FTCE General Knowledge Reading (827) practice test

Passage 1 approaches the series as history: Lawrence prepared "like a historian," the panels and captions "unfold like the chapters of a short history," and the series preserved experiences that "few published histories" recorded while reaching "a broad audience." The statement that covers all three paragraphs is that the series brought a neglected chapter of history to many viewers.

A

True detail offered as the central idea (R1): the library research is one step described in paragraph 2, not the point the whole passage makes.

C

Overreach (R2): the passage says few published histories gave these families attention, not that the series was the first history of the migration.

D

Contradicted (R3): a national magazine reproduced panels in 1941, the year before the museums divided the series, and the passage stresses its broad audience.

Passage 2 opens with a concession: reading the series "chiefly for its story" is tempting, and "the captions invite such a reading." The next sentence turns with "But" to the author's own view, that treating the panels as illustrated history overlooks what makes them remarkable as paintings. Mentioning the captions sets up the contrast that organizes the rest of the passage.

B

Contradicted (R3): the author goes on to say that a viewer who attends only to the words "misses half of what Lawrence achieved."

C

Answers another question (R4): Lawrence's research is the subject of Passage 1, paragraph 2; Passage 2 says nothing about how he gathered material.

D

Contradicted (R3): Passage 2 argues that the shapes and rhythm of the panels convey a sense of motion "that no caption could supply."

Passage 1 reads the series as "a work of history as much as of art," emphasizing Lawrence's research, the account of the migration in the captions, and the audience the panels reached. Passage 2 sets that reading aside to examine how the panels were made, from the color-by-color method to the simplified, repeated shapes, and concludes that Lawrence was "first of all a designer." The authors differ in what they treat as the series' main achievement.

A

Neighboring contrast, reversed (R5): Passage 1 covers Lawrence's research and Passage 2 his technique, not the other way around.

B

Contradicted (R3): Passage 2 calls the panels "remarkable as paintings" and praises Lawrence's "extraordinary discipline."

C

Overreach (R2): Passage 2 never discusses the migrants' hopes; it examines how the panels were painted.

Each passage supplies part of the process. Passage 1 says Lawrence read accounts of the period at the library "before he began to paint," and Passage 2 says he worked on all sixty boards at once, one color at a time, which kept the palette consistent across the series. Together they describe research first, then a painting method that unified the panels.

A

Answers another question (R4): Passage 1 mentions the stories Lawrence heard growing up, but it says he prepared by reading accounts of the period at the library.

B

Contradicted (R3): Passage 2 says he set out all sixty boards at once rather than completing one picture before starting the next.

D

Contradicted (R3): Passage 1 says he did his research before he began to paint, so the history came first.

Passage 1 says that "read in order, the panels and captions unfold like the chapters of a short history," and Passage 2 says the series "works the way a film does, through sequence and rhythm." Although the authors prize different things in the series, both treat its meaning as building across the panels in order.

B

One author's view only (R4): this is the emphasis of Passage 1, while Passage 2 argues that treating the panels as illustrated history overlooks what makes them remarkable.

C

Contradicted (R3): Passage 1 reports that a national magazine reproduced panels in 1941 and that the series reached a broad audience.

D

Overreach (R2): Passage 1 values the captions but never ranks them above the paintings, and Passage 2 rejects that view outright.

The author argues that the familiar tale of outsiders defeating a closed-minded establishment "teaches the wrong lesson": the doubters had good reasons, the self-experiment proved little, and controlled trials changed medical opinion. The last paragraph states the claim outright: a surprising idea earns acceptance by passing the same tests as any other, and fair skepticism made the verdict trustworthy.

A

Contradicted (R3): the author calls the self-experiment "suggestive at best" as proof that the organism causes ulcers.

B

Contradicted (R3): this is the lesson the author rejects, saying the story does not show "that experts are blind and outsiders are right."

C

True detail offered as the central idea (R1): paragraph 2 reports this older view only as part of the case that the doubters had reasons.

A morality tale is a story shaped to teach a lesson, with clear heroes and villains. The author's summary of the familiar account has exactly that shape (a radical idea, an establishment that "scoffs," a dramatic proof, a prize), and the author then says the tale, though largely true, "teaches the wrong lesson." The label signals that the account has been simplified to make a point.

B

Contradicted (R3): the author grants that "much of it is true" but says it teaches the wrong lesson and is unfair to the doubters, so it is not offered as a faithful record.

C

Overreach (R2): the author never calls the account false or blames Warren and Marshall for it; the objection is to the lesson the story draws.

D

Neighboring tone (R5): the author admits the tale is "stirring" but argues against the lesson it teaches.

Paragraph 2 builds a single point: the doubters' position "rested on evidence." It cites the belief that acid made the stomach hostile to bacteria, a large study that found no such organisms, an accepted explanation of ulcers backed by drugs that healed them, and the thin evidence for the new claim in 1982. A summary states the point these details add up to rather than any one of them.

A

True detail offered as the summary (R1): the biopsy study is one piece of evidence in the paragraph, not the point it adds up to.

B

Overreach (R2): the paragraph traces the doubts to evidence and accepted explanations, not to loyalty to any drug.

D

Contradicted (R3): the paragraph says acid-reducing drugs "did heal" ulcers, which made the old explanation seem adequate.

Evidence for a claim must be sufficient and must match what is claimed. The self-experiment had one subject, too few to establish a general cause, and it produced gastritis rather than an ulcer, so its result did not match the claim that the bacterium causes ulcers. Those two limits, both stated in paragraph 3, make "suggestive at best" a fair verdict.

A

Wrong test of a claim (R7): what the experiment proved depends on its evidence, not on Marshall's professional standing, and the author's verdict rests on its single subject and its outcome.

C

Answers another question (R4): the failed animal studies explain why Marshall tested the bacterium on himself, not why the result was weak proof.

D

Contradicted (R3): the passage says the experiment "showed that the bacterium could inflame a healthy stomach."

The passage never says what acid-reducing drugs did to the bacterium, but paragraph 4 compares acid-reducing drugs alone with "drugs that also killed the bacterium" and reports infections that "persisted." Read with paragraph 2's note that ulcers healed on acid-reducing drugs but often returned, these details support the inference that the drugs alone left the infection in place. The two other statements the passage supports are conclusions the author states outright.

A

Stated conclusion (R4): paragraph 1 says outright that the tale "teaches the wrong lesson about how science works."

B

Stated conclusion (R4): paragraph 5 says directly that the pair's "persistence kept the question alive."

D

Contradicted (R3): paragraph 3 says the experiment "did little to change" the thin state of the evidence, and paragraph 4 credits controlled trials with changing medical opinion.