2019 8月 SAT (美國/北美版) 考題回顧：所有 5 篇閱讀文章！ | Ivy-Way留學部落格

過去這個週末學生考了 2019 年 8 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 2019 年 8 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 2019 年 8 月 (北美) SAT 考試閱讀文章

PASSAGE 1

Miss Marsalles is having another party. (Out of musical integrity, or her heart’s bold yearning for festivity, she never calls it a recital.) My mother is not an inventive or convincing liar, and the excuses which occur to her are obviously second-rate. The painters are coming. Friends from Ottawa. Poor Carrie is having her tonsils out. In the end all she can say is: Oh, but won’t all that be too much trouble, now? Now being weighted with several troublesome meanings; you may take your choice. Now that Miss Marsalles has moved from the brick and frame bungalow on Bank Street, where the last three parties have been rather squashed, to an even smaller place—if she has described it correctly—on Bala Street. (Bala Street, where is that?) Or: now that Miss Marsalles’ older sister is in bed, following a stroke; now that Miss Marsalles herself—as my mother says, we must face these things—is simply getting too old.

Now? asks Miss Marsalles, stung, pretending mystification, or perhaps for that matter really feeling it. And she asks how her June party could ever be too much trouble, at any time, in any place? It is the only entertainment she ever gives any more (so far as my mother knows it is the only entertainment she ever has given, but Miss Marsalles’ light old voice, undismayed, indefatigably social, supplies the ghosts of tea parties, private dances, At Homes, mammoth Family Dinners). She would suffer, she says, as much disappointment as the children, if she were to give it up. Considerably more, says my mother to herself, but of course she cannot say it aloud; she turns her face from the telephone with that look of irritation—as if she had seen something messy which she was unable to clean up—which is her private expression of pity. And she promises to come; weak schemes for getting out of it will occur to her during the next two weeks, but she knows she will be there.

She phones up Marg French who like herself is an old pupil of Miss Marsalles and who has been having lessons for her twins, and they commiserate for a while and promise to go together and buck each other up. They remember the year before last when it rained and the little hall was full of raincoats piled on top of each other because there was no place to hang them up, and the umbrellas dripped puddles on the dark floor. The little girls’ dresses were crushed because of the way they all had to squeeze together, and the living room windows would not open. Last year a child had a nosebleed.

“Of course that was not Miss Marsalles’ fault.”

They giggle despairingly. “No. But things like that did not use to happen.”

And that is true; that is the whole thing. There is a feeling that can hardly be put into words about Miss Marsalles’ parties; things are getting out of hand, anything may happen. There is even a moment, driving in to such a party, when the question occurs: will anybody else be there? For one of the most disconcerting things about the last two or three parties has been the widening gap in the ranks of the regulars, the old pupils whose children seem to be the only new pupils Miss Marsalles ever has. Every June reveals some new and surely significant dropping-out. Mary Lambert’s girl no longer takes; neither does Joan Crimble’s. What does this mean? think my mother and Marg French, women who have moved to the suburbs and are plagued sometimes by a feeling that they have fallen behind, that their instincts for doing the right thing have become confused. Piano lessons are not so important now as they once were; everybody knows that. Dancing is believed to be more favourable to the development of the whole child—and the children, at least the girls, don’t seem to mind it as much. But how are you to explain that to Miss Marsalles, who says, “All children need music. All children love music in their hearts”? It is one of Miss Marsalles’ indestructible beliefs that she can see into children’s hearts, and she finds there a treasury of good intentions and a natural love of all good things. The deceits which her spinster’s sentimentality has practised on her original good judgment are legendary and colossal; she has this way of speaking of children’s hearts as if they were something holy; it is hard for a parent to know what to say.

PASSAGE 2

Most theories that examine the mindset of those who do not vote speak to disengagement from electoral politics or disbelief in government’s ability to affect progress. Solutions that aim to address these problems typically inform people about the importance of their vote in electing a government that works for them. Yet this tactic does not appear to sway many. Despite such efforts, turnout has consistently hovered around 50 percent for the past nine U.S. presidential elections—the highest being 56.9 percent in 2008.

Behavioral science might explain why these informational interventions fall short. A substantive body of evidence indicates that the environment in which we make decisions can fundamentally alter them. For example, what we think others are doing, how voting makes us feel about ourselves, and what we need to do to vote all affect whether or not we participate on Election Day. So instead of simply telling Americans to vote, the science suggests we need to think about the context in which citizens decide to cast their ballots.

In a field experiment conducted among 287,000 would-be voters in Pennsylvania during the 2008 Democratic primary election, researchers tried to see if voter turnout could be increased by helping people make a concrete plan to implement their intentions. One to three days before the November 2008 election, behavioral scientists David Nickerson, now at Temple University, and Todd Rogers of Harvard asked one group of would-be voters about their intentions to vote and a second group about their intentions and also about when, where and how they would accomplish the goal of voting.

Voter records showed that making a plan was more than twice as effective as simply asking people about their intentions. Overall there was a 4.1 percentage point increase in the likelihood of voting by making a plan relative to people who did not receive a phone call. (The average effectiveness of commercial phone banks, assessed from dozens of studies, is about one percentage point.)

Conventional wisdom (and practice) suggests that we could convince people to vote by stressing that their particular ballot is very important because not many other people are voting. Yet findings in behavioral science indicate that most of us are motivated by the desire to conform to the social norm—meaning we are more likely to do what most people are doing.

Two get-out-the-vote field experiments during the 2005 general election in New Jersey and the 2006 primary election in California tested these hypotheses. They found that individuals were much more motivated to vote when they believed lots of other people were voting compared with when they thought relatively few others were voting.

In another field experiment run by researchers at Yale University and the University of Northern Iowa during the 2006 primary election in Michigan, potential voters received direct mail noting that both they and their neighbors would be informed of who had voted after the election. Amazingly, this led to an 8.1 percent increase in turnout—one of the most successful get-out-the-vote tactics studied to date. Conventional direct-mail reminders, in contrast, yield just a 0.162 percent increase in turnout on average, according to a 2013 estimate based on 110 studies.

If most of us vote, then being part of the truant few who do not feels like we are shirking a social contract. Publicizing voting records may therefore increase the salience of this social obligation and possibly bring shame on nonvoters. Following through, however, allows them to maintain their self-identity as contributing members of society.

Passage 3

It is not easy to develop new habits for a new environment. Many animals have been compelled to adjust their behavior, gradually learning to avoid, outsmart, or even befriend their new urban neighbors. Now, a recent study conducted by University of Minnesota biologist Emilie C. Snell-Rood and undergraduate Naomi Wick suggests that some animals have adapted to the presence of humans by developing bigger brains.

In their study, Snell-Rood and Wick focused on local animal specimens collected at the University of Minnesota Bell Museum. By measuring the breadth, width, and height [i.e., cranial capacity] of various mammal skulls, they were able to estimate the size of the species’ brains. Remarkably, in the white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) and the meadow vole, (Microtus pennsylvanicus), they found that specimens from the city displayed a 6 percent increase in brain capacity over their rural counterparts.

Snell-Rood provides two possible explanations for these findings. An increase in nutritional quantity and quality, which urbanization provides to some extent, may give animals the energy required to maintain larger brains. However, the increase in skull size was not accompanied by an increase in body size, making this theory less likely. A more probable and interesting hypothesis is that adapting to human activity places a larger demand on cognitive skills, such as foraging for food and interacting with humans.

The growing impact of city environments on animal behavior, a trend dubbed “synurbanization,” is well-documented. By destroying or radically transforming natural habitats, cities create new, unfilled niches and force local species to adapt. Studies of resulting animal behavior report changes such as increased friendliness toward humans, new nesting preferences, and longer waking hours. For some city-dwelling animals, humans have also become a primary supplier of food. As human metropolises continue to grow, the effects of synurbanization have been conspicuous and profound. Snell-Rood’s study, however, is the first that points to a possible link between behavioral change and brain size.

An additional finding in the new study suggests that the influence of human activity extends beyond cities as well. According to Snell-Rood’s measurements, four rural species [including Myotis lucifugus, the little brown rat] exhibited a boost in brain size, revealing that they, too, may have been affected by changing environments. For instance, an impact like deforestation may force bats in the countryside to change their feeding and roosting habits.

Snell-Rood’s discovery is not the first time scientists have found evidence of human activity driving animal evolution. In London, industrial pollution gave dark peppered moths an advantage over the lighter ones, enabling them to blend in with layers of soot. By contrast, the white peppered moths, which once blended in with tree bark and lichens, lost their evolutionary advantage and became less numerous. A second example of human-driven evolution is a type of anole lizard, which developed shorter legs to adapt to urban areas in the Bahamas. While long legs are suitable for perching on wide surfaces, with shorter legs the lizard is better equipped to climb the narrow stalks that are typical of urban plants.

While Snell-Rood’s findings are significant, additional research needs to be conducted on other specimens to determine whether the trend continues in other regions. The age of the museum collections is also an important factor, as the Minnesota researchers could only study specimens from the past century — the brain sizes of animals that lived before major industrialization remain unknown.

Passage 4

Passage 1 is adapted from a speech delivered in 1793 by Hugh Henry Brackenridge, “Oration on the Celebration of the Anniversary of Independence, July 4th, 1791″ Passage 2 is adapted from Alexander Hamilton,”Americanus No. I”, The Works of Alexander Hamilton, Volume 7. Originally published in 1794. Both passages address the question of whether the United States should help revolutionary France in its conflict with other European powers.

Passage 1

Is it the duty of these states to assist France? That we are bound by treaty, and how far, I will not say because it is not necessary. We are bound by a higher principle, if our assistance could avail; the great law of humanity.

We might, it is true, allege the stipulations of a treaty and a guarantee of her possessions to France. But as the world would know and we ought to avow…it is the cause of republicanism which would induce our efforts….The heart of America feels the cause of France. She takes a part in all her councils, approves her wisdom, blames her excesses. She is moved, impelled, elevated, and depressed with all the changes of her good and bad fortune. She feels the same fury in her veins. She is tossed and shaken with all the variety of hopes and fears attending her situation. Why not? Can we be indifferent? Is not our fate interlaced with hers? For, 0! France, if thy Republic perish, where is the honor due to ours? From whom respect to our flag upon the seas? Not from France restored to a monarch and indignant at those very feelings which are now our glory: not from the despots that are against her. These will easily recollect that the cause of their evils took their rise here.

Can we assist France by arming in her favor? I will not say that we can. But could we, and should France say, “United States, your neutrality is not sufficient; I expect the junction of your arms with mine, your heroes on the soil and your privateers on the ocean to distress the foe,” who is there would not say, “It shall be so. You shall have them. Our citizens shall arm; they shall attack; our oaks shall descend from the mountains; our vessels be launched upon the stream; and the voice of our war, however weak, shall be heard with yours.”

Passage 2

The war which now rages is, and for obvious reasons is likely to continue to be carried on with unusual animosity and rancor. It is highly probable that the resentment of the combined powers against us if we should take part in the war would be, if possible, still more violent than it is against France. Our interference would be regarded as altogether officious and wanton. How far this idea might lead to an aggravation of the ordinary calamities of war, would deserve serious reflection.

The certain evils of our joining France in the war are sufficient dissuasives from so intemperate a measure. The possible ones are of a nature to call for all our caution, all our prudence.

To defend its own rights, to vindicate its own honor, there are occasions when a nation ought to hazard even its existence. Should such an occasion occur, I trust those who are now most averse to commit the peace of the country, will not be the last to face the danger, nor the first to turn their backs upon it.

But let us at least have the consolation of not having rashly courted misfortune. Let us have to act under the animating reflection of being engaged in repelling wrongs, which we neither sought nor merited; in vindicating our rights, invaded without provocation; in defending our honor, violated without cause. Let us not have to reproach ourselves with having voluntarily bartered blessings for calamities.

But we are told that our own liberty is at stake upon the event of the war against France—that if she falls, we shall be the next victim. The combined powers, it is said, will never forgive in us the origination of those principles which were the germs of the French revolution. They will endeavor to eradicate them from the world….

To subvert by force republican liberty in this country, nothing short of entire conquest would suffice. This conquest, with our present increased population, greatly distant as we are from Europe, would either be impracticable, or would demand such exertions, as following immediately upon those which will have been requisite to the subversion of the French revolution, would be absolutely ruinous to the undertakers.

It is against all probability that an undertaking, pernicious as this would be, even in the event of success, would be attempted against an unoffending nation, by its geographical position, little connected with the political concerns of Europe.

Passage 5

On Earth, volcanic explosions like the one that tore the lid off Mount St. Helens happen because our planet’s interior is rich in volatiles — water, carbon dioxide, and other compounds with relatively low boiling points. As lava rises from the depths toward the surface, volatiles dissolved within it change phase from liquid to gas, expanding in the process. The pressure of that expansion can cause the crust above to burst like an overinflated balloon.

Mercury, however, was long thought to be bone dry when it comes to volatiles, and without volatiles, there can’t be explosive volcanism. But that view started to change in 2008 after NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft made its first flybys of Mercury. Those glimpses of the surface revealed deposits of pyroclastic ash — the telltale signs of volcanic explosions — peppering the planet’s surface. It was a clue that at some point in its history Mercury’s interior wasn’t as bereft of volatiles as had been assumed.

What wasn’t clear from those initial flybys was the timeframe over which those explosions occurred. Did Mercury’s volatiles escape in a flurry of explosions early in the planet’s history, or has Mercury held on to its volatiles over a much longer period?

Recent work suggests the latter.

A team of researchers led by Tim Goudge looked at 51 pyroclastic sites distributed across Mercury’s surface. They used data from MESSENGER’s cameras and spectrometers collected after the spacecraft entered orbit around Mercury in 2011. Compared with the data from the initial flybys, the orbital data provided a much more detailed view of the deposits and the source vents that spat them out.

The new MESSENGER data revealed that some of the vents have eroded to a much greater degree than others — an indicator that the explosions didn’t happen all at the same time.

“If [the explosions] happened over a brief period and then stopped, you’d expect all the vents to be degraded by approximately the same amount,” Goudge said. “We don’t see that; we see different degradation states. So the eruptions appear to have been taking place over an appreciable period of Mercury’s history.”

But just where that period of explosiveness fits into Mercury’s geological history was another matter. To help figure that out, Goudge and his colleagues I took advantage of the fact that most of the sites are located within impact craters. The age of each crater offers an important constraint in the age of the pyroclastic deposit inside it — the deposit has to be younger than its host crater. If the deposit had come ; first, it would have been obliterated by the impact that formed the crater. So the age of the crater provides an upper limit on how old the pyroclastic deposit can be.

As it happens, there’s an established method for 1 dating craters on Mercury. The rims and walls of craters become eroded and degraded over time, and the extent of that degradation can be used to get an approximate age of the crater.

Using that method, Goudge and his colleagues ; showed that some pyroclastic deposits are found in relatively young—geologically speaking—craters dated to between 3.5 and 1 billion years old. The finding helps rule out the possibility that all the pyroclastic activity happened shortly after Mercury’s formation around 4.5 billion years ago.

“These ages tell us that Mercury didn’t degas all of its volatiles very early,” Goudge said. “It kept some of its volatiles around to more recent geological times.”

The extent to which Mercury’s volatiles stuck ; around could shed light on how the planet formed. Despite being the smallest planet in the solar system, (since Pluto was demoted from the ranks of the planets), Mercury has an abnormally large iron core. That finding led to speculation the perhaps Mercury I was once much larger, but had its outer layers removed — either fried away by the nearby Sun or perhaps blasted away by a huge impact early in the planet’s history. Either of those events, however, would likely have heated the outer parts of Mercury ; enough to remove volatiles early in its history.

In light of this study and other data collected by MESSENGER showing traces of the volatiles sulfur, potassium, and sodium on Mercury’s surface, both those scenarios seem increasingly unlikely.

“Together with other results that suggest the Moon may have had more volatiles than previously thought, this research is revolutionizing our thinking about the early history of the planets and satellites,” said Jim Head, a MESSENGER mission co-investigator.

2019年 8月 (北美) SAT 考試閱讀題目

Ivy-Way 學生在上課的過程就會做到2019年4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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