Practice Test #1 Reading Test

Akira came directly, breaking all tradition. Was
that it? Had he followed form—had he asked his
mother to speak to his father to approach a
go-between—would Chie have been more receptive?
⁵ He came on a winter’s eve. He pounded on the
door while a cold rain beat on the shuttered veranda,
so at first Chie thought him only the wind. The maid
knew better. Chie heard her soft scuttling footsteps,
the creak of the door. Then the maid brought a
¹⁰ calling card to the drawing room, for Chie.
Chie was reluctant to go to her guest; perhaps she
was feeling too cozy. She and Naomi were reading at
a low table set atop a charcoal brazier. A thick quilt
spread over the sides of the table so their legs were
¹⁵ tucked inside with the heat.
“Who is it at this hour, in this weather?” Chie
questioned as she picked the name card off the
maid’s lacquer tray.
“Shinoda, Akira. Kobe Dental College,” she read.
²⁰ Naomi recognized the name. Chie heard a soft
intake of air.

“I think you should go,” said Naomi.
Akira was waiting in the entry. He was in his early
twenties, slim and serious, wearing the black
²⁵ military-style uniform of a student. As he
bowed—his hands hanging straight down, a
black cap in one, a yellow oil-paper umbrella in the
other—Chie glanced beyond him. In the glistening
surface of the courtyard’s rain-drenched paving
³⁰ stones, she saw his reflection like a dark double.
“Madame,” said Akira, “forgive my disruption,
but I come with a matter of urgency.”
His voice was soft, refined. He straightened and
stole a deferential peek at her face.
³⁵ In the dim light his eyes shone with sincerity.
Chie felt herself starting to like him.
“Come inside, get out of this nasty night. Surely
your business can wait for a moment or two.”
“I don’t want to trouble you. Normally I would
⁴⁰ approach you more properly but I’ve received word
of a position. I’ve an opportunity to go to America, as
dentist for Seattle’s Japanese community.”
“Congratulations,” Chie said with amusement.
“That is an opportunity, I’m sure. But how am I
⁴⁵ involved?”
Even noting Naomi’s breathless reaction to the
name card, Chie had no idea. Akira’s message,
delivered like a formal speech, filled her with
maternal amusement. You know how children speak
⁵⁰ so earnestly, so hurriedly, so endearingly about
things that have no importance in an adult’s mind?
That’s how she viewed him, as a child.

It was how she viewed Naomi. Even though
Naomi was eighteen and training endlessly in the arts
⁵⁵ needed to make a good marriage, Chie had made no
effort to find her a husband.
Akira blushed.
“Depending on your response, I may stay in
Japan. I’ve come to ask for Naomi’s hand.”
⁶⁰ Suddenly Chie felt the dampness of the night.
“Does Naomi know anything of your…
ambitions?”
“We have an understanding. Please don’t judge
my candidacy by the unseemliness of this proposal. I
⁶⁵ ask directly because the use of a go-between takes
much time. Either method comes down to the same
thing: a matter of parental approval. If you give your
consent, I become Naomi’s yoshi.* We’ll live in the
House of Fuji. Without your consent, I must go to
⁷⁰ America, to secure a new home for my bride.”
Eager to make his point, he’d been looking her full
in the face. Abruptly, his voice turned gentle. “I see
I’ve startled you. My humble apologies. I’ll take no
more of your evening. My address is on my card. If
⁷⁵ you don’t wish to contact me, I’ll reapproach you in
two weeks’ time. Until then, good night.”
He bowed and left. Taking her ease, with effortless
grace, like a cat making off with a fish.
“Mother?” Chie heard Naomi’s low voice and
⁸⁰ turned from the door. “He has asked you?”
The sight of Naomi’s clear eyes, her dark brows
gave Chie strength. Maybe his hopes were
preposterous.
“Where did you meet such a fellow? Imagine! He
⁸⁵ thinks he can marry the Fuji heir and take her to
America all in the snap of his fingers!”
Chie waited for Naomi’s ripe laughter.
Naomi was silent. She stood a full half minute
looking straight into Chie’s eyes. Finally, she spoke.
⁹⁰ “I met him at my literary meeting.”
Naomi turned to go back into the house, then
stopped.
“Mother.”
“Yes?”
⁹⁵ “I mean to have him.”

Every day, millions of shoppers hit the stores in
full force—both online and on foot—searching
frantically for the perfect gift. Last year, Americans
spent over $30 billion at retail stores in the month of
⁵ December alone. Aside from purchasing holiday
gifts, most people regularly buy presents for other
occasions throughout the year, including weddings,
birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and baby
showers. This frequent experience of gift-giving can
¹⁰ engender ambivalent feelings in gift-givers. Many
relish the opportunity to buy presents because
gift-giving offers a powerful means to build stronger
bonds with one’s closest peers. At the same time,
many dread the thought of buying gifts; they worry
¹⁵ that their purchases will disappoint rather than
delight the intended recipients.
Anthropologists describe gift-giving as a positive
social process, serving various political, religious, and
psychological functions. Economists, however, offer
²⁰ a less favorable view. According to Waldfogel (1993),
gift-giving represents an objective waste of resources.
People buy gifts that recipients would not choose to
buy on their own, or at least not spend as much
money to purchase (a phenomenon referred to as
²⁵ ‘‘the deadweight loss of Christmas”). To wit, givers
are likely to spend $100 to purchase a gift that
receivers would spend only $80 to buy themselves.
This ‘‘deadweight loss” suggests that gift-givers are
not very good at predicting what gifts others will
³⁰ appreciate. That in itself is not surprising to social
psychologists. Research has found that people often
struggle to take account of others’ perspectives—
their insights are subject to egocentrism, social
projection, and multiple attribution errors.
³⁵ What is surprising is that gift-givers have
considerable experience acting as both gift-givers and
gift-recipients, but nevertheless tend to overspend
each time they set out to purchase a meaningful gift.
In the present research, we propose a unique
⁴⁰ psychological explanation for this overspending
problem—i.e., that gift-givers equate how much they
spend with how much recipients will appreciate the
gift (the more expensive the gift, the stronger a
gift-recipient’s feelings of appreciation). Although a
⁴⁵ link between gift price and feelings of appreciation
might seem intuitive to gift-givers, such an
assumption may be unfounded. Indeed, we propose
that gift-recipients will be less inclined to base their
feelings of appreciation on the magnitude of a gift
⁵⁰ than givers assume.
Why do gift-givers assume that gift price is closely
linked to gift-recipients’ feelings of appreciation?
Perhaps givers believe that bigger (i.e., more
expensive) gifts convey stronger signals of
⁵⁵ thoughtfulness and consideration. According to
Camerer (1988) and others, gift-giving represents a
symbolic ritual, whereby gift-givers attempt to signal
their positive attitudes toward the intended recipient
and their willingness to invest resources in a future
⁶⁰ relationship. In this sense, gift-givers may be
motivated to spend more money on a gift in order to
send a “stronger signal” to their intended recipient.
As for gift-recipients, they may not construe smaller
and larger gifts as representing smaller and larger
⁶⁵ signals of thoughtfulness and consideration.
The notion of gift-givers and gift-recipients being
unable to account for the other party’s perspective
seems puzzling because people slip in and out of
these roles every day, and, in some cases, multiple
⁷⁰ times in the course of the same day. Yet, despite the
extensive experience that people have as both givers
and receivers, they often struggle to transfer
information gained from one role (e.g., as a giver)
and apply it in another, complementary role (e.g., as
⁷⁵ a receiver). In theoretical terms, people fail to utilize
information about their own preferences and
experiences in order to produce more efficient
outcomes in their exchange relations. In practical
terms, people spend hundreds of dollars each year on
⁸⁰ gifts, but somehow never learn to calibrate their gift
expenditures according to personal insight.

The chemical formula of deoxyribonucleic acid
(DNA) is now well established. The molecule is a
very long chain, the backbone of which consists of a
regular alternation of sugar and phosphate groups.
⁵ To each sugar is attached a nitrogenous base, which
can be of four different types. Two of the possible
bases—adenine and guanine—are purines, and the
other two—thymine and cytosine—are pyrimidines.
So far as is known, the sequence of bases along the
¹⁰ chain is irregular. The monomer unit, consisting of
phosphate, sugar and base, is known as a nucleotide.
The first feature of our structure which is of
biological interest is that it consists not of one chain,
but of two. These two chains are both coiled around
¹⁵ a common fiber axis. It has often been assumed that
since there was only one chain in the chemical
formula there would only be one in the structural
unit. However, the density, taken with the X-ray
evidence, suggests very strongly that there are two.
²⁰ The other biologically important feature is the
manner in which the two chains are held together.
This is done by hydrogen bonds between the bases.
The bases are joined together in pairs, a single base
from one chain being hydrogen-bonded to a single
²⁵ base from the other. The important point is that only
certain pairs of bases will fit into the structure.
One member of a pair must be a purine and the other
a pyrimidine in order to bridge between the two
chains. If a pair consisted of two purines, for
³⁰ example, there would not be room for it.
We believe that the bases will be present almost
entirely in their most probable forms. If this is true,
the conditions for forming hydrogen bonds are more
restrictive, and the only pairs of bases possible are:
³⁵ adenine with thymine, and guanine with cytosine.
Adenine, for example, can occur on either chain; but
when it does, its partner on the other chain must
always be thymine.
The phosphate-sugar backbone of our model is
⁴⁰ completely regular, but any sequence of the pairs of
bases can fit into the structure. It follows that in a
long molecule many different permutations are
possible, and it therefore seems likely that the precise
sequence of bases is the code which carries the
⁴⁵ genetical information. If the actual order of the bases
on one of the pair of chains were given, one could
write down the exact order of the bases on the other
one, because of the specific pairing. Thus one chain
is, as it were, the complement of the other, and it is
⁵⁰ this feature which suggests how the deoxyribonucleic
acid molecule might duplicate itself.

Close at hand is a bridge over the River Thames,
an admirable vantage ground for us to make a
survey. The river flows beneath; barges pass, laden
with timber, bursting with corn; there on one side are
⁵ the domes and spires of the city; on the other,
Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. It is a
place to stand on by the hour, dreaming. But not
now. Now we are pressed for time. Now we are here
to consider facts; now we must fix our eyes upon the
¹⁰ procession—the procession of the sons of educated
men.
There they go, our brothers who have been
educated at public schools and universities,
mounting those steps, passing in and out of those
¹⁵ doors, ascending those pulpits, preaching, teaching,
administering justice, practising medicine,
transacting business, making money. It is a solemn
sight always—a procession, like a caravanserai
crossing a desert. . . . But now, for the past twenty
²⁰ years or so, it is no longer a sight merely, a
photograph, or fresco scrawled upon the walls of
time, at which we can look with merely an esthetic
appreciation. For there, trapesing along at the tail
end of the procession, we go ourselves. And that
²⁵ makes a difference. We who have looked so long at
the pageant in books, or from a curtained window
watched educated men leaving the house at about
nine-thirty to go to an office, returning to the house
at about six-thirty from an office, need look passively
³⁰ no longer. We too can leave the house, can mount
those steps, pass in and out of those doors,… make
money, administer justice. . . . We who now agitate
these humble pens may in another century or two
speak from a pulpit. Nobody will dare contradict us
³⁵ then; we shall be the mouthpieces of the divine
spirit—a solemn thought, is it not? Who can say
whether, as time goes on, we may not dress in
military uniform, with gold lace on our breasts,
swords at our sides, and something like the old
⁴⁰ family coal-scuttle on our heads, save that that
venerable object was never decorated with plumes of
white horsehair. You laugh—indeed the shadow of
the private house still makes those dresses look a
little queer. We have worn private clothes so
⁴⁵ long. . . . But we have not come here to laugh, or to
talk of fashions—men’s and women’s. We are here,
on the bridge, to ask ourselves certain questions.
And they are very important questions; and we have
very little time in which to answer them. The
⁵⁰ questions that we have to ask and to answer about
that procession during this moment of transition are
so important that they may well change the lives of
all men and women for ever. For we have to ask
ourselves, here and now, do we wish to join that
⁵⁵ procession, or don’t we? On what terms shall we join
that procession? Above all, where is it leading us, the
procession of educated men? The moment is short; it
may last five years; ten years, or perhaps only a
matter of a few months longer…. But, you will
⁶⁰ object, you have no time to think; you have your
battles to fight, your rent to pay, your bazaars to
organize. That excuse shall not serve you, Madam.
As you know from your own experience, and there
are facts that prove it, the daughters of educated men
⁶⁵ have always done their thinking from hand to
mouth; not under green lamps at study tables in the
cloisters of secluded colleges. They have thought
while they stirred the pot, while they rocked the
cradle. It was thus that they won us the right to our
⁷⁰ brand-new sixpence. It falls to us now to go on
thinking; how are we to spend that sixpence? Think
we must. Let us think in offices; in omnibuses; while
we are standing in the crowd watching Coronations
and Lord Mayor’s Shows; let us think . . . in the
⁷⁵ gallery of the House of Commons; in the Law Courts;
let us think at baptisms and marriages and funerals.
Let us never cease from thinking—what is this
“civilization” in which we find ourselves? What are
these ceremonies and why should we take part in
⁸⁰ them? What are these professions and why
should we make money out of them? Where in
short is it leading us, the procession of the sons of
educated men?

Passage 1
Follow the money and you will end up in space.
That’s the message from a first-of-its-kind forum on
mining beyond Earth.
Convened in Sydney by the Australian Centre for
⁵ Space Engineering Research, the event brought
together mining companies, robotics experts, lunar
scientists, and government agencies that are all
working to make space mining a reality.
The forum comes hot on the heels of the
¹⁰ 2012 unveiling of two private asteroid-mining firms.
Planetary Resources of Washington says it will
launch its first prospecting telescopes in two years,
while Deep Space Industries of Virginia hopes to be
harvesting metals from asteroids by 2020. Another
¹⁵ commercial venture that sprung up in 2012,
Golden Spike of Colorado, will be offering trips to
the moon, including to potential lunar miners.
Within a few decades, these firms may be
meeting earthly demands for precious metals, such as
²⁰ platinum and gold, and the rare earth elements vital
for personal electronics, such as yttrium and
lanthanum. But like the gold rush pioneers who
transformed the western United States, the first space
miners won’t just enrich themselves. They also hope
²⁵ to build an off-planet economy free of any bonds
with Earth, in which the materials extracted and
processed from the moon and asteroids are delivered
for space-based projects.
In this scenario, water mined from other
³⁰ worlds could become the most desired commodity.
“In the desert, what’s worth more: a kilogram of gold
or a kilogram of water?” asks Kris Zacny of
HoneyBee Robotics in New York. “Gold is useless.
Water will let you live.”
³⁵ Water ice from the moon’s poles could be sent to
astronauts on the International Space Station for
drinking or as a radiation shield. Splitting water into
oxygen and hydrogen makes spacecraft fuel, so
ice-rich asteroids could become interplanetary
⁴⁰ refuelling stations.

Companies are eyeing the iron, silicon, and
aluminium in lunar soil and asteroids, which could
be used in 3D printers to make spare parts or
machinery. Others want to turn space dirt into
⁴⁵ concrete for landing pads, shelters, and roads.
Passage 2
The motivation for deep-space travel is shifting
from discovery to economics. The past year has seen
a flurry of proposals aimed at bringing celestial riches
down to Earth. No doubt this will make a few
⁵⁰ billionaires even wealthier, but we all stand to gain:
the mineral bounty and spin-off technologies could
enrich us all.
But before the miners start firing up their rockets,
we should pause for thought. At first glance, space
⁵⁵ mining seems to sidestep most environmental
concerns: there is (probably!) no life on asteroids,
and thus no habitats to trash. But its consequences
—both here on Earth and in space—merit careful
consideration.
⁶⁰ Part of this is about principles. Some will argue
that space’s “magnificent desolation” is not ours to
despoil, just as they argue that our own planet’s poles
should remain pristine. Others will suggest that
glutting ourselves on space’s riches is not an
⁶⁵ acceptable alternative to developing more sustainable
ways of earthly life.
History suggests that those will be hard lines to
hold, and it may be difficult to persuade the public
that such barren environments are worth preserving.
⁷⁰ After all, they exist in vast abundance, and even
fewer people will experience them than have walked
through Antarctica’s icy landscapes.
There’s also the emerging off-world economy to
consider. The resources that are valuable in orbit and
⁷⁵ beyond may be very different to those we prize on
Earth. Questions of their stewardship have barely
been broached—and the relevant legal and regulatory
framework is fragmentary, to put it mildly.
Space miners, like their earthly counterparts, are
⁸⁰ often reluctant to engage with such questions.
One speaker at last week’s space-mining forum in
Sydney, Australia, concluded with a plea that
regulation should be avoided. But miners have much
to gain from a broad agreement on the for-profit
⁸⁵ exploitation of space. Without consensus, claims will
be disputed, investments risky, and the gains made
insecure. It is in all of our long-term interests to seek
one out.