PSAT Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test - Reading 認定 PSAT-Reading 試験問題:

1. The neighborhood group's rendering of the proposed office complex __ the __ of the project: as they
appeared on the drawing, the proposed office buildings appeared to dwarf the rest of the downtown area.

A) trivialized . . enormity
B) underscored . . vastness
C) revealed . . immensity
D) accentuated . . beauty
E) minimized . . grandiosity

2. Had it not been for his ______ prowess, Muhammad Ali, formerly known as Cassius Clay, Would not be
considered one of the worlds' greatest fighters of all time.

A) ponderous
B) elocutionary
C) prestidigitation
D) pugilistic
E) poetical

3. The following passage was written by John Janovec, an ecologist who has worked in the Los Amigos
watershed in Peru
The Amazonian wilderness harbors the greatest number of species on this planet and is an irreplaceable
resource for present and future generations. Amazonia is crucial for maintaining global climate and
genetic resources, and its forest and rivers provide vital sources of food, building materials,
pharmaceuticals, and water needed by wildlife and humanity. The Los Amigos watershed in the state of
Madre de Dios, southeastern Peru, is representative of the pristine lowland moist forest once found
throughout most of upper Amazonian South America. Threats to tropical forests occur in the form of
fishing, hunting, gold mining, timber extraction, impending road construction, and slash-and-burn
agriculture. The Los Amigos watershed, consisting of 1.6 million hectares (3.95 million acres), still offers
the increasingly scarce opportunity to study rainforest as it was before the disruptive encroachment of
modern human civilization. Because of its relatively pristine condition and the immediate need to justify it
as a conservation zone, this area deserves intensive, long-term projects aimed at botanical training,
ecotourism, biological inventory, and information synthesis. On July 24, 2001, the government of Peru
and the Amazon Conservation Association signed a contractual agreement creating the first long-term
permanently renewable conservation concession. To our knowledge this is the first such agreement to be
implemented in the world. The conservation concession protects 340,000 acres of old-growth Amazonian
forest in the Los Amigos watershed, which is located in southeastern Peru. This watershed protects the
eastern flank of Manu National Park and is part of the lowland forest corridor that links it to
Bahuaja-Sonene National Park. The Los Amigos conservation concession will serve as a mechanism for
the development of a regional center of excellence in natural forest management and biodiversity science.
Several major projects are being implemented at the Los Amigos Conservation Area. Louise Emmons is
initiating studies of mammal diversity and ecology in the Los Amigos area. Other projects involve studies
of the diversity of arthropods, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. Robin Foster has conducted botanical
studies at Los Amigos, resulting in the labeling of hundreds of plant species along two kilometers of trail in
upland and lowland forest. Michael Goulding is leading a fisheries and aquatic ecology program, which
aims to document the diversity of fish, their ecologies, and their habitats in the Los Amigos area and the
Madre de Dios watershed in general. With support from the Amazon Conservation Association, and in
collaboration with U.S. and Peruvian colleagues, the Botany of the Los Amigos project has been initiated.
At Los Amigos, we are attempting to develop a system of preservation, sustainability, and scientific
research; a marriage between various disciplines, from human ecology to economic botany, product
marketing to forest management. The complexity of the ecosystem will best be understood through a
multidisciplinary approach, and improved understanding of the complexity will lead to better management.
The future of these forests will depend on sustainable management and development of alternative
practices and products that do not require irreversible destruction. The botanical project will provide a
foundation of information that is essential to other programs at Los Amigos. By combining botanical
studies with fisheries and mammology, we will better understand plant/animal interactions. By providing
names, the botanical program will facilitate accurate communication about plants and the animals that
use them. Included in this scenario are humans, as we will dedicate time to people-plant interactions in
order to learn what plants are used by people in the Los Amigos area, and what plants could potentially
be used by people. To be informed, we must develop knowledge. To develop knowledge, we must collect,
organize, and disseminate information. In this sense, botanical information has conservation value.
Before we can use plant-based products from the forest, we must know what species are useful and we
must know their names. We must be able to identify them, to know where they occur in the forest, how
many of them exist, how they are pollinated and when they produce fruit (or other useful products). Aside
from understanding the species as they occur locally at Los Amigos, we must have information about their
overall distribution in tropical America in order to better understand and manage the distribution, variation,
and viability of their genetic diversity. This involves a more complete understanding of the species through
studies in the field and herbarium. In 1st paragraph, "genetic resources" refers to

A) cells that can be used in genetic cures for diseases
B) diverse species of plants and animals.
C) different races of people.
D) plant seeds.
E) natural resources, such as oil.

4. By the end of the campaign both candidates had resorted to __________ the other.

A) denigrating
B) swindling
C) mollifying
D) commending
E) conceding

5. Pauline Johnson (18611913) was the daughter of Mohawk leader George Henry Martin; her mother was
English. Johnson was known in her time as a poet and performer. For years she toured throughout
Canada giving dramatic readings. Late in her life she turned to writing short stories. This excerpt is from
"A Red Girl's Reasoning," first published in 1893.
How interesting--do tell us some more of your old home, Mrs. McDonald; you so seldom speak of your life
at the post, and we fellows so often wish to hear of it all," said Logan eagerly. "Why do you not ask me of it,
then?" "Well--er, I'm sure I don't know; I'm fully interested in the Ind --in your people--your mother's people,
I mean, but it always seems so personal, I suppose; and --a --a--" "Perhaps you are, like all other white
people, afraid to mention my nationality to me."
The captain winced, and Mrs. Stuart laughed uneasily. Joe McDonald was not far off, and he was listening,
and chuckling, and saying to himself, "That's you, Christie, lay `em out; it won't hurt `em to know how they
appear once in a while." "Well, Captain Logan," she was saying, "what is it you would like to hear--of my
people, or my parents, or myself?" "All, all, my dear," cried Mrs. Stuart clamorously. "I'll speak for him--tell
us of yourself and your mother--your father is delightful, I am sure--but then he is only an ordinary
Englishman, not half so interesting as a foreigner, or--or perhaps I should say, a native."
Christie laughed. "Yes," she said, "my father often teases my mother now about how very native she was
when he married her; then, how could she have been otherwise? She did not know a word of English, and
there was not another English-speaking person besides my father and his two companions within sixty
miles." "Two companions, eh? One a Catholic priest and the other a wine merchant, I suppose, and with
your father in the Hudson Bay, they were good representatives of the pioneers in the New World,"
remarked Logan waggishly.
"Oh, no, they were all Hudson Bay men. There were no rumsellers and no missionaries in that part of the
country then." Mrs. Stuart looked puzzled. "No missionaries?" she repeated with an odd intonation.
Christie's insight was quick. There was a peculiar expression of interrogation in the eyes of her listeners,
and the girl's blood leapt angrily up into her temples as she said hurriedly, "I know what you mean; I know
what you are thinking. You are wondering how my parents were married --"
"Well--er, my dear, it seems peculiar if there was no priest, and no magistrate, why--a--" Mrs. Stuart
paused awkwardly.
"The marriage was performed by Indian rites," said Christie. "Oh, do tell about it; is the ceremony very
interesting and quaint--are your chieftains anything like Buddhist priests?" It was Logan who spoke.
"Why, no," said the girl in amazement at that gentleman's ignorance. "There is no ceremony at all, save a
feast. The two people just agree to live only with and for each other, and the man takes his wife to his
home, just as you do. There is no ritual to bind them; they need none; an Indian's word was his law
inthose days, you know."
Mrs. Stuart stepped backwards. "Ah!" was all she said. Logan removed his eyeglass and stared blankly at
Christie. "And did McDonald marry you in this singular fashion?" he questioned. "Oh, no, we were married
by Father O'Leary. Why do you ask?" "Because if he had, I'd have blown his brains out tomorrow." Mrs.
Stuart's partner, who had heretofore been silent, coughed and began to twirl his cuff stud nervously, but
nobody took notice of him. Christie had risen, slowly, ominously--risen, with the dignity and pride of an
empress.
"Captain Logan," she said, "what do you dare to say to me? What do you dare to mean? Do you presume
to think it would not have been lawful for Joe to marry me according to my people's rites? Do you for one
instant dare to question that my parents were not as legally--"
"Don't, dear, don't," interrupted Mrs. Stuart hurriedly, "it is bad enough now, goodness knows; don't
make--" Then she broke off blindly.
Mrs. Stuart's "odd intonation" apparently results from

A) a sudden loss of the powers of speech
B) ignorance and lack of vocabulary
C) an inability to pronounce the words she is saying
D) her anger at Logan's implications
E) her alarm at Christie's words

質問と回答：