Unit Test — Unit test Answers

Read the excerpt from "Among Free Men." No wrongs have ever been righted by riots or civil disorders.

Read this excerpt from Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics. The incentive scheme that rules sumo is intricate and extraordinarily powerful. Each wrestler maintains a ranking that affects every slice of life; how much money he makes, how large an entourage he carries, how much he gets to eat, sleep, and otherwise take advantage of his success. The sixty-six highest-ranked wrestlers in Japan, comprising the makuuchi and juryo divisions, make up the sumo elite. A wrestler near the top of this elite pyramid may earn millions and is treated like royalty. Any wrestler in the top forty earns at least $170,000 a year. The seventieth-ranked wrestler in Japan, meanwhile, earns only $15,000 a year. Life isn’t very sweet outside the elite. Low-ranked wrestlers must tend to their superiors, preparing their meals and cleaning their quarters and even soaping up their hardest-to-reach body parts. So ranking is everything.A wrestler’s ranking is based on his performance in the elite tournaments that are held six times a year. Each wrestler has fifteen bouts per tournament, one per day over fifteen consecutive days. If he finishes the tournament with a winning record (eight victories or better), his ranking will rise. If he has a losing record, his ranking falls. If it falls far enough, he is booted from the elite rank entirely. The eighth victory in any tournament is therefore critical, the difference between promotion and demotion; it is roughly four times as valuable in the rankings as the typical victory.Based on the excerpt, which of the following statements best summarizes the incentive system that ranks sumo wrestlers?

Read the excerpt from E.O. Wilson’s “The Environmental Ethic.”Why should we care? What difference does it make if some species are extinguished, if even half of all the species on earth disappear? Let me count the ways. New sources of scientific information will be lost. Vast potential biological wealth will be destroyed. Still undeveloped medicines, crops, pharmaceuticals, timber, fibers, pulp, soil-restoring vegetation, petroleum substitutes, and other products and amenities will never come to light. It is fashionable in some quarters to wave aside the small and obscure, the bugs and weeds, forgetting that an obscure moth from Latin America saved Australia’s pastureland from overgrowth by cactus, that the rosy periwinkle provided the cure for Hodgkin’s disease and childhood lymphocytic leukemia, that the bark of the Pacific yew offers hope for victims of ovarian and breast cancer, that a chemical from the saliva of leeches dissolves blood clots during surgery, and so on down a roster already grown long and illustrious despite the limited research addressed to it.Which techniques does Wilson use in this excerpt to convey important information to his readers?

Read the excerpt from Freakonomics. Now let’s look at the win-loss percentage between the 7–7 wrestlers and the 8–6 wrestlers the next time they meet, when neither one is on the bubble. In this case, there is no great pressure on the individual match. So you might expect the wrestlers who won their 7–7 matches in the previous tournament to do about as well as they had in earlier matches against these same opponents—that is, winning roughly 50 percent of the time. You certainly wouldn’t expect them to uphold their 80 percent clip. As it turns out, the data show that the 7–7 wrestlers win only 40 percent of the rematches. Eighty percent in one match and 40 percent in the next? How do you make sense of that?Which type of evidence does the authors use in this excerpt to support the claim that some sumo wrestlers will intentionally lose a match?

Read the excerpt from Hidden Figures.As the work intensified, something that had been hibernating in her mind awakened, and once roused it would not go away. She considered the issue and checked its logic, just as she did with her analytical work. At first she asked it only of herself, but eventually she came to the engineers with the question."Why can’t I go to the editorial meetings?" she asked the engineers. A postgame recap of the analysis wasn’t nearly as thrilling as being there for the main event. How could she not want to be a part of the discussion? They were her numbers, after all."Girls don't go to the meetings," Katherine’s male colleagues told her.

Read the excerpt from Freakonomics. It’s worth thinking about the incentive a wrestler might have to throw a match. Maybe he accepts a bribe (which would obviously not be recorded in the data). Or perhaps some other arrangement is made between the two wrestlers. Keep in mind that the pool of elite sumo wrestlers is extraordinarily tight-knit. Each of the sixty-six elite wrestlers fights fifteen of the others in a tournament every two months. Furthermore, each wrestler belongs to a stable that is typically managed by a former sumo champion, so even the rival stables have close ties. Which of the following claims is best supported by the evidence in this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from Other Words for Home.We live in a town that needs tourists. Revolution and war are not good for business. But my brother doesn’t care. My brother who no longer will imitate Reese Witherspoon or sing Whitney Houston with me.Other Words For Home by Jasmine Warga Text Copyright (c) 2019 by Jasmine Warga. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers

Read the excerpt from Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s Freakonomics.Let’s now consider the following statistic, which represents the hundreds of matches in which a 7–7 wrestler faced an 8–6 wrestler on a tournament’s final day: 7–7 WRESTLER’S PREDICTED WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 8–6 OPPONENT: 48.77–7 WRESTLER’S ACTUAL WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 8–6 OPPONENT: 79.6So the 7–7 wrestler, based on past outcomes, was expected to win just less than half the time. This makes sense; their records in this tournament indicate that the 8–6 wrestler is slightly better. But in actuality, the wrestler on the bubble won almost eight out of ten matches against his 8–6 opponent. Wrestlers on the bubble also do astonishingly well against 9–5 opponents:7–7 WRESTLER’S PREDICTED WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 9–5 OPPONENT: 47.27–7 WRESTLER’S ACTUAL WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 9–5 OPPONENT: 73.4The authors use the statistics in this excerpt to

Read the following excerpt from E. O. Wilson’s “The Environmental Ethic.”It is also easy to overlook the services that ecosystems provide humanity. They enrich the soil and create the very air we breathe. Without these amenities, the remaining tenure of the human race would be nasty and brief. The life-sustaining matrix is built of green plants with legions of microorganisms and mostly small, obscure animals—in other words, weeds and bugs. Such organisms support the world with efficiency because they are so diverse, allowing them to divide labor and swarm over every square meter of the earth’s surface. They run the world precisely as we would wish it to be run, because humanity evolved within living communities and our bodily functions are finely adjusted to the idiosyncratic environment already created. The author tries to persuade the reader to agree with his claim about the importance of ecosystems by

Read the passage.When the US Constitution was written, voting rights were extended only to White men 21 and older who owned property. The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, granted suffrage to Black men. The 19th Amendment granted White women 21 and older the right to vote in 1920. It was not until 1971, in the middle of the Vietnam War when men 18 and older were being drafted to fight, that the voting age was lowered to 18 with the ratification of the 26th Amendment. Still today, however, millions of citizens of the United States are denied the right to vote because they have been convicted of felonies. This disenfranchisement of these citizens who have paid their debt to society must end.

Which best describes the appeal Kennedy makes in "Make Gentle the Life of This World"?

Read the passage.The city commission’s rejection of building permits along our waterways is based on our review of the environmental impact statement prepared by the university on the construction of homes and businesses along the Dog River Watershed in southern Alabama. The removal of vegetation in the construction process has resulted in excessive erosion along the streams and rivers in that area.

Read the excerpt from "Keynote Address." Of course, expectations are rising, and they are rising faster than we in our imperfect world can fulfill them. The revolution we in the United States are experiencing was born of democratic processes that not only accommodate economic progress and social mobility, but actively encourage them. But it is important to remember that these expectations are the children of progress and that today’s restlessness has been nurtured by our very real achievements. Out of these should emerge a brighter and better society than we have known.

Read this excerpt from Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics. The incentive scheme that rules sumo is intricate and extraordinarily powerful. Each wrestler maintains a ranking that affects every slice of life; how much money he makes, how large an entourage he carries, how much he gets to eat, sleep, and otherwise take advantage of his success. The sixty-six highest-ranked wrestlers in Japan, comprising the makuuchi and juryo divisions, make up the sumo elite. A wrestler near the top of this elite pyramid may earn millions and is treated like royalty. Any wrestler in the top forty earns at least $170,000 a year. The seventieth-ranked wrestler in Japan, meanwhile, earns only $15,000 a year. Life isn’t very sweet outside the elite. Low-ranked wrestlers must tend to their superiors, preparing their meals and cleaning their quarters and even soaping up their hardest-to-reach body parts. So ranking is everything.A wrestler’s ranking is based on his performance in the elite tournaments that are held six times a year. Each wrestler has fifteen bouts per tournament, one per day over fifteen consecutive days. If he finishes the tournament with a winning record (eight victories or better), his ranking will rise. If he has a losing record, his ranking falls. If it falls far enough, he is booted from the elite rank entirely. The eighth victory in any tournament is therefore critical, the difference between promotion and demotion; it is roughly four times as valuable in the rankings as the typical victory.Based on the excerpt, which statement provides the best example of incentive for a sumo wrestler to cheat?

Read the passage.If you want to help animals in need, consider volunteering at an animal shelter. First, contact your local shelter to find out if it needs volunteers. Some shelters may have a waiting list, so have a few shelters in mind. Once you have found a shelter where you would like to volunteer, you may be asked only to sign a form and show identification before you can begin working with the animals. Other shelters may require you to complete an application and a training program. At first, you will spend most of your time playing with the dogs and cats. Later, you may be asked to help in other ways, like walking the dogs or showing the animals to families who want to adopt a pet. You might even be asked to foster a pet of your own!

Read the excerpt from "The Environmental Ethic." Mother Earth . . . is no more than the commonality of organisms and the physical environment they maintain with each passing moment, an environment that will destabilize and turn lethal if the organisms are disturbed too much. . . . To disregard the diversity of life is to risk catapulting ourselves into an alien environment. We will have become like the pilot whales that inexplicably beach themselves on New England shores.Which of the following choices best expresses the type of appeal Wilson uses in this passage?

Read the excerpt from Other Words for Home.When I get up, Mama is in the kitchen brewing tea. She has set out large chunks of feta and slightly toasted pitas.She toasts them right on the open flame in our kitchen. I know that everyone’s mother makes them this way, but I still cannot imagine doing it myself one day.Other Words For Home by Jasmine Warga Text Copyright (c) 2019 by Jasmine Warga. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers

Read the excerpt from "Make Gentle the Life of This World." What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be Black.