16.The passage provides support for all of the following generalizations1 about large interactive2 systems EXCEPT:
They can evolve to a critical state.
They do not always yield to traditional analysis
They make it impossible for observers to make any predictions about them
They are subject to the effects of chain reactions
They are subject to more minor3 events than major events.
17. According to the passage, the criticality of a sandpile is determined4 by the
size of the grains of sand added to the sandpile
number of grains of sand the sandpile contains
rate at which sand is added to the sandpile
shape of the surface on which the sandpile rests
balance between the amount of sand added to and the amount lost from the sandplie
18. It can be inferred from the passage that the theory employed by the investigators5 mentioned in the second paragraph would lead one to predict that which one of the following would result from the addition of a grain of sand to a sandpile?
The grain of sand would never cause anything more than a minor disturbance6
The grain of sand would usually cause a minor disturbance, but would occasionally cause a small avalanche7
The grain of sand would usually cause either minor disturbance or a small avalanche, but would occasionally cause a catastrophic event
The grain of sand would usually cause a catastrophic event, but would occasionally cause only a small avalanche or an event more minor disturbance
The grain of sand would invariably cause a catastrophic event
19. Which one of the following best describes the organization of the passage?
A traditional procedure is described and its application to common situations is endorsed8: its shortcomings in certain rare but critical circumstances are then revealed
A common misconception is elaborated and its consequences are described a detailed9 example of one of these consequences is then given.
A general principle is stated and supported by several examples; an exception to the rule is then considered and its importance evaluated
A number of seemingly unrelated events are categorized: the underlying10 processes that connect them are then detailed
A traditional method of analysis is discussed and the reasons for its adoption11 are explained: an alternative is then described and clarified by means of an example.
20. Which one of the following is most analogous12 to the method of analysis employed by the investigators mentioned in the second paragraph?
A pollster gathers a sample of voter preferences and on the basis of this information makes a prediction about the outcome of an election
A historian examines the surviving documents detailing the history of a movement and from these documents reconstructs a chronology of the events that initiated13 the movement
A meteorologist measures the rainfall over a certain period of the year and from this data calculates the total annual rainfall for the region.
A biologist observes the behavior of one species of insect and from these observations generalizes about the behavior of insects as a class.
An engineer analyzes14 the stability of each structural15 element of a bridge and from these analyses draws a conclusion about the structural soundness of the bridge.
21. In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with
arguing against the abandonment of a traditional approach
describing the evolution of a radical16 theory
reconciling conflicting points of view
illustrating17 the superiority of a new theoretical approach
advocating the reconsideration of an unfashionable explanation
Historians have long accepted the notion that women of English descent who lived in the English colonies of North America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were better off than either
the contemporary women in England or the colonists18' own nineteenth-century daughters and granddaughters. The golden age theory originated in the 1920 with the work of Elizabeth Dexter who argued that there were relatively19 few
women among the colonists, and that all hands-male and female-were needed to sustain the growing settlements. Rigid20 sex-role distionctions could no exist under such circumstances; female colonists could accordingly engage in whatever
occupations they wished encountering few legal or social constraints21 if they sought employment outside the home. The surplus of mate colonists also gave women crucial bargaining power in the marriage marke since women's contributions were vital to
the survival of colonial households.
Dexter's portrait of female colonists living under conditions of rough equality with their male counterparts was eventualiy incorporated into studies of nineteenth-century middle-class women
The contrast between the self-sufficient colonial woman and the oppressed nineteenth--century woman confined to her home by stultifying22 ideologies23 of domesticity and by the fact that industrialization eliminated employment
opportunities for middle -class women gained an extraordinarily24 tenacious25 hold on historians. Even scholars who have questioned the golden age view of colonial women's status have continued to accept the paradigm26 of a nineteenth-century
decline from a more desirable past. For example. Joan Hofi-Wilson asserted that there was no golden age and yet emphasized that the nineteenth century brought increased loss of function and authentic27 status for middle-class
women
recent publications about colonial women have exposed the concept of a decline in status as simplistic and unsophisticated, a theory that based its assessment28 of colonial women's status solely29 on
one factor and assumed all too readily that a relatively simple social system automatically brought higher standing30 to colonial women. The new scholarship presents a far more complicated picture, one in which
definitions of gender31 roles, the colonial economy, demographic patterns, religion, the law, and household organization all contributed to defining the circumstances of colonial women's lives. Indeed, the primary concern of modern scholarship is not to
generalize about women's status but to identify the specific changes and continuities in women's lives during the colonial period. For example, whereas change for colonial women before 1800 the new
scholarship suggests that a three-part chronological32 pision more accurately33 reflects colonial women's experiences. First was the initial period of English colonization ; then a period during which patterns of family and
community were challenged and reshaped ; and finally the era of revolution , which brought other changes to women's lives
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