1. In Saxony the importance of the principle of selection in regard to Merino sheep is so fully recognised, that men follow it as a trade: the sheep are placed on a table and are studied, like a picture by a connoisseur; this is done three times at intervals of months, and the sheep are each time marked and classed, so that the very best may ultimately be selected for breeding.
The main idea of this passage is

2. Darnley was eighteen years of age: he was handsome, well-made, elegant; he talked in that attractive manner of the young nobles of the French and English courts that Mary no longer heard since her exile in Scotland; she let herself be deceived by these appearances, and did not see that under this brilliant exterior Darnley hid utter insignificance, dubious courage, and a fickle and churlish character.
The author of this passage would probably agree that

3. His choleric temperament had often brought him into trouble from which the magistrates of Roily-le-Tors, like indulgent and prudent friends, had extricated him. Had he not one day thrown the conductor of the diligence from the top of his seat because he came near running over his retriever, Micmac? Had he not broken the ribs of a gamekeeper who abused him for having, gun in hand, passed through a neighbor’s property? Had he not even caught by the collar the sub-prefect, who stopped over in the village during an administrative circuit, called by Monsieur Renardet an electioneering circuit, for he was opposed to the government, in accordance with family traditions.
From its use in the passage, you can infer that choleric means

4. Surprised at two o’clock in the morning by two Austrian divisions, which, concealed by the village of San Gervasio, had reached the right bank of the Adda without their being discovered, the soldiers defending the castle of Trezzo abandoned it and beat a retreat.
What did the soldiers abandon?

5. The Pacific Railroad is joined by several branches in Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and Oregon. On leaving Omaha, it passes along the left bank of the Platte River as far as the junction of its northern branch, follows its southern branch, crosses the Laramie territory and the Wahsatch Mountains, turns the Great Salt Lake, and reaches Salt Lake City, the Mormon capital, plunges into the Tuilla Valley, across the American Desert, Cedar and Humboldt Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and descends, via Sacramento, to the Pacific—its grade, even on the Rocky Mountains, never exceeding one hundred and twelve feet to the mile.
According to the passage, how many states have branches of the Pacific Railroad?

6. As Friday, May 24 dawned, Britain’s War Cabinet faced an impending calamity. Ten days before, German armored columns had broken out of the Ardennes forest and started an almost unopposed drive across the center of France. French counter-attacks from the south had been turned back with ease, the Belgian army was cut off and surrounded, and German forces were pressing closely against the British Expeditionary Force, which had retreated to a few Channel enclaves.
According to the passage, what day did German armored columns break out of the Ardennes forest?

7. As Friday, May 24 dawned, Britain’s War Cabinet faced an impending calamity. Ten days before, German armored columns had broken out of the Ardennes forest and started an almost unopposed drive across the center of France. French counter-attacks from the south had been turned back with ease, the Belgian army was cut off and surrounded, and German forces were pressing closely against the British Expeditionary Force, which had retreated to a few Channel enclaves.
According to the passage, what day did German armored columns break out of the Ardennes forest?

8. He determined that he would believe nothing which he did not see quite clearly and distinctly to be true. Whatever he could bring himself to doubt, he would doubt, until he saw reason for not doubting it. By applying this method he gradually became convinced that the only existence of which he could be quite certain was his own.
The main idea of this passage is a man’s

9. At these words, she grew frightfully pale, and, looking about her with a bewildered air, and as if she were about to faint, she leaned against an arm-chair; then, soon, not being able to stand upright, she sat down, threw back her head, and plunged into a mournful reverie.
You can assume that the woman in this passage

10. Abraham Lincoln’s youthful love of learning freed him from his father’s fate as a poor farmer and led him to a successful legal and political career. Although Lincoln had only one year of grade school education, his intellectual curiosity led him to read intensively – the Bible, Shakespeare, the law, and Euclid’s geometry.
According to the passage, Abraham Lincoln didn’t have to become a poor farmer like his father because

11. His choleric temperament had often brought him into trouble from which the magistrates of Roily-le-Tors, like indulgent and prudent friends, had extricated him. Had he not one day thrown the conductor of the diligence from the top of his seat because he came near running over his retriever, Micmac? Had he not broken the ribs of a gamekeeper who abused him for having, gun in hand, passed through a neighbor’s property? Had he not even caught by the collar the sub-prefect, who stopped over in the village during an administrative circuit, called by Monsieur Renardet an electioneering circuit, for he was opposed to the government, in accordance with family traditions.
From its use in the passage, you can infer that choleric means

12. In front was a quiet sunny landscape, a wheat field ahead on either side of the road, and the Maybury Inn with its swinging sign. I saw the doctor’s cart ahead of me. At the bottom of the hill I turned my head to look at the hillside I was leaving. Thick streamers of black smoke shot with threads of red fire were driving up into the still air, and throwing dark shadows upon the green treetops eastward. The smoke already extended far away to the east and west—to the Byfleet pine woods eastward, and to Woking on the west.
What is the person in the passage doing?

13. The Pacific Railroad is joined by several branches in Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and Oregon. On leaving Omaha, it passes along the left bank of the Platte River as far as the junction of its northern branch, follows its southern branch, crosses the Laramie territory and the Wahsatch Mountains, turns the Great Salt Lake, and reaches Salt Lake City, the Mormon capital, plunges into the Tuilla Valley, across the American Desert, Cedar and Humboldt Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and descends, via Sacramento, to the Pacific—its grade, even on the Rocky Mountains, never exceeding one hundred and twelve feet to the mile.
According to the passage, how many states have branches of the Pacific Railroad?

14. Power is about control. To have power is to possess the capacity to control change or to direct it. Power need not be coercive, dictatorial, or punitive. It can be used in a non-coercive manner, for instance to orchestrate, mobilize, direct, and guide members of an institution or organization in the pursuit of a goal or series of objectives.
The author of this passage would probably agree that

15. Abraham Lincoln’s youthful love of learning freed him from his father’s fate as a poor farmer and led him to a successful legal and political career. Although Lincoln had only one year of grade school education, his intellectual curiosity led him to read intensively – the Bible, Shakespeare, the law, and Euclid’s geometry.
According to the passage, Abraham Lincoln didn’t have to become a poor farmer like his father because

16. When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate of the larger boys and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed, it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils.
The person the passage describes is most likely a

17. Surprised at two o’clock in the morning by two Austrian divisions, which, concealed by the village of San Gervasio, had reached the right bank of the Adda without their being discovered, the soldiers defending the castle of Trezzo abandoned it and beat a retreat.
What did the soldiers abandon?

18. I came to typhoid fever—read the symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it—wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance—found, as I expected, that I had that too,—began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.
This passage describes a person who

19. He determined that he would believe nothing which he did not see quite clearly and distinctly to be true. Whatever he could bring himself to doubt, he would doubt, until he saw reason for not doubting it. By applying this method he gradually became convinced that the only existence of which he could be quite certain was his own.
The main idea of this passage is a man’s

20. I came to typhoid fever—read the symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it—wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance—found, as I expected, that I had that too,—began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.
According to the passage, the illness the author does not have is

21. I was a posthumous child. My father’s eyes had closed upon the light of this world six months, when mine opened on it. There is something strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never saw me; and something stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that I have of my first childish associations with his white grave-stone in the churchyard, and of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for it lying out alone there in the dark night, when our little parlour was warm and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our house were—almost cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes—bolted and locked against it.
According to the passage, what happened to the child’s father?

22. The mural he was working on depicted a very neat garden. Men and women in white, doctors and nurses, turned the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed bugs, spread fertilizer. Men and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds, cut down plants that were old and sickly, raked leaves, carried refuse to trash-burners.
What might be a good title for this passage?

23. Leaders can simply be guilty of making an honest mistake. Or they can be lazy, maladroit, sleazy, or ignoble. They can also be tyrannical megalomaniacs. They can lack cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, or practical intelligence. Worse, they can be malignant narcissists who are sadistically aggressive and sociopathic in their relations with all others: friends, foes, family, and followers.
What might be a good title for this paragraph?

24. Today we accord movie star status to many of our leaders. Some of them become cultural icons and cultural role models. For example, the president of the United States is, arguably, the most photographed person in the world.
According to this passage, we view many of our leaders as