Act/SAT Questions Of The Day Test 15

Part of the following sentence is underlined; beneath the sentence are five ways of phrasing the underlined material. Select the option that produces the best sentence. If you think the original phrasing produces a better sentence than any of the alternatives, select choice A.  The modern recreational canoe closely resembles the Native American bark canoe in shape, length, weight, and carrying capacity, differing only in the materials of which they are made.

Philosophy and Baseball      In the fall of 1967, the Boston Red Sox were playing in the World Series. I was a freshman at a university that was located in the Midwestat the time, enrolled in a philosophy course that met at two in the afternoon. The course was taught by a native Bostonian. He wanted to watch the games on television, but he was too responsible to cancel class. So he conducted classes, those October afternoons, while actually listening to the games on a small transistor radio propped up inside his lectern, the volume turned down so that only he could hear.      Baseball is unique among American sports by its ability to appeal to a love resembling that of a child of fable and legend. Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Roberto Clemente—names like these will echo through time that are trumpet calls to storied battles fought and won in ages past. When Hank Aaron stretched out a sinewy arm to pull one down,  striding up to a rack of ash-hewn bats, he became a modern-day knight selecting their lance. And when glints of the afternoon sun shone off Mickey Mantle's colossal bat, there will have to be seen for one brief, stirring moment the glimmer of the jewels in King Arthur's own mighty sword, Excalibur.      So there he stood, that learned professor of mine, lecturing about the ideas, that have engaged people's minds for centuries. Then he'd interrupt himself to announce, with smiling eyes, that the Sox had taken a two-to-nothing lead. Here was a man who's mind was disciplined inside his schoolbook to contemplate the collected wisdom of the ages—and he was behaving like a boy with a contraband comic opened. On those warm October days, as the afternoon sun dances and plays on the domes and spires of the university, the philosophers had to stand aside, for the professor's imagination had transported him to the Boston of his youth.   Choose the best alternative for the underlined part.

Read the following SAT test question and then click on a button to select your answer.  Of employees, are to be assigned an office and are to be assigned a cubicle. If  of the employees are men and are women, and if those assigned an office are to be chosen at random, what is the probability that the offices will be assigned to of the men and of the women?

In a shipment of 1,000 light bulbs, of the bulbs were defective. What is the ratio of defective bulbs to nondefective bulbs?

SOCIAL SCIENCE: This passage is adapted from Leonard W. Levy's Origins of the Fifth Amendment: The Right Against Self Incrimination. (©1968 by Clio Enterprises Inc.).         Community courts and community justice pre- vailed in England at the time of the Norman Conquest [1066]. The legal system was ritualistic, dependent upon oaths at most stages of litigation, and permeated 5   by both religious and superstitious notions. The pro- ceedings were oral, very personal, and highly con- frontative. Juries were unknown. One party publicly "appealed," or accused, the other before the community meeting at which the presence of both was obligatory. 10   To be absent meant risking fines and outlawry. After the preliminary statements of the parties, the court ren- dered judgment, not on the merits of the issue nor the question of guilt or innocence, but on the manner by which it should be resolved. Judgment in other words 15   preceded trial because it was a decision on what form the trial should take. It might be by compurgation, by ordeal, or, after the Norman Conquest, by battle. Excepting trial by battle, only one party was tried or, more accurately, was put to his "proof." Proof being 20   regarded as an advantage, it was usually awarded to the accused party; in effect he had the privilege of proving his own case.     Trial by compurgation consisted of a sworn state- ment to the truth of one's claim or denial, supported by 25   the oaths of a certain number of fellow swearers. Presumably they, no more than the claimant, would endanger their immortal souls by the sacrilege of false swearing. Originally the oath-helpers swore from their own knowledge to the truth of the party's claim. Later 30   they became little more than character witnesses, swearing only to their belief that his oath was trust- worthy. If he rounded up the requisite number of com- purgators and the cumbrous swearing in very exact form proceeded without a mistake, he won his case. A 35   mistake "burst" the oath, proving guilt.     Ordeals were usually reserved for more serious crimes, for persons of bad reputation, for peasants, or for those caught with stolen goods. As an invocation of immediate divine judgment, ordeals were consecrated 40   by the Church and shrouded with solemn religious mys- tery. The accused underwent a physical trial in which he called upon God to witness his innocence by putting a miraculous sign upon his body. Cold water, boiling water, and hot iron were the principal ordeals, all of 45   which the clergy administered. In the ordeal of cold water, the accused was trussed up and cast into a pool to see whether he would sink or float. On the theory that water which had been sanctified by a priest would receive an innocent person but reject the guilty, inno- 50   cence was proved by sinking—and hopefully a quick retrieval—guilt by floating. In the other ordeals, one had to plunge his hand into a cauldron of boiling water or carry a red hot piece of iron for a certain distance, in the hope that three days later, when the bandages were 55   removed, the priest would find a "clean" wound, one that was healing free of infection. How deeply one plunged his arm into the water, how heavy the iron or great the distance it was carried, depended mainly on the gravity of the charge. 60       The Normans brought to England still another ordeal, trial by battle, paradigm of the adversary system, which gave to the legal concept of "defense" or "defendant" a physical meaning. Trial by battle was a savage yet sacred method of proof which was also 65   thought to involve divine intercession on behalf of the righteous. Rather than let a wrongdoer triumph, God would presumably strengthen the arms of the party who had sworn truly to the justice of his cause. Right, not might, would therefore conquer. Trial by battle was 70   originally available for the settlement of all disputes but eventually was restricted to cases of serious crime.     Whether one proved his case by compurgation, ordeal, or battle, the method was accusatory in char- acter. There was always a definite and known accuser, 75   some private person who brought formal suit and openly confronted his antagonist. There was never any secrecy in the proceedings, which were the same for criminal as for civil litigation. The judges, who had no role whatever in the making of the verdict, decided only 80   which party should be put to proof and what its form should be; thereafter the judges merely enforced an observance of the rules. The oaths that saturated the proceedings called upon God to witness to the truth of the respective claims of the parties, or the justice of 85   their cause, or the reliability of their word. No one gave testimonial evidence nor was anyone questioned to test his veracity.     As it is used in line 33, the word cumbrous most nearly means:

Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.  Scientists have discovered that our sense of smell is surprisingly ------- , capable of distinguishing thousands of chemical odors.