Paragraph Comprehension

Regular weight lifting has been shown to improve muscle mass in people of all ages. Even 80 year-old subjects in weight lifting studies show signs and gains of the benefits of weight training by supplementing their muscle mass.It can be inferred from the passage that…

 A new study suggests that 1 in 4 Americans does not get enough sleep. Sleep experts recommend 8 hours of sleep per night and most Americans report an average of less than 7 hours of sleep on weeknights and 7.5 hours of sleep on weekends.The average American sleeps…

Doctors and experts recommend that an aspirin a day may cut the risk of developing colon cancer. However, a smaller dose of baby aspirin may be more effective at this than a full size aspirin.A full size aspirin…

The maggot larvae may be more than just a repugnant animal. Maggot larvae, called Phaenica sericata, have recently been used in a treatment known as Maggot Therapy. Twice a week, larvae are placed on a wound and left there for 48 to 72 hours. The maggots only eat the dead tissue, leaving healthy tissue intact, a process called debridement. In a recent study, wounds that got presurgical maggot therapy developed no infections after surgery. While about one-third of wounds that didn't get maggot therapy developed an infection.In the context, repugnant means...

There are several differences between reptiles and birds. One key difference involves the skeletal structure between the two and the fact that birds have wings. Reptiles have solid bones that are dense and they travel on land or in the water. Birds have hollow or pneumatic bones filled with air that are lighter and allow them to fly. In addition, birds have a lightweight beak instead of teeth, or a heavy jaw.Birds... 

The evidence is growing and is more convincing than ever!  People of all ages who are generally inactive can improve their health and well-being by becoming active at a moderate intensity on a regular basis.Regular physical activity substantially reduces the risk of dying of coronary heart disease, the nation's leading cause of death, and decreases the risk of stroke, colon cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure.  It also helps to control weight; contributes to healthy bones, muscles, and joints; reduces falls among older adults; helps to relieve the pain of arthrisis; reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression; and is associated with fewer hospitalizations, physician visits, and medications.  Moreover, physical activity need not be strenuous to be beneficial; people of all ages benefit from participating in regular, moderate-intensity physical activity, such as 30 minutes of brisk walking five or more times a week.Despite the proven benefits of physical activity, more than 50% of American adults do not get enough physical activity to provide health benefits.  Twenty-five percent of adults are not active at all in their leisure time.  Activity decreases with age and is less common among women than men and among those with lower income and less education.  Furthermore, there are racial and ethnic differences in physical activity rates, particularly among women.  Insufficient physical activity is not limited to adults.  More than a third of young people in grades 9-12 do not regularly engage in vigorous-intensity physical activity.  Daily participation in high school physical eduction classes dropped from 42% in 1991 to 32% in 2001.Physical activity can bring many health benefits.  People who enjoy participating in moderate-intense or vigorous-intensity physical activity on a regular basis benefit by lowering their risk of developing coronary heart disease, stroke, non-insulin-dependent (type 2) diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, and colon cancer by 30-50 percent.  Additionally, active people have lower premature death rates than people who are the least active.Which of the following best represents the main idea of the above passage?

During the first decade of the nineteenth century, the geographic image of western North America began to change dramatically.  Based on the observations of the explorers Meriwether Lewis and George Rogers Clark, information gathered from native people, and Clark's own cartographic imagination, this image evolved from an almost empty interior with a hypothetical single mountain range serving as a western continental divide to an intricate one showing a labyrinth of mountains and rivers.  A continent that had once seemed empty and simple was now becoming full and complex.The Lewis and Clark expedition established the precedent for army exploration in the West.  Major Stephen H. Long's Scientific Expedition (1819 - 1820) advanced that tradition, this time centering attention on the central and southern Great Plains and the Front Range of the Rockies.  For the first time, an American exploring party included professional scientists and two skilled artists.  While not every future American expedition took along such skilled observers, the pattern was set for increasingly scientific exploration.It would take another 50 years after Lewis and Clark to complete the cartographic image of the West we know today.  Other explorers and mapmakers followed, each revealing new geographic and scientific details about specific parts of the western landscape.  But this revealing process was not a simple one.  New knowledge did not automatically replace old ideas; some notions - especially about river passages across the West - persisted well into the nineteenth century.  In the decades after Lewis and Clark, the company of western explorers expanded to include fur traders, missionaries, and government topographers, culminating in the 1850s when the Army's Corps of Topographical Engineers surveying the southwestern and northwestern boundaries of the United States as well as the potential routes for a transcontinental railroad.  By the time of the Civil War, an ocean-to-ocean American empire with borders clearly defined was a fact of continental life.According to the above passage, which event set the pattern for scientific exploration in the West? 

To understand what the Everglades is today, you need to know what it once was.  The pristine Everglades was a wetland that spanned the state of Florida south of Lake Okeechobee, about 2.9 million acres of mostly peatland covered by tall saw grass growing in shallow water.  When the lake was full, water overflowed into the northern Everglades and moved slowly to the south in a 50-mile-wide sheet, a foot deep.  In the 1880s people began to drain the Kissimmee River-Lake Okeechobee-Everglades watershed.  Drainage exposed the organic muck soil, whicdh produced extraordinary crop yields.Today more than 50% of the historic Everglades has been eliminated.  More than 1,400 miles of draingage canals and levees have been constructed in and around the Everglades for flood control. Widespread population growth and land-use modification for agriculture and industry have altered the natural wetlands, affecting the quantity and quality of drinking water and increasing human exposure to hydrologic hazards such as floods.  Chemicals used in farming, including fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides, now often leak into the groundwater or nearby surface waters.  Storm-water runoff from urban areas commonly transports heavy metals and nutrients into canals and the Biscayne aquifer.The last 100 years have been tremendous change in the Everglades.  Today the flow of water is controlled by a complex management system that includes canals, levees, and pumps.  The Everglades has been called "the biggest artificial plumbing system in the world."In the above passage, what is the meaning of hydrologic?

Heroes were an important part of Greek mythology, but the characteristics that Greeks admitted in a hero are not necessarily identical to those we admire today.  Greek heroes are not always what modern readers might think of as "good role models."  Their actions may strike us as morally dubious.For example, consider the encounter between the legendary Greek hero Odysseus and the Cyclops.  The Cyclops was one of a race of giants who lived by themselves on a remove, rarely visited island.  The name Cycylops means "round eye," because these giants had only one eye in the middle of their forehead.  They lived in caves, tended flocks of sheep, and ate the produce of their fields; they were shepherds.Odysseus visited the island as part of his exploration to look for supplies.  He brought with him a flask of wine.  Although he was regarded as an intruder by the Cyclops, he helped himself to the giant's supplies without permission.  The Cyclops became very angry.  To ease the anger, Odysseus served him some wine.  The Cyclops enjoyed the wine and asked for more.  Later, when the Cyclops is in a wine-induced stupor, Odysseus attacks him in the eye.  Later Odysseus brages to his comrades about blinding the one-eyed creature.This does not mean the Greeks admitted thievery and bragging, however.  What they admited about Odysseus, in this instance, was his capacity for quick thinking.  Odysseus was also know for pulling off great feats with panache and self-confidence.Not all Greek heroes were admired for the same reasons.  Some, such as Odysseus, were admired for their resourcefulness and intelligence, whereas others, such as Herakles, were known for their strength and courage.  Some were not particularly resourceful but depended on help to accomplish their tasks.Whether or not a given action or quality was admired depended upon its ultimate results.  Being headstrong might succeed in one instance but lead to failure in another.  The Greeks held the characters in their legends accountable for their actions, and a hero might be punished as well as rewarded.Based on the above passage, why did the Greeks admire Odysseus?

I have always viewed a chairmaker's shop as a place alive with sounds.  Curly wood shavings crackle like popcorn under the stompy of heavy work boots.  Sharp drawknives sing shrilly as they skate across the surface of rough-sewn spindles. Coarse files cough and wheeze as they scrape away, while the table saw hums contentedly in the center of the room.  The true craftsman listens intently to these sounds; one might say that he engages in an ongoing conversation with them.  The slightest variation in a tool's familiar tune will cause him to alter his stroke, or pause to sharpen the tool's blade. The rhetorical device featured most prominently in the above passage is _____