This reading text applied for question no. 1 - 7.
There were two widely divergent influences on the early development of statistical methods. Statistics had a mother who was dedicated to keeping orderly records of governmental units (state and statistics come from the same Latin root. status) and a gentlemanly gambling father who relied on mathematics to increase his skill at playing the odds in games of chance. The influence of the mother on the offspring, statistics, is represented by counting, measuring, describing, tabulating, ordering, and the taking of censuses-all of which led to modern descriptive statistics. From the influence of the father came modern inferential statistics, which is based squarely on theories of probability.
Descriptive statistics involves tabulating, depicting, and describing collections of data. These data may be either quantitative, such as measures of height, intelligence, or grade level-159 variables that are characterized by an underlying continuum-or the data may represent qualitative variables, such as sex, college major, or personality type. Large masses of data must generally undergo a process of summarization or reduction before they are comprehensible. Descriptive statistics is a tool for describing or summarizing or reducing to comprehensible form the properties of an otherwise unwieldy mass of data.
Inferential statistics is a formalized body of methods for solving another class of problems that present great difficulties for the unaided human mind. This general class of problems characteristically involves attempts to make predictions using a sample of observations. For example a school superintendent wishes to determine the proportion of children in a large school system who come to scho6l without breakfast have been vaccinated for flu. or whatever. Having a little knowledge of statistics, the superintendent would know that it is unnecessary and inefficient to question each child; the proportion for the entire district could be estimated fairly accurately from a sample of as few as 100 children. Thus, the purpose of inferential statistics is to predict or estimate characteristics of a population from a knowledge of the characteristics of only a sample of the population.
1. With what is the passage mainly concerned?
(A) The drawbacks of descriptive and inferential statistics
(B) Applications of inferential statistics
(C) The development and use of statistics
(D) How to use descriptive statistics
2. According to the first paragraph, counting and describing are associated with
(A) inferential statistics
(B) descriptive statistics
(C) unknown variables
(D) quantitative changes
3. Why does the author mention the "mother" and "father" in the first paragraph?
(A) To point out that parents can teach their children statistics
(B) To introduce inferential statistics
(C) To explain that there are different kinds of variables
(D) To present the background of statistics in a humorous and understandable way
4. The word "squarely" in line 8 could best be replaced by which of the following?
(A) solidly
(B) geometrically
(C) rectangularly
(D) haphazardly
5. Which of the following is NOT given as an example of a qualitative variable?
(A) Gender
(B) Height
(C) College major
(D) Type personality
6. Which of the following statements about descriptive statistics is best supported by the passage?
(A) It simplifies unwieldy masses of data.
(B) It leads to increased variability
(C) It solves all numerical problems.
(D) It changes qualitative variables to quantitative variables.
7. According to the passage, what is the purpose of examining a sample of a population.?
(A) To compare different groups
(B) To predict characteristics of the entire population
(C) To consider all the quantitative variables
(D) To tabulate collections of data
This reading text applied for question no. 8 - 14.
What makes it rain? Rain falls from clouds for the same reason anything falls to Earth. The Earth's gravity pulls it. But every cloud is made of water droplets or ice crystals. Why doesn't rain or snow fall constantly from all clouds? The droplets or ice crystals in clouds are exceedingly small. The effect of gravity on them is minute. Air currents move and lift droplets so that the net downward displacement is zero, even though the droplets are in constant motion.
Droplets and ice crystals behave somewhat like dust in the air made visible in a shaft of sunlight. To the casual observer, dust seems to act in a totally random fashion, moving about chaotically without fixed direction. But in fact dust particles are much larger than water droplets and they finally fall. The cloud droplet of average size is only 1/2500 inch in diameter. It is so small that it would take sixteen hours to fall half a mile in perfectly still air, and it does not fall out of moving air at alt. Only when the droplet grows to a diameter of 1/125 inch or larger can it fall from the cloud. The average raindrop contains a million times as much water as a tiny cloud droplet. The growth of a cloud droplet to a size large enough to fall out is the cause of rain and other forms of precipitation. This important growth process is called "coalescence".
8. What is the main topic of the passage?
(A) The mechanics of rain
(B) The climate of North America
(C) How gravity affects agriculture
(D) Types of clouds
9. The word "minute" in line 4 is closest in meaning to which of the following?
(A) Second
(B) Tiny
(C) Slow
(D) Predictable
10. Why don' t all ice crystals in clouds immediately fall to earth?
(A) They are balanced by the pressure of rain droplets.
(B) The effect of gravity at high altitude is random.
(C) They are kept aloft by air currents.
(D) The heat from the sun' S rays melts them.
11. The word 'motion" in line 6 is closest in meaning to which of the following?
(A) Wind
(B) Descent
(C) Movement
(D) Humidity
12. What can be inferred about drops of water larger than 1/125 inch in diameter?
(A) They never occur.
(B) They are not affected by the force of gravity.
(C) In still air they would fall to earth.
(D) In moving air they fall at a speed of thirty-two miles per hour.
13. In this passage, what does the term "coalescence" refer to?
(A) The gathering of small clouds to form larger clouds
(B) The growth of droplets
(C) The fall of raindrops and other precipitation
(D) The movement of dust particles in the sunlight
14. What is the diameter of the average cloud droplet?
(A) 1/16 inch
(B) 1/125 inch
(C) 1/2500 inch
(D) One million of an inch
This reading text applied for question no. 15 - 20.
The term 'virus is derived from the Latin word for poison. or slime. It was originally applied to the noxious stench emanating from swamps that was thought to cause a variety of diseases in the centuries before microbes were discovered and specifically linked to illness. But it was not until almost the end of the nineteenth century that a true virus was proven to be the cause of a disease.
The nature of viruses made them impossible to detect for many years even after bacteria had been discovered and studied. Not only are viruses too small to be seen with a light microscope, they also cannot be detected through their biological activity, except as it occurs in conjunction with other organisms. In fact, viruses show no traces of biological activity by themselves. Unlike bacteria, they are not living agents in the strictest sense Viruses are very simple pieces of organic material composed only of nucleic acid, either DNA or RNA, enclosed in a coat of protein made up of simple structural units.(Some viruses also contain carbohydrates and lipids.) They are parasites, requiring human, animal, or plant cells to live. The virus replicates by attaching to a cell and injecting its nucleic acid.' once inside the cell, the DNA or RNA that contains the virus' genetic information takes over the cell's biological machinery, and the cell begins to manufacture viral proteins rather than its own.
15. Which of the following is the best title for the passage.
(A) New Developments in Viral Research
(B) Exploring the Causes of Disease
(C) DNA: Nature’s Building Block
(D) Understanding Viruses
16. Before microbes were discovered It was believed that some diseases were caused by
(A) germ-carrying insects
(B) certain strains of bacteria
(C) foul odors released from swamps
(D) slimy creatures living near swamps
17. The word "proven" in line 4 is closest meaning to which of the following.
(A) Shown
(B) Feared
(C) Imagined
(D) Considered
18. The word nature" in line 6 is closest in meaning to which of the following?
(A) Self-sufficiency
(B) Shapes
(C) Characteristics
(D) Speed
19. The author implies that bacteria were investigated earlier than viruses because
(A) bacteria are easier to detect
(B) bacteria are harder to eradicate
(C) viruses are extremely poisonous
(D) viruses are found only in hot climates
20. All of the following may be components of a virus EXCEPT
(A) RNA
(B) plant cells
(C) carbohydrates
(D) a coat of protein
This reading text applied for question no. 21 - 25.
The modern age is an age of electricity. People are so used to electric lights, radio, televisions, and telephones that it is hard to imagine what life would be like without them. When there is a power failure, people grope about in flickering candlelight. Cars hesitate in the streets because there are no traffic lights to guide them, and food spoils in silent refrigerators.
Yet, people began to understand how electricity works only a little more than two centuries ago. Nature has apparently been experimenting in this field for millions of years. Scientists are discovering more and more that the living world may hold many interesting secrets of electricity that could benefit humanity.
All living cells sent out tiny pulses of electricity. As the heart beats. it send out pulses of recorded electricity; they form an electrocardiogram, which a doctor can study to determine how well the heart is working. The brain, too, sends out brain waves of electricity, which can be recorded in an electroencephalogram. The electric currents generated by most living cells are extremely small-of-ten so small that sensitive instruments are needed to record them. But in some animals, certain muscle cells have become so specialized as electrical generators that they do not work as muscle cells at all. When large numbers of these cells are linked together, the effects can be astonishing.
The electric eel is an amazing storage battery. It can send a jolt of as much as eight hundred volts of electricity through the water in which it lives. An electric house current is only one hundred twenty volts.) As many as four fifths of all the cells in the electric eel’s body are specialized for generating electricity, and the strength of the shock it can deliver corresponds roughly to the length of its body.
21. What is the main idea of the passage?
(A) Electric eels are potentially dangerous
(B) Biology and electricity appear to be closely related
(C) People would be at a loss without electricity
(D) Scientists still have much to discover about electricity
22. The author mentions all of the following as results of a blackout EXCEPT
(A) refrigerated food items may go bad
(B) traffic lights do not work
(C) people must rely on candlelight
(D) elevators and escalators do not function
23. Why does the author mention electric eels?
(A) To warn the reader to stay away from them
(B) To compare their voltage to that used in houses
(C) To give an example of a living electrical generator
(D) To describe a new source of electrical power
24. How many volts of electricity can an electric eel emit?
(A) 1,000
(B) 800
(C) 200
(D) 120
25. It can be inferred from the passage that the longer an eel is the
(A) more beneficial it will be to science
(B) more powerful will be its electrical charge
(C) easier it will be to find
(D) tougher it will be to eat
Answer Key :
1. C
2. B
3. D
4. A
5. B
6. A
7. B
8. A
9. B
10. C
11. C
12. C
13. B
14. C
15. D
16. C
17. A
18. C
19. A
20. B
21. B
22. D
23. C
24. B
25. B
Content Source :
http://www.cvauni.edu.vn/imgupload_dinhkem/file/ThanhHa/A%20colection%20of%20TOEFL%20Reading%20Comprehension%204.doc
No comments:
Post a Comment