Ejemplos de reactivos de la sección de comprensión de lectura

Ejemplos de reactivos de la sección de comprensión de lectura

Text 1

Directions: Read the following passage and choose the best option that completes

or answers each question.

5

10

15

20

25

Economics is the social science that deals with the production, distribution,

and consumption of goods and services. Business may refer to any gainful

economic activity or, more narrowly, to organizations that produce and

distribute commodities. Basically, economics is a branch of investigation and

study, while business connotes activity. Yet, the two terms increasingly

overlap. Once thought of as a knack or skill that could never be taught in

school, business has developed claims to scientific status in the twentieth

century. Today, there are schools of business administration that, much like

departments of economics, engage in study and research.

Both economic theory and the growing emphasis on the study of

business have spilled over from the universities into the public forum. The

budget deficit, foreign trade deficit, and stock market boom of the 1980s and

early 1990s have combined with the recent recession and decline of interest

rates to pique popular interest in economic issues. Less obvious but no less

important, the deregulation of financial institutions by the federal

government, the vast growth of pension funds within the last twenty years,

and recent changes in the federal tax code have raised the threshold of

financial knowledge for Americans. As late as the 1950s, banks rarely

advertised, savings and loan associations did not offer checking accounts,

and insurance companies concentrated on selling insurance. Now, all of these

institutions advertise and compete with one another by offering similar

services. For example, all of them offer pension and retirement plans, and

individual investors must be able to sort out and assess their rival claims.

To do so, ordinary Americans need not become professors of

economics; but they must understand the difference between stocks and

bonds, and they should understand why the stock market tends to decline

when the interest rates rise.

1. What is the topic of the passage?

A) Business and its relation to economic issues

B) Business and economics

C) The teaching of economics in business schools

D) The American economic system

2. What is the purpose of the passage?

A) To advise people to study economics

B) To discredit the services that banks and other financial institutions

provide

C) To stress the differences between economics and business

D) To discuss the increasing interest in the study of economics and business

33. The word “overlap” in line 6 is closest in meaning to

A) completely oppose.

B) hardly correlate.

C) coincide partly.

D) absolutely distinguish.

4. The words “these institutions” in lines 20 and 21 refer to

A) banks, savings and loans associations and insurance companies.

B) federal government and financial institutions.

C) universities and schools of business administration.

D) advertising companies.

5. According to the author, why is it important for Americans to understand that

there is a difference between stock and bonds?

A) To understand a rise in the interest rates and its effects on stock markets

B) To be able to evaluate those services offered by competing institutions

C) To compete with each other by offering better investment opportunities

D) To participate in political and economic debates throughout the country

Text 2

5

10

15

20

The study of living things on earth has a long history. Because of the incredible

richness and diversity of life, most of the effort in biology and its predecessor,

natural history, has been expanded in an attempt to describe what there is

―simple exploration and cataloguing. The classical sciences of descriptive

botany and zoology, with their emphasis on classification, are examples of this

sort of work. The division of living things into the plant kingdom and animal

kingdom (plus three more kingdoms added by modern scientists to describe

microscopic organisms and fungi), and the collection of all living things into a

coherent classification scheme, are the fruit of this work. During the past century

and a half, however, two important discoveries have changed the face of the life

sciences.

The first of these was the development of the Theory of Evolution by Charles

Darwin and others. The mechanism of natural selection gave naturalists for the

first time a way of answering questions about how life came to have the forms it

has, rather than just questions about what those forms are. The great social and

intellectual turmoil triggered by Darwin’s work is interesting, of course, but is

not relevant from a purely scientific standpoint. What does matter is that we can

now understand how the observed diversity of living things could have arisen

through the action of a simple and easily comprehended mechanism. The

original Darwinian notions have been modified and expanded since his time, of

course, and there is still debate about the pace at which species evolve.

Nevertheless, the main principle of Darwinism―that living things change and

adapt in response to their environment― has been incorporated as one of the

pillars of the modern life sciences.

41. What is the topic of this passage?

A) Darwin and the theory of evolution

B) The diversity of living things

C) Important contributions to life sciences

D) The beginnings of natural history

2. The word “its” in line 2 refers to

A) biology.

B) natural history.

C) predecessor.

D) effort.

3. All of the following can be classified into the kingdoms mentioned above

EXCEPT

A) a hyena

B) a mushroom

C) a laurel

D) a gold nugget

4. The word “turmoil” in line 16 is closest in meaning to

A) fight.

B) confusion.

C) improvement.

D) fairness.

5. The passage following this one will most likely discuss

A) the second

...