
5 equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without
being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man,
though his name was Richard-and he had never been
handsome. He had a considerable independence besides ‘
two good livings-and he was not in the least addicted
10 to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman
of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is
more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had
three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of
dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody
15 might expect, she still lived on-lived to have six
children more-to see them growing up around her,
and to enjoy excellent health herself. A family of ten
children will be always called a fine family, where there
are heads and arms and legs enough for the number;
20 but the Morlands had little other right to the word, for
they were in general very plain, and Catherine, for
many years of her life, as plain as any. She had a thin
awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank
hair, and strong features-so much for her person; and
25 not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind.
She was fond of all boy’s plays, and greatly preferred
cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic
enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a
canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush. Indeed she had
30 no taste for a garden; and if she gathered flowers at all,
it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief-at least so
it was conjectured from her always preferring those
which she was forbidden to take. Such were her
propensities-her abilities were quite as extraordinary.
35 She never could learn or understand anything before
she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for
she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid.
Her mother was three months in teaching her only
to repeat the “Beggar’s Petition”; and after all, her
40 next sister, Sally, could say it better than she did.
Not that Catherine was always stupid-by no means;
she learnt the fable of “The Hare and Many Friends” as
quickly as any girl in England. Her mother wished her
to learn music; and Catherine was sures he should like it,
45 for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old
forlorn spinner; so, at eight years old she began. She
learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland,
who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished
in spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave
so off. The day which dismissed the music-master was
one of the happiest of Catherine’s life. Her taste for
drawing was not superior; though whenever she could
obtain the outside of a letter from her mother or seize
upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she
55 could in that way, by drawing houses and trees, h~~s
and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing
and accounts she was taught by her father; French
by her mother: her proficiency in either was not
remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both
60 whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable
character! – for with all these symptoms of profligacy
at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad
temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever.
quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with
65 few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy
and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and
loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the
green slope at the back of the house.

Q-1 The narrator indicates hat on the whole, the Morlands’ appearance as

Q-2 Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question

Q-3 As presented in the passage, Catherine could best be described as

Q-4  Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

Q-5 The narrator indicates that Mrs. Morland was

Q-6 The passage indicates that Catherine responded to her parents’ lessons by