(5) Reading: Find Factual Information

 Passage One (Questions 1-5)

 

LAKE BAIKAL

 

  Crescent-shaped Lake Baikal, in Siberia, is only the ninth largest lake in area at 385 miles (620 km) in length and 46 miles (74 km) in width, yet it is easily the largest body of fresh water in the world. It holds one-fifth of the world’s total fresh water, which is more than the total of all the water in the five Great Lakes; it holds so much fresh water in spite of its less-than-impressive area because it is by far the world’s deepest lake. The average depth of the lake is 1,312 feet  (400 meters) below sea level, and the Olkhon Crevice, the lowest known points, is more than 5,250 feet (1,600 meters) deep. 

  Lake Baikal, which today is located near the center of the Asian peninsula, is most likely the world’s oldest lake. It began forming 25 million years ago as Asia started splitting apart in a series of great faults. The Baikal Valley dropped away, eventually filling with water and creating the deepest of the world’s lakes.

 

1. What is stated in paragraph 1 about the shape of Lake Baikal?

(A) It is wider than it is long.

(B) It is circular in shape.

(C) Its width is one-half of its length.

(D) It is shaped like a new moon.

 

2. It is indicated in paragraph 1 that the area of Lake Baikal

(A) is less than the area of eight other lakes

(B) is one-ninth the area of Siberia

(C) is greater than the area of any other freshwater lake

(D) is equal to the area of the five Great Lakes

 

3. According to paragraph 1, Lake Baikal

(A) holds one-fifth of the world’s water

(B) holds five times the water of the Great Lakes

(C) holds one-ninth of the world’s water 

(D) holds 20 percent of the world’s fresh water

 

4. According to paragraph 1, the Olkhon Crevice is

(A) outside of Lake Baikal

(B) 400 meters below sea level

(C) the deepest part of Lake Baikal

(D) 5,000 meters deep

 

5. It is mentioned in paragraph 2 that Lake Baikal

(A) is not as old as some other lakes

(B) formed when sections of the Earth were moving away from each other

(C) was fully formed 25 million years ago

(D) is today located on the edge of the Asian peninsula

 

Passage Two (Questions 6-10)

 

THE POSTAGE STAMP

  The postage stamp has been around for only a relatively short period of time. The use of stamps for postage was first proposed in England in 1837, when Sir Rowland Hill published a pamphlet entitled “Post Office Reform”: Its Importance and Practicability” to put forth the ideas that postal rates should not be based on the distance that a letter or package travels but should instead be based on the weight of the letter or package and that fees for postal services should be collected in advance of the delivery, rather than after, through the use of postage stamps.

  The ideas proposed by Hill went into effect in England almost immediately, and other countries soon followed suit. The first English stamp, which featured a portrait of then Queen Victoria, was printed in 1840. This stamp, the “penny black”, came in sheets that needed to be separated with scissors and provided enough postage for a letter weighing 14 grams or less to any destination. In 1843, Brazil was the next nation to produce national postage stamps, and various areas in what is today Switzerland also produced postage stamps later in the same year. Postage stamps in five-and ten-cent denominations were first approved by the U.S. Congress in 1847, and by 1860 postage stamps were being issued in more than 90 governmental jurisdictions worldwide. 

 

 

6. According to paragraph 1, postage stamps were first suggested 

(A) in the first half of the eighteenth century

(B) in the second half of the eighteenth century

(C) in the first half of the nineteenth century

(D) in the second half of the nineteenth century

 

7. It is indicated in paragraph 1 that Sir Rowland Hill believed that postage fees

(A) should be paid by the sender

(B) should be related to distance

(C) should have nothing to do with how heavy a package is

(D) should be collected after the package is delivered

 

8. What is stated in paragraph 2 about the first English postage stamp?

(A) It was designed by Queen Victoria.

(B) It contained a drawing of a black penny.

(C) It was produced in sheets of 14 stamps.

(D) It could be used to send a lightweight letter.

 

9. According to paragraph 2, Brazil introduced postage stamps

(A) before England 

(B) before Switzerland

(C) after the United States

(D) after Switzerland

 

10. It is mentioned in paragraph 2 that in 1847

(A) postage stamps were in use in 90 different countries

(B) it cost fifteen cents to mail a letter in the United States

(C) two different denominations of postage stamps were introduced in the United States

(D) the U.S. Congress introduced the “penny black” stamp

 

 

Passage Three (Questions 11-15)

 

THE CLOVIS CULTURE

  Archeologists have found sites all over North America that contain similar tools dating from a period about 12,000 years ago. The culture that developed these tools has been named Clovis after the site near Clovis, New Mexico, where the first tools of this sort were discovered in 1932. The tools are quite sophisticated and are unlike any tools that have been found in the Old World.

In the years since the first tools of this sort were discovered in New Mexico, archeologists have discovered Clovis tools in areas ranging from Mexico to Montana in the United States and Nova Scotia in Canada. All of the Clovis finds date from approximately the same period, a fact which suggests that the Clovis spread rapidly throughout the North American continent.

  From the evidence that has been discovered, archeologists have concluded that the Clovis were a mobile culture. They traveled in groups of 40 to 50 individuals, migrating seasonally and returning to the same hunting camps each year. Their population increased rapidly as they spread out over the continent, and they were quite possibly motivated to develop their sophisticated hunting tools to feed their rapidly expanding populace.

 

11. What is stated in paragraph 1 about Clovis tools?

(A) They date from around 10,000 B.C.

(B) They have been in use for 12,000 years.

(C) They have been found at only one location.

(D) They were discovered by archeologists hundreds of years ago.

 

12. According to paragraph 1, the town of Clovis

(A) is in Mexico

(B) was founded in 1932

(C) is where all members of the Clovis culture lived

(D) is where the first remnants of an ancient culture were found

 

13. It is indicated in paragraph 1 that the tools found near Clovis, New Mexico, were 

(A) very rudimentary

(B) similar to others found prior to 1932

(C) rather advanced

(D) similar to some found in Africa and Europe

 

14. According to paragraph 2,   what conclusion have archeologists drawn from the Clovis finds?

(A) That the Clovis tended to remain in one place

(B) That the Clovis expanded relatively quickly

(C) That the Clovis lived throughout the world

(D) That the Clovis were a seafaring culture

 

15. It is mentioned in paragraph 3 that it is believed that the Clovis

(A) lived in familial groups of four or five people

(B) had a relatively stable population

(C) lived only in New Mexico

(D) spent summers and winters in different places

 

 

Passage Four (Questions 16-22)

 

BROWN DWARFS

 

  A brown dwarf is a celestial body that has never quite become a star. A typical brown dwarf has a mass that is 8 percent or less than of the Sun. The mass of a brown dwarf is too small to generate the internal temperatures capable of igniting the nuclear burning of hydrogen to release energy and light.

  A brown dwarf contracts at a steady rate, and after it has contracted as much as possible, a process that takes about 1 million years, it begins to cool off. Its emission of light diminishes with the decrease in its internal temperature, and after a period of 2 to 3 billion years, its emission of light is so weak that it can be difficult to observe from Earth.

  Because of these characteristics of a brown dwarf, it can be easily distinguished from stars in different stages of formation. A brown dwarf is quite distinctive because its surface temperature is relatively cool and because its internal composition – approximately 75 percent hydrogen-has remained essentially the same as it was when first formed. A white dwarf, in contrast has gone through a long period when it burns hydrogen, followed by another long period in which it burns the helium created by the burning of hydrogen and ends up with a core that consists mostly of oxygen and carbon with a thin layer of hydrogen surrounding the core.

  It is not always as easy, however, to distinguish brown dwarfs from large planets. Though planets are not formed in the same way as brown dwarfs, they may in their current state have some of the same characteristics as a brown dwarf. The planet Jupiter, for example, is the largest planet in our solar system with a mass 317 times that of our planet and resembles a brown dwarf in that it radiates energy based on its internal energy. It is the mechanism by which they were formed that distinguishes a high-mass planet such as Jupiter from a low-mass brown dwarf.

 

16. It is stated in the passage that the mass of an average brown dwarf

(A) is smaller than the mass of the Sun

(B) generates an extremely high internal temperature

(C) is capable of igniting nuclear burning

(D) causes the release of considerable energy and light

 

17. According to paragraph 2, a brown dwarf cools off

(A) within the first million years of its existence

(B) after its contraction is complete

(C) at the same time that it contracts

(D) in order to begin contracting

 

18. What is stated in paragraph 2 about a brown dwarf that has cooled off for several million years?

(A) Its weak light makes it difficult to see from Earth.

(B) It no longer emits light.

(C) Its weak light has begun the process of restrengthening.

(D) Scientists are unable to study it.

 

19. It is indicated in paragraph 3 that

(A) the amount of hydrogen in a brown dwarf has increased dramatically

(B) a brown dwarf had far more hydrogen when it first hydrogen

(C) three-quarters of the core of a brown dwarf is hydrogen

(D) the internal composition of a brown dwarf is always changing

 

20. According to paragraph 3, a white dwarf 

(A) is approximately 75 percent hydrogen

(B) still burns a considerable amount of hydrogen

(C) creates hydrogen from helium

(D) no longer has a predominantly hydrogen core

 

21. What is mentioned in paragraph 4 about brown dwarfs?

(A) They are quite different from large planets.

(B) They are formed in the same way as large planets.

(C) They can share some similarities with large planets.

(D) They have nothing in common with large planets.

 

22. It is indicated in paragraph 4 that Jupiter

(A) radiates far less energy than a brown dwarf

(B) is a brown dwarf

(C) formed in the same way as a brown dwarf

(D) is in at least one respect similar to a brown dwarf