Adapted from "Crossing the Rubicon" in History of Julius Caesar by Jacob Abbott (1902)

There was a little stream in ancient times, in the north of Italy, which flowed eastward into the Adriatic Sea, called the Rubicon. This stream has been immortalized by the transactions which we are now about to describe.

The Rubicon was a very important boundary, and yet it was in itself so small and insignificant that it is now impossible to determine which of two or three little brooks here running into the sea is entitled to its name and renown. In history the Rubicon is a grand, permanent, and conspicuous stream, gazed upon with continued interest by all mankind for nearly twenty centuries; in nature it is an uncertain rivulet, for a long time doubtful and undetermined, and finally lost.

The Rubicon originally derived its importance from the fact that it was the boundary between all that part of the north of Italy which is formed by the valley of the Po, one of the richest and most magnificent countries of the world, and the more southern Roman territories. This country of the Po constituted what was in those days called the hither Gaul, and was a Roman province. It belonged now to Cæsar's jurisdiction, as the commander in Gaul. All south of the Rubicon was territory reserved for the immediate jurisdiction of the city. The Romans, in order to protect themselves from any danger which might threaten their own liberties from the immense armies which they raised for the conquest of foreign nations, had imposed on every side very strict limitations and restrictions in respect to the approach of these armies to the capital. The Rubicon was the limit on this northern side. Generals commanding in Gaul were never to pass it. To cross the Rubicon with an army on the way to Rome was rebellion and treason. Hence the Rubicon became, as it were, the visible sign and symbol of civil restriction to military power.

Why does the author discuss the geographical nature of the Rubicon at the beginning of the second paragraph? 

"The Units of Ancient Warfare" by Daniel Morrison (2014)

The armies of the ancient world were generally composed of three distinct units who faced off against each other in a gigantic game of rock-paper-scissors. These were the infantry, cavalry, and slingers. The heavily armored but slow-moving infantry were able to fend off the cavalry with their long pikes, but were sitting ducks for the fast moving slingers who carried only a sling and a bag of small rocks. The slingers in turn were great at taking down infantry as they could out-maneuver them and never get bogged down in hand-to-hand combat, but were easily decimated by the rapidly advancing cavalry.

In this manner the history of warfare progressed for several thousand years. The slingers were replaced by archers, and then by heavily artillery; the cavalry constantly advanced in tactical awareness and arms; and the infantry progressed from swordsmen, to pikemen, to riflemen. Next time you are playing rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets the last slice of pizza, don’t forget that you are channeling your inner Scipio Africanus.  

The author’s underlined comment is most likely intended to add __________ to the passage.

Adapted from A Child’s History of England by Charles Darwin (1905)

As great and good in peace as he was great and good in war, King Alfred never rested from his labors to improve his people. He loved to talk with clever men and travelers from foreign countries and to write down what they told him for his people to read. He had studied Latin after learning to read English, and now another of his labors was to translate Latin books into the English-Saxon tongue, that his people might be interested and improved by their contents. He made just laws, that they might live more happily and freely; he turned away all partial judges, that no wrong might be done them; he was so careful of their property, and punished robbers so severely that it was a common thing to say that under the great King Alfred, garlands of golden chains and jewels might have hung across the streets, and no man would have touched one. He founded schools, and he patiently heard causes himself in his Court of Justice. The great desires of his heart were, to do right to all his subjects, and to leave England better, wiser, and happier in all ways than he found it. His industry in these efforts was quite astonishing. Every day he divided into certain portions, and in each portion devoted himself to a certain pursuit. That he might divide his time exactly, he had wax torches or candles made, which were all of the same size, were notched across at regular distances, and were always kept burning. Thus, as the candles burnt down, he divided the day into notches, almost as accurately as we now divide it into hours upon the clock. But when the candles were first invented, it was found that the wind and draughts of air, blowing into the palace through the doors and windows and through the chinks in the walls, caused them to gutter and burn unequally. To prevent this, the King had them put into cases formed of wood and white horn. And these were the first lanterns ever made in England.

All this time, he was afflicted with a terrible unknown disease, which caused him violent and frequent pain that nothing could relieve. He bore it, as he had borne all the troubles of his life, like a brave good man, until he was fifty-three years old; and then, having reigned thirty years, he died. He died in the year nine hundred and one; but, long ago as that is, his fame, and the love and gratitude with which his subjects regarded him, are freshly remembered to the present hour.

The author’s statement that “garlands of golden chains and jewels might have hung across the streets, and no man would have touched one” is primarily meant __________.

Adapted from A Child’s History of England by Charles Darwin (1905)

As great and good in peace as he was great and good in war, King Alfred never rested from his labors to improve his people. He loved to talk with clever men and travelers from foreign countries and to write down what they told him for his people to read. He had studied Latin after learning to read English, and now another of his labors was to translate Latin books into the English-Saxon tongue, that his people might be interested and improved by their contents. He made just laws, that they might live more happily and freely; he turned away all partial judges, that no wrong might be done them; he was so careful of their property, and punished robbers so severely that it was a common thing to say that under the great King Alfred, garlands of golden chains and jewels might have hung across the streets, and no man would have touched one. He founded schools, and he patiently heard causes himself in his Court of Justice. The great desires of his heart were, to do right to all his subjects, and to leave England better, wiser, and happier in all ways than he found it. His industry in these efforts was quite astonishing. Every day he divided into certain portions, and in each portion devoted himself to a certain pursuit. That he might divide his time exactly, he had wax torches or candles made, which were all of the same size, were notched across at regular distances, and were always kept burning. Thus, as the candles burnt down, he divided the day into notches, almost as accurately as we now divide it into hours upon the clock. But when the candles were first invented, it was found that the wind and draughts of air, blowing into the palace through the doors and windows and through the chinks in the walls, caused them to gutter and burn unequally. To prevent this, the King had them put into cases formed of wood and white horn. And these were the first lanterns ever made in England.

All this time, he was afflicted with a terrible unknown disease, which caused him violent and frequent pain that nothing could relieve. He bore it, as he had borne all the troubles of his life, like a brave good man, until he was fifty-three years old; and then, having reigned thirty years, he died. He died in the year nine hundred and one; but, long ago as that is, his fame, and the love and gratitude with which his subjects regarded him, are freshly remembered to the present hour.

The information that King Alfred suffered from a “terrible unknown disease” is meant to highlight __________.

Adapted from A Child’s History of England by Charles Darwin (1905)

Henry Plantagenet, when he was but twenty-one years old, quietly succeeded to the throne of England, according to his agreement made with the late king at Winchester. Six weeks after Stephen’s death, he and his queen, Eleanor, were crowned in that city, into which they rode on horseback in great state, side by side, amidst much shouting and rejoicing, and clashing of music, and strewing of flowers.

The reign of King Henry the Second began well. The king had great possessions, and (with his own property, and with that of his wife) was lord of one-third part of France. He was a young man of strength, ability, and determination, and immediately applied himself to remove some of the evils which had arisen in the last unhappy reign. He took away all the grants of land that had been hastily made, on either side, during the recent struggles; he forced numbers of disorderly soldiers to depart from England; he reclaimed all the castles belonging to the crown; and he forced the wicked nobles to pull down their own castles, to the number of eleven hundred, in which such dismal cruelties had been inflicted on the people.  

The king’s brother, Geoffrey, rose against him in France and forced Henry to wage a war in France. After he had subdued and made a friendly arrangement with his brother (who did not live long), his ambition to increase his possessions involved him in a war with the French king, Louis. He had been on such friendly terms with the French king just before, that to his infant daughter, then a baby in the cradle, he had promised one of his little sons in marriage, who was a child of five years old. However, the war came to nothing at last, and the Pope made the two kings friends again.

Why does the author call the underlined nobles “wicked” near the end of the second paragraph?

Adapted from Early European History by Hutton Webster (1917)

Perhaps the most striking feature of a medieval village was its self-sufficiency. The inhabitants tried to produce at home everything they required, in order to avoid the uncertainty and expense of trade. The land gave them their food; the forest provided them with wood for houses and furniture. They made their own clothes of flax, wool, and leather. Their meal and flour were ground at the village mill, and at the village smithy their farm implements were manufactured. The chief articles which needed to be brought from some distant market were salt, used to salt down farm animals killed in autumn, iron for various tools, and millstones. Cattle, horses, and surplus grain also formed common objects of exchange between manors.

Life in a medieval village was rude and rough. The peasants labored from sunrise to sunset, ate coarse fare, lived in huts, and suffered from frequent diseases. They were often the helpless prey of the feudal nobles. If their lord happened to be a quarrelsome man, given to fighting with his neighbors, they might see their lands ravaged, their cattle driven off, their village burned, and might themselves be slain. Even under peaceful conditions the narrow, shut-in life of the manor could not be otherwise than degrading.

Yet there is another side to the picture. If the peasants had a just and generous lord, they probably led a fairly comfortable existence. Except when crops failed, they had an abundance of food, and possibly wine or cider drink. They shared a common life in the work of the fields, in the sports of the village green, and in the services of the parish church. They enjoyed many holidays; it has been estimated that, besides Sundays, about eight weeks in every year were free from work. Festivities at Christmas, Easter, and May Day, at the end of ploughing and the completion of harvest, relieved the monotony of the daily round of labor. Perhaps these medieval peasants were not much worse off than the agricultural laborers in most countries of modern Europe. 

The underlined word “manufactured” most nearly means __________.

Adapted from The Man who Spoiled Napoleon’s Destiny by Rev. W. H. Fitchett, LL.D. (1899)

From March 18 to May 20, 1799—for more than sixty days and nights, that is—a little, half-forgotten, and more than half-ruined Syrian town was the scene of one of the fiercest and most dramatic sieges recorded in military history. And rarely has there been a struggle so apparently one-sided.

A handful of British sailors and Turkish irregulars were holding Acre, a town without regular defenses, against Napoleon, the most brilliant military genius of his generation, with an army of 10,000 war-hardened veterans, the "Army of Italy"—soldiers who had dared the snows of the Alps and conquered Italy, and to whom victory was a familiar experience. In their ranks military daring had reached, perhaps, its very highest point. And yet the sailors inside that ring of crumbling wall won! At Acre Napoleon experienced his first defeat; and, years after, at St. Helena, he said of Sir Sidney Smith, the gallant sailor who baffled him, "That man made me miss my destiny." It is a curious fact that one Englishman thwarted Napoleon's career in the East, and another ended his career in the West, and it may be doubted which of the two Napoleon hated most—Wellington, who finally overthrew him at Waterloo, or Sidney Smith, who, to use Napoleon's own words, made him "miss his destiny," and exchange the empire of the East for a lonely pinnacle of rock in the Atlantic.

What does the underlined word “recorded” most nearly mean?

Adapted from Early European History by Hutton Webster (1917)

Henry II, who ascended the English throne in 1154 C.E., was a grandson of William the Conqueror and the first of the famous Plantagenet family, Henry spent more than half of his reign abroad, looking after his extensive possessions in France, but this fact did not prevent him from giving England good government. Three things in which all Englishmen take special pride—the courts, the jury system, and the Common law—began to take shape during Henry's reign.

Henry, first of all, developed the royal court of justice. This had been, at first, simply the court of the king's chief vassals, corresponding to the local feudal courts. Henry transformed it from an occasional assembly of warlike nobles into a regular body of trained lawyers, and at the same time opened its doors to all except serfs. In the king's court any freeman could find a justice that was cheaper and speedier than that dispensed by the feudal lords. The higher courts of England have sprung from this institution.

Henry also took measures to bring the king's justice directly to the people. He sent members of the royal court on circuit throughout the kingdom. At least once a year a judge was to hold an assembly in each county and try such cases as were brought before him. This system of circuit judges helped to make the law uniform in all parts of England.

The king's court owed much of its popularity to the fact that it employed a better form of trying cases than the old ordeal, oath-swearing, or judicial duel. Henry introduced a method of jury trial which had long been in use in Normandy. When a case came before the king's judges on circuit, they were to select twelve knights, usually neighbors of the parties engaged in the dispute, to make an investigation and give a "verdict" as to which side was in the right. These selected men bore the name of "jurors," because they swore to tell the truth. In Henry's time this method of securing justice applied only to civil cases, that is, to cases affecting land and other forms of property, but later it was extended to persons charged with criminal offenses. Thus arose the "petty jury," an institution which nearly all European peoples have borrowed from England.

Another of Henry's innovations developed into the "grand jury." Before his time, many offenders went unpunished, especially if they were so powerful that no private individual dared accuse them. Henry provided that when the king's justices came to a county court, a number of selected men should be put upon their oath and required to give the names of any persons whom they knew or believed to be guilty of crimes. Such persons were then to be arrested and tried. This "grand jury," as it came to be called, thus had the public duty of making accusations, whether its members felt any personal interest in the matter or not.

The decisions handed down by the legal experts who composed the royal court formed the basis of the English system of jurisprudence. It received the name “Common law” because it grew out of such customs as were common to the realm, as distinguished from those which were merely local. This law, from Henry's II's time, became so widespread and so firmly established that it could not be supplanted by the Roman law followed on the Continent. Carried by English colonists across the seas, it has now come to prevail throughout a great part of the world.

The underlined word “uniform” most nearly means __________.

Adapted from Early European History by Hutton Webster (1917)

Henry II, who ascended the English throne in 1154 C.E., was a grandson of William the Conqueror and the first of the famous Plantagenet family, Henry spent more than half of his reign abroad, looking after his extensive possessions in France, but this fact did not prevent him from giving England good government. Three things in which all Englishmen take special pride—the courts, the jury system, and the Common law—began to take shape during Henry's reign.

Henry, first of all, developed the royal court of justice. This had been, at first, simply the court of the king's chief vassals, corresponding to the local feudal courts. Henry transformed it from an occasional assembly of warlike nobles into a regular body of trained lawyers, and at the same time opened its doors to all except serfs. In the king's court any freeman could find a justice that was cheaper and speedier than that dispensed by the feudal lords. The higher courts of England have sprung from this institution.

Henry also took measures to bring the king's justice directly to the people. He sent members of the royal court on circuit throughout the kingdom. At least once a year a judge was to hold an assembly in each county and try such cases as were brought before him. This system of circuit judges helped to make the law uniform in all parts of England.

The king's court owed much of its popularity to the fact that it employed a better form of trying cases than the old ordeal, oath-swearing, or judicial duel. Henry introduced a method of jury trial which had long been in use in Normandy. When a case came before the king's judges on circuit, they were to select twelve knights, usually neighbors of the parties engaged in the dispute, to make an investigation and give a "verdict" as to which side was in the right. These selected men bore the name of "jurors," because they swore to tell the truth. In Henry's time this method of securing justice applied only to civil cases, that is, to cases affecting land and other forms of property, but later it was extended to persons charged with criminal offenses. Thus arose the "petty jury," an institution which nearly all European peoples have borrowed from England.

Another of Henry's innovations developed into the "grand jury." Before his time, many offenders went unpunished, especially if they were so powerful that no private individual dared accuse them. Henry provided that when the king's justices came to a county court, a number of selected men should be put upon their oath and required to give the names of any persons whom they knew or believed to be guilty of crimes. Such persons were then to be arrested and tried. This "grand jury," as it came to be called, thus had the public duty of making accusations, whether its members felt any personal interest in the matter or not.

The decisions handed down by the legal experts who composed the royal court formed the basis of the English system of jurisprudence. It received the name “Common law” because it grew out of such customs as were common to the realm, as distinguished from those which were merely local. This law, from Henry's II's time, became so widespread and so firmly established that it could not be supplanted by the Roman law followed on the Continent. Carried by English colonists across the seas, it has now come to prevail throughout a great part of the world.

The underlined word “supplanted” most nearly means __________.

Adapted from Early European History by Hutton Webster (1917)

Henry II, who ascended the English throne in 1154 C.E., was a grandson of William the Conqueror and the first of the famous Plantagenet family, Henry spent more than half of his reign abroad, looking after his extensive possessions in France, but this fact did not prevent him from giving England good government. Three things in which all Englishmen take special pride—the courts, the jury system, and the Common law—began to take shape during Henry's reign.

Henry, first of all, developed the royal court of justice. This had been, at first, simply the court of the king's chief vassals, corresponding to the local feudal courts. Henry transformed it from an occasional assembly of warlike nobles into a regular body of trained lawyers, and at the same time opened its doors to all except serfs. In the king's court any freeman could find a justice that was cheaper and speedier than that dispensed by the feudal lords. The higher courts of England have sprung from this institution.

Henry also took measures to bring the king's justice directly to the people. He sent members of the royal court on circuit throughout the kingdom. At least once a year a judge was to hold an assembly in each county and try such cases as were brought before him. This system of circuit judges helped to make the law uniform in all parts of England.

The king's court owed much of its popularity to the fact that it employed a better form of trying cases than the old ordeal, oath-swearing, or judicial duel. Henry introduced a method of jury trial which had long been in use in Normandy. When a case came before the king's judges on circuit, they were to select twelve knights, usually neighbors of the parties engaged in the dispute, to make an investigation and give a "verdict" as to which side was in the right. These selected men bore the name of "jurors," because they swore to tell the truth. In Henry's time this method of securing justice applied only to civil cases, that is, to cases affecting land and other forms of property, but later it was extended to persons charged with criminal offenses. Thus arose the "petty jury," an institution which nearly all European peoples have borrowed from England.

Another of Henry's innovations developed into the "grand jury." Before his time, many offenders went unpunished, especially if they were so powerful that no private individual dared accuse them. Henry provided that when the king's justices came to a county court, a number of selected men should be put upon their oath and required to give the names of any persons whom they knew or believed to be guilty of crimes. Such persons were then to be arrested and tried. This "grand jury," as it came to be called, thus had the public duty of making accusations, whether its members felt any personal interest in the matter or not.

The decisions handed down by the legal experts who composed the royal court formed the basis of the English system of jurisprudence. It received the name “Common law” because it grew out of such customs as were common to the realm, as distinguished from those which were merely local. This law, from Henry's II's time, became so widespread and so firmly established that it could not be supplanted by the Roman law followed on the Continent. Carried by English colonists across the seas, it has now come to prevail throughout a great part of the world.

The underlined word “prevail” most nearly means __________.