Read Each Passage and Answer the Questions

Chapter 6

Skill-Based Quiz

Read each passage and answer the questions.

Passage 1

1.Read the title of the following passage, and skim over the paragraphs, including the information about the author. What do you expect the passage to be about?

2.What do you already know about the topic?

3.Using the title, develop a question to ask yourself as you read.

Making Your Dogby Alexandra Horowitz

As you choose a new dog from among a litter or a loud shelter of baying mutts and bring him home, you begin to “make a dog” again, recapitulating the history of domestication of the species. With each interaction, with each day, you define—at once circumscribing and expanding—his world. In the first few weeks with you, the pup’s world is, if not entirely a tabula rasa, awfully close to the “blooming, buzzing confusion” that a newborn baby experiences. No dog knows, on first turning his eyes on the person who peeks at him in his shelter cage, what the person expects of him. Many people’s expectations, at least in this country, are fairly similar: be friendly, loyal, pettable; find me charming and lovable—but know that I am in charge; do not pee in the house; do not jump on guests; do not chew my dress shoes; do not get in the trash.

Somehow, word hasn’t gotten to the dogs. Each dog has to be taught this set of parameters for his life with people. The dog learns, through you, the kinds of things that are important to you—and that you want to be important to him. We are all domesticated, too: inculcated with our culture’s mores, with how to be human, with how to behave with others.

Alexandra Horowitz teaches psychology at Barnard College, Columbia University. She lives in New York City with her husband, son, and Finnegan, a dog of determinate character.

4.In the second sentence, the word circumscribing is used. A. What does this word mean? B. Explain how you used context clues to help you define the word as used in this passage.

5.In the second sentence of the second paragraph, the word parameters is used. A. What does this word mean? B. Explain how you used context clues to help you define the word as used in this passage.

6.In the last sentence, the word inculcated is used. A. What does this word mean? B. Explain how you used context clues to help you define the word as used in this passage.

7.In this passage, the author’s tone is

a.serious

b.humorous

c.light-hearted

d.arrogant

8.“In the first few weeks with you, the pup’s world is, if not entirely a tabula rasa, awfully close to the “blooming, buzzing confusion” that a newborn baby experiences.” A. What comparison is the author making? B. What is the purpose of this comparison?

9.The author’s purpose is to

a. persuade you to adopt a shelter pet and domesticate it.

b. explain how dogs become domesticated into pets.

c. explain how to make a good dog.

d. inform the reader of the importance of training a dog.

10. What is the implied main idea of this passage?

a. All dogs must be domesticated.

b. We are all domesticated, too: inculcated with our culture’s mores, with how to be human, with how to behave with others.

c. Dogs and people are both domesticated; we all have to learn what’s expected of us and how to behave with others.

d. As you choose a new dog from among a litter or a loud shelter of baying mutts and bring him home, you begin to “make a dog” by teaching it how it should behave in your home.

Passage 2

11.Read the title of the following passage and skim over the paragraphs. What do you expect the passage to be about?

12.What do you already know about the topic?

13.Using the title, develop a question to ask yourself as you read.

A Report Card on the Health of Americans

The United States spends more than any other nation on health care: a whopping $2.2 trillion total, or $7,400 per person per year. However, Americans rank twenty-third in life expectancy for men and twenty-fifth for women. Men in Hong Kong, with a life expectancy of 79 years, and women in Japan, with a life expectancy of 85.6 years, are at the top of the ratings.

Yet Americans are living longer. Life expectancy at birth is now 77.9 years, up from 75.4 years in 1990. This represents an increase of 3.5 years for men and 1.6 years for women. The gender gap in longevity has narrowed to 5.1 years, with female life expectancy at 80.4 years and male’s at 75.3 years. The racial longevity gap also has shrunk, from a difference of 7 years between whites and blacks in 1990 to 4.6 years in 2007.

Are we also living well? Large, long-term studies have confirmed the benefits of healthful habits such as regular physical activity, eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables, maintaining a healthy weight, limiting alcohol consumption, and not smoking. However, fewer Americans are doing so. Over the last 18 years, the percentage of Americans practicing all of these five habits dropped from 15 to 8 percent. How many of the “big five” healthy practices do you follow?

14. What group of people has the highest longevity rate in the world?

a. Americans

b. Japanese

c. women in Japan

d. men in Hong Kong

15. What are the “big five” healthy practices? List them.

16. The term gender gap means

a. women live longer than men

b. there is a difference between how long men and women live

c. men live longer than women

d. there is no difference between how long men and women live

17. What is the purpose of the last paragraph of this passage?

18. What inference can you make after reading the first paragraph?

19. What do you think the overall purpose of this paragraph is?

20. What is the author’s implied main idea?

a. Americans are now living longer than they used to.

b. Too many Americans are not following healthy habits.

c. Even though Americans are living longer, they are not necessarily living well.

d. Americans spend more than any other country on health care, but they are not necessarily living well.

Passage 3

21.Read the title of the following passage, and skim over the paragraphs. What do you expect the passage to be about?

22.What do you already know about the topic?

23.Using the title, develop a question to ask yourself as you read.

The Ombudsman System

Perhaps the most visible example of a commitment to self-criticism is the presence, in some media organizations, of an ombudsman, hired to investigate questionable journalistic conduct and to recommend action. Proponents of the ombudsman system argue that ombudsmen can most effectively “funnel” reader complaints, reduce the likelihood of libel complaints, help cement a paper’s relationship with its readers, serve as a liaison with the public, and elevate the ethical awareness of the staff. Opponents insist that ombudsmen are expensive luxuries and that the money could be better spent on reporters and editors, that they are little more than window dressing and a public relations ploy, and that they create a bureaucratic layer between the audience and those who should be addressing the public’s concerns, namely editors and reporters.

The ombudsman idea originated in Sweden, where a government official with that title represents the public in its dealings with the bureaucracy, and ombudsmen have become a feature of the self-regulatory apparatus in other countries. Sometimes, they respond to complaints from irate citizens or the subjects of news coverage; at other times, they act on their own initiative. A case in point is the controversy that engulfed the Philadelphia Inquirer when it published a photo of an African American man killed by police following a shooting incident at a high school championship basketball game on the University of Pennsylvania campus. The picture, which was prominently displayed on page one, prompted accusations from angry readers, many of them African American, who said the paper would not have run a similar picture of a white victim. Others vilified the paper for being insensitive and resorting to sensationalism.

The Inquirer defended its decision on the grounds the picture conveyed a shocking but important story. But despite the paper’s confidence in its ethical posture, the editors were not insensitive to their readers’ concerns, and the Inquirer’s two ombudsmen reached out to readers, publicly acknowledging the debate over the gruesome photo and letting them vent their anger.

24. An ombudsman represents

a. a newspaper or business to the public.

b. the public in its dealings with the bureaucracy.

c. represents a person who has been treated unfairly.

d. represents a business or agency that has been attacked by the public.

25. Some media organizations hire ombudsmen to

a. protect them from lawsuits.

b. protect their journalists from lawsuits.

c. investigate questionable journalistic conduct and to recommend action.

d. investigate whether a journalist’s actions were legal.

26.Underline the main idea sentence in paragraph one.

27.A. What is the purpose of paragraphs two and three? B. What strategies did you use to determine this?

28. List two reasons provided in this passage in support of the ombudsmen system.

29. List two reasons provided in this passage against the ombudsmen system.

30. Do you think the writer of this passage is for or against the ombudsmen system? Explain your answer.

Passage 4

31.Read the title of the following passage and skim over the paragraphs. What do you expect the passage to be about?

32.What do you already know about the topic?

33.Using the title, develop at least one question to ask yourself as you read.

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

The United States has been called, only half jokingly, the “land of the free, and the home of the monolingual.” One is hard-pressed to name another country in which a higher percentage of its native-born population speaks only one language. The United States is the only country in the world where it is possible to earn a university education without attaining functional literacy in a second language. Not only can it be done, but in actual fact, most university graduates in the United States never do master a second language. In 1998 only 6 percent of all undergraduates in the United States were enrolled in foreign language courses. Moreover, the existing instructional programs in foreign languages, from elementary school through the university, are largely voluntary, short-term, superficial, and often the first to be cut when budgets are trimmed. In the current era of globalization, the need to understand other languages has become more critical than ever before, because what we don’t know can hurt us.

The level of global ignorance in the United States, which is a national problem reaching epidemic proportions, is embarrassing and an unpleasant joke in the global community. To be certain, it can be debilitating to the extent that it prevents North Americans from meeting their professional objectives in the highly competitive world marketplace. At present, the United States has approximately 10,000 of its citizens attempting to conduct business in Japan, and fewer than 5 percent of them speak any Japanese whatsoever. And then we wonder why those “inscrutable” Japanese are reluctant to buy our products. If we are serious about being leaders in the global economy, we will have to do much better in terms of foreign language proficiency.

But in addition to putting us at a marked disadvantage in the global marketplace, our ignorance of other languages and cultures is downright dangerous to our national security. To illustrate, in the late 1970s, Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped and taken to the Kabul Hotel. The Washington Star reported that before the ambassador was slain, U.S. embassy officials had a brief chance to seize the initiative because they reached the hotel before the Afghan police. Unfortunately, none of the American officials could speak either Dari or Pushtu, the two most widely spoken languages in Afghanistan. Had the embassy officials been able to communicate directly with the kidnappers, it is possible that the ambassador’s life could have been spared.

Unfortunately, things have not changed since Ambassador Dubs was kidnapped and murdered a quarter of a century ago. The FBI has acknowledged that prior to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center they were in possession of notebooks, tapes, and phone taps that might have provided some warning signs, but the FBI could not decipher them because they were all in Arabic. And even now after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the major U.S. government agencies leading the war on terrorism—namely, the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon, and the State Department—are scrambling to find Americans who can speak Arabic (the fifth most widely spoken language in the world. as well as Pushtu and Dari. If we hope to be successful in the war on terrorism, the people of the United States need to become more linguistically savvy.

Despite these negative examples, we should remember that there are some North Americans—even some in the government—who are not hopelessly monolingual. Can you name the former U.S. president who in 2002 gave a major address to the Cuban people in Havana completely in Spanish?

34.What is the tone of paragraph 2? What emotive language led you to make inferences about the writer’s tone?

35.This excerpt is from a cultural anthropology textbook. Anthropologists are scientists who study people—their origins, their development, and how people live together, both in the past and now. What bias would the writer have of this excerpt about language?

36.What assumptions of your own might you need to be aware of in reading and identifying the main idea of this passage?

37.What is the overall main idea of this passage?

Passage 5

38.Read the title of the following passage and skim over the paragraphs. What do you expect the passage to be about?

39.What do you already know about the topic?

40.Using the title, develop a question to ask yourself as you read.

Understanding the Fallibility of Eyewitness Accounts

A number of years ago, the Wilmington, Delaware, area was plagued by a series of armed robberies committed by a perpetrator who was dubbed the “gentleman bandit” by the press because he was an unusually polite and well-groomed thief. The local media published a sketch of the gentleman bandit, and eventually an alert resident turned in a suspect who resembled the sketch. Much to everyone’s surprise, the accused thief was a Catholic priest named Father Bernard Pagano—who vigorously denied the charges. Unfortunately for Father Pagano, his denials and alibis were unconvincing and he was charged with the crimes. At the trial, seven eyewitnesses confidently identified Father Pagano as the gentleman bandit. The prosecution was well on its way to a conviction when there was a stunning turn of events—another man, Ronald Clouser, confessed to the police that he was the culprit. The authorities dropped the charges against Father Pagano, and the relieved priest was able to return to his normal existence (Rodgers, 1982).

This bizarre tale of mistaken identity—which sounds like it was lifted from a movie script—raises some interesting questions about memory. How could seven people “remember” seeing Father Pagano commit armed robberies that he had nothing to do with? How could they mistake him for Ronald Clouser, when the two really didn’t look very similar? How could they be so confident when they were so wrong? Perhaps you’re thinking that this is just one case and it must be unrepresentative (which would be sound critical thinking). Well, yes, it is a rather extreme example of eyewitness fallibility, but researchers have compiled mountains of evidence that eyewitness testimony is not nearly as reliable or as accurate as widely assumed (Kassin et al., 2001; Wells & Olson, 2003). This finding is ironic in that people are most confident about their assertions when they can say, “I saw it with my own eyes.” Television news shows like to use the title “Eyewitness News” to create the impression that they chronicle events with great clarity and accuracy. And our legal system accords special status to eyewitness testimony because it is considered much more dependable than hearsay or circumstantial evidence.

So, why are eyewitness accounts surprisingly inaccurate? Well, many factors and processes contribute to this inaccuracy. We’ll focus on two common errors in thinking that also contribute.

Can you think of any memory phenomena described in the chapter that seem likely to undermine eyewitness accuracy? You could point to the fact that memory is a reconstructive process, and eyewitness recall is likely to be distorted by the schemas that people have for various events. A second consideration is that witnesses sometimes make source-monitoring errors and get confused about where they saw a face. For example, one rape victim mixed up her assailant with a guest on a TV show that she was watching when she was attacked. Fortunately, the falsely accused suspect had an airtight alibi, as he could demonstrate that he was on live television when the rape occurred (Schacter, 1996). Perhaps the most pervasive factor is the misinformation effect (Loftus, 1993). Witnesses’ recall of events is routinely distorted by information introduced after the event by police officers, attorneys, news reports, and so forth. In addition to these factors, eyewitness inaccuracy is fueled by the hindsight bias and overconfidence effects.