I hope your are still enjoying your Easter holidays.
Here you are, what you need to study for your exams,
GUIA
CORRESPONDIENTE AL CUARTO BIMESTRE. COLLECTIONS 11
THE LOWEST ANIMAL
1. The subtitle of the essay is “Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is
the claim.” What purpose does this subtitle serve?
A: It introduces the assertion that Twain intends to challenge.
2. Based on experiments in which he says he “furnished a hundred
different kinds of wild and tame animals the opportunity to accumulate vast
stores of food,” Twain draws the conclusion that human beings are
A: greedy.
3. In lines 97–101, Twain reports the fine for beating one’s mother
nearly to death and the fine for possessing potentially stolen pheasant eggs to
make the point that
A: cruelty does not stand out as a particularly terrible offense.
4. What does the author mean when he says in lines 126–128, “He [man]
has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other
slaves in bondage under him in one way or another”?
A: Humans have always conspired to take advantage of others.
5. In lines 74–77, Twain points out that “cats are loose in their
morals,” but he concludes that “the cat is innocent, man is not.” Readers can
infer that the reason for cats’ innocence is that cats
A: do not have moral standards that they intentionally overlook.
6. Which detail supports Twain’s statement that “Man is the Animal
that Blushes”?
A: “He will not even enter a drawing room with his breast and back
naked, so alive are he and his mates to indecent suggestion.”
7. What distinction does Twain make between animals fighting and
humans going to war?
A: Humans plan their wars and fight in groups against people they
don’t know.
VOCABULARY (SYNONYMS)
Atrocious = horribly wicked
Disposition = character
Transition = change from one thing to another
THE COMING MERGING OF MIND AND MACHINE
1. Which word best describes the author’s overall tone in this
selection?
A: confident
2. The second paragraph of Kurzweil’s argument contains the sentence
“For example, if I learn French, I can’t readily download that learning to
you.” This sentence supports his assertion that
A: computers’ ability to instantly share knowledge is an advantage
that they have over humans.
3. The purpose of the graph included in the selection is to
A: show how technological progress gets faster over time.
4. The basic principle of the Law of Accelerating Returns is that
A: each advance, both in product and in process, increases the rate of
progress.
5. What is necessary for computers to achieve human-level
intelligence?
A: software of intelligence and adequate processing power
6. What inference about the software of intelligence can be drawn from
the facts that the author presents?
A: Scans of a dead person’s brain do not yield sufficiently detailed
information to create intelligence software.
7. In lines 207–208, the author points out, “The Human Genome Project
seemed impractical when it was first proposed.” What assertion does this detail
support?
A: “By the third decade of this century, we will be in a position to
create complete, detailed maps of the computationally relevant features of the
human brain and to re-create these designs in advanced neural computers.”
VOCABULARY (SYNONYMS)
Extrapolation = future prediction
Ubiquitous = seen everywhere
Succession = series
GUIA
CORRESPONDIENTE AL CUARTO BIMESTRE. COLLECTIONS 12
THE DEEP
1. Even though he has a weak heart, Tom’s mother always allows him to
A: do his chores.
2. Ruby’s report about the sea is significant to Tom because it
A: opens up a new world of color and life to him.
3. As he pumps the tire pump for Ruby, Tom thinks of this simile:
“You’re trembling like a needle to the pole” (line 182). Which other simile
from the story most closely relates to this meaning?
A: “True as the magnet to the iron” (line 317)
4. Through his job at the hospital, Tom learns that
A: life always finds a way to continue.
5. When Mr. Weems tells Tom, “You got one foot across the river”
(lines 465–466), he is concerned that Tom is
A: losing his will to live.
VOCABULARY (SYNONYMS)
Itinerant = migrant
Sporadic = occasional
Reverberate = vibrate
Translucent = transparent
Iridescent = angle of
view
LIVING LIKE WEASELS
1. The author’s purpose for including the anecdote about the weasel
attached to the eagle is to
A: convey the single-minded tenacity of the weasel.
2. The author uses the exclamation “Weasel!” in line 56 without an
article to
A: show that this individual weasel embodies the essence of all
weasels.
3. The author describes the impact of the glance she exchanged with
the weasel, writing: “It was also a bright blow to the brain, or a sudden
beating of brains” (lines 69–70). What literary device does she use here to
re-create the intensity of her experience?
A: alliteration
4. What does the author mean when she describes the “tape” that both
the weasel and she plugged into as a blank?
A: For a short moment, she didn’t think; like the weasel, she simply
was.
5. In comparison to humans and their thoughts, the weasel’s “journal
is tracks in clay, a spray of feathers, mouse blood and bone” (lines 91–92).
Which statement expresses what Dillard thinks about this existence?
A: Weasels live fully in the physical world of senses and actions.
6. What lesson does the author derive from her meeting with the
weasel?
A: Humans must find the one thing that matters in life and hang on to
it.
VOCABULARY (SYNONYMS)
Talon = claw
Ignobly = contemptible
Inexplicably = mysteriously
Supposition = assumption
