Passage One
How men first learned to invent words is unknown; in other words, the origin of language is a mystery. All we really know is that men, unlike animals, somehow invented certain sounds to ex press thoughts and feelings, actions and things, so that they could communicate with each other; and that later they agreed upon certain signs, called letters, which could be combined to represent those sounds and which could be written down. Those sounds, whether spoken, or written in letters, we call words.
There power of words, then, lies in their associations the things they bring up before our minds. Words become filled with meaning for us by experience; and the longer we live, the more certain words recall to us the glad and sad events of our past; and the more we read and learn, the more the number of words that mean something to us increases.
Great writers are those who not only have great thoughts but also express these thoughts in words which
A. They are used to express feelings only.
B. They can not be written down.
C. They are simply sounds.
D. They are mysterious.
About one in twenty adults in the United States cannot read English. A new federal study shows that adults made little progress in their reading skills between 1992 and 2003.
The National Assessment of Adult Literacy is the most important test of how well adult Americans can read. Researchers tested nineteen thousand people over the age of sixteen. The study represents an adult population of two hundred twenty-two million. Those who took part were tested on how well they could read and understand information used in everyday life, The study found that eleven million adults, or five percent, cannot read English. They could not answer even the easiest written questions. Four million of them most likely cannot speak English either. The study shows that more than forty percent of adults can perform only simple reading activities. For many, even that can be difficult. Fifty-six percent of adults can perform moderate or complex activities. Moderate can mean finding info
A. A little bit more than seven percent.
B. Fifty-six percent.
C. More than forty percent.
D. Thirteen percent.
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