Supplemental Materials
Materials for Experiments 1 and 2
Taj Mahal.
Passage.
The Taj Mahal is a monument located in Agra, India, that was constructed in the twenty-two years between 1631-1653 by a workforce of twenty-two thousand. It is one of the finest examples of the Mughal architectural style. The Emperor Shah Jahan used his vast wealth to commission the construction of the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died during childbirth. The total cost of the Taj Mahal's construction was about fifty million rupees, which would translate to more than five-hundred million dollars. While the white domed marble mausoleum is the most familiar part of the monument, the Taj Mahal is actually an integrated complex of structures that includes elements of Persian architecture. The monument has achieved special importance in Indian culture because of the romance of its inspiration.
Part of this romantic inspiration is that the Taj Mahal was built to be perfectly symmetrical throughout the entire set of structures. From the number of bushes and trees planted to the width of the sidewalks and ponds, everything seems to be a mirror image. Since four is a holy number in Islam, everything was planned in quadrants to ensure symmetry, such as the number of flowerbeds (sixteen) and flowers planted within them (four-hundred). Another example is the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, a symmetrical building with an "iwan", an arch-shaped doorway, topped by a large dome. The base of the tomb is a cube with the coffin of the empress was placed in the exact center. Interestingly, Shah Jehan’s son introduced a flaw into the design when he later made the choice to place his father’s tomb next to his mother, squeezing his coffin in beside hers.
By the late 19th century parts of the Taj Mahal had fallen badly into disrepair after decades of poor maintenance. In addition, during the early British Colonial era, the monument was damaged by looting, such as people chiseling out precious stones and lapis lazuli from its walls. Around 1900, British viceroy Lord Curzon ordered a massive restoration project, marking the beginning of a new period in which the Taj Mahal has been better maintained. More recently, the white marble domes of the Taj Mahal have been discolored by acid rain caused by emissions from the nearby Mathura oil refinery and automobiles. After the monument was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983, a major movement began in Agra to limit the air pollution close to the monument, including restricting the number of motor vehicles. Today the Taj Mahal continues to be a major tourist destination, attracting people from all over the world.
One myth told to these tourists is that an identical mausoleum complex was originally supposed to be built on the riverbank opposite the Taj Mahal. Many ancient texts that include cryptic references to a “Black Taj” have been interpreted to mean that Shah Jahan intended to build another monument out of black marble. Some scholars believe that the ruins of dark marble discovered across the river are the unfinished foundation of this building. Recent scholarship disputes this theory by focusing on the design of the Taj Mahal. Unlike other major Mughal tombs that form a cross, the Taj Mahal gardens form a great “T” with the tomb at the centre of the crosspiece, but the ruins on the other riverbank would extend the design of the Taj Mahal to form a cross proportional to other Mughal tombs. An octagonal pool in these ruins would have reflected the Taj Mahal, and many scholars now believe that this reflection is the true meaning of the cryptic references in ancient texts.
Comprehension questions.
Q1: Where is the Taj Mahal located?
Q2: Why was the Taj Mahal commissioned?
Q3: Why is the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal not perfectly symmetrical?
Q4: What holy number in Islam dictated much of the planning in the Taj Mahal?
Q5: What was the main source of damage to the Taj Mahal during the early British Colonial era?
Q6: In what year was the Taj Mahal made into a World Heritage Site?
Q7: What was 'Black Taj' supposedly built of?
Q8: Unlike other major Mughal tombs, what shape do the Taj Mahal gardens form?
Test questions.
Q1: What was the size of the workforce that constructed the Taj Mahal?
Q2: What number, considered holy in Islam, is well integrated into the design of the Taj Mahal?
Q3: In 1983, the Taj Mahal was designated what type of site?
Q4: Unlike the Taj Mahal, in what shape are most major Mughal tombs constructed?
Q5: The Taj Mahal combines the Mughal architectural style with what other architectural design style?
Q6: Why did the decision to entomb Shah Jehan beside his wife introduce a flaw into the design of the Taj Mahal?
Q7: What have been the two biggest threats to the Taj Mahal over the past two centuries?
Q8: What do Taj Mahal scholars now believe that cryptic references to the "Black Taj" in ancient texts mean?
Salvador Dalí.
Passage.
Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí, known popularly as Salvador Dalí, was a Spanish artist. One of the most important painters of the 20th century, he created some of the most widely recognized images that came out of the Surrealist movement in the visual arts. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931, while he was living in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris. In this famous piece, Dalí introduced the image of the soft, melting pocket watch in an attempt to debunk the assumption that time is rigid or deterministic. Dalí wanted to express pure psychic automatism, the real functioning of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason. His paintings are easily identified by their striking, bizarre, and dreamlike images.
Before he became a renowned artist, Dalí grew up in the town of Figueres in the Catalonia region of Spain with parents who were strict disciplinarians, but also very unconventional. As a result, his childhood was rather unusual and marked by unique events that would shape his personality. For example, Dalí’s parents treated him as though he was the reincarnation of his older brother, also named Salvador, who had died of meningitis prior to the artist's birth. As he grew into adulthood, Dalí developed an affinity for doing unusual things to draw attention to himself. He grew a giant, pencil-thin moustache, which became iconic of him, and often wore flamboyant outfits, including a purple cape and cane. An artist of great imagination, Dalí’s behavior sometimes irked those who loved his art as much as it annoyed his critics, since his eccentric manner sometimes drew more public attention than his artwork
During the middle period of career, the politics of Salvador Dalí played a significant role in his emergence as a successful artist. In his youth, Dalí embraced for a time both anarchism and communism, but eventually became a supporter of Francisco Franco’s fascist regime. Some of Dalí's public statements supported the repression enacted under Franco's reign and praised Franco for signing death warrants for political prisoners. Still, it is impossible to determine whether his tributes to Franco were sincere or whimsical. Indeed, some of Dalí's private actions signal that his views were somewhat different. He continued praise of Federico García Lorca even in the years when Lorca's works were banned and he was a friendly acquaintance of famed architect and designer Paul Laszlo, who was ethnically Jewish
Late in his career, Dalí did not confine himself to painting but experimented with many unusual or novel media and processes. In 1960, Dalí began work on the Dalí Theatre and Museum in his hometown of Figueres, a project that would not be completed until 1974. He also spent much of his time with his wife and muse, Gala, whom he had married in 1934, before her sudden death in 1982. The final years of Dalí’s life were marked by two possible suicide attempts, first in 1983 when he deliberately dehydrated himself and then in 1984 when a fire broke out in his bedroom under unclear circumstances. After these events, Dalí was rescued by a group of his friends who saw to it that he was comfortable living in his Theater-Museum for his final years. He died of heart failure at Figueres on January 23, 1989 at the age of 84.
Comprehension questions.
Q1: What painting movement was Dalí a part of?
Q2: What is the name of Salvador Dalí's best known work?
Q3: What was one reason that Dalí had an unusual childhood?
Q4: Where did Dalí grow up?
Q5: What leader and ideology did Dalí eventually appear to support?
Q6: What two political ideologies did Dalí follow in his youth?
Q7: What was the name of Dalí's wife?
Q8: What project did Dalí begin to work on in 1960?
Test questions.
Q1: Salvador Dali created some of the most widely recognized images to come out of what artistic movement?
Q2: In what region of Spain was Salvador Dalí born?
Q3: For what action did Salvador Dalí praise Francisco Franco?
Q4: What was the name of Salvador Dalí's wife?
Q5: What image did Salvador Dali portray in The Persistence of Memory?
Q6: What was a major influence on Salvador Dalí's eccentric personality?
Q7: What was the main difference between Salvador Dali's public and private political views?
Q8: Why might Salvador Dalí have attempted to commit suicide?
KGB.
Passage.
KGB was the umbrella organization name for the Soviet Union's premier security, secret police, and intelligence agency from 1954 to 1991. The KGB's operational domain encompassed functions and powers like those exercised by the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States. The ideological mission of the KGB comes from a concept originally developed by the Cheka, a former Soviet State Security organization. This concept of the “sword and shield” defined the KGB’s duties: “the shield to defend the revolution, the sword to smite its foes.” The responsibilities of this clandestine organization were external espionage, counter-espionage, and the liquidation of anti-Soviet and counter-revolutionary organizations within the Soviet Union and abroad. The KGB also guarded the national borders, Communist Party leaders, and critical state property.
To carry out these responsibilities, the KGB developed methods of collecting intelligence that paralleled the SIS (also known as MI6) of Great Britain. However, unlike the SIS, the KGB lacked sophisticated intelligence analysis capabilities, significantly hampering its ability to profit from the voluminous intelligence it collected. In particular, it struggled to match the SIS’s use of signals intelligence, a technology that gave the SIS an advantage over the KGB until the Cold War. Unable to match the technology used by the SIS, the KGB mostly relied on human intelligence, particularly from illegal residents. Later, during the Cold War, increased security in other countries frustrated KGB attempts to maintain its human intelligence network and, as a result, electronic espionage gained a higher priority. The advances made in electronic espionage during this time produced a sizable financial windfall after the Cold War, when the KGB commercialized its advanced technologies for business applications.
The KGB used the intelligence it gathered to pursue a number of agendas, such as the suppression of unorthodox beliefs and the persecution of the Soviet dissidents. Indeed, this obsession with “ideological subversion” increased throughout the Cold War, reaching an apex with the appointment of Yuri Andropov as the chairman of the KGB in 1967. Although Andropov declared that every instance of dissent was a threat to the Soviet state that must be challenged, Nikita Khrushchev disagreed with Andropov’s Stalinist-era tactics. When Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union, the tight controls over subversive beliefs and anti-Communist opinions were partially relaxed. This relaxation of KGB policy resulted in the reemergence of critical literary works, most notably the publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in 1962 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Following Khrushchev’s fall from power, the Soviet state and the KGB quickly returned to eliminating all forms of dissent and strict controls on expression remained until 1991.
In August of 1991, Colonel-General Vladimir Kryuchkov used the KGB's resources in aid of a coup attempt to overthrow Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Kryuchkov had become dismayed with Gorbachev’s efforts to open up Soviet society. However, the KGB had become too weak to make the coup successful and the takeover attempt collapsed, resulting in the arrest of Colonel-General Kryuchkov and the appointment of a new leader. As a result of this threat, President Gorbachev appointed a new Chairman, General Vadim Bakatin, and immediately ordered him to dissolve the KGB of the Soviet Union. On November 6, 1991, the KGB officially ceased to exist and its services were divided into two separate organizations. The SVR is now in charge of foreign intelligence gathering and the FSB provides internal security, but functions much like the Soviet KGB.
Comprehension questions.
Q1: What American agency closely resembles the KGB in its function?
Q2: What two objects symbolized the definition of the KGB's duties?
Q3: What method of espionage gained a higher priority later in the Cold War?
Q4: What did the KGB lack in comparison to the SIS?
Q5: Who was appointed chairman of the KGB in 1967?
Q6: What re-emerged with the relaxation of KGB policy?
Q7: What Soviet President did the KGB's resources attempt to overthrow in a coup?
Q8: What two organizations did the KGB become?
Test questions.