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過去這個週末學生考了 2018 年 6 月的 SAT 考試。如果這是你最後一次考 SAT，恭喜你完成了一個艱難的任務！
這裡，我們整理了 2018 年 6 月 SAT 考試當中的 5 篇閱讀文章，幫助學生準備未來的考試。
這些閱讀文章可以如何的幫助你？
1. 這些文章可以讓你知道你的英文程度以及準備考試的程度
首先，讀這些文章。你覺得他們讀起來很簡單還是很難？裡面有沒有很多生字，尤其是那些會影響你理解整篇文章的生字？如果有的話，雖然你可能是在美國讀書或讀國際學校、也知道 “如何讀跟寫英文”，但你還沒有足夠的生字基礎讓你 “達到下一個階段” （也就是大學的階段）。查一下這一些字，然後把它們背起來。這些生字不見得會在下一個 SAT 考試中出現，但是透過真正的 SAT 閱讀文章去認識及學習這些生字可以大大的減低考試中出現不會的生字的機率。
2. 這些文章會告訴你平時應該要讀哪些文章幫你準備閱讀考試
在我們的 Ivy-Way Reading Workbook（Ivy-Way 閱讀技巧書）的第一章節裡，我們教學生在閱讀文章之前要先讀文章最上面的開頭介紹。雖然你的 SAT 考試不會剛好考這幾篇文章，但你還是可以透過這些文章找到它們的來源，然後從來源閱讀更多相關的文章。舉例來說，如果你看第二篇文章 “The Problem with Fair Trade Coffee”，你會看到文章是來自 Stanford Social Innovation Review。閱讀更多來自 Stanford Social Innovation Review 的文章會幫助你習慣閱讀這種風格的文章。
3. 這些文章會幫助你發掘閱讀單元的技巧（如果閱讀單元對你來說不是特別簡單的話）
如果你覺得閱讀單元很簡單，或是你在做完之後還有剩幾分鐘可以檢查，那麼這個技巧可能就對你來說沒有特別大的幫助。但是，如果你覺得閱讀很難，或者你常常不夠時間做題，一個很好的技巧是先理解那一種的文章對你來說比較難，然後最後做這一篇文章。SAT 的閱讀文章包含這五種類型：
- 文學 (literature)：1 篇經典或現代的文學文章（通常來自美國）
- 歷史 (History)：1 篇跟美國獨立/創立相關的文章，或者一篇受到美國獨立 / 創立影響的國際文章（像是美國憲法或者馬丁路德金恩 (Martin Luther King Jr.) 的演說）
- 人文 (Humanities)：1 篇經濟、心理學、社會學、或社會科學的文章
- 科學 (Sciences)：1-2 篇地理、生物、化學、或物理的文章
- 雙篇文 (Dual-Passages)：0-1 篇含有兩篇同主題的文章
舉例來說，假設你覺得跟美國獨立相關的文章是你在做連續的時候覺得最難的種類，那你在考試的時候可以考慮使用的技巧之一是把這篇文章留到最後再做。這樣一來，如果你在考試到最後時間不夠了，你還是可以從其他比較簡單文章中盡量拿分。
所有 2018 年 6 月 (北美) SAT 考試閱讀文章
PASSAGE 1
This passage is adapted from Jane Austen, Persuasion. Originally published in 1818. Anne is one of three daughters of Sir Walter Elliot, a widower. Lady Russell is a longtime family friend.
Captain Frederick Wentworth had come into Somersetshire in the summer of 1806; and having no parent living, found a home for half a year, at Monkford. He was, at that time, a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit and brilliancy; and Anne an extremely pretty girl, with gentleness, modesty, taste, and feeling. Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly any body to love; but the encounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail. They were gradually acquainted, and when acquainted, rapidly and deeply in love. It would be difficult to say which had seen highest perfection in the other, or which had been the happiest; she, in receiving his declarations and proposals, or he in having them accepted.
A short period of exquisite felicity followed, and but a short one. Troubles soon arose. Sir Walter, on being applied to, without actually withholding his consent, or saying it should never be, gave it all the negative of great astonishment, great coldness, great silence, and a professed resolution of doing nothing for his daughter. He thought it a very degrading alliance; and Lady Russell, though with more tempered and pardonable pride, received it as a most unfortunate one.
Anne Elliot, with all her claims of birth, beauty and mind, to throw herself away at nineteen; involve herself at nineteen in an engagement with a young man, who had nothing but himself to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession, and no connexions to secure even his farther rise in that profession; would be, indeed, a throwing away, which she grieved to think of! Anne Elliot, so young; known to so few, to be snatched of by a stranger without alliance or fortune; or rather sunk by him into a state of most wearing, anxious, youth-killing dependance! It must not be, if by any fair interference of friendship, any representations from one who had almost a mother’s love, and mother’s rights, it would be prevented.
Captain Wentworth had no fortune. He had been lucky in his profession, but spending freely what had come freely, had realized nothing. But, he was confident that he should soon be rich; full of life and ardour, he knew that he should soon have a ship, and soon be on a station that would lead to everything he wanted. He had always been lucky; he knew he should he so still. Such confidence, powerful in its own warmth, and bewitching in the wit which often expressed it, must have been enough for Anne; but Lady Russell saw it very differently. His sanguine temper, and fearlessness of mind, operated very differently on her. She saw in it but an aggravation of the evil. It only added a dangerous character to himself. He was brilliant, he was headstrong. Lady Russell had little taste of wit; and of anything approaching to imprudence a horror. She deprecated the connexion in every light.
Such opposition, as these feelings produced, was more than Anne could combat. Young and gentle as she was, it might yet have been possible to withstand her father’s ill-will, though unsoftened by one kind word or look on the part of her sister; but Lady Russell, whom she had always loved and relied on, could not, with such steadiness of opinion, and such tenderness of manner, be continually advising her in vain. She was persuaded to believe the engagement a wrong thing—indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success, and not deserving it. But it was not a merely selfish caution, under which she acted, in putting an end to it. Had she not imagined herself consulting his good, even more than her own, she could hardly have given him up. The belief of being prudent, and self-denying principally for his advantage, was her chief consolation, under the misery of a parting—a final parting; and every consolation was required, for she had to encounter all the additional pain of opinions, on his side, totally unconvinced and unbending, and of his feeling himself ill-used by so forced a relinquishment. He had left the country in consequence.
A few months had seen the beginning and the end of their acquaintance; nut, not with a few months ended Anne’s share of suffering from it. Her attachments and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth; and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect.
PASSAGE 2
This passage is adapted from Julie Sedivy,”Your Speech is Packed with Misunderstood, Unconscious Messages!’02015 by Nautilus.
Many scientists think that our cultural fixation with stamping out what they call “disfluencies” is deeply misguided. Saying um is no character flaw, but an organic feature of speech; far from distracting listeners, there’s evidence that it focuses their attention in ways that enhance comprehension.
Disfluencies arise mainly because of the time pressures inherent in speaking. Speakers don’t pre-plan an entire sentence and then mentally press “play” to begin unspooling it. If they did, they’d probably need to pause for several seconds between each sentence as they assembled it, and it’s doubtful that they could hold a long, complex sentence in working memory. Instead, speakers talk and think at the same time, launching into speech with only a vague sense of how the sentence will unfold, taking it on faith that by the time they’ve finished uttering the earlier portions of the sentence, they’ll have worked out exactly what to say in the later portions. Mostly, the timing works out, but occasionally it takes longer than expected to find the right phrase. Saying “um” is the speaker’s way of signaling that processing is ongoing, the verbal equivalent of a computer’s spinning circle. People sometimes have more disfluencies while speaking in public, ironically, because they are trying hard not to misspeak.
Since disfluencies show that a speaker is thinking carefully about what she is about to say, they provide useful information to listeners, cueing them to focus attention on upcoming content that’s likely to be meaty. One famous example comes from the movie Jurassic Park. When Jeff Goldblum’s character says, “I’m, I’m simply saying that life, uh … finds a way,” the disfluencies emphasize that he’s coming to grips with something not easy to explain—an idea that turns out to be a key part of the movie.
Experiments with um or uhc splired in or out of speech show that when words are preceded by disfluencies, listeners recognize them faster and remember them more accurately. In some cases, disfluencies allow listeners to make useful predictions about what they’re about to hear. In one study, for example, listeners correctly inferred that speakers’ stumbles meant that they were describing complicated conglomerations of shapes rather than simple single shapes.
Disfluencies can also improve our comprehension of longer pieces of content. Psychologists Scott Fraundorf and Duane Watson tinkered with recordings of a speaker’s retellings of passages from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and compared how well listeners remembered versions that were purged of all disfluencies as opposed to ones that contained an average number of ums and uhs (about two instances out of every 100 words). They found that hearers remembered plot points better after listening to the disfluent versions, with enhanced memory apparent even for plot points that weren’t preceded by a disfluency. Stripping a speech of urns and uhs appears to be dong listeners no favors.
Moreover, there’s reason to question the implicit assumption that disfluencies reveal a speaker’s lack of knowledge. In a study led by Kathryn Womack, experienced physicians and residents in training looked at images of various dermatological conditions while talking their way to a diagnosis. Not surprisingly, the expert doctors were more accurate in their diagnoses than the residents. They also produced more complex sentences—and a greater number of disfluencies, giving lie to the notion that disfluencies reflect a lack of control over one’s material. On the contrary, the study’s authors suggest that the seasoned doctors had more disfluent speech because they were sifting through a larger body of knowledge and constructing more detailed explanations.
Passage 3
Passage 1 is adapted from Brian Switek,”The Origin of a Little Tyrant.”©2011 by Smithsonian Magazine. Passage 2 is adapted from Michael Baler, “Top Predator Wannable is Just Another T. rex.” ©2015 by American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Passage 1
In 1988 paleontologists Robert Bakker, Phil Currie and Michael Williams hypothesized that a small tyrannosaur skull (which had been found by paleontologist Charles Gilmore in Montana in the 1940s) belonged to a unique genus of small tyrannosaur which shared the environment preserved in Montana’s Lance and Hell Creek formations with Tyrannosaurus. The primary line of evidence was the fusion of the skull bones. As animals age, the various bones that make up their skulls fuse along sutures, and the degree to which the bones have fused can sometimes be used to roughly determine age. Since all the skull bones in the Gilmore skull appeared to be fused, Bakker and colleagues stated, the tyrannosaur must have been a small adult and therefore distinct from the bigger, bulkier Tyrannosaurus rex. Appropriately, they called the hypothesized animal Nanotyrannus.
Here’s where things get tricky, though. The ) timing of when sutures between skull bones fuse in dinosaurs varies among individuals and may not be a good indicator of growth stage. And in a 1999 study of growth changes in tyrannosaurid skulls, paleontologist Thomas Carr found that none of the i bone fusions claimed by Gilmore or Bakker and colleagues were actually visible. This discovery, in addition to typical characteristics of immature animals such as large, round orbits (eye sockets) and the texture of the bone, identified the skull as a ) juvenile tyrannosaurid, most likely a young Tyrannosaurus rex. Given that tyrannosaurids were so variable and underwent such dramatic changes from small, gracile juveniles into bulky, deep-skulled adults, it is little wonder that the debate remains with 5 us.
Nevertheless, hints and rumors abound that “Nanotyrannus” may make a comeback. Aside from rumors of yet-unpublished specimens, in 2010 Larry Witmer and Ryan Ridgely published a new analysis of the skull Gilmore had found, often called the “Cleveland skull” since it is now kept at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Their analysis were inconclusive—pending the study and publication of other tyrannosaur specimens that will provide a greater context by which to compare the Cleveland skull—but they noted that the skull might have some unique features which could be used to argue that it was different from Tyrannosaurus rex.
Passage 2
In 2001, another skull and partial skeleton similar to that of the claimed Nanotyrannus were found in Montana. Nicknamed “Jane,” it was better preserved than the earlier 1940s specimen, and many researchers concluded it was a juvenile based on the shape of its teeth and other skeletal features. Indeed, a few former Nanotyrannus advocates changed their minds based on the new skull. But others continued to argue that it was a separate species.
In 2015, Thomas Carr presented a new analysis of Jane’s skull and skeleton, based on a three-‘ dimensional computer reconstruction of the skull which filled in missing segments and allowed him to analyze the features in more detail. His team examined microscopic “growth rings” in Jane’s calf bone, which accumulate per year of life. The team found nine such rings in the bone and space for two more, leading them to conclude that Jane was indeed a juvenile, about 11 years old when she died. Moreover, close examination of the skeleton revealed that it was still undergoing “remodeling” typical of very fast growing bone. Although younger and older specimens of T rex are known, Jane filled an important gap in researchers’ knowledge of the growth pattern of tyrannosaurs, Carr said. “She was just about to, or had already entered, the rapid phase of growth” typical of very large carnivorous dinosaurs.
In addition, Carr argued, a comparison of Jane with the 1940s Nanotyrannus skull—made possible if both are considered juveniles—kills the idea that the original Nanotyrannus skull has unique features that T does not Jane was heralded by some as the second coming of Nanotyrannus;’ Carr said. But according to his analysis, the two skulls share a number of features once thought to be unique to Nanotyrannus, including a hole in a small jaw bone and a long and low snout. Rather than being diagnostic of a separate species, Carr concluded, such features actually characterize juvenile tyrannosaurs.
Passage 4
This passage is adapted from a letter dated June 17,1861, from John Ross (Koo-wi-s-gu-wi) to Brigadier General Benjamin McCullough, Ross was principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, located in what was then known as Indian Territory (now part of Oklahoma). McCullogh’s command of Confederate forces included both Arkansas and the adjacent Indian Territory during the US Civil War.
I have the honor to acknowledge by the first return mail the receipt of your communication dated at Fort Smith, Ark. The 12th instant, informing me that you have been sent by the Government of the Confederate States of America to take command of the district embracing the Indian Territory; and to guard it from invasion by the people of the North.
For the expression of your friendship be pleased to accept my heartfelt thanks and the assurance that I cherish none other than a similar sentiment for yourself and people; am also gratified to be informed that you will not interfere with any of our rights and wishes unless circumstances compel you to do so, nor violate or molest our neutrality without good cause.
In regard to the pending conflict between the United States and the Confederate States I have already signified my purpose to take no part in it whatever, and have admonished the Cherokee people to pursue the same course. The determination to that course was the result of consideration of law and policy, and seeing no reason to doubt its propriety, I shall adhere to it in good faith, and hope that the Cherokee people will not fail to follow my example. I have not been able to see any reason why the Cherokee Nation should take any other course, for it seems to me to be dictated by their treaties and sanctioned by wisdom and humanity. It ought not give ground for complaint to either side, and should cause our rights to be respected by both. Our country and institutions are our own. However small the one or humble the others, they are as sacred and valuable to us as are those of your own populous and wealthy State to yourself and your people. We have done nothing to bring about the conflict in which you are engaged with your own people, and I am unwilling that my people shall become its victims. I am determined to do no act that shall furnish any pretext to either of the contending parties to overrun our country and destroy our rights. If we are destined to be overwhelmed, it shall not be through any agency of mine. The United States are pledged not to disturb us in our rights, nor can we suppose for a moment that your Government will do it, as the avowed principle upon which it is struggling for an acknowledged existence is the rights of the States and freedom from outside interference.
The Cherokee people and Government have given every assurance in their power of their sympathy and friendship for the people of Arkansas and of other Confederate States, unless it be in not voluntarily assuming an attitude of hostility toward the Government of the United States, with whom their treaties exist and from whom they are not experiencing any new burdens or exactions. That I cannot advise them to do, and hope that their good faith in adhering to the requirements of their treaties and of their friendship for all the whites will be manifested by strict observance of the neutrality enjoined.
Your demand that those people of the nation who are in favor of joining the Confederacy be allowed to organize into military companies as home guards for the purpose of defending themselves in case of invasion from the North is most respectfully declined. I cannot give my consent to any such organization for very obvious reasons:
1st. It would be a palpable violation of my position as a neutral.
2d. It will place in our midst organized companies not authorized by our laws, but in violation of treaty, and who would soon become efficient instruments in stirring up domestic strife and creating internal difficulties among the Cherokee people.
As in this connection you have misapprehended a remark which I made in conversation at our interview some eight or ten days ago, I hope you will allow me to repeat what I did say. I informed you that I had taken a neutral position and would maintain it honestly, but that in case of a foreign invasion old as I am I would assist in repelling it. I
have not signified any purpose as to an invasion of our soil and interference with our rights from the United or Confederate States, because I have apprehended none and cannot give my consent to any.
Passage 5
This passage is adapted from Douglas J. Emlen, Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle. ©2014 by Douglas J. Emlen.
Three-spined sticklebacks swim in shallow waters along the coasts of Europe and North America. These finger-sized fish rely on both sharp spines and armor to protect them from predators. Rigid spines project along their back and from their pelvis, and a row of bony plates adorns their flanks.
As with all evolutionary tales, the stickleback story begins with variation. Some sticklebacks invest more in defensive weaponry than others, resulting in fish-to-fish differences in the length of pelvic spines and in the size and number of body-armor plates. Not surprisingly, this variation in weapon size influences fish survival. Long spines make sticklebacks difficult to swallow, and armor plates protect sticklebacks whenever predatory fish make the mistake of trying to bite them. Almost 90 percent of attacks on sticklebacks fail. But before spitting them out, predators chew sticklebacks rather harshly. A stickleback’s armor plates act like shields, reducing the extent of injuries from these bites.
While most sticklebacks live in the ocean where predators are common, some inhabit freshwater lakes, and here their evolutionary story is different. Ocean levels fluctuate greatly over time, and during periods of high water fish spill into inland reservoirs, where they end up trapped as the water recedes. Inland fish experience very different patterns of selection from their marine ancestors, and in lake after lake, their weapons have changed as populations adapted to their new locales.
Fossils provide a road map of this weapon evolution. In fact, so many stickleback fossils have been preserved that they provide an almost unparalleled paleontological record of change in weapon size through time, as layer upon layer of fish corpses piled into the mud at the bottoms of lakes. Miehael Bell, a biologist at Stony Brook University, studies this temporal progression of fish in a Nevada lake bed, where he and his colleagues reconstructed approximately one hundred thousand years of stickleback evolution in 250-year slices.
In the first eighty thousand years of their one-hundred-thousand-year window, Nevada lake sticklebacks had almost no protective weapons (only one dorsal spine, rudimentary pelvic spines, and very few lateral plates). But then, eighty-four thousand years into the time sequence, this type of stickleback was replaced entirely by armored sticklebacks, meaning three long dorsal spines and full pelvic spines. Bell suspects that marine fish flooded into the lake around this time, because both forms co-occurred for about one hundred years before the early fish type disappeared. Remarkably, over the following thirteen thousand years, the defensive structures in this new fish regressed: in graded steps through time, the spines got shorter and shorter, until by the end of this period the new sticklebacks resembled the earlier form that they’d replaced. Lake-bound fish lost their weapons.
Today, sticklebacks in many lakes lack defensive weapons. Dolph Schluter and his students at the University of British Columbia found that lake habitats have far fewer predators than marine habitats, and this appears to relax the pattern of natural selection for larger plates and longer spines. With fewer predators, lake fish benefit less from large weapons than marine fish. Armor also costs more in lakes than it does in the ocean. Low freshwater concentrations of the ions necessary for bone growth mean that fish pay a higher price for mineralizing bony plates in lakes. Unarmed sticklebacks are larger as juveniles and begin breeding sooner than their armed counterparts. In freshwater, it appears, the costs of long spines and large plates are steeper than the benefits they provide.
2018年 6月 (北美) SAT 考試閱讀題目
Ivy-Way 學生在上課的過程就會做到2018年6月以及其他的官方歷年考題。除此之外，我們也有讓學生來我們的教室或在家做模考的服務讓學生評估自己的學習進度並看到成績。如果你想預約時間來我們的教室或在家做模考，請聯繫我們！
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