Reading for Function Quiz - Mr. El-Sayed Ramadan

Far below the mid-ocean ridge volcanoes and their countless layers of crust-forming lava is the mantle, a 3,200-kilometer-thick layer of scorching hot rock that forms the earth's midsection and surrounds its metallic core. At the planet's cool surface, upthrusted mantle rocks are dark green, but if you could see them in their rightful home, they would be glowing red- or even white-hot. The top of the mantle is about 1,300 degrees Celsius, and it gets about one degree hotter with each kilometer of depth. The weight of overlying rock means the pressure also increases with depth about 1,000 atmospheres for every three kilometers.

Which choice best states the function of the underlined sentence within the text as a whole?

• To convey the intense pressure that pervades the mantle

• To suggest that scientific understanding of mantle rocks is limited

• To describe a difference between mantle rocks and other types of rock

• To emphasize a difference between mantle rocks in different locations

The Awakening is an 1890 novel by Kate Chopin.

Edna Pontellier, the protagonist, is on vacation with her husband and children at Grand Isle resort in Louisiana. Edna Pontellier could not have told why, wishing to go to the beach with Robert, she should in the first place have declined, and in the second place have followed in obedience to one of the two contradictory impulses which impelled her. A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her. In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her.

Which choice best states the primary purpose of the text?

• To highlight Edna's tendency to behave in contradictory ways

• To present a situation in which Edna must make a momentous decision

• To describe Edna's newfound insight into her interior and exterior existence

• To convey Edna's sense of duty toward her family

In order to better understand people's receptiveness to opposing viewpoints, public policy scholars Julia Minson of Harvard University and Frances Chen of the University of British Columbia reviewed dozens of studies spanning 1984 to 2021. Among their findings was the fact that people who feel strongly about an issue can be receptive to others' views without altering their own opinions. As the researchers point out. two thoughtful people might examine each other's ideas seriously and. recognizing that it is possible for reasonable people to hold either perspective, respectfully agree to disagree.

Which choice best states the function of the underlined sentence within the text as a whole?

• .It highlights a potential outcome of a strong disagreement.

• It describes a process by which people's opinions can evolve.

• It emphasizes the importance of considering multiple perspectives.

• It discusses a strategy that permits opposing parties to reconcile their differences.

To be a female artist in the nineteenth century was challenging enough, but to be a female sculptor was nearly unthinkable. Not only were sculptors expected to have a familiarity with the human form that no woman in that age could acquire. but they had to work with heavy materials. such as blocks of marble weighing many hundreds of pounds. Nevertheless, a few intrepid American women wound their way to Italy and learned to sculpt.


Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?

• It discusses some of the expenses involved in becoming an artist.

• It emphasizes the antagonism between women and the nineteenth-century artistic establishment.

• It explains the virtual impossibility of becoming a female sculptor in the nineteenth century.

• It describes some of the physical limitations placed on nineteenth-century women.

One of the most persistent and problematic biases in science involves motivated reasoning-that is, the tendency to interpret observations to fit preconceived notions. According to Professor Brian Nosek, a specialist in human biases and cofounder of the Center for Open Science at the University of Virginia, psychologists have demonstrated that "most of our reasoning is in fact rationalization." In other words, people begin by making decisions about what to think or do, and their "explanation" later serves as a means to justify what they believed or how they intended to act in the first place.

Which choice best states the primary purpose of the text?

• To describe a phenomenon detrimental to the reliability of scientific findings

• To suggest that true objectivity in science cannot be attained

• To emphasize the inaccuracy of many scientific conclusions

• To call attention to the dangers of motivated reasoning