Critical Reading

The path has hairpin turns that prevent cattle from seeing what’s in store and keep them relaxed. As the ramp gently slopes upward, the animals may think they’re headed for another truck, another road trip-and they are, in unexpected ways. The ramp widens as it reaches ground level and then leads to a large cattle pen with wooden fences, a corral that belongs in a meadow, not here. As I walk along the fence, a group of cattle approach me, looking me straight in the eye, like dogs hoping for a treat, and follow me out of some mysterious impulse. I stop and try to absorb the whole scene: the cool breeze, the cattle and their gentle lowing, a cloudless sky, steam rising from the plant in the moonlight. And then I notice that the building does have one window, a small square of light on the second floor. It offers a glimpse of what’s hidden behind this huge blank facade. Through the little window you can see bright red carcasses on hooks, going round and round.

Some people do not understand the dangers of a credit card. They mistakenly believe that charging a purchase means paying for that purchase. However, a credit card simply gives them some time before they have to pay up. When the bill comes, an even worse alternative presents itself. Buyers are offered the possibility of making a small partial payment instead of paying in full for what they have already charged. This so-called privilege costs money, though. People have to pay high interest on the amount they postpone paying.

In the United States, one of four children is born into poverty. The United States is the world’s wealthiest nation, but much of that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. The combined wealth of the top 1 percent of American families is nearly equal to that of the entire bottom 95 percent. Such obscene inequality is totally inappropriate for a democratic country.

One sad rainy morning last winter, I talked to a woman who was addicted to crack cocaine. She was twenty-two, stiletto thin, with eyes as old as tombs. She was living in two rooms in a welfare hotel with her children, who were two, three, and five years of age. Her story was the usual tangle of human woe: early pregnancy, dropping out of school, vanished men, smack and then crack, tricks with johns in parked cars to pay for the dope. I asked her why she did drugs. She shrugged in an empty way and couldn’t really answer beyond “makes me feel good.” While we talked and she told her tale of squalor, the children ignored us. They were watching television.

Hamill, Pete. “Crack and the Box.” Piecework: Writings on Men and Women, Fools and Heroes, Lost Cities, Vanished Friends, Small Pleasures, Large Calamities, and How the Weather Was. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996. 99-103. Print.

Question

enraged, as with someone he is clearly furious with

casual, as with someone he has known for a long time

sarcastic, as with someone he would like to mock

objective, as with someone he wants to describe clearly for readers

Pre-Test for Critical Reading - Question 4

Question

One sad rainy morning last winter

her tale of squalor

eyes as old as tombs

I asked her why

Pre-Test for Critical Reading - Question 5

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, America was very different. There was no civilization: no roads, no cities, no shopping malls, no Honda dealerships. There were, of course, obnoxious shouting radio commercials for car dealerships; these have been broadcast toward Earth for billions of years by the evil Planet of Men Wearing Polyester Sport Coats, and there is nothing anybody can do to stop them. But back then, you see, there was no way to receive them, so things were pretty peaceful.

I still kept in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun.

Question

The author thinks the river is too busy at night.

The river is nothing special.

The river is beautiful.

The river is made of blood.

Pre-Test for Critical Reading - Question 7

I recently jumped into the discussion when my dad called to say that a hunter friend had pulled up with the carcass of a freshly-killed goose -- blood, feathers, guts, and all. He said we would be cooking it for the next family dinner. To be honest, I was hesitant. I am locavore-inclined [likes to eat locally grown food] and eat domesticated fowl of all sorts -- I adore duck and am particularly fond of a lightly poached duck egg -- but there was something about eating a wild goose that made me stop. Was it that I had seen too many of them paddling around polluted lakefronts? Or maybe it was their predilection for foraging on the pesticide-saturated lawns of golf courses? It was as if the Canada Goose’s close association with human activity meant there was something unclean about them. Sure, on the one hand they were wild, but because they like to wander in all sorts of icky places, eating one of the birds sounded just as appetizing as eating a back-alley pigeon.

Question

The author has a bias against local food.

The author has a bias against eating Canada Goose.

The author has a bias against family dinners.

The author has a bias against eating meat.

Pre-Test for Critical Reading - Question 8

For the past week I’ve been spending my afternoons out in the honey house getting things ready for the harvest. I’m making sure the screens are all tight because once I get started clouds of bees will surround the place and try to get in, lured by the scent of honey. I’ve been checking the machinery, repairing what isn’t running properly, and I’ve been scrubbing everything down so that the health inspector will be proud.

My honey house contains a shiny array of stainless-steel tanks, a power uncapper for slicing honeycomb open, an extractor for spinning the honey out of the comb, and a pump to move it — machinery that whirs, whomps, hums, and looks very special. My neighbors call it the honey factory, and I’m not above insinuating slyly that what I’m really running back here in the woods is a still.

Question

an experienced and dedicated professional

a criminal in hiding

an ignorant entrepreneur

a neutral bystander

Pre-Test for Critical Reading - Question 9

Every human born constitutes a draft on all aspects of the environment: food, air, water, forests, beaches, wildlife, scenery, and solitude. Food can, perhaps, be significantly increased to meet a growing demand. But what about clean beaches, unspoiled forests, and solitude? If we satisfy a growing population’s need for food, we necessarily decrease its per-capita supply of the other resources needed by men.

India, for example, now has a population of 600 million, which increases by 15 million each year. This population already puts a huge load on a relatively impoverished environment. The country’s forests are now only a small fraction of what they were three centuries ago, and floods and erosion continually destroy the insufficient farmland that remains. Every one of the 15 million new lives added to India’s population puts an additional burden on the environment, and increases the economic and social costs of crowding. However humanitarian our intent, every Indian life saved through medical or nutritional assistance from abroad diminishes the quality of life for those who remain, and for subsequent generations. If rich countries make it possible, through foreign aid, for 600 million Indians to swell to 1.2 billion in a mere twenty-eight years, as their current growth rate threatens, will future generations of Indians thank us for hastening the destruction of their environment? Will our good intentions be sufficient excuse for the consequences of our actions?

Question

Giving food to nations in need will improve the quality of life for future generations.

Giving food to nations in need will be ultimately detrimental in the long term.

Giving food to nations in need will cause people to thank us.

Giving food to nations in need will be ultimately beneficial in the long term.

Pre-Test for Critical Reading - Question 10