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Study concepts, example questions & explanations for TOEFL

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Example Questions

Example Question #1 : Compare And Contrast

Adapted from “Greenhouses: Their Construction and Equipment” by W.J. Wright (1917)

“Generally speaking, there are only two satisfactory methods of greenhouse heating: Steam and hot water. Direct heating by stoves is not satisfactory even in small houses, and no satisfactory system has yet been devised for the use of hot-air furnaces. The only method aside from steam or hot water which deserves mention is heating by flues. They are wasteful of fuel, and their use is not justified, except in cheaply constructed houses which are used only for a few months in the spring or fall.

The principles pertaining to greenhouse heating are much the same as those involved in heating other buildings, except that the loss of heat is greater from glass than from wood or brick walls, and a higher and more constant night temperature is required than is necessary in dwellings. For this reason, relatively more radiating surface is required and boilers of larger capacity are needed.

In heating with flues the equipment consists simply of a furnace at one end of the house and a chimney at the other, the two being connected by a flue, carried underneath the bench or buried just underneath the soil, through which the heat and smoke are carried. This may be made of brick, but large-size drain or sewer tile are more commonly used. These withstand the heat and are easily and cheaply put in place. It is best to have the flue slope upward slightly toward the chimney. As has already been stated, this method is wasteful of fuel. It is also difficult to regulate. It is still employed to some extent by gardeners in cheap houses, used only in late winter or early spring for the starting of early vegetable plants, sweet potatoes, etc.”

Based on the passage, a building with wood or brick walls will lose heat _________ a building with glass walls. 

Possible Answers:

at the same rate as

more quickly than

less quickly than

more often than

Correct answer:

less quickly than

Explanation:

The correct answer is that a building with wood or brick walls will lose heat less quickly than a building with glass walls. The author says that "the loss of heat is greater from glass than from wood or brick walls." Therefore, glass loses heat more quickly than wood/brick. 

Example Question #2 : Compare And Contrast

Passage adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, 1883.

1 "Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. 2 Here you, matey," he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help up my chest. 3 I'll stay here a bit," he continued. 4 "I'm a plain man; rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. 5 What you mought call me? 6 You mought call me captain. 7 Oh, I see what you're at—there"; and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. 8 "You can tell me when I've worked through that," says he, looking as fierce as a commander.

9 And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed like a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. 10 The man who came with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning before at the Royal George, that he had inquired what inns there were along the coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described as lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of residence. 11 And that was all we could learn of our guest.

A contrast is drawn between which two aspects of the speaker’s character?

Possible Answers:

His requested menu and his low social status

His crude appearance and his high social status

His indifference towards the other travelers and his keen interest in the wheelbarrow man

His luggage and the stories he tells about himself

His low social status and his years of sailing experience

Correct answer:

His crude appearance and his high social status

Explanation:

In Sentence 9, we find a direct comparison: “And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed like a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed or to strike.” In other words, the author is comparing the speaker’s crude appearance with the fact that he seems like a high-ranking seafarer. The fact that the speaker pays for his lodgings in gold coins underscores this contrast.

Example Question #13 : Toefl

Adapted from Women and Economics by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1898)

All our virtues can be traced and accounted for. The great main stem of them all, what we call "love," is merely the first condition of social existence. It is cohesion, working among us at the constituent particles of society. Without some attraction to hold us together, we should not be able to hold together; and this attraction, as perceived by our consciousness, we call love.

The virtue of obedience consists in the surrender of the individual will, so often necessary to the common good; and it stands highest in military organization, wherein great numbers of men must act together against their personal interests, even to the sacrifice of life, in the service of the community. As we have grown into fuller social life, we have slowly and experimentally, painfully and expensively, discovered what kind of man was the best social factor. The type of a satisfactory member of society today is a man self-controlled, kind, gentle, strong, wise, brave, courteous, cheerful, true. In the Middle Ages, strong, brave, and true would have satisfied the demands of the time. We now require for our common good a larger range of qualities, a more elaborate moral organization. All this is a simple, evolutionary process of social life, and should have involved no more confusion, effort, and pain than any other natural process.

In the passage above, the author argues what about social life?

Possible Answers:

The author argues that as our social environments change, our social values evolve alongside

The author argues that obedience and love are social experiences that serve little purpose in life

The author argues that social life never truly changes, although humans feel that it does

The author argues that modern social life is more sophisticated than social life in the Middle Ages

The author argues that all aspects of social life are founded upon love

Correct answer:

The author argues that as our social environments change, our social values evolve alongside

Explanation:

The author provides clear evidence to how social values change over time, citing the socially acceptable man of the contemporary period, versus the qualities of the socially ideal man of the Middle Ages. These examples help the reader see that the social world is always changing and evolving.

Example Question #14 : Toefl

Adapted from Women and Economics by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1898)

Away back in that early beginning, by dividing the economic conditions of women and men, we have divided their psychic development, and built into the constitution of the race the irreconcilable elements of these diverse characters. The incongruous behavior of this cross-bred product is the riddle of human life. We ourselves, by maintaining this artificial diversity between the genders, have constantly kept before us the enigma which we found so hard to solve, and have preserved in our own characters the confusion and contradiction which is our greatest difficulty in life.

The largest and most radical effect of restoring women to economic independence will be in its result in clarifying and harmonizing the human soul. With a homogeneous nature bred of two parents in the same degree of social development, we shall be able to feel simply, to see clearly, to agree with ourselves, to be one person and master of our own lives, instead of wrestling in such hopeless perplexity with what we have called "man's dual nature." Marry a civilized man to a primitive savage, and their child will naturally have a dual nature. Marry an Anglo-Saxon to an African or Oriental, and their child has a dual nature. Marry any man of a highly developed nation, full of the specialized activities of his race and their accompanying moral qualities, to the carefully preserved, rudimentary female creature he has so religiously maintained by his side, and you have as result what we all know so well,–the human soul in its pitiful, well-meaning efforts, its cross-eyed, purblind errors, its baby fits of passion, and its beautiful and ceaseless upward impulse through all this wavering.

According to the author, what is to blame for humans suffering the "greatest difficulty in life"? 

Possible Answers:

The lack of proper education is the reason people are suffering

Humans continuing to believe in fundamental differences between men and women causes society to suffer

Traditional, old-fashioned beliefs about men and women are no longer respected, which is causing society harm

Men exerting their power over women in society causes society to suffer

Because women receive less education than men, society suffers

Correct answer:

Humans continuing to believe in fundamental differences between men and women causes society to suffer

Explanation:

The author argues that "We ourselves, by maintaining this artificial diversity between the genders," are to cause for the "greatest difficulty in life." According to the author, the fact that we not only accept differences between the genders, but that we also adopt and perform these differences, is the reason why we struggle to become liberated from their constraints.

Example Question #1 : Identifying Rhetorical Devices

Passage adapted from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass (1845).

        The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness. [...]

     I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul,--and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because "there is no flesh in his obdurate heart."

        I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

The term in bold in the passage is an example of _______________.

Possible Answers:

an anecdote about a grimace

a metaphor for an emotional letter

a metaphor for a tear

an ironic reference to a shout

Correct answer:

a metaphor for a tear

Explanation:

In this context, the phrase "expression of feeling" is a metaphor for a tear. We know this because he says that it is rolling down his cheek--something a grimace, shout, or letter could not do.

Example Question #12 : Toefl

Adapted from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost reverential attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight. On the evening previous to her being brought to my home, my mother had said playfully, “I have a pretty present for my Victor–tomorrow he shall have it.” And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine–mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me–my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only.

We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages. I need not say that we were strangers to any species of disunion or dispute. Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition; but, with all my ardor, I was capable of a more intense application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home –the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm, the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine summers–she found ample scope for admiration and delight. While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.

The bolded term in the passage above is an example of ____________.

Possible Answers:

A metaphor for the narrator's mother

A metaphor for the narrator's beloved companion

A euphemism for the narrator's hidden romance

An ironic description of the narrator's sister

A hyperbole describing the physical appearance of Elizabeth

Correct answer:

A metaphor for the narrator's beloved companion

Explanation:

The narrator's mother describes Elizabeth, his cousin and close companion, as "a pretty present." Because the narrator cherishes Elizabeth so greatly that he considers her arrival a gift, "pretty present" is an example of a metaphor for his beloved companion.

Example Question #13 : Toefl

Adapted from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost reverential attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight. On the evening previous to her being brought to my home, my mother had said playfully, “I have a pretty present for my Victor–tomorrow he shall have it.” And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine–mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me–my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only.

We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages. I need not say that we were strangers to any species of disunion or dispute. Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition; but, with all my ardor, I was capable of a more intense application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home –the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm, the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine summers–she found ample scope for admiration and delight. While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.

The bolded sentence above is an example of ______.

Possible Answers:

Syncrisis between the personal interests of the two characters

A symbol of the characters' love for poetry

A metaphor for the two characters' similar personalities

A hyperbole about the beauty of nature

An allusion to a fond memory of the narrator

Correct answer:

Syncrisis between the personal interests of the two characters

Explanation:

A syncrisis is a rhetorical device that directly compares two contrasting or opposite figures. The bolded passage contrasts the interests and personalities of the two characters; while the narrator prefers to investigate the scientific functions of natural world, Elizabeth prefers to muse over nature's poetic beauty.

Example Question #15 : Toefl

Adapted from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

After days and nights of incredible labor and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.

The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery soon gave place to delight and rapture. After so much time spent in painful labor, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the most gratifying consummation of my toils. But this discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result. What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp. Not that, like a magic scene, it all opened upon me at once: the information I had obtained was of a nature rather to direct my endeavors so soon as I should point them towards the object of my search than to exhibit that object already accomplished. I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and seemingly ineffectual light.

I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.

The bolded term is an example of _________________.

Possible Answers:

A metaphor for the scientist's passion for his work

A symbol of the narrator's connection to nature

An allusion to the narrator's past scientific misfortunes

A metaphor for the narrator's great discovery

A simile for the scientist's labor intensive research

Correct answer:

A metaphor for the narrator's great discovery

Explanation:

The "summit of [his] desires" represents the successful achievement of the scientist's research. It is a metaphor for the narrator's successful discovery of the secret of life, his most prized question, because it compares it to the very top of the mountain of his desires.

Example Question #16 : Toefl

Adapted from Women and Economics by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1898)

All our virtues can be traced and accounted for. The great main stem of them all, what we call "love," is merely the first condition of social existence. It is cohesion, working among us at the constituent particles of society. Without some attraction to hold us together, we should not be able to hold together; and this attraction, as perceived by our consciousness, we call love.

The virtue of obedience consists in the surrender of the individual will, so often necessary to the common good; and it stands highest in military organization, wherein great numbers of men must act together against their personal interests, even to the sacrifice of life, in the service of the community. As we have grown into fuller social life, we have slowly and experimentally, painfully and expensively, discovered what kind of man was the best social factor. The type of a satisfactory member of society today is a man self-controlled, kind, gentle, strong, wise, brave, courteous, cheerful, true. In the Middle Ages, strong, brave, and true would have satisfied the demands of the time. We now require for our common good a larger range of qualities, a more elaborate moral organization. All this is a simple, evolutionary process of social life, and should have involved no more confusion, effort, and pain than any other natural process.

The bolded passage utilizes which rhetorical device?

Possible Answers:

Alliteration to emphasize the list of qualities

Anaphora in order to repeat the author's argument

Metaphor to poetically describe the listed qualities

Asyndeton used to emphasize the list of qualities

Hyperbole used to exaggerate the list of qualities

Correct answer:

Asyndeton used to emphasize the list of qualities

Explanation:

The bolded sentence is an example of asyndeton, which is a when a list purposefully excludes the use of the "and" conjunction for dramatic effect. The author leaves out the "and" at the end of the list to emphasize the number of qualities that characterize the ideal modern man.

Example Question #1 : Rhetorical Purpose Of An Excerpt

Adapted from "Taking a Second Look: An Analysis of Genetic Markers in Species Relatedness" by Joseph Ritchie (2014)

Phylogenetics is the study of genetic composition in various species and is used by evolutionary biologists to investigate similarities in the molecular sequences of proteins in varying organisms. The amino acid sequences that build proteins are used to construct mathematical matrices that aid in determining evolutionary ties through the investigation of percentage similarities. The study of these matrices helps to expose evolutionary relationships between species that may not have the same overt characteristics.

Species adapt and evolve based on the pressures that exist in their environment. Climate, food source, and habitat availability are only a few factors that act on species adaptation. These stressors can alter the physical characteristics of organisms. This divergence in evolution has made it difficult to determine the interrelatedness of organisms by analyzing their physical characteristics alone.

For instance, looking only at physical characteristics, the ghost bat resembles a pigeon more than a spider monkey; however, phylogenetics has found that the amino acid sequences that construct the beta hemoglobin molecules of bats are twenty percent more similar to those of mammalian primates than those of birds. This helps reject the assumption that common physical characteristics between species are all that is needed to determine relatedness. 

The differences produced by divergent evolution observed in the forest-dwelling, arboreal spider monkey and the nocturnal, airborne ghost bat can be reconciled through homology. Homologous characteristics are anatomical traits that are similar in two or more different species. For instance, the bone structure of a spider monkey’s wrist and fingers greatly resembles that of a bat’s wing or even a whale’s fin. These similarities are reinforced by phylogenetic evidence that supports the idea that physically dissimilar species can be evolutionarily related through anatomical and genetic similarities.

Paragraph four of the passage discusses which of the following?

Possible Answers:

The theory of evolution

All of these statements

The reasons why a spider monkey’s wrist and fingers can resemble a bat's wing or a whale's fin

The physiological functions of the spider monkey’s wrist and fingers, the bat’s wing, and the whale’s fin

Correct answer:

The reasons why a spider monkey’s wrist and fingers can resemble a bat's wing or a whale's fin

Explanation:

One of paragraph four's central purposes is to give examples of homologous adaptation. It describes how the features of different species can possess anatomical similarities, even if the species are from vastly different habitats. The passage does not discuss the theory of evolution nor the physiological purposes of certain appendages, and the third paragraph, not the fourth, discusses the unreliability of physical characteristics in determining species relatedness.

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