ENGLISH  TEST  （上）

PRACTICE  EXAM:

The Change to Agriculture

     Approximately ten thousand years ago, a radical change took place in the way people lived, significantly altering their lives. (46) Ancient  peoples abandoned the traditional methods of hunting and gathering their food, which required an arduous seasonal migration. Instead, (47)they domesticated the plants and animals they needed for surviving.(48)

The shift to (49) domestication and a sedentary lifestyle wrought great change. Lost to us is the knowledge of whether or not (50) the lifestyle change itself gave rise to new technologies (or at least improvements and adaptations of the way things had been done) or whether the development of new technologies made the lifestyle shift possible.

What is known is (51) that after the initial adaptations, the two have seemed to move in tandem ever since. For example, a given area of land could now support more people than were (52)ever before possible .More people in a given area made finding a mate easier, and more children had been born and lived longer(53).Thus, the ability of the land to support more people ineluctably led to more people in the area.

     Agriculture necessitated the storage of seed stock, the division of labor, and allocating (54) land. The increased populace could now be put into productive service working (55) additional land, producing additional food, and providing more varied services. Economies of scale led to an increase specialization of crop, which in turn led to an increased need for other specialized products.

As each region became more specialized in what they produced, the need (56) for greater trade and communication intensified. The population in each area became situated around natural, centrally located points, which (57) development into the first cities. It became necessary to organize the increasingly complex and complicated (58) economic relationships and to develop a structure capable to deal (59)with the many societal changes. Thus, a centrally located (60) authority developed, giving rise to some of the first real governments.

46. F. NO CHANGE

    G. to alert their lives

    H. which significantly altered their lives

    J. OMIT the underlined portion and end the sentence with a period.

Answer: J

OMIT is right more than half the time it shows up, so always pay it special attention to it. The ACT test writers love brevity. They already said that there was a “radical change”, so (F),(G)and (H)all are redundant.

47. A. NO CHANGE

    B. Nevertheless,

    C. However,

    D. Even so,

Answer: A

The transition here is one of substituting one thing (domestication) for another (hunting and gathering),so only (A) makes sense.

48. F. NO CHANGE

    G. surviving

    H. to survive.

    J. to have survived.

Answer: H

This is testing verb tenses .You need something in order “to do” something , so only(H) works.

49. A. NO CHANGE

    B. from

    C. of

    D. for

Answer: A

A “shift” goes “from” somewhere “to” somewhere. They began with hunting and gathering and ended at domestication, so “to” is right.

50. F. NO CHANGE

    G. whether

    H. regardless

    J. how or even whether

Answer: G

The ACT test writers love brevity, and there’s a shorter choice that’s better than the underlined words.(G) has the same meaning and is grammatically correct, so it’s right.(H)would have changed the meaning of the sentence.

51. A. NO CHANG

    B. What is known , is

    C. We know

    D. Our wisdom tells us

Answer: C

This question is testing parallelism. The underlined part is grammatically correct but not parallel with the rest of the passage .The previous sentence refers to “us” so you want (C) or(D).You want to avoid colorful language when given a choice; get rid of (D)

52. F. NO CHANGE

    G. than was

    H. than they were

    J. than it were

Answer: G

The subject here is “area of land.” and it’s singular, so that eliminate (F), (H),and (J).