Hi folks, the RC below is from learning express. Start your timer and answer all the questions. Please post home many Qs you got correct and the average mins per Q.
___________________________
The United States is destined either to surmount the gorgeous history of feudalism, or else prove the most tremendous failure of time. Nor the least doubtful am I on any prospects of their material success. The triumphant future of their business, geographic and productive departments, on larger scales and in more varieties than ever, is certain. In those respects the republic must soon (if she does not already) outstrip all examples hitherto afforded, and dominate the world.
Admitting all this, with the priceless value of our political institutions, general suffrage (and fully acknowledging the latest, widest opening of the doors), I say that, far deeper than these, what finally and only is to make of our Western world a nationality superior to any hither known, and out-topping the past, must be vigorous, yet unsuspected Literatures, perfect personalities and sociologies, original, transcendental, and expressing (what, in highest sense, are not yet expressed at all) democracy and the modern. With these, and out of these, I promulgate new races of Teachers, and of perfect Women, indispensable to endow the birth-stock of a New World. For feudalism, caste, the ecclesiastic traditions, though palpably retreating from political institutions, still hold essentially, by their spirit, even in this country, entire possession of the more important fields, indeed the very subsoil, of education, and of social standards and literature.
I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences. It is curious to me that while so many voices, pens, minds, in the press, lecture rooms, in our Congress, etc., are discussing intellectual topics, pecuniary dangers, legislative problems, the suffrage, tariff and labor questions, and the various business and benevolent needs of America, with propositions, remedies, often worth deep attention, there is one need, a hiatus the profoundest, that no eye seems to perceive, no voice to state. Our fundamental want today in the United States, with closest, amplest reference to present conditions, and to the future, is of a class and the clear idea of a class, of native authors, literatures, far different, far higher in grade, than any yet known, sacerdotal, modern, fit to cope with our occasions, lands, permeating the whole mass of American mentality, taste, belief, breathing into it a new breath of life, giving it decision, affecting politics far more than the popular superficial suffrage, with results inside and underneath the elections of Presidents or Congresses—radiating, begetting appropriate teachers, schools, manners, and, as its grandest result, accomplishing (what neither the schools nor the churches and their clergy have hitherto accomplished, and without which this nation will no more stand, permanently, soundly, than a house will stand without a sub-stratum), a religious and moral character beneath the political and productive and intellectual bases of the States.
_______________________________
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
A. prove that the western world is still dominated by medieval ideals and traditions.
B. educate the reader regarding the variety and nature of arts available in western civilization.
C. announce the triumph of literature and character in the United States of America.
D. convince the reader of the need to create a new social class of authors and teachers.
E. celebrate the victory of democracy and its political institutions over feudalism.
2. According to the passage, the relationship of the United States to other nations in the near future will be
A. more and more complex as the years pass.
B. one of material superiority over other nations.
C. one of increasing dependency upon other nations.
D. a cooperative arrangement for mutual aid and benefit.
E. increasingly hostile and suspicious.
3. Compared to the effects of literature and the arts on society, the passage states that the effect of democracy is
A. less.
B. more.
C. sufficient.
D. insufficient.
E. overwhelming.
4. The author apparently feels that, besides himself,
A. everyone agrees that foreign diplomacy is extremely important for the nation.
B. no one wants the masses to be ruled by an elite, educated minority.
C. no one sees one of the greatest problems facing the United States.
D. everyone is proud of what the schools and churches have accomplished in the western world.
E. everyone agrees that authors are already a sacred and privileged class.
5. From the entire context of paragraph 2, the term "cavil" is most likely intended to mean
A. political intrigue.
B. experimentation.
C. unjustified boasting.
D. servile imitation.
E. trivial issues.
____________________
OA: [color=white]D, B, A, C , E[/color] (highlight to see the answer)
___________________________
The United States is destined either to surmount the gorgeous history of feudalism, or else prove the most tremendous failure of time. Nor the least doubtful am I on any prospects of their material success. The triumphant future of their business, geographic and productive departments, on larger scales and in more varieties than ever, is certain. In those respects the republic must soon (if she does not already) outstrip all examples hitherto afforded, and dominate the world.
Admitting all this, with the priceless value of our political institutions, general suffrage (and fully acknowledging the latest, widest opening of the doors), I say that, far deeper than these, what finally and only is to make of our Western world a nationality superior to any hither known, and out-topping the past, must be vigorous, yet unsuspected Literatures, perfect personalities and sociologies, original, transcendental, and expressing (what, in highest sense, are not yet expressed at all) democracy and the modern. With these, and out of these, I promulgate new races of Teachers, and of perfect Women, indispensable to endow the birth-stock of a New World. For feudalism, caste, the ecclesiastic traditions, though palpably retreating from political institutions, still hold essentially, by their spirit, even in this country, entire possession of the more important fields, indeed the very subsoil, of education, and of social standards and literature.
I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences. It is curious to me that while so many voices, pens, minds, in the press, lecture rooms, in our Congress, etc., are discussing intellectual topics, pecuniary dangers, legislative problems, the suffrage, tariff and labor questions, and the various business and benevolent needs of America, with propositions, remedies, often worth deep attention, there is one need, a hiatus the profoundest, that no eye seems to perceive, no voice to state. Our fundamental want today in the United States, with closest, amplest reference to present conditions, and to the future, is of a class and the clear idea of a class, of native authors, literatures, far different, far higher in grade, than any yet known, sacerdotal, modern, fit to cope with our occasions, lands, permeating the whole mass of American mentality, taste, belief, breathing into it a new breath of life, giving it decision, affecting politics far more than the popular superficial suffrage, with results inside and underneath the elections of Presidents or Congresses—radiating, begetting appropriate teachers, schools, manners, and, as its grandest result, accomplishing (what neither the schools nor the churches and their clergy have hitherto accomplished, and without which this nation will no more stand, permanently, soundly, than a house will stand without a sub-stratum), a religious and moral character beneath the political and productive and intellectual bases of the States.
_______________________________
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
A. prove that the western world is still dominated by medieval ideals and traditions.
B. educate the reader regarding the variety and nature of arts available in western civilization.
C. announce the triumph of literature and character in the United States of America.
D. convince the reader of the need to create a new social class of authors and teachers.
E. celebrate the victory of democracy and its political institutions over feudalism.
2. According to the passage, the relationship of the United States to other nations in the near future will be
A. more and more complex as the years pass.
B. one of material superiority over other nations.
C. one of increasing dependency upon other nations.
D. a cooperative arrangement for mutual aid and benefit.
E. increasingly hostile and suspicious.
3. Compared to the effects of literature and the arts on society, the passage states that the effect of democracy is
A. less.
B. more.
C. sufficient.
D. insufficient.
E. overwhelming.
4. The author apparently feels that, besides himself,
A. everyone agrees that foreign diplomacy is extremely important for the nation.
B. no one wants the masses to be ruled by an elite, educated minority.
C. no one sees one of the greatest problems facing the United States.
D. everyone is proud of what the schools and churches have accomplished in the western world.
E. everyone agrees that authors are already a sacred and privileged class.
5. From the entire context of paragraph 2, the term "cavil" is most likely intended to mean
A. political intrigue.
B. experimentation.
C. unjustified boasting.
D. servile imitation.
E. trivial issues.
____________________
OA: [color=white]D, B, A, C , E[/color] (highlight to see the answer)
