Reading Comprehension Practice Test 3

Sharpshooter Annie Oakley is a mainstay in the folklore of the Old West. Born Phoebe Ann Moses in 1860, Annie learned to shoot at a very young age out of necessity: she hunted for birds and small game animals to help feed her family and to make some extra money by supplying the local hotel restaurant with her catch.

She soon became known for her excellent marksmanship and began taking part in shooting competitions at a very young age. It was rather unusual for a young girl not only to take part in such competitions but to win over older, more experienced male competitors. At the age of fifteen, she defeated Frank Butler, a professional marksman, in a competition. She and Butler were married a year later, and together they took part in shooting exhibitions.

In 1885, they joined probably the most famous of all western shows, Buffalo Bill's Wild West touring show. As part of their act, Annie shot a cigarette out of her husband's mouth; Frank Butler's participation in this part of the act clearly demonstrated his faith in his wife's shooting ability. Annie also accepted volunteers from the audience to take part in her act, and on one occasion, while touring Europe, she even shot a cigarette out of the mouth of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany.

To understand the forces behind thunder and lightning, one must recall basic information about electricity, that things can become either positively or negatively charged with electricity and that two things with opposite charges will attract each other. As the opposite charges become stronger, the attraction becomes greater; eventually the attraction becomes strong enough to result in a discharge that makes the two things electrically neutral again.

Lightning results when one cloud full of moisture develops an opposite charge in relation to another cloud. The pressure continues to build until there is enough pressure to break down the air separating the two clouds. A discharge occurs to neutralize the opposite charges in the two clouds, and this discharge is what we see as lightning. As this discharge of lightning is occurring, the lightning follows the "path of least resistance"; it therefore does not follow a straight line but zigzags in order to find the easiest route.

Thunder occurs during the discharge of electricity. As the discharge occurs, the air in the vicinity expands and contracts rapidly; the rushing air currents collide, causing the sound that we hear as thunder. Light travels much faster than sound (the speed of light is 186,284 miles per second, while the speed of sound is 1,100 feet per second), so we see the light first and then hear the sound later. Of course, the farther away the thunder and lightning are, the greater the lapsed time between the two. In fact, the amount of lapsed time between the two can be used to determine how far away the thunder and lightning are.

The cliff dwellings of the southwestern United States provide another mystery to intrigue archeologists. Located in the Four Corners area of the U.S., where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico meet, the cliff dwellings were constructed during the Great Pueblo period, from approximately 1050 to 1300. The cliff dwellings are whole series of contiguous rooms built in layers into the sides of cliffs. The sleeping rooms of the cliff dwellings were very tiny, often only one to two meters wide and little more than one meter high, and they were built in complexes of up to several hundred rooms together. The front rooms of the complexes were considerably larger. These larger rooms were apparently the rooms where daily life took place.

When the cliff dwellings were first found by explorers, they had been abandoned. Archeologists today are uncertain as to when or why they were abandoned and where the inhabitants went. There is some evidence, however, that the inhabitants left the cliff dwellings near the end of the thirteenth century because of a serious drought that is known to have occurred in the area from 1276 to 1299. Archeologists believe that the inhabitants could have left the cliff dwellings to move southwest and southeast. Today the descendants of the cliff dwellers are probably members of the Native American tribes of that area.

Distillation, the process of separating the elements of a solution, is widely used in industry today. The two most common methods of distillation are fractional distillation, used in the preparation of alcoholic beverages, and flash distillation, used for the conversion of ocean water to fresh water.

In fractional distillation a mixture is separated into its various component parts by boiling. This method makes use of the fact that different elements boil at varying temperatures. For example, alcohol has a considerably lower boiling temperature than water: the boiling temperature of water is 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and the boiling temperature of alcohol is 172 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus, when a mixture of alcohol and water is heated, the alcohol vaporizes more quickly than the water. The distillate is collected and the process is repeated until the desired purity has been achieved.

Flash distillation does not require high temperatures but instead is based on pressure. In this process, a liquid that is to be separated is forced from a compartment kept under high pressure into a compartment kept at a lower pressure. When a liquid moves into the low-pressure chamber, it suddenly vaporizes, and the vapor is then condensed into distillate.

At first glance it might seem that a true artist is a solitary toiler in possession of a unique talent that differentiates her or him from the rest of society. But after further reflection it is quite apparent that the artist is a product of the society in which she or he toils rather than an entity removed from society. The genius of an artist is really a measure of the artist's ability to work within the framework imposed by society, to make use of the resources provided by society, and, most important, to mirror a society's values.

It is society that imposes a structure on the artist, and the successful artist must work within this framework. Societies have found various methods to support and train their artists, be it the Renaissance system of royal support of the sculptors and painters of the period or the Japanese tradition of passing artistic knowledge from father to son. The artist is also greatly affected by the physical resources of her or his society. The medium chosen by the artist is a reflection not only of the artist's perception of aesthetic beauty but of resources that society has to supply. After all, wood carvings come from societies with forests, bronze statues come from societies with available supplies of metal, and woven woolen rugs come from societies of shepherds. Finally, the artist must reflect the values, both aesthetic and moral, of the society in which she or he toils. The idea of beauty changes from society to society, as seen in the oft cited example of Rubens' rounded women versus today's gaminlike sylphs, and the artist must serve as a mirror of her or his society's measure of perfection. And society's moral values must equally be reflected in art if it is to be universally accepted.