PC Prep

The disciplined objectivity of "The Lottery" makes it seem as urgently real as a newspaper story​—​so much so that some readers misread it as a factual account, writing the New Yorker to ask just where these gruesome lotteries were taking place. Jackson's scrupulously neutral tone can seem clinical at first, but it serves a larger moral vision. Several months before Jackson died, she visited Georgia to see the home of the recently deceased Flannery O'Connor, a writer whom Jackson admired. Like O'Connor, Jackson incorporated violence in her work not in the service of sensationalism but to explore the world's fullest spiritual dimensions. In all of Jackson's work, writes Kevin Wilson, "It is so unsettling to see the darkness and the chaos beneath the surface. We encounter a world where, thanks to Jackson's talent, we recoil from the danger and then move closer to see it more clearly."

Shirley Jackson grew accustomed to staring demons in the face, in no small measure because she had demons of her own. She was born in 1916 in San Francisco to an affluent family that didn't quite know what to do with her bohemian artistic personality. The Jacksons eventually moved to Rochester, New York, where Shirley proved an indifferent college student, graduating without distinction from Syracuse in 1940. Jackson married the literary critic and college professor Stanley Hyman, and they spent most of their years together in Vermont, where she raised four children and wrote the books that earned her international fame. Jackson battled with obesity, smoked and drank heavily, and abused amphetamines and barbiturates. On August 8, 1965, while taking an afternoon nap, she died of heart failure.

RC 6.6

By identifying stable isotopes of carbon-12 in human tissue, scientists have been able to prove that 25% of all carbon molecules consumed by Americans originate in corn. One of the most ubiquitous substances in the North American diet, corn has seemingly innumerable, multifarious uses. Each corn kernel's endosperm contains a preponderance of starch, a substance made of glucose molecules connected by glycosidic bonds which create long and complex chains of carbohydrate molecules that scientists have learned to separate and rearrange to form crucial raw materials for food and other industries. In the form of cattle feed, corn provides the key ingredient in the production of cheap meat, the basis of the contemporary American diet, while high fructose corn syrup is the major component of carbonated beverages so popular in the West. It could be argued that the current American way of life is not imaginable without the abundant supply of this staple crop. Therefore, given the multitude of corn's benefits unlocked by modern technology, it is ironic that an earlier culture equally dependent on it for sustenance might have been severely hampered by its limitations.

According to most scientists, corn is a mutated descendent of teosinte, a wild grass native to Central America. The ears of the teosinte plant were not large, encased the seeds in a hard envelope and contained much less seed than comparable grains, making them unappealing to primitive humans. However, several thousand years ago, an evolutionary jump redesigned the teosinte. The tassel, the male inflorescence at the end of a primary lateral branch of the plant, underwent a feminization which monopolized the resources of the lateral branch, creating larger ears with a corresponding number of seeds with higher nutritional content.

This evolutionary path is, according to anthropologist Jared Diamond, a key to the condition of pre-Columbian American societies. While Eurasian societies had an abundance of wild grains available for cultivation and, therefore, moved to agriculture tens of thousands of years ago, a time period which allowed for the creation of large populations and, eventually, a market for advanced technologies, pre-Columbian Americans had no enticement to form agricultural societies. They made this move relatively late and therefore had no time to create societies as large and complex as the Europeans, a fact that led to their defeat when the latter arrived in Central America.

Diamond's argument is not only innovative and parsimonious but relies on a seemingly unassailable basis of our knowledge of the evolutionary biology of corn. However, historical considerations make one reluctant to accept the veracity of Diamond's elegant argumentation. Whenever they started to grow, as we now know, Central American societies achieved significant demographic growth and technological progress and were able to mobilize significant resources for the conduct of war. Therefore, one must seek the roots of their defeat not in their dependence on corn but in factors such as epidemics launched by European arrival and the political dissensions in their midst.



Q1: Which of the following, if true, would weaken the author's objections to Diamond's theory?
(A) Although the population of pre-Columbian America was decimated by disease, the armies arrayed against the Europeans did not suffer the same fate because they did not live in close quarters.
(B) While they were outnumbered, the Europeans' use of iron breastplates allowed them to withstand the impact of bronze-tipped arrows used by pre-Columbian Americans.
(C) Remains of pre-historic agricultural societies in Eurasia show evidence of sophisticated technologies at much higher levels than those achieved by American societies at that time.
(D) Some societies of pre-Columbian America were strong enough to enforce their will on their neighbors and drew on those resources to present a united front against a third party.
(E) The average size of a pre-Columbian American village and the average yield of its crops were only half as large as their European counterparts.[/list]

Q2: The author of the passage is mainly concerned with
(A) debating the negative influence of corn's evolutionary development on the conflicts between the pre-Columbian Americans and Europeans, in contrast to corn's positive influence on our society today
(B) comparing the uses of corn in the present to the use of teosinte in the past, which led pre-Columbian American societies to develop in drastically different ways from their European counterparts, possibly leading to the former's downfall
(C) arguing against the theories of Jared Diamond which stipulate that corn's late evolutionary development caused Native American societies to develop later than European societies, leading to the former's downfall
(D) discussing the effects of corn on both the current American society and the pre-Columbian American society, which, as Jared Diamond argues so elegantly, caused the latter's downfall in its conflict with the Europeans
(E) explaining the benefits of corn's use today and explaining how the theory that corn's use by pre-Columbian American societies put them at a disadvantage in comparison to European societies is at odds with today's knowledge of the former

Q3: According to Jared Diamond, immediately after teosinte's mutation
(A) pre-Columbian American societies turned to agriculture
(B) its descendant was the only grain available for cultivation in the pre-Columbian Americas
(C) corn did not yet possess nutritional value equivalent to those of other grains
(D) pre-Columbian American societies started to cultivate corn and other wild grains
(E) the disparity between pre-Columbian American and Eurasian populations was equal to the disparity between the two populations during the Europeans' arrival to the Americas

 

Q4: One purpose of the second paragraph is to
(A) compare the uses and effects of a plant on a culture to the uses and effects, described in the first paragraph, of that plants' descendent on another culture
(B) put forth a scientific fact which clarifies a statement made in the first paragraph and whose possible historical significance is presented in the third paragraph
(C) explain a statement made in the first paragraph whose possible implications are detailed in the third paragraph
(D) describe a scientific process whose possible implications, according to one scholar, are detailed in the third paragraph and fourth paragraphs
(E) provide scientific background information that explains the topic which the author is most concerned with in the first paragraph[/list]

6.5

The life cycle of a product depends on its market share, growth and comparative performance. A product's life cycle begins with research and development, as the company attempts to recognize and fill a niche in the market. After a product has been designed according to the parameters recommended by market research, it is launched into the market, during which time it usually enjoys a certain amount of commercial success. The product's success continues to burgeon until competitors clutter the market with similar products. The market becomes saturated, the original product starts to lose its market position and sales begin to dwindle. The company must then decide whether to revive the product or to remove it from the market.

Kellogg's Nutri-Grain breakfast bar began its life cycle as an innovative product that captured a high percent of the market but eventually ran into trouble from competition. At first, the company was able to develop new flavors and packaging formats to keep the brand fresh without having to allocate new resources to production machinery or equipment. However, when other brands from Kellogg and rival manufacturers flooded the market with products with similar characteristics to Nutri-Grain, sales declined and Nutri-Grain's market share fell drastically despite the overall growing market.

Instead of pulling the Nutri-Grain brand off the shelves, those in charge of its development chose to generate an extension strategy. The strategy could have focused either on product diversification or development, and since diversification carries more risk, the company opted to alter the product to meet the market demands. In order to develop the product further, the company reconstructed the brand image based on the fundamental features that made the brand unique. Developers also redesigned the brand's packaging to highlight the target concepts which were thought to draw the most consumer attention.


Q1. The author uses the words usually and certain to emphasize that

(A) most products only enjoy a modest measure of commercial success
(B) the life cycle, as it is described in the first paragraph, is not universal
(C) one cannot predict whether a product will be successful or not
(D) companies that employ market research enjoy more success than those which do not
(E) the author's knowledge of product life cycles is limited

Q2. What can be inferred from the passage about product diversification?

A - It involves creating various versions of the same product.
B - It requires more investment than product development.
C - It does not necessitate a fundamental change in the product.
D - It is less prone to failure than product development.
E - Although riskier, it can provide greater long-term benefits than product development.

Q3. The relationship between a product's launch and the product life cycle is most similar to

A - mixing dough and making bread
B - a steering wheel and a car
C - graduating from high school and getting a Bachelor's degree
D - a production line and a factory
E - death and a fatal illness

Q4. What does the passage suggest occurs after competition clutters the market with similar products?

A - Competing products force the original product's removal from the market.
B - Sales of both the original product and the competition's product decrease.
C - Enough room remains in the market for a competitor to enter and make a profit.
D - The company's profits decrease.
E - Sales of other companies' product increase and sales of the original product decrease.

RC 6.4

Current feminist theory, in validating women's own stories of their experience, has encouraged scholars of women's history to view the use of women's oral narratives as the methodology, next to the use of women's written autobiography, that brings historians closest to the "reality" of women's lives. Such narratives, unlike most standard histories, represent experience from the perspective of women, affirm the importance of women's contributions, and furnish present-day women with historical continuity that is essential to their identity, individually and collectively.

Scholars of women's history should, however, be as cautious about accepting oral narratives at face value as they already are about written memories. Oral narratives are no more likely than are written narratives to provide a disinterested commentary on events or people. Moreover, the stories people tell to explain themselves are shaped by narrative devices
and storytelling conventions, as well as by other cultural and historical factors, in ways that the storytellers may be unaware of. The political rhetoric of a particular era, for example, may influence women's interpretations of the significance of their experience. Thus a woman who views the Second World War as pivotal in increasing the social acceptance of women's paid work outside the home may reach that conclusion partly and unwittingly because of wartime rhetoric encouraging a positive view of women's participation in such work

l. The passage is primarily concerned with
(A) contrasting the benefits of one methodology with the benefits of another
(B) describing the historical origins and inherent drawbacks of a particular methodology
(C) discussing the appeal of a particular methodology and some concerns about its use
(D) showing that some historians' adoption of a particular methodology has led to criticism of recent historical scholarship
(E) analyzing the influence of current feminist views on women's interpretations of their experience

2. According to the passage, which of the following shapes the oral narratives of women storytellers?
(A) The conventions for standard histories in the culture in which a woman storyteller lives
(B) The conventions of storytelling in the culture in which a woman storyteller lives
(C) A woman storyteller's experience with distinctive traditions of storytelling developed by the women in her family of origin
(D) The cultural expectations and experiences of those who listen to oral narratives
(E) A woman storyteller's familiarity with the stories that members of other groups in her culture tell to explain themselves

 

3. The author of the passage would be most likely to make which of the following recommendations to scholars of women's history?
(A) They should take into account their own life experiences when interpreting the oral accounts of women's historical experiences.
(B) They should assume that the observations made in women's oral narratives are believed by the intended audience of the story.
(C) They should treat skeptically observations reported in oral narratives unless the observations can be confirmed in standard histories.
(D) They should consider the cultural and historical context in which an oral narrative was created before arriving at an interpretation of such a narrative.
(E) They should rely on information gathered from oral narratives only when equivalent information is not available in standard histories.

[Reveal] Spoiler:

4. Which of the following best describes the function of the last sentence of the passage?
(A) It describes an event that historians view as crucial in recent women's history.
(B) It provides an example of how political rhetoric may influence the interpretations of experience reported in women's oral narratives.
(C) It provides an example of an oral narrative that inaccurately describes women's experience during a particular historical period.
(D) It illustrates the point that some women are more aware than others of the social forces that shape their oral narratives.
(E) It identifies the historical conditions that led to the social acceptance of women's paid work outside the home.

5. According to the passage, scholars of women's history should refrain from doing which of the following?
(A) Relying on traditional historical sources when women's oral narratives are unavailable
(B) Focusing on the influence of political rhetoric on women's perceptions to the exclusion of other equally important factors
(C) Attempting to discover the cultural and historical factors that influence the stories women tell
(D) Assuming that the conventions of women's written autobiographies are similar to the conventions of women's oral narratives
(E) Accepting women's oral narratives less critically than they accept women's written histories

36. According to the passage, each of the following is a difference between women's oral narratives and most standard histories EXCEPT:
(A) Women's oral histories validate the significance of women's achievements.
(B) Women's oral histories depict experience from the point of view of women.
(C) Women's oral histories acknowledge the influence of well-known women.
(D) Women's oral histories present to day's women with a sense of their historical relationship to women of the past.
(E) Women's oral histories are crucial to the collective identity of today's women.

6.3

Whereas United States economic productivity grew at an annual rate of 3 percent from 1945 to 1965, it has grown at an annual rate of only about 1 percent since the early 1970's. What might be preventing higher productivity growth? Clearly, the manufacturing sector of the economy cannot be blamed. Since 1980, productivity improvements in manufacturing have moved the United States from a position of acute decline in manufacturing to one of world prominence. Manufacturing, however, constitutes a relatively small proportion of the economy. In 1992, goods-producing businesses employed only 19.1 percent of American workers, whereas service-producing businesses employed 70 percent. Although the service sector has grown since the late 1970's, its productivity growth has declined. Several explanations have been offered for this declined and for the discrepancy in productivity growth between the manufacturing and service sectors. One is that traditional measures fail to reflect service-sector productivity growth because it has been concentrated in improved quality of services. Yet traditional measures of manufacturing productivity have shown significant increases despite the under measurement of quality, whereas service productivity has continued to stagnate. Others argue that since the 1970's, manufacturing workers, faced with strong foreign competition, have learned to work more efficiently in order to keep their jobs in the United States, but service workers, who are typically under less global competitive pressure, have not. However, the pressure on manufacturing workers in the United States to work more efficiently has generally been overstated, often for political reasons. In fact, while some manufacturing jobs have been lost due to foreign competition, many more have been lost simply because of slow growth in demand for manufactured goods.

Yet another explanation blames the federal budget deficit: if it were lower, interest rate would be lower too, thereby increasing investment in the development of new technologies, which would spur productivity growth in the service sector. There is, however, no dearth of technological resources, rather, managers in the service sector fail to take advantage of widely available skills and machines. High productivity growth levels attained by leading edge service companies indicate that service sector managers who wisely implement available technology and choose skillful workers can significantly improve their companies' productivity. The culprits for service-sector productivity stagnation are the forces such as corporate takeovers and unnecessary governmental regulation that distract managers from the task of making optimal use of available resources.



1 Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the budget-deficit
explanation for the discrepancy mentioned in line 57?

(A)Research shows that the federal budget deficit has traditionally caused
service companies to invest less money in research and development of new technologies
(B)New technologies have been shown to play a significant role in companies that
have been able to increase their service productivity
(C)In both the service sector and manufacturing, productivity improvements are
concentrated in gains in quality
(D)The service sector typically requires larger investments in new technology in order
to maintain productivity growth than those of manufacturing
(E)High interest rates tend to slow the growth of manufacturing productivity as much
as they slow the growth of service-sector productivity in the United States

2 The passage states which of the following about the effect of foreign competition on the
American manufacturing sector since the 1970's?
A. It has often been exaggerated.
B. It has not been a direct cause of job loss.
C. It has in large part been responsible for the subsequent slowing of productivity
growth.
D. It has slowed growth in the demand for manufactured goods in the United States.
E. It has been responsible for the majority of American jobs lost in manufacturing.

3 It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following was true of the United
States manufacturing sector in the years immediately prior to 1980?
A. It was performing relatively poorly.
B. It was in a position of world prominence.
C. It was increasing its productivity at an annual rate of 3 percent.
D. It was increasing its productivity at an annual rate of 1 percent.
E. Its level of productivity was higher than afterward.

:

4 The author of the passage would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements
about productivity improvements in United States service companies?

(A)Such improvements would be largely attributable to efficiencies resulting from corporate takeovers.
(B)Such improvements would depend more on wise implementation of technology than on
managers' choice of skilled workers.
(C)Such improvements would be more easily accomplished if there were fewer governmental
regulations of the service sector.
(D)Such improvements would require companies to invest heavily in the development of
new technologies.
(E)Such improvements would be attributable primarily to companies' facing global competitive pressure.

6.2

No very satisfactory account of the mechanism that caused the formation of the ocean basins has yet been given. The traditional view supposes that the upper mantle of the earth behaves as a liquid when it is subjected to small forces for long periods and that differences in temperature under oceans and continents are sufficient to produce convection in the mantle of the earth with rising convection currents under the mid-ocean ridges and sinking currents under the continents. Theoretically, this convection would carry the continental plates along as though they were on a conveyor belt and would provide the forces needed to produce the split that occurs along the ridge. This view may be correct: it has the advantage that the currents are driven by temperature differences that themselves depend on the position of the continents. Such a back-coupling, in which the position of the moving plate has an impact on the forces that move it,could produce complicated and varying motions.
On the other hand, the theory is implausible because convection does not normally occur along lines. and it certainly does not occur along lines broken by frequent offsets or changes in direction, as the ridge is. Also it is difficult to see how the theory applies to the plate between the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the ridge in the Indian Ocean. This plate is growing on both sides, and since there is no intermediate trench, the two ridges must be moving apart. It would be odd if the rising convection currents kept exact pace with them. An alternative theory is that the sinking part of the plate, which is denser than the hotter surrounding mantle, pulls the rest of the plate after it. Again it is difficult to see how this applies to the ridge in the South Atlantic, where neither the African nor the American plate has a sinking part.
Another possibility is that the sinking plate cools the neighboring mantle and produces convection currents that move the plates. This last theory is attractive because it gives some hope of explaining the enclosed seas, such as the Sea of Japan. These seas have a typical oceanic floor, except that the floor is overlaid by several kilometers of sediment. Their floors have probably been sinking for long periods. It seems possible that a sinking current of cooled mantle material on the upper side of the plate might be the cause of such deep basins. The enclosed seas are an important feature of the earth's surface, and seriously require explanation in because, addition to the enclosed seas that are developing at present behind island arcs, there are a number of older ones of possibly similar origin, such as the Gulf of Mexico, the Black Sea, and perhaps the North Sea.

1. According to the traditional view of the origin of the ocean basins, which of the following is sufficient to move the continental plates?
(A) Increases in sedimentation on ocean floors
(B) Spreading of ocean trenches
(C) Movement of mid-ocean ridges
(D) Sinking of ocean basins
(E) Differences in temperature under oceans and continents.

2. It can be inferred from the passage that, of the following, the deepest sediments would be found in the
(A) Indian Ocean
(B) Black Sea
(C) Mid-Atlantic
(D) South Atlantic
(E) Pacific

3. The author refers to a "conveyor belt " in line 13 in order to
(A) illustrate the effects of convection in the mantle.
(B) show how temperature differences depend on the positions of the continents.
(C) demonstrate the linear nature of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
(D) describe the complicated motions made possible by back-coupling.
(E) account for the rising currents under certain mid-ocean ridges.

4. The author regards the traditional view of the origin of the oceans with
(A) slight apprehension
(B) absolute indifference
(C) indignant anger
(D) complete disbelief
(E) guarded skepticism

5. According to the passage, which of the following are separated by a plate that is growing on both sides?
(A) The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Japan
(B) The South Atlantic Ridge and the North Sea Ridge
(C) The Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic Ridge
(D) The Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Indian Ocean Ridge
(E) The Black Sea and the Sea of Japan

6. Which of the following, if it could be demonstrated, would most support the traditional view of ocean formation?
(A) Convection usually occurs along lines.
(B) The upper mantle behaves as a dense solid.
(C) Sedimentation occurs at a constant rate.
(D) Sinking plates cool the mantle.
(E) Island arcs surround enclosed seas.

7. According to the passage, the floor of the Black Sea can best be compared to a
(A) rapidly moving conveyor belt
(B) slowly settling foundation
(C) rapidly expanding balloon
(D) violently erupting volcano
(E) slowly eroding mountain


8. Which of the following titles would best describe the content of the passage?
A) A Description of the Oceans of the World
(B) Several Theories of Ocean Basin Formation
(C) The Traditional View of the Oceans
(D) Convection and Ocean Currents
(E) Temperature Differences Among the Oceans of
the World
(C) The Traditional View of the Oceans
(D) Convection and Ocean Currents
(E) Temperature Differences Among the Oceans of
the World

[Reveal] Spoiler: OA

RC 6.1

Social learning in animals is said to occur when direct or indirect social interaction facilitates the acquisition of a novel behavior. It usually takes the form of an experienced animal (the demonstrator) performing a behavior such that the native animal (the observer) subsequently expresses the same behavior sooner, or more completely, than it would have otherwise. One example of social learning is the acquisition of preferences for novel foods.

Some experiments have suggested that among mammals, social learning facilitates the identification of beneficial food items, but that among birds, social learning helps animals avoid toxic substances. For example, one study showed that when red-wing blackbirds observed others consuming a colored food or a food in a distinctly marked container and then becoming ill, they subsequently avoided food associated with that color or container. Another experiment showed that house sparrows consumed less red food after they observed others eating red food that was treated so as to be noxious. Studies on non-avian species have not produced similar results, leading researchers to speculate that avian social learning may be fundamentally different from that of mammals.

But Sherwin's recent experiments with domestic hens do not support the notion that avian social learning necessarily facilitates aversion to novel foods that are noxious or toxic. Even when demonstrator hens reacted with obvious disgust to a specific food, via vigorous head shaking and bill wiping, there was no evidence that observers subsequently avoided eating that food. Sherwin's research team speculated that ecological or social constraints during the evolution of this species might have resulted in there being little benefit from the social learning of unpalatability, for instance, selective pressures for this mode of learning would be reduced if the birds rarely encountered noxious or toxic food or rarely interacted after eating such food, or if the consequences of ingestion were minimal. In a related experiment the same researchers showed that if observer hens watched demonstrator hens react favorably to food of a particular color, then observer hens ate more food of that color than they ate of food of other colors. These results confirmed that avian species can develop preferences for palatable food through social learning.



1: The primary purpose of the passage is to discuss the
A: techniques used in certain experiments on social learning in birds
B: reasons for the differences between social learning in birds and in mammals
C: question of how social learning manifests itself in birds
D: basis for a widespread belief about a difference in behavior between birds and mammals
E: possible reasons why birds may or may not learn from each other in a particular way

2: According to the passage, which of the following is true of the experiments on domestic hens conducted by Sherwin's research team?
A: Only a small number of observer hens appeared to learn to avoid food that was demonstrated by other hens to be noxious.
B: Observer hens ingested food preferentially only after numerous instances of witnessing demonstrator hens preferentially ingest that type of food.
C: Observer hens appeared unable to recognize when demonstrator hens found a particular food especially palatable.
D: Observer hens appeared unable to recognize when demonstrator hens found a particular food especially palatable.
E: Demonstrator hens altered their behavior less obviously in response to noxious foods than in response to highly palatable foods.

3: It can be inferred that the author of the passage would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements regarding the results of the recent experiments conducted by Sherwin's research team?
A: The experiments demonstrate that social learning in avian species facilitates the identification of noxious or toxic foods.
B: The experiments suggest that social learning has made avian species less adept than nonavian species at learning to prefer beneficial foods and avoid noxious and toxic foods.
C: The experiments undermine the notion that most avian species have evolved in environments where there is little benefit to the social learning of unpalatability.
D: The experiments suggest that the acquisition of food preferences in avian species is largely unaffected by social learning.
E: The experiments show that social learning in avian species can promote the preferential consumption of beneficial foods but do not support the claim that social learning in avian species promotes the avoidance of noxious or toxic foods.