Test: Practice Test - 10 - Class 10 MCQ

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Mary Helen Stefaniak, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia: A Novel. ©2010 by Mary Helen Stefaniak.
Miss Grace Spivey arrived in Threestep, Georgia,
in August 1938. She stepped off the train wearing a
pair of thick-soled boots suitable for hiking, a navy
Line blue dress, and a little white tam that rode the waves
5 of her red hair at a gravity-defying angle. August was
a hellish month to step off the train in Georgia,
although it was nothing, she said, compared to the
119 degrees that greeted her when she arrived one
time in Timbuktu, which, she assured us, was a real
10 place in Africa. I believe her remark irritated some of
the people gathered to welcome her on the burned
grass alongside the tracks. When folks are sweating
through their shorts, they don’t like to hear that this
is nothing compared to someplace else. Irritated or
15 not, the majority of those present were inclined to see
the arrival of the new schoolteacher in a positive
light. Hard times were still upon us in 1938, but, like
my momma said, “We weren’t no poorer than we’d
ever been,” and the citizens of Threestep were in the
20 mood for a little excitement.
Miss Spivey looked like just the right person to
give it to them. She was, by almost anyone’s
standards, a woman of the world. She’d gone to
boarding schools since she was six years old; she’d
25 studied French in Paris and drama in London; and
during what she called a “fruitful intermission” in her
formal education, she had traveled extensively in the
Near East and Africa with a friend of her
grandmother’s, one Janet Miller, who was a medical
30 doctor from Nashville, Tennessee. After her travels
with Dr. Miller, Miss Spivey continued her education
by attending Barnard College in New York City. She
told us all that at school the first day. When my little
brother Ralphord asked what did she study at
35 Barnyard College, Miss Spivey explained that
Barnard, which she wrote on the blackboard, was the
sister school of Columbia University, of which, she
expected, we all had heard.
It was there, she told us, in the midst of trying to
40 find her true mission in life, that she wandered one
afternoon into a lecture by the famous John Dewey,
who was talking about his famous book, Democracy
and Education. Professor Dewey was in his seventies
by then, Miss Spivey said, but he still liked to chat
45 with students after a lecture—especially female
students, she added—sometimes over coffee, and see
in their eyes the fire his words could kindle. It was
after this lecture and subsequent coffee that Miss
Spivey had marched to the Teacher’s College and
50 signed up, all aflame. Two years later, she told a
cheery blue-suited woman from the WPA1 that she
wanted to bring democracy and education to the
poorest, darkest, most remote and forgotten corner
of America.
55 They sent her to Threestep, Georgia.
Miss Spivey paused there for questions, avoiding
my brother Ralphord’s eye.
What we really wanted to know about—all
twenty-six of us across seven grade levels in the one
60 room—was the pearly white button hanging on a
string in front of the blackboard behind the teacher’s
desk up front. That button on a string was something
new. When Mavis Davis (the only bona fide seventh
grader, at age thirteen) asked what it was for, Miss
65 Spivey gave the string a tug, and to our astonishment,
the whole world—or at least a wrinkled map of
it—unfolded before our eyes. Her predecessor, Miss
Chandler, had never once made use of that map,
which was older than our fathers, and until that
70 moment, not a one of us knew it was there.
Miss Spivey showed us on the map how she and
Dr. Janet Miller had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean
and past the Rock of Gibraltar into the
Mediterranean Sea. Using the end of a ruler, she
75 gently tapped such places as Morocco and Tunis and
Algiers to mark their route along the top of Africa.
They spent twenty hours on the train to Baghdad, she
said, swathed in veils against the sand that crept in
every crack and crevice.
80 “And can you guess what we saw from the train?”
Miss Spivey asked. We could not. “Camels!” she said.
“We saw a whole caravan of camels.” She looked
around the room, waiting for us to be amazed and
delighted at the thought.
85 We all hung there for a minute, thinking hard,
until Mavis Davis spoke up.
“She means like the three kings rode to
Bethlehem,” Mavis said, and she folded her hands
smugly on her seventh-grade desk in the back of the
90 room.
Miss Spivey made a mistake right then. Instead of
beaming upon Mavis the kind of congratulatory
smile that old Miss Chandler would have bestowed
on her for having enlightened the rest of us, Miss
95 Spivey simply said, “That’s right.”
¹The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a government
agency that hired people for public and cultural development
projects and services.

Q. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Mary Helen Stefaniak, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia: A Novel. ©2010 by Mary Helen Stefaniak.
Miss Grace Spivey arrived in Threestep, Georgia,
in August 1938. She stepped off the train wearing a
pair of thick-soled boots suitable for hiking, a navy
Line blue dress, and a little white tam that rode the waves
5 of her red hair at a gravity-defying angle. August was
a hellish month to step off the train in Georgia,
although it was nothing, she said, compared to the
119 degrees that greeted her when she arrived one
time in Timbuktu, which, she assured us, was a real
10 place in Africa. I believe her remark irritated some of
the people gathered to welcome her on the burned
grass alongside the tracks. When folks are sweating
through their shorts, they don’t like to hear that this
is nothing compared to someplace else. Irritated or
15 not, the majority of those present were inclined to see
the arrival of the new schoolteacher in a positive
light. Hard times were still upon us in 1938, but, like
my momma said, “We weren’t no poorer than we’d
ever been,” and the citizens of Threestep were in the
20 mood for a little excitement.
Miss Spivey looked like just the right person to
give it to them. She was, by almost anyone’s
standards, a woman of the world. She’d gone to
boarding schools since she was six years old; she’d
25 studied French in Paris and drama in London; and
during what she called a “fruitful intermission” in her
formal education, she had traveled extensively in the
Near East and Africa with a friend of her
grandmother’s, one Janet Miller, who was a medical
30 doctor from Nashville, Tennessee. After her travels
with Dr. Miller, Miss Spivey continued her education
by attending Barnard College in New York City. She
told us all that at school the first day. When my little
brother Ralphord asked what did she study at
35 Barnyard College, Miss Spivey explained that
Barnard, which she wrote on the blackboard, was the
sister school of Columbia University, of which, she
expected, we all had heard.
It was there, she told us, in the midst of trying to
40 find her true mission in life, that she wandered one
afternoon into a lecture by the famous John Dewey,
who was talking about his famous book, Democracy
and Education. Professor Dewey was in his seventies
by then, Miss Spivey said, but he still liked to chat
45 with students after a lecture—especially female
students, she added—sometimes over coffee, and see
in their eyes the fire his words could kindle. It was
after this lecture and subsequent coffee that Miss
Spivey had marched to the Teacher’s College and
50 signed up, all aflame. Two years later, she told a
cheery blue-suited woman from the WPA1 that she
wanted to bring democracy and education to the
poorest, darkest, most remote and forgotten corner
of America.
55 They sent her to Threestep, Georgia.
Miss Spivey paused there for questions, avoiding
my brother Ralphord’s eye.
What we really wanted to know about—all
twenty-six of us across seven grade levels in the one
60 room—was the pearly white button hanging on a
string in front of the blackboard behind the teacher’s
desk up front. That button on a string was something
new. When Mavis Davis (the only bona fide seventh
grader, at age thirteen) asked what it was for, Miss
65 Spivey gave the string a tug, and to our astonishment,
the whole world—or at least a wrinkled map of
it—unfolded before our eyes. Her predecessor, Miss
Chandler, had never once made use of that map,
which was older than our fathers, and until that
70 moment, not a one of us knew it was there.
Miss Spivey showed us on the map how she and
Dr. Janet Miller had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean
and past the Rock of Gibraltar into the
Mediterranean Sea. Using the end of a ruler, she
75 gently tapped such places as Morocco and Tunis and
Algiers to mark their route along the top of Africa.
They spent twenty hours on the train to Baghdad, she
said, swathed in veils against the sand that crept in
every crack and crevice.
80 “And can you guess what we saw from the train?”
Miss Spivey asked. We could not. “Camels!” she said.
“We saw a whole caravan of camels.” She looked
around the room, waiting for us to be amazed and
delighted at the thought.
85 We all hung there for a minute, thinking hard,
until Mavis Davis spoke up.
“She means like the three kings rode to
Bethlehem,” Mavis said, and she folded her hands
smugly on her seventh-grade desk in the back of the
90 room.
Miss Spivey made a mistake right then. Instead of
beaming upon Mavis the kind of congratulatory
smile that old Miss Chandler would have bestowed
on her for having enlightened the rest of us, Miss
95 Spivey simply said, “That’s right.”
¹The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a government
agency that hired people for public and cultural development
projects and services.

Q. Miss Spivey most likely uses the phrase “fruitful intermission” (line 26) to indicate that

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Mary Helen Stefaniak, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia: A Novel. ©2010 by Mary Helen Stefaniak.
Miss Grace Spivey arrived in Threestep, Georgia,
in August 1938. She stepped off the train wearing a
pair of thick-soled boots suitable for hiking, a navy
Line blue dress, and a little white tam that rode the waves
5 of her red hair at a gravity-defying angle. August was
a hellish month to step off the train in Georgia,
although it was nothing, she said, compared to the
119 degrees that greeted her when she arrived one
time in Timbuktu, which, she assured us, was a real
10 place in Africa. I believe her remark irritated some of
the people gathered to welcome her on the burned
grass alongside the tracks. When folks are sweating
through their shorts, they don’t like to hear that this
is nothing compared to someplace else. Irritated or
15 not, the majority of those present were inclined to see
the arrival of the new schoolteacher in a positive
light. Hard times were still upon us in 1938, but, like
my momma said, “We weren’t no poorer than we’d
ever been,” and the citizens of Threestep were in the
20 mood for a little excitement.
Miss Spivey looked like just the right person to
give it to them. She was, by almost anyone’s
standards, a woman of the world. She’d gone to
boarding schools since she was six years old; she’d
25 studied French in Paris and drama in London; and
during what she called a “fruitful intermission” in her
formal education, she had traveled extensively in the
Near East and Africa with a friend of her
grandmother’s, one Janet Miller, who was a medical
30 doctor from Nashville, Tennessee. After her travels
with Dr. Miller, Miss Spivey continued her education
by attending Barnard College in New York City. She
told us all that at school the first day. When my little
brother Ralphord asked what did she study at
35 Barnyard College, Miss Spivey explained that
Barnard, which she wrote on the blackboard, was the
sister school of Columbia University, of which, she
expected, we all had heard.
It was there, she told us, in the midst of trying to
40 find her true mission in life, that she wandered one
afternoon into a lecture by the famous John Dewey,
who was talking about his famous book, Democracy
and Education. Professor Dewey was in his seventies
by then, Miss Spivey said, but he still liked to chat
45 with students after a lecture—especially female
students, she added—sometimes over coffee, and see
in their eyes the fire his words could kindle. It was
after this lecture and subsequent coffee that Miss
Spivey had marched to the Teacher’s College and
50 signed up, all aflame. Two years later, she told a
cheery blue-suited woman from the WPA1 that she
wanted to bring democracy and education to the
poorest, darkest, most remote and forgotten corner
of America.
55 They sent her to Threestep, Georgia.
Miss Spivey paused there for questions, avoiding
my brother Ralphord’s eye.
What we really wanted to know about—all
twenty-six of us across seven grade levels in the one
60 room—was the pearly white button hanging on a
string in front of the blackboard behind the teacher’s
desk up front. That button on a string was something
new. When Mavis Davis (the only bona fide seventh
grader, at age thirteen) asked what it was for, Miss
65 Spivey gave the string a tug, and to our astonishment,
the whole world—or at least a wrinkled map of
it—unfolded before our eyes. Her predecessor, Miss
Chandler, had never once made use of that map,
which was older than our fathers, and until that
70 moment, not a one of us knew it was there.
Miss Spivey showed us on the map how she and
Dr. Janet Miller had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean
and past the Rock of Gibraltar into the
Mediterranean Sea. Using the end of a ruler, she
75 gently tapped such places as Morocco and Tunis and
Algiers to mark their route along the top of Africa.
They spent twenty hours on the train to Baghdad, she
said, swathed in veils against the sand that crept in
every crack and crevice.
80 “And can you guess what we saw from the train?”
Miss Spivey asked. We could not. “Camels!” she said.
“We saw a whole caravan of camels.” She looked
around the room, waiting for us to be amazed and
delighted at the thought.
85 We all hung there for a minute, thinking hard,
until Mavis Davis spoke up.
“She means like the three kings rode to
Bethlehem,” Mavis said, and she folded her hands
smugly on her seventh-grade desk in the back of the
90 room.
Miss Spivey made a mistake right then. Instead of
beaming upon Mavis the kind of congratulatory
smile that old Miss Chandler would have bestowed
on her for having enlightened the rest of us, Miss
95 Spivey simply said, “That’s right.”
¹The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a government
agency that hired people for public and cultural development
projects and services.

Q. The interaction between Miss Spivey and Ralphord serves mainly to

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Mary Helen Stefaniak, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia: A Novel. ©2010 by Mary Helen Stefaniak.
Miss Grace Spivey arrived in Threestep, Georgia,
in August 1938. She stepped off the train wearing a
pair of thick-soled boots suitable for hiking, a navy
Line blue dress, and a little white tam that rode the waves
5 of her red hair at a gravity-defying angle. August was
a hellish month to step off the train in Georgia,
although it was nothing, she said, compared to the
119 degrees that greeted her when she arrived one
time in Timbuktu, which, she assured us, was a real
10 place in Africa. I believe her remark irritated some of
the people gathered to welcome her on the burned
grass alongside the tracks. When folks are sweating
through their shorts, they don’t like to hear that this
is nothing compared to someplace else. Irritated or
15 not, the majority of those present were inclined to see
the arrival of the new schoolteacher in a positive
light. Hard times were still upon us in 1938, but, like
my momma said, “We weren’t no poorer than we’d
ever been,” and the citizens of Threestep were in the
20 mood for a little excitement.
Miss Spivey looked like just the right person to
give it to them. She was, by almost anyone’s
standards, a woman of the world. She’d gone to
boarding schools since she was six years old; she’d
25 studied French in Paris and drama in London; and
during what she called a “fruitful intermission” in her
formal education, she had traveled extensively in the
Near East and Africa with a friend of her
grandmother’s, one Janet Miller, who was a medical
30 doctor from Nashville, Tennessee. After her travels
with Dr. Miller, Miss Spivey continued her education
by attending Barnard College in New York City. She
told us all that at school the first day. When my little
brother Ralphord asked what did she study at
35 Barnyard College, Miss Spivey explained that
Barnard, which she wrote on the blackboard, was the
sister school of Columbia University, of which, she
expected, we all had heard.
It was there, she told us, in the midst of trying to
40 find her true mission in life, that she wandered one
afternoon into a lecture by the famous John Dewey,
who was talking about his famous book, Democracy
and Education. Professor Dewey was in his seventies
by then, Miss Spivey said, but he still liked to chat
45 with students after a lecture—especially female
students, she added—sometimes over coffee, and see
in their eyes the fire his words could kindle. It was
after this lecture and subsequent coffee that Miss
Spivey had marched to the Teacher’s College and
50 signed up, all aflame. Two years later, she told a
cheery blue-suited woman from the WPA1 that she
wanted to bring democracy and education to the
poorest, darkest, most remote and forgotten corner
of America.
55 They sent her to Threestep, Georgia.
Miss Spivey paused there for questions, avoiding
my brother Ralphord’s eye.
What we really wanted to know about—all
twenty-six of us across seven grade levels in the one
60 room—was the pearly white button hanging on a
string in front of the blackboard behind the teacher’s
desk up front. That button on a string was something
new. When Mavis Davis (the only bona fide seventh
grader, at age thirteen) asked what it was for, Miss
65 Spivey gave the string a tug, and to our astonishment,
the whole world—or at least a wrinkled map of
it—unfolded before our eyes. Her predecessor, Miss
Chandler, had never once made use of that map,
which was older than our fathers, and until that
70 moment, not a one of us knew it was there.
Miss Spivey showed us on the map how she and
Dr. Janet Miller had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean
and past the Rock of Gibraltar into the
Mediterranean Sea. Using the end of a ruler, she
75 gently tapped such places as Morocco and Tunis and
Algiers to mark their route along the top of Africa.
They spent twenty hours on the train to Baghdad, she
said, swathed in veils against the sand that crept in
every crack and crevice.
80 “And can you guess what we saw from the train?”
Miss Spivey asked. We could not. “Camels!” she said.
“We saw a whole caravan of camels.” She looked
around the room, waiting for us to be amazed and
delighted at the thought.
85 We all hung there for a minute, thinking hard,
until Mavis Davis spoke up.
“She means like the three kings rode to
Bethlehem,” Mavis said, and she folded her hands
smugly on her seventh-grade desk in the back of the
90 room.
Miss Spivey made a mistake right then. Instead of
beaming upon Mavis the kind of congratulatory
smile that old Miss Chandler would have bestowed
on her for having enlightened the rest of us, Miss
95 Spivey simply said, “That’s right.”
¹The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a government
agency that hired people for public and cultural development
projects and services.

Q. In the third paragraph, what is the narrator most likely suggesting by describing Miss Spivey as having “wandered” (line 40) in one situation and “marched” (line 49) in another situation?

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Mary Helen Stefaniak, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia: A Novel. ©2010 by Mary Helen Stefaniak.
Miss Grace Spivey arrived in Threestep, Georgia,
in August 1938. She stepped off the train wearing a
pair of thick-soled boots suitable for hiking, a navy
Line blue dress, and a little white tam that rode the waves
5 of her red hair at a gravity-defying angle. August was
a hellish month to step off the train in Georgia,
although it was nothing, she said, compared to the
119 degrees that greeted her when she arrived one
time in Timbuktu, which, she assured us, was a real
10 place in Africa. I believe her remark irritated some of
the people gathered to welcome her on the burned
grass alongside the tracks. When folks are sweating
through their shorts, they don’t like to hear that this
is nothing compared to someplace else. Irritated or
15 not, the majority of those present were inclined to see
the arrival of the new schoolteacher in a positive
light. Hard times were still upon us in 1938, but, like
my momma said, “We weren’t no poorer than we’d
ever been,” and the citizens of Threestep were in the
20 mood for a little excitement.
Miss Spivey looked like just the right person to
give it to them. She was, by almost anyone’s
standards, a woman of the world. She’d gone to
boarding schools since she was six years old; she’d
25 studied French in Paris and drama in London; and
during what she called a “fruitful intermission” in her
formal education, she had traveled extensively in the
Near East and Africa with a friend of her
grandmother’s, one Janet Miller, who was a medical
30 doctor from Nashville, Tennessee. After her travels
with Dr. Miller, Miss Spivey continued her education
by attending Barnard College in New York City. She
told us all that at school the first day. When my little
brother Ralphord asked what did she study at
35 Barnyard College, Miss Spivey explained that
Barnard, which she wrote on the blackboard, was the
sister school of Columbia University, of which, she
expected, we all had heard.
It was there, she told us, in the midst of trying to
40 find her true mission in life, that she wandered one
afternoon into a lecture by the famous John Dewey,
who was talking about his famous book, Democracy
and Education. Professor Dewey was in his seventies
by then, Miss Spivey said, but he still liked to chat
45 with students after a lecture—especially female
students, she added—sometimes over coffee, and see
in their eyes the fire his words could kindle. It was
after this lecture and subsequent coffee that Miss
Spivey had marched to the Teacher’s College and
50 signed up, all aflame. Two years later, she told a
cheery blue-suited woman from the WPA1 that she
wanted to bring democracy and education to the
poorest, darkest, most remote and forgotten corner
of America.
55 They sent her to Threestep, Georgia.
Miss Spivey paused there for questions, avoiding
my brother Ralphord’s eye.
What we really wanted to know about—all
twenty-six of us across seven grade levels in the one
60 room—was the pearly white button hanging on a
string in front of the blackboard behind the teacher’s
desk up front. That button on a string was something
new. When Mavis Davis (the only bona fide seventh
grader, at age thirteen) asked what it was for, Miss
65 Spivey gave the string a tug, and to our astonishment,
the whole world—or at least a wrinkled map of
it—unfolded before our eyes. Her predecessor, Miss
Chandler, had never once made use of that map,
which was older than our fathers, and until that
70 moment, not a one of us knew it was there.
Miss Spivey showed us on the map how she and
Dr. Janet Miller had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean
and past the Rock of Gibraltar into the
Mediterranean Sea. Using the end of a ruler, she
75 gently tapped such places as Morocco and Tunis and
Algiers to mark their route along the top of Africa.
They spent twenty hours on the train to Baghdad, she
said, swathed in veils against the sand that crept in
every crack and crevice.
80 “And can you guess what we saw from the train?”
Miss Spivey asked. We could not. “Camels!” she said.
“We saw a whole caravan of camels.” She looked
around the room, waiting for us to be amazed and
delighted at the thought.
85 We all hung there for a minute, thinking hard,
until Mavis Davis spoke up.
“She means like the three kings rode to
Bethlehem,” Mavis said, and she folded her hands
smugly on her seventh-grade desk in the back of the
90 room.
Miss Spivey made a mistake right then. Instead of
beaming upon Mavis the kind of congratulatory
smile that old Miss Chandler would have bestowed
on her for having enlightened the rest of us, Miss
95 Spivey simply said, “That’s right.”
¹The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a government
agency that hired people for public and cultural development
projects and services.

Q. According to the passage, Miss Spivey ended up in Threestep as a direct result of

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Mary Helen Stefaniak, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia: A Novel. ©2010 by Mary Helen Stefaniak.
Miss Grace Spivey arrived in Threestep, Georgia,
in August 1938. She stepped off the train wearing a
pair of thick-soled boots suitable for hiking, a navy
Line blue dress, and a little white tam that rode the waves
5 of her red hair at a gravity-defying angle. August was
a hellish month to step off the train in Georgia,
although it was nothing, she said, compared to the
119 degrees that greeted her when she arrived one
time in Timbuktu, which, she assured us, was a real
10 place in Africa. I believe her remark irritated some of
the people gathered to welcome her on the burned
grass alongside the tracks. When folks are sweating
through their shorts, they don’t like to hear that this
is nothing compared to someplace else. Irritated or
15 not, the majority of those present were inclined to see
the arrival of the new schoolteacher in a positive
light. Hard times were still upon us in 1938, but, like
my momma said, “We weren’t no poorer than we’d
ever been,” and the citizens of Threestep were in the
20 mood for a little excitement.
Miss Spivey looked like just the right person to
give it to them. She was, by almost anyone’s
standards, a woman of the world. She’d gone to
boarding schools since she was six years old; she’d
25 studied French in Paris and drama in London; and
during what she called a “fruitful intermission” in her
formal education, she had traveled extensively in the
Near East and Africa with a friend of her
grandmother’s, one Janet Miller, who was a medical
30 doctor from Nashville, Tennessee. After her travels
with Dr. Miller, Miss Spivey continued her education
by attending Barnard College in New York City. She
told us all that at school the first day. When my little
brother Ralphord asked what did she study at
35 Barnyard College, Miss Spivey explained that
Barnard, which she wrote on the blackboard, was the
sister school of Columbia University, of which, she
expected, we all had heard.
It was there, she told us, in the midst of trying to
40 find her true mission in life, that she wandered one
afternoon into a lecture by the famous John Dewey,
who was talking about his famous book, Democracy
and Education. Professor Dewey was in his seventies
by then, Miss Spivey said, but he still liked to chat
45 with students after a lecture—especially female
students, she added—sometimes over coffee, and see
in their eyes the fire his words could kindle. It was
after this lecture and subsequent coffee that Miss
Spivey had marched to the Teacher’s College and
50 signed up, all aflame. Two years later, she told a
cheery blue-suited woman from the WPA1 that she
wanted to bring democracy and education to the
poorest, darkest, most remote and forgotten corner
of America.
55 They sent her to Threestep, Georgia.
Miss Spivey paused there for questions, avoiding
my brother Ralphord’s eye.
What we really wanted to know about—all
twenty-six of us across seven grade levels in the one
60 room—was the pearly white button hanging on a
string in front of the blackboard behind the teacher’s
desk up front. That button on a string was something
new. When Mavis Davis (the only bona fide seventh
grader, at age thirteen) asked what it was for, Miss
65 Spivey gave the string a tug, and to our astonishment,
the whole world—or at least a wrinkled map of
it—unfolded before our eyes. Her predecessor, Miss
Chandler, had never once made use of that map,
which was older than our fathers, and until that
70 moment, not a one of us knew it was there.
Miss Spivey showed us on the map how she and
Dr. Janet Miller had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean
and past the Rock of Gibraltar into the
Mediterranean Sea. Using the end of a ruler, she
75 gently tapped such places as Morocco and Tunis and
Algiers to mark their route along the top of Africa.
They spent twenty hours on the train to Baghdad, she
said, swathed in veils against the sand that crept in
every crack and crevice.
80 “And can you guess what we saw from the train?”
Miss Spivey asked. We could not. “Camels!” she said.
“We saw a whole caravan of camels.” She looked
around the room, waiting for us to be amazed and
delighted at the thought.
85 We all hung there for a minute, thinking hard,
until Mavis Davis spoke up.
“She means like the three kings rode to
Bethlehem,” Mavis said, and she folded her hands
smugly on her seventh-grade desk in the back of the
90 room.
Miss Spivey made a mistake right then. Instead of
beaming upon Mavis the kind of congratulatory
smile that old Miss Chandler would have bestowed
on her for having enlightened the rest of us, Miss
95 Spivey simply said, “That’s right.”
¹The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a government
agency that hired people for public and cultural development
projects and services.

Q. In the passage, when Miss Spivey announces that she had seen camels, the students’ reaction suggests that they are

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Mary Helen Stefaniak, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia: A Novel. ©2010 by Mary Helen Stefaniak.
Miss Grace Spivey arrived in Threestep, Georgia,
in August 1938. She stepped off the train wearing a
pair of thick-soled boots suitable for hiking, a navy
Line blue dress, and a little white tam that rode the waves
5 of her red hair at a gravity-defying angle. August was
a hellish month to step off the train in Georgia,
although it was nothing, she said, compared to the
119 degrees that greeted her when she arrived one
time in Timbuktu, which, she assured us, was a real
10 place in Africa. I believe her remark irritated some of
the people gathered to welcome her on the burned
grass alongside the tracks. When folks are sweating
through their shorts, they don’t like to hear that this
is nothing compared to someplace else. Irritated or
15 not, the majority of those present were inclined to see
the arrival of the new schoolteacher in a positive
light. Hard times were still upon us in 1938, but, like
my momma said, “We weren’t no poorer than we’d
ever been,” and the citizens of Threestep were in the
20 mood for a little excitement.
Miss Spivey looked like just the right person to
give it to them. She was, by almost anyone’s
standards, a woman of the world. She’d gone to
boarding schools since she was six years old; she’d
25 studied French in Paris and drama in London; and
during what she called a “fruitful intermission” in her
formal education, she had traveled extensively in the
Near East and Africa with a friend of her
grandmother’s, one Janet Miller, who was a medical
30 doctor from Nashville, Tennessee. After her travels
with Dr. Miller, Miss Spivey continued her education
by attending Barnard College in New York City. She
told us all that at school the first day. When my little
brother Ralphord asked what did she study at
35 Barnyard College, Miss Spivey explained that
Barnard, which she wrote on the blackboard, was the
sister school of Columbia University, of which, she
expected, we all had heard.
It was there, she told us, in the midst of trying to
40 find her true mission in life, that she wandered one
afternoon into a lecture by the famous John Dewey,
who was talking about his famous book, Democracy
and Education. Professor Dewey was in his seventies
by then, Miss Spivey said, but he still liked to chat
45 with students after a lecture—especially female
students, she added—sometimes over coffee, and see
in their eyes the fire his words could kindle. It was
after this lecture and subsequent coffee that Miss
Spivey had marched to the Teacher’s College and
50 signed up, all aflame. Two years later, she told a
cheery blue-suited woman from the WPA1 that she
wanted to bring democracy and education to the
poorest, darkest, most remote and forgotten corner
of America.
55 They sent her to Threestep, Georgia.
Miss Spivey paused there for questions, avoiding
my brother Ralphord’s eye.
What we really wanted to know about—all
twenty-six of us across seven grade levels in the one
60 room—was the pearly white button hanging on a
string in front of the blackboard behind the teacher’s
desk up front. That button on a string was something
new. When Mavis Davis (the only bona fide seventh
grader, at age thirteen) asked what it was for, Miss
65 Spivey gave the string a tug, and to our astonishment,
the whole world—or at least a wrinkled map of
it—unfolded before our eyes. Her predecessor, Miss
Chandler, had never once made use of that map,
which was older than our fathers, and until that
70 moment, not a one of us knew it was there.
Miss Spivey showed us on the map how she and
Dr. Janet Miller had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean
and past the Rock of Gibraltar into the
Mediterranean Sea. Using the end of a ruler, she
75 gently tapped such places as Morocco and Tunis and
Algiers to mark their route along the top of Africa.
They spent twenty hours on the train to Baghdad, she
said, swathed in veils against the sand that crept in
every crack and crevice.
80 “And can you guess what we saw from the train?”
Miss Spivey asked. We could not. “Camels!” she said.
“We saw a whole caravan of camels.” She looked
around the room, waiting for us to be amazed and
delighted at the thought.
85 We all hung there for a minute, thinking hard,
until Mavis Davis spoke up.
“She means like the three kings rode to
Bethlehem,” Mavis said, and she folded her hands
smugly on her seventh-grade desk in the back of the
90 room.
Miss Spivey made a mistake right then. Instead of
beaming upon Mavis the kind of congratulatory
smile that old Miss Chandler would have bestowed
on her for having enlightened the rest of us, Miss
95 Spivey simply said, “That’s right.”
¹The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a government
agency that hired people for public and cultural development
projects and services.

Q. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Sabrina Richards, “Pleasant tothe Touch.” ©2012 by The Scientist.
In the early 1990s, textbooks acknowledged that
humans had slow-conducting nerves, but asserted
that those nerves only responded to two types of
Line stimuli: pain and temperature. Sensations of pressure
5 and vibration were believed to travel only along
myelinated, fast-signaling nerve fibers, which also
give information about location. Experiments
blocking nerve fibers supported this notion.
Preventing fast fibers from firing (either by clamping
10 the relevant nerve or by injecting the local anesthetic
lidocaine) seemed to eliminate the sensation of
pressure altogether, but blocking slow fibers only
seemed to reduce sensitivity to warmth or a small
painful shock.
15 Håkan Olausson and his Gothenburg University
colleagues Åke Vallbo and Johan Wessberg
wondered if slow fibers responsive to gentle pressure
might be active in humans as well as in other
mammals. In 1993, they corralled 28 young
20 volunteers and recorded nerve signals while gently
brushing the subjects’ arms with their fingertips.
Using a technique called microneurography, in
which a fine filament is inserted into a single nerve to
capture its electrical impulses, the scientists were able
25 to measure how quickly—or slowly—the nerves
fired. They showed that soft stroking prompted
two different signals, one immediate and one
delayed. The delay, Olausson explains, means that
the signal from a gentle touch on the forearm will
30 reach the brain about a half second later. This delay
identified nerve impulses traveling at speeds
characteristic of slow, unmyelinated fibers—about
1 meter/second—confirming the presence of these
fibers in human hairy skin. (In contrast, fast-
35 conducting fibers, already known to respond to
touch, signal at a rate between 35 and 75 m/s.)
Then, in 1999, the group looked more closely at
the characteristics of the slow fibers. They named
these “low-threshold” nerves “C-tactile,” or CT,
40 fibers, said Olausson, because of their “exquisite
sensitivity” to slow, gentle tactile stimulation, but
unresponsiveness to noxious stimuli like pinpricks.
But why exactly humans might have such fibers,
which respond only to a narrow range of rather
45 subtle stimuli, was initially mystifying. Unlike other
types of sensory nerves, CT fibers could be found
only in hairy human skin—such as the forearm and
thigh. No amount of gentle stroking of hairless skin,
such as the palms and soles of the feet, prompted
50 similar activity signatures. Olausson and his
colleagues decided that these fibers must be
conveying a different dimension of sensory
information than fast-conducting fibers.
Although microneurography can give
55 information about how a single nerve responds to
gentle brushing and pressure, it cannot tease out
what aspect of sensation that fiber relays, says
Olausson. He wanted to know if that same slow
nerve can distinguish where the brush touches the
60 arm, and whether it can discern the difference
between a goat-hair brush and a feather. Most
importantly, could that same fiber convey a pleasant
sensation?
To address the question, Olausson’s group sought
65 out a patient known as G.L. who had an unusual
nerve defect. More than 2 decades earlier, she had
developed numbness across many parts of her body
after taking penicillin to treat a cough and fever.
Testing showed that she had lost responsiveness to
70 pressure, and a nerve biopsy confirmed that G.L.’s
quick-conducting fibers were gone, resulting in an
inability to sense any pokes, prods, or pinpricks
below her nose. But she could still sense warmth,
suggesting that her slow-conducting unmyelinated
75 fibers were intact.
Upon recruiting G.L., Olausson tested her by
brushing her arm gently at the speed of between
2–10 centimeters per second. She had more trouble
distinguishing the direction or pressure of the brush
80 strokes than most subjects, but reported feeling a
pleasant sensation. When the researchers tried
brushing her palm, where CT fibers are not found,
she felt nothing.
Olausson used functional MRI studies to examine
85 which areas of the brain lit up when G.L.’s arm was
gently brushed to activate CT fibers. In normal
subjects, both the somatosensory and insular cortices
were activated, but only the insular cortex [which
processes emotion] was active when researchers
90 brushed G.L.’s arm. This solidified the notion that
CT fibers convey a more emotional quality of touch,
rather than the conscious aspect that helps us
describe what we are sensing. CT fibers, it seemed,
specifically provide pleasurable sensations.

Q Based on the passage, textbook authors in the early 1990s would most likely have expected which condition to result from the blocking of fast fibers?

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Sabrina Richards, “Pleasant tothe Touch.” ©2012 by The Scientist.
In the early 1990s, textbooks acknowledged that
humans had slow-conducting nerves, but asserted
that those nerves only responded to two types of
Line stimuli: pain and temperature. Sensations of pressure
5 and vibration were believed to travel only along
myelinated, fast-signaling nerve fibers, which also
give information about location. Experiments
blocking nerve fibers supported this notion.
Preventing fast fibers from firing (either by clamping
10 the relevant nerve or by injecting the local anesthetic
lidocaine) seemed to eliminate the sensation of
pressure altogether, but blocking slow fibers only
seemed to reduce sensitivity to warmth or a small
painful shock.
15 Håkan Olausson and his Gothenburg University
colleagues Åke Vallbo and Johan Wessberg
wondered if slow fibers responsive to gentle pressure
might be active in humans as well as in other
mammals. In 1993, they corralled 28 young
20 volunteers and recorded nerve signals while gently
brushing the subjects’ arms with their fingertips.
Using a technique called microneurography, in
which a fine filament is inserted into a single nerve to
capture its electrical impulses, the scientists were able
25 to measure how quickly—or slowly—the nerves
fired. They showed that soft stroking prompted
two different signals, one immediate and one
delayed. The delay, Olausson explains, means that
the signal from a gentle touch on the forearm will
30 reach the brain about a half second later. This delay
identified nerve impulses traveling at speeds
characteristic of slow, unmyelinated fibers—about
1 meter/second—confirming the presence of these
fibers in human hairy skin. (In contrast, fast-
35 conducting fibers, already known to respond to
touch, signal at a rate between 35 and 75 m/s.)
Then, in 1999, the group looked more closely at
the characteristics of the slow fibers. They named
these “low-threshold” nerves “C-tactile,” or CT,
40 fibers, said Olausson, because of their “exquisite
sensitivity” to slow, gentle tactile stimulation, but
unresponsiveness to noxious stimuli like pinpricks.
But why exactly humans might have such fibers,
which respond only to a narrow range of rather
45 subtle stimuli, was initially mystifying. Unlike other
types of sensory nerves, CT fibers could be found
only in hairy human skin—such as the forearm and
thigh. No amount of gentle stroking of hairless skin,
such as the palms and soles of the feet, prompted
50 similar activity signatures. Olausson and his
colleagues decided that these fibers must be
conveying a different dimension of sensory
information than fast-conducting fibers.
Although microneurography can give
55 information about how a single nerve responds to
gentle brushing and pressure, it cannot tease out
what aspect of sensation that fiber relays, says
Olausson. He wanted to know if that same slow
nerve can distinguish where the brush touches the
60 arm, and whether it can discern the difference
between a goat-hair brush and a feather. Most
importantly, could that same fiber convey a pleasant
sensation?
To address the question, Olausson’s group sought
65 out a patient known as G.L. who had an unusual
nerve defect. More than 2 decades earlier, she had
developed numbness across many parts of her body
after taking penicillin to treat a cough and fever.
Testing showed that she had lost responsiveness to
70 pressure, and a nerve biopsy confirmed that G.L.’s
quick-conducting fibers were gone, resulting in an
inability to sense any pokes, prods, or pinpricks
below her nose. But she could still sense warmth,
suggesting that her slow-conducting unmyelinated
75 fibers were intact.
Upon recruiting G.L., Olausson tested her by
brushing her arm gently at the speed of between
2–10 centimeters per second. She had more trouble
distinguishing the direction or pressure of the brush
80 strokes than most subjects, but reported feeling a
pleasant sensation. When the researchers tried
brushing her palm, where CT fibers are not found,
she felt nothing.
Olausson used functional MRI studies to examine
85 which areas of the brain lit up when G.L.’s arm was
gently brushed to activate CT fibers. In normal
subjects, both the somatosensory and insular cortices
were activated, but only the insular cortex [which
processes emotion] was active when researchers
90 brushed G.L.’s arm. This solidified the notion that
CT fibers convey a more emotional quality of touch,
rather than the conscious aspect that helps us
describe what we are sensing. CT fibers, it seemed,
specifically provide pleasurable sensations.

Q. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Sabrina Richards, “Pleasant tothe Touch.” ©2012 by The Scientist.
In the early 1990s, textbooks acknowledged that
humans had slow-conducting nerves, but asserted
that those nerves only responded to two types of
Line stimuli: pain and temperature. Sensations of pressure
5 and vibration were believed to travel only along
myelinated, fast-signaling nerve fibers, which also
give information about location. Experiments
blocking nerve fibers supported this notion.
Preventing fast fibers from firing (either by clamping
10 the relevant nerve or by injecting the local anesthetic
lidocaine) seemed to eliminate the sensation of
pressure altogether, but blocking slow fibers only
seemed to reduce sensitivity to warmth or a small
painful shock.
15 Håkan Olausson and his Gothenburg University
colleagues Åke Vallbo and Johan Wessberg
wondered if slow fibers responsive to gentle pressure
might be active in humans as well as in other
mammals. In 1993, they corralled 28 young
20 volunteers and recorded nerve signals while gently
brushing the subjects’ arms with their fingertips.
Using a technique called microneurography, in
which a fine filament is inserted into a single nerve to
capture its electrical impulses, the scientists were able
25 to measure how quickly—or slowly—the nerves
fired. They showed that soft stroking prompted
two different signals, one immediate and one
delayed. The delay, Olausson explains, means that
the signal from a gentle touch on the forearm will
30 reach the brain about a half second later. This delay
identified nerve impulses traveling at speeds
characteristic of slow, unmyelinated fibers—about
1 meter/second—confirming the presence of these
fibers in human hairy skin. (In contrast, fast-
35 conducting fibers, already known to respond to
touch, signal at a rate between 35 and 75 m/s.)
Then, in 1999, the group looked more closely at
the characteristics of the slow fibers. They named
these “low-threshold” nerves “C-tactile,” or CT,
40 fibers, said Olausson, because of their “exquisite
sensitivity” to slow, gentle tactile stimulation, but
unresponsiveness to noxious stimuli like pinpricks.
But why exactly humans might have such fibers,
which respond only to a narrow range of rather
45 subtle stimuli, was initially mystifying. Unlike other
types of sensory nerves, CT fibers could be found
only in hairy human skin—such as the forearm and
thigh. No amount of gentle stroking of hairless skin,
such as the palms and soles of the feet, prompted
50 similar activity signatures. Olausson and his
colleagues decided that these fibers must be
conveying a different dimension of sensory
information than fast-conducting fibers.
Although microneurography can give
55 information about how a single nerve responds to
gentle brushing and pressure, it cannot tease out
what aspect of sensation that fiber relays, says
Olausson. He wanted to know if that same slow
nerve can distinguish where the brush touches the
60 arm, and whether it can discern the difference
between a goat-hair brush and a feather. Most
importantly, could that same fiber convey a pleasant
sensation?
To address the question, Olausson’s group sought
65 out a patient known as G.L. who had an unusual
nerve defect. More than 2 decades earlier, she had
developed numbness across many parts of her body
after taking penicillin to treat a cough and fever.
Testing showed that she had lost responsiveness to
70 pressure, and a nerve biopsy confirmed that G.L.’s
quick-conducting fibers were gone, resulting in an
inability to sense any pokes, prods, or pinpricks
below her nose. But she could still sense warmth,
suggesting that her slow-conducting unmyelinated
75 fibers were intact.
Upon recruiting G.L., Olausson tested her by
brushing her arm gently at the speed of between
2–10 centimeters per second. She had more trouble
distinguishing the direction or pressure of the brush
80 strokes than most subjects, but reported feeling a
pleasant sensation. When the researchers tried
brushing her palm, where CT fibers are not found,
she felt nothing.
Olausson used functional MRI studies to examine
85 which areas of the brain lit up when G.L.’s arm was
gently brushed to activate CT fibers. In normal
subjects, both the somatosensory and insular cortices
were activated, but only the insular cortex [which
processes emotion] was active when researchers
90 brushed G.L.’s arm. This solidified the notion that
CT fibers convey a more emotional quality of touch,
rather than the conscious aspect that helps us
describe what we are sensing. CT fibers, it seemed,
specifically provide pleasurable sensations.

Q. As used in line 18, “active” most nearly means

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Sabrina Richards, “Pleasant tothe Touch.” ©2012 by The Scientist.
In the early 1990s, textbooks acknowledged that
humans had slow-conducting nerves, but asserted
that those nerves only responded to two types of
Line stimuli: pain and temperature. Sensations of pressure
5 and vibration were believed to travel only along
myelinated, fast-signaling nerve fibers, which also
give information about location. Experiments
blocking nerve fibers supported this notion.
Preventing fast fibers from firing (either by clamping
10 the relevant nerve or by injecting the local anesthetic
lidocaine) seemed to eliminate the sensation of
pressure altogether, but blocking slow fibers only
seemed to reduce sensitivity to warmth or a small
painful shock.
15 Håkan Olausson and his Gothenburg University
colleagues Åke Vallbo and Johan Wessberg
wondered if slow fibers responsive to gentle pressure
might be active in humans as well as in other
mammals. In 1993, they corralled 28 young
20 volunteers and recorded nerve signals while gently
brushing the subjects’ arms with their fingertips.
Using a technique called microneurography, in
which a fine filament is inserted into a single nerve to
capture its electrical impulses, the scientists were able
25 to measure how quickly—or slowly—the nerves
fired. They showed that soft stroking prompted
two different signals, one immediate and one
delayed. The delay, Olausson explains, means that
the signal from a gentle touch on the forearm will
30 reach the brain about a half second later. This delay
identified nerve impulses traveling at speeds
characteristic of slow, unmyelinated fibers—about
1 meter/second—confirming the presence of these
fibers in human hairy skin. (In contrast, fast-
35 conducting fibers, already known to respond to
touch, signal at a rate between 35 and 75 m/s.)
Then, in 1999, the group looked more closely at
the characteristics of the slow fibers. They named
these “low-threshold” nerves “C-tactile,” or CT,
40 fibers, said Olausson, because of their “exquisite
sensitivity” to slow, gentle tactile stimulation, but
unresponsiveness to noxious stimuli like pinpricks.
But why exactly humans might have such fibers,
which respond only to a narrow range of rather
45 subtle stimuli, was initially mystifying. Unlike other
types of sensory nerves, CT fibers could be found
only in hairy human skin—such as the forearm and
thigh. No amount of gentle stroking of hairless skin,
such as the palms and soles of the feet, prompted
50 similar activity signatures. Olausson and his
colleagues decided that these fibers must be
conveying a different dimension of sensory
information than fast-conducting fibers.
Although microneurography can give
55 information about how a single nerve responds to
gentle brushing and pressure, it cannot tease out
what aspect of sensation that fiber relays, says
Olausson. He wanted to know if that same slow
nerve can distinguish where the brush touches the
60 arm, and whether it can discern the difference
between a goat-hair brush and a feather. Most
importantly, could that same fiber convey a pleasant
sensation?
To address the question, Olausson’s group sought
65 out a patient known as G.L. who had an unusual
nerve defect. More than 2 decades earlier, she had
developed numbness across many parts of her body
after taking penicillin to treat a cough and fever.
Testing showed that she had lost responsiveness to
70 pressure, and a nerve biopsy confirmed that G.L.’s
quick-conducting fibers were gone, resulting in an
inability to sense any pokes, prods, or pinpricks
below her nose. But she could still sense warmth,
suggesting that her slow-conducting unmyelinated
75 fibers were intact.
Upon recruiting G.L., Olausson tested her by
brushing her arm gently at the speed of between
2–10 centimeters per second. She had more trouble
distinguishing the direction or pressure of the brush
80 strokes than most subjects, but reported feeling a
pleasant sensation. When the researchers tried
brushing her palm, where CT fibers are not found,
she felt nothing.
Olausson used functional MRI studies to examine
85 which areas of the brain lit up when G.L.’s arm was
gently brushed to activate CT fibers. In normal
subjects, both the somatosensory and insular cortices
were activated, but only the insular cortex [which
processes emotion] was active when researchers
90 brushed G.L.’s arm. This solidified the notion that
CT fibers convey a more emotional quality of touch,
rather than the conscious aspect that helps us
describe what we are sensing. CT fibers, it seemed,
specifically provide pleasurable sensations.

Q. As used in line 24, “capture” most nearly means

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Sabrina Richards, “Pleasant tothe Touch.” ©2012 by The Scientist.
In the early 1990s, textbooks acknowledged that
humans had slow-conducting nerves, but asserted
that those nerves only responded to two types of
Line stimuli: pain and temperature. Sensations of pressure
5 and vibration were believed to travel only along
myelinated, fast-signaling nerve fibers, which also
give information about location. Experiments
blocking nerve fibers supported this notion.
Preventing fast fibers from firing (either by clamping
10 the relevant nerve or by injecting the local anesthetic
lidocaine) seemed to eliminate the sensation of
pressure altogether, but blocking slow fibers only
seemed to reduce sensitivity to warmth or a small
painful shock.
15 Håkan Olausson and his Gothenburg University
colleagues Åke Vallbo and Johan Wessberg
wondered if slow fibers responsive to gentle pressure
might be active in humans as well as in other
mammals. In 1993, they corralled 28 young
20 volunteers and recorded nerve signals while gently
brushing the subjects’ arms with their fingertips.
Using a technique called microneurography, in
which a fine filament is inserted into a single nerve to
capture its electrical impulses, the scientists were able
25 to measure how quickly—or slowly—the nerves
fired. They showed that soft stroking prompted
two different signals, one immediate and one
delayed. The delay, Olausson explains, means that
the signal from a gentle touch on the forearm will
30 reach the brain about a half second later. This delay
identified nerve impulses traveling at speeds
characteristic of slow, unmyelinated fibers—about
1 meter/second—confirming the presence of these
fibers in human hairy skin. (In contrast, fast-
35 conducting fibers, already known to respond to
touch, signal at a rate between 35 and 75 m/s.)
Then, in 1999, the group looked more closely at
the characteristics of the slow fibers. They named
these “low-threshold” nerves “C-tactile,” or CT,
40 fibers, said Olausson, because of their “exquisite
sensitivity” to slow, gentle tactile stimulation, but
unresponsiveness to noxious stimuli like pinpricks.
But why exactly humans might have such fibers,
which respond only to a narrow range of rather
45 subtle stimuli, was initially mystifying. Unlike other
types of sensory nerves, CT fibers could be found
only in hairy human skin—such as the forearm and
thigh. No amount of gentle stroking of hairless skin,
such as the palms and soles of the feet, prompted
50 similar activity signatures. Olausson and his
colleagues decided that these fibers must be
conveying a different dimension of sensory
information than fast-conducting fibers.
Although microneurography can give
55 information about how a single nerve responds to
gentle brushing and pressure, it cannot tease out
what aspect of sensation that fiber relays, says
Olausson. He wanted to know if that same slow
nerve can distinguish where the brush touches the
60 arm, and whether it can discern the difference
between a goat-hair brush and a feather. Most
importantly, could that same fiber convey a pleasant
sensation?
To address the question, Olausson’s group sought
65 out a patient known as G.L. who had an unusual
nerve defect. More than 2 decades earlier, she had
developed numbness across many parts of her body
after taking penicillin to treat a cough and fever.
Testing showed that she had lost responsiveness to
70 pressure, and a nerve biopsy confirmed that G.L.’s
quick-conducting fibers were gone, resulting in an
inability to sense any pokes, prods, or pinpricks
below her nose. But she could still sense warmth,
suggesting that her slow-conducting unmyelinated
75 fibers were intact.
Upon recruiting G.L., Olausson tested her by
brushing her arm gently at the speed of between
2–10 centimeters per second. She had more trouble
distinguishing the direction or pressure of the brush
80 strokes than most subjects, but reported feeling a
pleasant sensation. When the researchers tried
brushing her palm, where CT fibers are not found,
she felt nothing.
Olausson used functional MRI studies to examine
85 which areas of the brain lit up when G.L.’s arm was
gently brushed to activate CT fibers. In normal
subjects, both the somatosensory and insular cortices
were activated, but only the insular cortex [which
processes emotion] was active when researchers
90 brushed G.L.’s arm. This solidified the notion that
CT fibers convey a more emotional quality of touch,
rather than the conscious aspect that helps us
describe what we are sensing. CT fibers, it seemed,
specifically provide pleasurable sensations.

Q. Which conclusion is best supported by the findings of Olausson’s 1993 experiment?

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Sabrina Richards, “Pleasant tothe Touch.” ©2012 by The Scientist.
In the early 1990s, textbooks acknowledged that
humans had slow-conducting nerves, but asserted
that those nerves only responded to two types of
Line stimuli: pain and temperature. Sensations of pressure
5 and vibration were believed to travel only along
myelinated, fast-signaling nerve fibers, which also
give information about location. Experiments
blocking nerve fibers supported this notion.
Preventing fast fibers from firing (either by clamping
10 the relevant nerve or by injecting the local anesthetic
lidocaine) seemed to eliminate the sensation of
pressure altogether, but blocking slow fibers only
seemed to reduce sensitivity to warmth or a small
painful shock.
15 Håkan Olausson and his Gothenburg University
colleagues Åke Vallbo and Johan Wessberg
wondered if slow fibers responsive to gentle pressure
might be active in humans as well as in other
mammals. In 1993, they corralled 28 young
20 volunteers and recorded nerve signals while gently
brushing the subjects’ arms with their fingertips.
Using a technique called microneurography, in
which a fine filament is inserted into a single nerve to
capture its electrical impulses, the scientists were able
25 to measure how quickly—or slowly—the nerves
fired. They showed that soft stroking prompted
two different signals, one immediate and one
delayed. The delay, Olausson explains, means that
the signal from a gentle touch on the forearm will
30 reach the brain about a half second later. This delay
identified nerve impulses traveling at speeds
characteristic of slow, unmyelinated fibers—about
1 meter/second—confirming the presence of these
fibers in human hairy skin. (In contrast, fast-
35 conducting fibers, already known to respond to
touch, signal at a rate between 35 and 75 m/s.)
Then, in 1999, the group looked more closely at
the characteristics of the slow fibers. They named
these “low-threshold” nerves “C-tactile,” or CT,
40 fibers, said Olausson, because of their “exquisite
sensitivity” to slow, gentle tactile stimulation, but
unresponsiveness to noxious stimuli like pinpricks.
But why exactly humans might have such fibers,
which respond only to a narrow range of rather
45 subtle stimuli, was initially mystifying. Unlike other
types of sensory nerves, CT fibers could be found
only in hairy human skin—such as the forearm and
thigh. No amount of gentle stroking of hairless skin,
such as the palms and soles of the feet, prompted
50 similar activity signatures. Olausson and his
colleagues decided that these fibers must be
conveying a different dimension of sensory
information than fast-conducting fibers.
Although microneurography can give
55 information about how a single nerve responds to
gentle brushing and pressure, it cannot tease out
what aspect of sensation that fiber relays, says
Olausson. He wanted to know if that same slow
nerve can distinguish where the brush touches the
60 arm, and whether it can discern the difference
between a goat-hair brush and a feather. Most
importantly, could that same fiber convey a pleasant
sensation?
To address the question, Olausson’s group sought
65 out a patient known as G.L. who had an unusual
nerve defect. More than 2 decades earlier, she had
developed numbness across many parts of her body
after taking penicillin to treat a cough and fever.
Testing showed that she had lost responsiveness to
70 pressure, and a nerve biopsy confirmed that G.L.’s
quick-conducting fibers were gone, resulting in an
inability to sense any pokes, prods, or pinpricks
below her nose. But she could still sense warmth,
suggesting that her slow-conducting unmyelinated
75 fibers were intact.
Upon recruiting G.L., Olausson tested her by
brushing her arm gently at the speed of between
2–10 centimeters per second. She had more trouble
distinguishing the direction or pressure of the brush
80 strokes than most subjects, but reported feeling a
pleasant sensation. When the researchers tried
brushing her palm, where CT fibers are not found,
she felt nothing.
Olausson used functional MRI studies to examine
85 which areas of the brain lit up when G.L.’s arm was
gently brushed to activate CT fibers. In normal
subjects, both the somatosensory and insular cortices
were activated, but only the insular cortex [which
processes emotion] was active when researchers
90 brushed G.L.’s arm. This solidified the notion that
CT fibers convey a more emotional quality of touch,
rather than the conscious aspect that helps us
describe what we are sensing. CT fibers, it seemed,
specifically provide pleasurable sensations.

Q. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Sabrina Richards, “Pleasant tothe Touch.” ©2012 by The Scientist.
In the early 1990s, textbooks acknowledged that
humans had slow-conducting nerves, but asserted
that those nerves only responded to two types of
Line stimuli: pain and temperature. Sensations of pressure
5 and vibration were believed to travel only along
myelinated, fast-signaling nerve fibers, which also
give information about location. Experiments
blocking nerve fibers supported this notion.
Preventing fast fibers from firing (either by clamping
10 the relevant nerve or by injecting the local anesthetic
lidocaine) seemed to eliminate the sensation of
pressure altogether, but blocking slow fibers only
seemed to reduce sensitivity to warmth or a small
painful shock.
15 Håkan Olausson and his Gothenburg University
colleagues Åke Vallbo and Johan Wessberg
wondered if slow fibers responsive to gentle pressure
might be active in humans as well as in other
mammals. In 1993, they corralled 28 young
20 volunteers and recorded nerve signals while gently
brushing the subjects’ arms with their fingertips.
Using a technique called microneurography, in
which a fine filament is inserted into a single nerve to
capture its electrical impulses, the scientists were able
25 to measure how quickly—or slowly—the nerves
fired. They showed that soft stroking prompted
two different signals, one immediate and one
delayed. The delay, Olausson explains, means that
the signal from a gentle touch on the forearm will
30 reach the brain about a half second later. This delay
identified nerve impulses traveling at speeds
characteristic of slow, unmyelinated fibers—about
1 meter/second—confirming the presence of these
fibers in human hairy skin. (In contrast, fast-
35 conducting fibers, already known to respond to
touch, signal at a rate between 35 and 75 m/s.)
Then, in 1999, the group looked more closely at
the characteristics of the slow fibers. They named
these “low-threshold” nerves “C-tactile,” or CT,
40 fibers, said Olausson, because of their “exquisite
sensitivity” to slow, gentle tactile stimulation, but
unresponsiveness to noxious stimuli like pinpricks.
But why exactly humans might have such fibers,
which respond only to a narrow range of rather
45 subtle stimuli, was initially mystifying. Unlike other
types of sensory nerves, CT fibers could be found
only in hairy human skin—such as the forearm and
thigh. No amount of gentle stroking of hairless skin,
such as the palms and soles of the feet, prompted
50 similar activity signatures. Olausson and his
colleagues decided that these fibers must be
conveying a different dimension of sensory
information than fast-conducting fibers.
Although microneurography can give
55 information about how a single nerve responds to
gentle brushing and pressure, it cannot tease out
what aspect of sensation that fiber relays, says
Olausson. He wanted to know if that same slow
nerve can distinguish where the brush touches the
60 arm, and whether it can discern the difference
between a goat-hair brush and a feather. Most
importantly, could that same fiber convey a pleasant
sensation?
To address the question, Olausson’s group sought
65 out a patient known as G.L. who had an unusual
nerve defect. More than 2 decades earlier, she had
developed numbness across many parts of her body
after taking penicillin to treat a cough and fever.
Testing showed that she had lost responsiveness to
70 pressure, and a nerve biopsy confirmed that G.L.’s
quick-conducting fibers were gone, resulting in an
inability to sense any pokes, prods, or pinpricks
below her nose. But she could still sense warmth,
suggesting that her slow-conducting unmyelinated
75 fibers were intact.
Upon recruiting G.L., Olausson tested her by
brushing her arm gently at the speed of between
2–10 centimeters per second. She had more trouble
distinguishing the direction or pressure of the brush
80 strokes than most subjects, but reported feeling a
pleasant sensation. When the researchers tried
brushing her palm, where CT fibers are not found,
she felt nothing.
Olausson used functional MRI studies to examine
85 which areas of the brain lit up when G.L.’s arm was
gently brushed to activate CT fibers. In normal
subjects, both the somatosensory and insular cortices
were activated, but only the insular cortex [which
processes emotion] was active when researchers
90 brushed G.L.’s arm. This solidified the notion that
CT fibers convey a more emotional quality of touch,
rather than the conscious aspect that helps us
describe what we are sensing. CT fibers, it seemed,
specifically provide pleasurable sensations.

Q. The sentence in lines 43-45 (“But... mystifying”) serves mainly to

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Sabrina Richards, “Pleasant tothe Touch.” ©2012 by The Scientist.
In the early 1990s, textbooks acknowledged that
humans had slow-conducting nerves, but asserted
that those nerves only responded to two types of
Line stimuli: pain and temperature. Sensations of pressure
5 and vibration were believed to travel only along
myelinated, fast-signaling nerve fibers, which also
give information about location. Experiments
blocking nerve fibers supported this notion.
Preventing fast fibers from firing (either by clamping
10 the relevant nerve or by injecting the local anesthetic
lidocaine) seemed to eliminate the sensation of
pressure altogether, but blocking slow fibers only
seemed to reduce sensitivity to warmth or a small
painful shock.
15 Håkan Olausson and his Gothenburg University
colleagues Åke Vallbo and Johan Wessberg
wondered if slow fibers responsive to gentle pressure
might be active in humans as well as in other
mammals. In 1993, they corralled 28 young
20 volunteers and recorded nerve signals while gently
brushing the subjects’ arms with their fingertips.
Using a technique called microneurography, in
which a fine filament is inserted into a single nerve to
capture its electrical impulses, the scientists were able
25 to measure how quickly—or slowly—the nerves
fired. They showed that soft stroking prompted
two different signals, one immediate and one
delayed. The delay, Olausson explains, means that
the signal from a gentle touch on the forearm will
30 reach the brain about a half second later. This delay
identified nerve impulses traveling at speeds
characteristic of slow, unmyelinated fibers—about
1 meter/second—confirming the presence of these
fibers in human hairy skin. (In contrast, fast-
35 conducting fibers, already known to respond to
touch, signal at a rate between 35 and 75 m/s.)
Then, in 1999, the group looked more closely at
the characteristics of the slow fibers. They named
these “low-threshold” nerves “C-tactile,” or CT,
40 fibers, said Olausson, because of their “exquisite
sensitivity” to slow, gentle tactile stimulation, but
unresponsiveness to noxious stimuli like pinpricks.
But why exactly humans might have such fibers,
which respond only to a narrow range of rather
45 subtle stimuli, was initially mystifying. Unlike other
types of sensory nerves, CT fibers could be found
only in hairy human skin—such as the forearm and
thigh. No amount of gentle stroking of hairless skin,
such as the palms and soles of the feet, prompted
50 similar activity signatures. Olausson and his
colleagues decided that these fibers must be
conveying a different dimension of sensory
information than fast-conducting fibers.
Although microneurography can give
55 information about how a single nerve responds to
gentle brushing and pressure, it cannot tease out
what aspect of sensation that fiber relays, says
Olausson. He wanted to know if that same slow
nerve can distinguish where the brush touches the
60 arm, and whether it can discern the difference
between a goat-hair brush and a feather. Most
importantly, could that same fiber convey a pleasant
sensation?
To address the question, Olausson’s group sought
65 out a patient known as G.L. who had an unusual
nerve defect. More than 2 decades earlier, she had
developed numbness across many parts of her body
after taking penicillin to treat a cough and fever.
Testing showed that she had lost responsiveness to
70 pressure, and a nerve biopsy confirmed that G.L.’s
quick-conducting fibers were gone, resulting in an
inability to sense any pokes, prods, or pinpricks
below her nose. But she could still sense warmth,
suggesting that her slow-conducting unmyelinated
75 fibers were intact.
Upon recruiting G.L., Olausson tested her by
brushing her arm gently at the speed of between
2–10 centimeters per second. She had more trouble
distinguishing the direction or pressure of the brush
80 strokes than most subjects, but reported feeling a
pleasant sensation. When the researchers tried
brushing her palm, where CT fibers are not found,
she felt nothing.
Olausson used functional MRI studies to examine
85 which areas of the brain lit up when G.L.’s arm was
gently brushed to activate CT fibers. In normal
subjects, both the somatosensory and insular cortices
were activated, but only the insular cortex [which
processes emotion] was active when researchers
90 brushed G.L.’s arm. This solidified the notion that
CT fibers convey a more emotional quality of touch,
rather than the conscious aspect that helps us
describe what we are sensing. CT fibers, it seemed,
specifically provide pleasurable sensations.

Q. It can reasonably be inferred that one of the intended goals of the 1999 experiment was to determine the

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Sabrina Richards, “Pleasant tothe Touch.” ©2012 by The Scientist.
In the early 1990s, textbooks acknowledged that
humans had slow-conducting nerves, but asserted
that those nerves only responded to two types of
Line stimuli: pain and temperature. Sensations of pressure
5 and vibration were believed to travel only along
myelinated, fast-signaling nerve fibers, which also
give information about location. Experiments
blocking nerve fibers supported this notion.
Preventing fast fibers from firing (either by clamping
10 the relevant nerve or by injecting the local anesthetic
lidocaine) seemed to eliminate the sensation of
pressure altogether, but blocking slow fibers only
seemed to reduce sensitivity to warmth or a small
painful shock.
15 Håkan Olausson and his Gothenburg University
colleagues Åke Vallbo and Johan Wessberg
wondered if slow fibers responsive to gentle pressure
might be active in humans as well as in other
mammals. In 1993, they corralled 28 young
20 volunteers and recorded nerve signals while gently
brushing the subjects’ arms with their fingertips.
Using a technique called microneurography, in
which a fine filament is inserted into a single nerve to
capture its electrical impulses, the scientists were able
25 to measure how quickly—or slowly—the nerves
fired. They showed that soft stroking prompted
two different signals, one immediate and one
delayed. The delay, Olausson explains, means that
the signal from a gentle touch on the forearm will
30 reach the brain about a half second later. This delay
identified nerve impulses traveling at speeds
characteristic of slow, unmyelinated fibers—about
1 meter/second—confirming the presence of these
fibers in human hairy skin. (In contrast, fast-
35 conducting fibers, already known to respond to
touch, signal at a rate between 35 and 75 m/s.)
Then, in 1999, the group looked more closely at
the characteristics of the slow fibers. They named
these “low-threshold” nerves “C-tactile,” or CT,
40 fibers, said Olausson, because of their “exquisite
sensitivity” to slow, gentle tactile stimulation, but
unresponsiveness to noxious stimuli like pinpricks.
But why exactly humans might have such fibers,
which respond only to a narrow range of rather
45 subtle stimuli, was initially mystifying. Unlike other
types of sensory nerves, CT fibers could be found
only in hairy human skin—such as the forearm and
thigh. No amount of gentle stroking of hairless skin,
such as the palms and soles of the feet, prompted
50 similar activity signatures. Olausson and his
colleagues decided that these fibers must be
conveying a different dimension of sensory
information than fast-conducting fibers.
Although microneurography can give
55 information about how a single nerve responds to
gentle brushing and pressure, it cannot tease out
what aspect of sensation that fiber relays, says
Olausson. He wanted to know if that same slow
nerve can distinguish where the brush touches the
60 arm, and whether it can discern the difference
between a goat-hair brush and a feather. Most
importantly, could that same fiber convey a pleasant
sensation?
To address the question, Olausson’s group sought
65 out a patient known as G.L. who had an unusual
nerve defect. More than 2 decades earlier, she had
developed numbness across many parts of her body
after taking penicillin to treat a cough and fever.
Testing showed that she had lost responsiveness to
70 pressure, and a nerve biopsy confirmed that G.L.’s
quick-conducting fibers were gone, resulting in an
inability to sense any pokes, prods, or pinpricks
below her nose. But she could still sense warmth,
suggesting that her slow-conducting unmyelinated
75 fibers were intact.
Upon recruiting G.L., Olausson tested her by
brushing her arm gently at the speed of between
2–10 centimeters per second. She had more trouble
distinguishing the direction or pressure of the brush
80 strokes than most subjects, but reported feeling a
pleasant sensation. When the researchers tried
brushing her palm, where CT fibers are not found,
she felt nothing.
Olausson used functional MRI studies to examine
85 which areas of the brain lit up when G.L.’s arm was
gently brushed to activate CT fibers. In normal
subjects, both the somatosensory and insular cortices
were activated, but only the insular cortex [which
processes emotion] was active when researchers
90 brushed G.L.’s arm. This solidified the notion that
CT fibers convey a more emotional quality of touch,
rather than the conscious aspect that helps us
describe what we are sensing. CT fibers, it seemed,
specifically provide pleasurable sensations.

Q. The main purpose of the sixth paragraph (lines 64-75) is to

Question is based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Sabrina Richards, “Pleasant tothe Touch.” ©2012 by The Scientist.
In the early 1990s, textbooks acknowledged that
humans had slow-conducting nerves, but asserted
that those nerves only responded to two types of
Line stimuli: pain and temperature. Sensations of pressure
5 and vibration were believed to travel only along
myelinated, fast-signaling nerve fibers, which also
give information about location. Experiments
blocking nerve fibers supported this notion.
Preventing fast fibers from firing (either by clamping
10 the relevant nerve or by injecting the local anesthetic
lidocaine) seemed to eliminate the sensation of
pressure altogether, but blocking slow fibers only
seemed to reduce sensitivity to warmth or a small
painful shock.
15 Håkan Olausson and his Gothenburg University
colleagues Åke Vallbo and Johan Wessberg
wondered if slow fibers responsive to gentle pressure
might be active in humans as well as in other
mammals. In 1993, they corralled 28 young
20 volunteers and recorded nerve signals while gently
brushing the subjects’ arms with their fingertips.
Using a technique called microneurography, in
which a fine filament is inserted into a single nerve to
capture its electrical impulses, the scientists were able
25 to measure how quickly—or slowly—the nerves
fired. They showed that soft stroking prompted
two different signals, one immediate and one
delayed. The delay, Olausson explains, means that
the signal from a gentle touch on the forearm will
30 reach the brain about a half second later. This delay
identified nerve impulses traveling at speeds
characteristic of slow, unmyelinated fibers—about
1 meter/second—confirming the presence of these
fibers in human hairy skin. (In contrast, fast-
35 conducting fibers, already known to respond to
touch, signal at a rate between 35 and 75 m/s.)
Then, in 1999, the group looked more closely at
the characteristics of the slow fibers. They named
these “low-threshold” nerves “C-tactile,” or CT,
40 fibers, said Olausson, because of their “exquisite
sensitivity” to slow, gentle tactile stimulation, but
unresponsiveness to noxious stimuli like pinpricks.
But why exactly humans might have such fibers,
which respond only to a narrow range of rather
45 subtle stimuli, was initially mystifying. Unlike other
types of sensory nerves, CT fibers could be found
only in hairy human skin—such as the forearm and
thigh. No amount of gentle stroking of hairless skin,
such as the palms and soles of the feet, prompted
50 similar activity signatures. Olausson and his
colleagues decided that these fibers must be
conveying a different dimension of sensory
information than fast-conducting fibers.
Although microneurography can give
55 information about how a single nerve responds to
gentle brushing and pressure, it cannot tease out
what aspect of sensation that fiber relays, says
Olausson. He wanted to know if that same slow
nerve can distinguish where the brush touches the
60 arm, and whether it can discern the difference
between a goat-hair brush and a feather. Most
importantly, could that same fiber convey a pleasant
sensation?
To address the question, Olausson’s group sought
65 out a patient known as G.L. who had an unusual
nerve defect. More than 2 decades earlier, she had
developed numbness across many parts of her body
after taking penicillin to treat a cough and fever.
Testing showed that she had lost responsiveness to
70 pressure, and a nerve biopsy confirmed that G.L.’s
quick-conducting fibers were gone, resulting in an
inability to sense any pokes, prods, or pinpricks
below her nose. But she could still sense warmth,
suggesting that her slow-conducting unmyelinated
75 fibers were intact.
Upon recruiting G.L., Olausson tested her by
brushing her arm gently at the speed of between
2–10 centimeters per second. She had more trouble
distinguishing the direction or pressure of the brush
80 strokes than most subjects, but reported feeling a
pleasant sensation. When the researchers tried
brushing her palm, where CT fibers are not found,
she felt nothing.
Olausson used functional MRI studies to examine
85 which areas of the brain lit up when G.L.’s arm was
gently brushed to activate CT fibers. In normal
subjects, both the somatosensory and insular cortices
were activated, but only the insular cortex [which
processes emotion] was active when researchers
90 brushed G.L.’s arm. This solidified the notion that
CT fibers convey a more emotional quality of touch,
rather than the conscious aspect that helps us
describe what we are sensing. CT fibers, it seemed,
specifically provide pleasurable sensations.

Q. According to the passage, G.L. differed from Olausson’s other test subjects in terms of the