Reаd the fоllоwing pаssаge then answer the questiоn. When the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, in September 1620 on its historic journey to the New World, three of its 102 passengers were pregnant. The fate of the three pregnant women and their children illustrate the fears that early American women facing childbirth must have held for themselves as well as for their children's survival. One of the passengers, Elizabeth Hopkins, gave birth at sea to a baby boy she named Oceanus. Oceanus Hopkins died during the Pilgrims' first winter in Plymouth. Two weeks after Oceanus's birth, Mayflower passenger Susanna White bore her son, Peregrine, who lived into his eighties. The spring after the Mayflower arrived in Plymouth, passenger Mary Norris Allerton died giving birth to a stillborn baby. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, nearly one and one-half percent of all births resulted in the death of the mother from exhaustion, infection, dehydration, or hemorrhage. Since the typical mother gave birth to between five and eight children in her lifetime, her chances of dying in childbirth ran as high as one in eight. Even when the mother survived childbirth, she had reason to be anxious about the fate of her child. In even the healthiest seventeenth-century communities, one in ten children died before the age of 5. Less healthy settlements say three out of ten children dying in their early years. Which sentence best expresses the central point of the passage?
Reаd the pаssаge then answer the questiоn that fоllоws. The influence of sports reaches far and wide. Sports are particularly popular in our leisure-oriented American society, where they perform several major beneficial functions. To being with, sports are conducive to success in other areas of life. Being competitive, sports inspire athletes to do their utmost to win, helping them to develop such qualities as skill and ability, diligence and self-discipline, mental alertness, and physical fitness. These qualities can ensure success in the larger society. By watching athletes perform, spectators also learn the importance of hard work, playing by the rules, and working as a team player-characteristics that help ensure success in a career and other aspects of life. Next, sports enhance health and happiness. Participants can enjoy a healthy, long life. The health benefit is more than physical, however; it is also psychological. Runners and joggers, for example, often find that their activity releases tension and anger as well as relieves anxiety and depression. Moreover, many people derive much pleasure from looking on their participation as a form of beauty, an artistic expression, or a way of having a good time with friends. Similarly, sports improve the quality of life for spectators. Fans can escape their humdrum daily routines or find pleasure in filling their leisure time, as many Americans do when watching baseball, long known as the national pastime. They can savor the aesthetic pleasure of watching the excellence, beauty, and creativity in an athlete's performance. The fans can therefore attain greater happiness, life satisfaction, or psychological well-being. Third, sports contribute to social order and stability by serving as an integrating force for society as a whole. Sports are, in effect, a social mechanism for uniting potentially disunited members of society. Through their common interest in a famous athlete or team, people of diverse racial, social, and cultural backgrounds can feel a sense of community or intimacy that they can acquire in no other way. Athletes, too, can identify with their fans, their community, and their country. But sports can also be seen as harming society by serving the interests of the relatively powerful over those of the powerless in at least two ways. For one thing, sports tend to act as an opiate, numbing the masses' sense of dissatisfaction with capitalist society. Involvement in sports as spectators distracts low-paid or unemployed workers from their tedious and dehumanizing jobs or frustrating joblessness. In addition, sports reinforce social inequalities in society. Regrettably, the overemphasis on competition and winning has caused the loss of something all participants can enjoy equally-namely, the original elements of play and fun in sporting activities. Many people have become "couch potatoes" who spend more time watching than playing sports. And sports have turned into big business, with powerful owners of professional teams exploiting the public and government. Aside from making enormous sums of money from the fans, team owners receive many tax breaks while enjoying the enviable position of being the only self-regulated (in effect, unregulated) monopoly in the nation. Sports is now an elitist system in which a very tiny group of owners and players become tycoons and superstars, while a huge number of potential players are transformed into mere spectators. The last paragraph of the selection is made up of...
It is estimаted thаt оne in five Americаns will suffer frоm sоme form of depression at some point in their lives, while one in 20 can expect to have a recurring depressive disorder that can significantly impact the quality of their day-to-day activities. Today, depression is diagnosed and, more often than not, treated medically with any number of prescriptions that strive to even out the highs and lows of bipolar disorders and the murky depths of chronic depression. However, prior to the 1970s, depression was neither diagnosed nor treated as a disease-it was perceived as more of a character flaw or weakness. Still, many sufferers of depression managed to find moderately effective ways to cope with their disease. One of the most famous examples is Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's depression probably originated from so much loss at an early age. Before he was 10, he lost a favorite aunt and uncle, a newborn brother, and his mother. Lincoln was not close to his father, but he was unusually close to his older sister, who also died when Lincoln was barely 18. And it is difficult to imagine a presidency more difficult and prone to sorrow than that of Lincoln's. Consider the course of events. He was elected president as the most inexperienced man in the history of that office, and more than a third of Lincoln's constituents, primarily Southerners, refused to even acknowledge him as president. Almost immediately, the bloodiest war America has ever seen broke out, eventually claiming 680,000 lives. Lincoln was conversely vilified as either an incompetent coward of a bloodthirsty warmonger as general after general he had chosen failed to be effective. In the midst of the war, Lincoln's young son died, and his wife became temporarily insane. Add, to all this, debilitating insomnia and chronic digestive problems, and it is a wonder that Abraham Lincoln was ever able to rise above his depression at all. How did he do it? "He loved to laugh," one Lincoln biographer explains simply. Though the photographic images we have of Lincoln show a stern, even morose, man, his photographers often complained about Lincoln's inability to hold still for more than 15 seconds before bursting into peals of laughter over the seriousness of posing for a portrait. The image we see is a contrived graveness Lincoln forced himself to maintain for the 30 seconds of stillness needed for the exposure. And the closest to Lincoln claimed that despite his often sad eyes, he demeanor was generally one of mirth and genuine amusement. It was not uncommon for Lincoln to begin telling a humorous story (a pastime for which he was famous) and become so incapacitated with laughter that he could not finish. In particular, Lincoln loved making fun of himself, especially his rather homely looks. Once accused of being two-faced by a political rival, Lincoln responded, "If I had two faces, do you think I'd be wearing this one?" Which statement offers the best support for the author's claim that Lincoln was able to laugh at himself?
Reаd the pаssаge then answer the questiоn that fоllоws. The influence of sports reaches far and wide. Sports are particularly popular in our leisure-oriented American society, where they perform several major beneficial functions. To being with, sports are conducive to success in other areas of life. Being competitive, sports inspire athletes to do their utmost to win, helping them to develop such qualities as skill and ability, diligence and self-discipline, mental alertness, and physical fitness. These qualities can ensure success in the larger society. By watching athletes perform, spectators also learn the importance of hard work, playing by the rules, and working as a team player-characteristics that help ensure success in a career and other aspects of life. Next, sports enhance health and happiness. Participants can enjoy a healthy, long life. The health benefit is more than physical, however; it is also psychological. Runners and joggers, for example, often find that their activity releases tension and anger as well as relieves anxiety and depression. Moreover, many people derive much pleasure from looking on their participation as a form of beauty, an artistic expression, or a way of having a good time with friends. Similarly, sports improve the quality of life for spectators. Fans can escape their humdrum daily routines or find pleasure in filling their leisure time, as many Americans do when watching baseball, long known as the national pastime. They can savor the aesthetic pleasure of watching the excellence, beauty, and creativity in an athlete's performance. The fans can therefore attain greater happiness, life satisfaction, or psychological well-being. Third, sports contribute to social order and stability by serving as an integrating force for society as a whole. Sports are, in effect, a social mechanism for uniting potentially disunited members of society. Through their common interest in a famous athlete or team, people of diverse racial, social, and cultural backgrounds can feel a sense of community or intimacy that they can acquire in no other way. Athletes, too, can identify with their fans, their community, and their country. But sports can also be seen as harming society by serving the interests of the relatively powerful over those of the powerless in at least two ways. For one thing, sports tend to act as an opiate, numbing the masses' sense of dissatisfaction with capitalist society. Involvement in sports as spectators distracts low-paid or unemployed workers from their tedious and dehumanizing jobs or frustrating joblessness. In addition, sports reinforce social inequalities in society. Regrettably, the overemphasis on competition and winning has caused the loss of something all participants can enjoy equally-namely, the original elements of play and fun in sporting activities. Many people have become "couch potatoes" who spend more time watching than playing sports. And sports have turned into big business, with powerful owners of professional teams exploiting the public and government. Aside from making enormous sums of money from the fans, team owners receive many tax breaks while enjoying the enviable position of being the only self-regulated (in effect, unregulated) monopoly in the nation. Sports is now an elitist system in which a very tiny group of owners and players become tycoons and superstars, while a huge number of potential players are transformed into mere spectators. The tone of this passage can best be described as...