GRE care: Reading Comprehension Questions and answer Part – 11 [Philosophy and Literature ]
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Philosophy and Literature
Literature
The next passages are based on philosophy and literature. You don’t have to be an expert in either sub¬ject to answer the questions correctly. All the information you need is in the passage. Look for the main idea, words in context, and the topic sentence to help you understand the basic information. Then use your ability to make inferences based on the facts in the passage. Using all the available information in the pas¬sage will help you identify ideas not explicitly stated in the text.
Question 346 to 363:
The fictional world of Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison’s novel Sula—the African-American section of Medallion, Ohio, a community called the Bottom—is a place where people and natural things are apt to go awry, to break from their pre-scribed boundaries, a place where bizarre and unnatural happenings and strange reversals of the ordinary are commonplace. The very naming of the setting of Sula is a turning upside-down of the expected; the Bottom is located high in the hills. The novel is filled with images of mutilation, both psychological and physical. A great part of the lives of the characters, therefore, is taken up with making sense of the world, setting boundaries, and devising methods to control what is essentially uncontrollable. One of the major devices used by the people of the Bottom is the seemingly univer¬sal one of creating a ; in this
case, the title character Sula—upon which to pro-ject both the evil they perceive outside themselves and the evil in their own hearts.
349. Which of the following words would best fit into
the blank in the final sentence of the passage?
a. scapegoat
b. hero
c. leader
d. victim
350. Based on the description of the setting of the novel Sula, which of the following adjectives would most likely describe the behavior of many of its residents?
a. furtive
b. suspicious
c. unkempt
d. eccentric
Don’t forget to look for the author’s attitude in the material you read. Is it positive, negative, or neutral? Ask yourself, how might the author have spoken if he or she had felt differently?
The English language premiere of Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot took place in London in August 1955. Godot is an avant-garde play with only five characters (not including Mr. Godot, who never arrives) and a minimal set¬ting: one rock and one bare tree. The play has two acts; the second act repeats what little action occurs in the first with few changes: The tree, for instance, acquires one leaf. In a statement that was to become famous, the critic, Vivian Mercer, has described Godot as “a play in which nothing hap-pens twice.” Opening night, critics and playgoers greeted the play with bafflement and derision. The line, “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful,” was met by a loud rejoin¬der of “Hear! Hear!” from an audience member.
351. Which sentence, if inserted in the blank space on the previous page, would make the best sense in the context of the passage?
a. The director, Peter Hall, had to beg the theater management not to close the play immediately but to wait for the Sunday reviews.
b. Despite the audience reaction, the cast and director believed in the play.
c. It looked as if Waiting for Godot was begin-ning a long run as the most controversial play of London’s 1955 season.
d. Waiting for Godot was in danger of closing the first week of its run and of becoming nothing more than a footnote in the annals of the English stage.
352. Judging from the information provided in the paragraph, which of the following statements is accurate?
a. The 1955 production of Waiting for Godot was the play’s first performance.
b. Waiting for Godot was written by Peter Hall.
c. The sets and characters in Waiting for Godot were typical of London stage productions in the 1950s.
d. Waiting for Godot was not first performed in English.
353. Which of the following provides the best defi-nition of the term avant-garde as the author intends it in the passage?
a. innovative
b. unintelligible
c. foreign
d. high-brow
354. Which of the following best describes the atti-tude of the author of the passage toward the play Waiting for Godot?
a. It was a curiosity in theater history.
b. It is the most important play of the twentieth century.
c. It is too repetitious.
d. It represents a turning point in stage history.
In his famous study of myth, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell writes about the archetypal hero who has ventured outside the boundaries of the village and, after many trials and adventures, has returned with the boon that will save or enlighten his fellows. Like Carl Jung, Campbell believes that the story of the hero is part of the collective unconscious of all humankind. He likens the returning hero to the sacred or tabooed personage described by James Frazier in The Golden Bough. Such an individual must, in many instances of myth, be insulated from the rest of society, “not merely for his own sake but for the sake of others; for since the virtue of holi¬ness is, so to say, a powerful explosive which the smallest touch can detonate, it is necessary in the interest of the general safety to keep it within narrow bounds.”
There is between the arche-typal hero who has journeyed into the wilderness and the poet who has journeyed into the realm of imagination. Both places are dangerous and full of wonders, and both, at their deepest levels, are journeys that take place in the kingdom of the unconscious mind, a place that, in Campbell’s words, “goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves. There are not only jewels but dangerous jinn abide . . . ”
355. The phrase that would most accurately fit into the blank in the first sentence of the second paragraph is
a. much similarity.
b. a wide gulf.
c. long-standing conflict.
d. an abiding devotion.
356. The title of Campbell’s book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, is meant to convey
a. the many villagers whose lives are changed by the story the hero has to tell.
b. the fact that the hero journeys into many different imaginary countries.
c. the many languages into which the myth of the hero has been translated.
d. the universality of the myth of the hero who journeys into the wilderness.
357. Based on the passage, which of the following best describes the story that will likely be told by Campbell’s returning hero and Frazier’s sacred or tabooed personage?
a. a radically mind-altering story
b. a story that will terrify people to no good end
c. a warning of catastrophe to come
d. a story based on a dangerous lie
358. Which of the following is the most accurate definition of the underlined word boon as the word is used in the passage?
a. gift
b. blessing
c. charm
d. prize
359. Based on the passage, which of the following would best describe the hero’s journey?
a. wonderful
b. terrifying
c. awesome
d. whimsical
360. As depicted in the last sentence of the passage, “Aladdin caves” are most likely to be found in
a. holy books.
b. fairy tales.
c. the fantasies of the hero.
d. the unconscious mind.
This is an excerpt from Mark Twain’s short story “Roughing It.” Twain gives an eye-witness account of the operation of The Pony Express, the West’s first mail system.
The little flat mail-pockets strapped under the rider’s thighs would each hold about the bulk of a child’s primer. They held many an important business chapter and newspaper letter, but these were written on paper as airy and thin as gold- leaf, nearly, and thus bulk and weight were econ¬omized. The stagecoach traveled about a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five miles a day (twenty- four hours), the pony-rider about two hundred and fifty. There were about eighty pony-riders in the saddle all the time, night and day, stretching in a long, scattering procession from Missouri to California, 40 flying eastward, and 40 toward the west, and among them making 400 gallant horses earn a stirring livelihood and see a deal of scenery every single day in the year.
We had a consuming desire, from the begin-ning, to see a pony-rider, but somehow or other all that passed us and all that met us managed to streak by in the night, and so we heard only a whiz and a hail, and the swift phantom of the desert was gone before we could get our heads out of the windows. But now we were expecting one along every moment, and would see him in broad day-light. Presently the driver exclaims:
“HERE HE COMES!”
Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider. Away across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. Well, I should think so! In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising and falling, rising and falling—sweeping toward us nearer and nearer—growing more and more distinct, more and more sharply defined—nearer and still nearer, and the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear—another instant a whoop and a hur¬rah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider’s hand, but no reply, and a man and a horse burst past our excited faces, and go swinging away like a belated fragment of a storm!
361. Based on the tone of the passage, which of the following words best describes the author’s attitude toward The Pony Express rider?
a. indifference
b. fear
c. bewilderment
d. excitement
362. The sighting of the pony-rider is told from which viewpoint?
a. a person sitting on a porch
b. a passenger inside a stagecoach
c. a passenger in a hot air balloon
d. a person picnicking
363. The reader can infer that the stagecoach in the passage did NOT
a. carry mail.
b. have windows.
c. travel by night.
d. travel a different route from that of The Pony Express.
364. Which of the following is not supported by the passage?
a. The mail was strapped in a pouch under the rider’s thighs.
b. The rider rode great distances to deliver the mail.
c. People did not care about The Pony Express rider.
d. Usually eighty pony riders were in the sad¬dle at any given time.
Answer to the question number 346 to 363
346. c. The poem begins by stating the “world is a
stage” and that we are “merely players.” There is no emotion attached to the exits and entrances of man in the poet’s tone, thus there is no need for anguish or sorrow. Choice a is eliminated by the descriptions of the lover and the justice; there is no misery attached to them. Choice b discusses a metaphor of life as a journey down a river, and choice d states that life is a comedy. Neither of these choices can be supported by the passage.
347. b. This is supported by the Last scene of all in
which Shakespeare suggests that old age is a second childhood that will lead to oblivion without control of the senses, like the infant in the first act. Man has come full circle back to his beginning. No fear of death is mentioned, nor is free will, so choices a and d are incorrect. Choice c is incorrect because man is used as the subject of the entries, but never presented as a gender-specific measure.
348. d. The poet accomplishes all three. It softens the
effect of both suggestions that we are only actors on the world’s stage, and that the sev¬enth age of man results in oblivion. It ties his theme together by carrying us from the first stage to the last and then back again, and the words convey his tone of indifference, as discussed above.
349. a. A scapegoat is one who is forced to bear the
blame for others or upon which the sins of a community are heaped. Choices b and c are wrong because nowhere in the passage is it implied that Sula is a hero or leader, or even that the Bottom has such a personage. Sula may be a victim (choice d), but a community does not necessarily project evil onto a victim or an out-cast the way they do onto a scapegoat, so choice a is still the best answer.
350. d. The passage says that people who live in the
Bottom are apt to go awry, to break from their prescribed boundaries. A person who is eccentric is quirky or odd. Nowhere in the passage is it implied that the people are furtive, suspicious, or unkempt (choices a, b, and c).
351. d. It is logical that a play would close after such a
bad first-night reception, and the sentence in choice d also uses a metaphor about stage his-tory, which is extended in the next sentence. Choices a, b, and c do not fit the sense or syn¬tax of the paragraph, because the however in the next sentence contradicts them.
352. d. The first line of the passage describes the
English language premiere of the play, indi-cating it had previous performances in a different language.
353. a. Although the other choices are sometimes
connotations of the term avant-garde, the author’s meaning of innovative is supported by the final judgment of the passage on the play as revolutionary.
354. d. Although the writer seems amused by the neg¬
ative criticisms of the play, she does give the opinion that it was revolutionary (a word that literally means “a turning point”). Choice a underplays and choice b overestimates the importance of the work to the author of the passage. Choice c is contradicted by the last sentence of the passage.
355. a. The paragraph describes only the similarity
between the hero’s journey and the poet’s. The other choices are not reflected in the passage.
356. d. The first sentence of the passage describes
Campbell’s hero as archetypal. An archetype is a personage or pattern that occurs in litera¬ture and human thought often enough to be considered universal. Also, in the second sen¬tence, the author of the passage mentions the collective unconscious of all humankind. The faces in the title belong to the hero, not to vil¬lagers, countries, or languages (choices a, b, and c).
357. a. The passage states that the hero’s tale will
enlighten his fellows, but that it will also be dangerous. Such a story would surely be radi-cally mind altering. Choice b is directly con-tradicted in the passage. If the hero’s tale would terrify people to no good end, it could not pos¬sibly be enlightening. There is nothing in the passage to imply that the tale is a warning of catastrophe or a dangerous lie (choices c and d).
358. b. The definition of the word boon is blessing.
What the hero brings back may be a kind of gift, charm, or prize (choices a, c, and d), but those words do not necessarily connote blessing or enlightenment.
359. c. The word awe implies mingled reverence,
dread, and wonder, so the adjective awesome is the best of all the choices to describe a place that is dangerous and full of wonders (second sen¬tence of the second paragraph). Choices a and b both describe a part of the hero’s journey but neither describes the whole of it. Choice d is incorrect because the hero’s journey is described in very serious terms, not in whim¬sical (playful or fanciful) terms at all.
360. d. The last sentence in the passage says that the
kingdom of the unconscious mind goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves. The story of Aladdin is a fairy tale (choice b), but neither this nor the other choices are in the passage.
361. d. The tone of the passage is one of anticipation
and excitement.
362. b. A stagecoach rider is narrating the story.
363. a. All the statements can be supported in the pas¬
sage except this choice.
