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SAT | PSAT | ACT

2012-05-19

Question:
When three times a number is increased by 5, the result is 41. What is the number?

Select an Answer:
14
10
20
11
12

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2012-05-18

Question:
Walking down the street, the hat flew off the man's head.

Improve the underlined portion.

Select an Answer:
The man's hat, walking down the street, flew off his head.
The hat, walking down the street, flew off the man's head.
The hat flew off the man's head walking down the street.
Walking down the street, the hat flew off the man's head. (no improvement needed)
As the man was walking down the street, the hat flew off his head.

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2012-05-17

Vignette:

1	We sorely need a clearer conception of the truth. We
2	need it in the business of living; especially as a means
3	of avoiding misunderstandings. If we have an abstract
4	idea of what the truth is we are less likely to err in
5	the belief that we are right before we know the truth.
6	We shall hardly be charged with applying new mean-
7	ings to old words if we say facts and the truth are not
8	the same. Facts are part of the truth, just as wheels,
9	rods, levers, and the like are parts of a machine. If
10	we say "the whole truth" every time we refer to the
11	truth, it might make the idea more clear, but let us
12	agree to consider it so, without the need of saying
13	two words where one will do.
14	If you strike me, that becomes a fact as soon as you
15	have done it. Whether you have struck me or not is
16	a question of fact and not a question of truth. The truth
17	may be that you struck me to call my attention to
18	impending danger, or you maybe have struck me in
19	anger, or the blow may be an unimportant episode in
20	a long fight between us.
21	The truth, as I conceive it, is all the facts in their right
22	or correct relation, the relation which they must bear
23	to one another when the truth is attained. Thus the
24	truth becomes an abstract thing, because we know what
25	it is, although we may not know it. Rarely, indeed,
26	are we able to gather all the facts in relation to a subject,
27	on the one hand, or to correlate them, on the other;
28	nevertheless we must do this if we would know the
29	truth.
30	If this definition is unfamiliar, if we are not accustomed
31	to consider the truth in this sense, I think it will do us
32	no harm to bear it in mind. In courts of law, according
33	to current practice, it might not hold, but we are,
34	fortunately, under no obligation to order our thinking
35	according to the processes of law.
36	If we exalt the truth and reverence it, the glib and
37	hysterical brothers and sisters who, grasping a single
38	fact, proceed to preach that and that only as the truth,
39	will cause less annoyance. We may acknowledge
40	their facts as facts, which is all they can ask of us. If
41	we still remain unconvinced of the truth of their
42	preachments we shall be contradicting no one. The
43	truth is very great, very large, and when Lessing prayed
44	that to him be given the privilege to seek the truth
45	rather than to know it, because to know it he was not
46	worthy, he spoke as one of the wisest of men. To
47	seek it, to get nearer to it, sometimes perhaps to get a
48	glimpse of it, is all that we may hope for; it is the
49	best we can do.
50	Suppose you and I look at a tree on a hillside. We
51	see only the leaves, and we observe that the tree is
52	green. The tree is green; that is a fact. Let us make a
53	note of it. Then suppose we go a distance away and
54	look at it again. The tree is blue. It is idle for us to
55	say, "It seems blue, but it really is green," because
56	our very organs which gave the reaction of green a
57	while ago now give the reaction of blue. By the same
58	token that the tree was green when we saw it near by
59	it is blue when we see it from afar. So let us make a
60	second note: the tree is blue. Here we have two con-
61	tradictory statements of fact, neither false, and yet
62	neither the whole truth. The truth about the color of
63	the tree involves a great range of subjects, including
64	the physics of light, the anatomy and physiology of
65	the human eye, photochemistry--in short, a vast store
66	of learning and understanding.
67	Many facts which seem irreconcilable become har-
68	monious parts of the truth when all the facts are
69	arranged in their right order. So the truth should make
70	us humble and patient with one another. None of us
71	has faculties of universal coordination, and our blind
72	spots, instead of being little delinquencies of percep-
73	tion are in reality vast areas. The most we can claim
74	is that we have a few sighted spots. To see all
75	the facts in their right relation is what we might call
76	the Olympian vision.

Question:
The author suggests that it is most appropriate to regard truth with:

Select an Answer:
humor and playfulness.
reverence and humility.
fear and awe.
hope and devotion.
docility and diffidence.

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2012-05-16

Vignette:
Passage 1

	In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for president on the
	Progressive Party ticket, endorsed compulsory health insurance as
	part of his platform. The same year, an organization of progressive
	economists started a crusade to make health insurance mandatory
5	for workers who earned less than $1,200 a year (about $25,000
	today). The cost of the premiums would be shared by employer
	and employee (two-fifths each) and the state. Compulsory health
	insurance, proponents argued, would eliminate sickness as a cause
	of poverty.
10	For a few years, it looked as though health-insurance legislation in
	the U.S. was inevitable, and advantageous for workers and doctors.
	With access to prompt medical care, laborers would be able to
	return to their jobs more quickly, keeping their families fed. And
	doctors would prosper if a growing number of patients could pay
15	their fees. More than a dozen state legislatures began considering
	compulsory health insurance based on a model bill drafted by a
	labor group.
	But the "professional philanthropists, busybody social workers,
	misguided clergymen and hysterical women," as an opponent
20	described them, hadn't reckoned on a mighty resistance movement
	of some the unlikeliest political bedfellows in history. They
	included commercial insurance companies; fraternal organizations;
	pharmacists; manufacturers; Samuel Gompers, then president of
	the American Federation of Labor, and some other labor unions;
25	Christian Scientists; assorted xenophobes and anti-Communists;
	and -- the coup de grace -- doctors.
	Although united in their goal to defeat mandatory insurance, the
	challengers had wildly different motives. Commercial insurance
	companies and fraternal organizations sold sickness and burial
30	policies and feared losing business. Pharmacists suspected the
	government would start telling patients what medicines to take and
	how much they should cost. Samuel Gompers argued that the
	solution to the problem of illness was not compulsory insurance
	but higher wages. Management didn't want to pay for another
35	benefit, especially if, as a representative of an industry trade group
	argued, "the sickness had been contracted either through
	intemperate or licentious living."
	America's entry into World War I in 1917 provided another knock
	against health insurance: It was un-American. As California
40	prepared for a referendum on the issue, commercial insurers
	published pamphlets picturing Kaiser Wilhelm II with the caption,
	"Made in Germany. Do you want it in California?" (Voters
	rejected the measure.) In Albany, an insurance bill under
	consideration by the state Legislature came "straight from
45	Germany" and was "devilish in principle and foreign to American
	ideals," argued Henry W. Berg, a New York doctor. It never got
	out of committee.
	The AALL also neglected to woo physicians, often ignoring their
	opinions when negotiating the legislation. Most doctors became
50	convinced that health insurance would insert the dubious judgment
	of the government between patient and doctor, and cut their pay.
	Charles H. Mayo, president of the American Medical Association,
	urged physicians to be wary of "anything which reduced the
	income of the physician" because that would "limit his training,
55	equipment and efficiency."
	In the end, not a single state passed a health-insurance law. Henry
	Seager, one-time head of the AALL and a Columbia University
	professor, said, "We are still so far from considering illness as
	anything beyond a private misfortune against which each
60	individual and each family should protect itself, as best it may, that
	Germany's heroic method of attacking it as a national evil through
	government machinery seems to us to belong almost to another
	planet."

Passage 2

	Politicians and pundits lump the terms "health care" and "health
65	insurance" together as though they are the same thing. For
	example, Sen. Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, recently said,
	"One in 6 Americans does not have access to health care. And in
	my home state of Montana, an even greater percentage of people
	have limited access to health care: 1 in 5 Montanans lack health
70	insurance."
	In reality, however, health care and health insurance are quite
	different. Health care is the products and services used for the
	prevention, treatment and management of illness. Health insurance,
	on the other hand, is a way of paying for health care. Specifically,
75	it is an agreement whereby the insurer pays for the health care
	costs of the insured.
	Believing health care and health insurance are the same thing
	easily leads to some mistaken, if not dangerous, notions. It leads to
	the beliefs that (1) universal health care and universal health
80	insurance are the same; and (2) that if a nation has universal health
	insurance, where the government pays for every citizen's health
	care, that nation will have universal health care, where citizens will
	have ready access to health care whenever they need it. As the
	experience of other nations shows, however, universal health
85	insurance often leads to very restricted access to health care.
	In nations where the government provides universal health
	insurance -- such as Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom --
	there are few restraints on citizens' demand for health care. This
	leads to many citizens overusing health care and creates a strain on
90	government budgets. To keep the costs from exploding, those
	governments must restrict access to health care by using waiting
	lists, canceling surgeries or delaying access to new treatments such
	as prescription drugs. The consequences can be quite harmful.
	In 1997, three patients in Northern Ontario, Canada, died while
95	on a waiting list to receive heart surgery. One patient had been
	waiting more than six months to receive bypass surgery. In Britain,
	patient Mavis Skeet's cancer surgery was canceled four times,
	during which time her cancer became inoperable.
	It is important to note, however, that all these people had health
100	insurance -- that is, their governments would pay for their health
	care. What they did not have was ready access to treatment. As the
	Canadian Supreme Court said upon ruling a ban on private health
	care as unconstitutional, "access to a waiting list is not access to
	health care."

Question:
The author of Passage 2 would probably argue that the biggest problem with governmental provision of universal health care is the

Select an Answer:
governmental prohibitions against the prescription of new drugs
discrepancy between citizens' health care demands and the government's ability to pay for the demanded services
lack of funds available to research promising new medical treatments
large amount of paperwork that citizens are required to fill out to gain access to health care
waiting lists that delay citizens' access to necessary surgeries

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2012-05-15

Vignette:
(1) Neurofeedback is an alternative treatment for many psychiatric disorders. (2) OCD, depression, anxiety, just to name a few. (3) Evidence supporting the efficacy of neurofeedback has begun to accumulate as more and more patients have tried it out; however, it is still not widely accepted in the scientific community.

(4) Some critics assert that there are not enough studies of neurofeedback to support the claim that the alternative therapy is as effective as traditional treatments, such as the prescription of drugs. (5) Coincidentally, major drug companies are led by many of these critics. (6) Others say that the few studies which support neurofeedback's effectiveness may be tracing a strong placebo effect rather than an actual therapeutic effect. (7) Because there have not been many double-blind studies, which eliminate subjective bias and thus minimize occurrences of the placebo effect. (8) While there have been controlled studies, critics argue that the researchers who led these studies were biased, and manipulated the data to ensure solid results.

(9) However, any parent who has put his or her children through a neurofeedback training session will attest to its effectiveness. (10) There may not be strong scientific evidence, but there is a plethora of strong anecdotal evidence. (11) Children with anxiety have shown increases in normal behavior after only ten sessions, or roughly three weeks of treatment; these changes had not been previously observed even after years of more traditional therapy.

(12) Neurofeedback is still in its infancy as a technology and as a treatment.

Question:
Which of the following is the best version of the underlined portion of sentence 7 (reproduced below)?

Because there have not been many double-blind studies, which eliminate subjective bias and thus minimize occurrences of the placebo effect.

Select an Answer:
There
Because, they claim, there
Their claims are based on the fact that there
(As it is now)
Their claims are made because there

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