A survey is a study, generally in the form of an interview or a questionnaire, that provides information concerning how people think and act. In the United States, the best-known surveys are the Gallup poll and the Harris poll. As anyone who watches the news during Line campaigns presidential knows, these polls have become an important part of political life in(5) the United States. North Americans are familiar with the many "person on the street interviews on local television news shows. While such interviews can be highly entertaining, they are not necessarily an accurate indication of public opinion. First, they reflect the opinions of only those people who appear at a certain location. Thus, such samples can be biased in favor(10)of commuters, middle-class shoppers, or factory workers, depending On which area the newspeople select. Second, television interviews tend to attract outgoing people who are willing to appear on the air, while they frighten away others who may feel intimidated by a camera. A survey must be based on a precise, representative sampling if it is to genuinely reflect a broad range of the population.(15) In preparing to conduct a survey, sociologists must exercise great care in the wording of questions. An effective survey question must be simple and clear enough for people to understand it. It must also be specific enough so that there are no problems in interpreting the results. Even questions that are less structured must be carefully phrased in order to elicit the type of information desired. Surveys can be indispensable sources of information, but(20)only if the sampling is done properly and the questions are worded accurately. There are two main forms of surveys: the interview and the questionnaire. Each of these forms of survey research has its advantages. An interviewer can obtain a high response rate because people find it more difficult to turn down a personal request for an interview than to throw away a written questionnaire. In addition, an interviewer can go beyond written(25)questions and probe for a subject’’s underlying feelings and reasons. However, questionnaires have the advantage of being cheaper and more consistent. Which of the following terms is defined in the passage
A. Survey (line 1)
B. Public opinion (line 8)
C. Representative sampling (line 13)
D. Response rate (line 22)
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Native Americans probably arrived from Asia in successive waves over several millennia, crossing a plain hundreds of miles wide that now lies inundated by 160 feet of water released by melting glaciers. For several periods of time, the first beginning around 60,000 B.C. and the last ending around 7,000 B.C., this land bridge was open. The (5) first people traveled in the dusty trails of the animals they hunted. They brought with them not only their families, weapons, and tools but also a broad metaphysical understanding, sprung from dreams and visions and articulated in myth and song, which complemented their scientific and historical knowledge of the lives of animals and of people. All this they shaped in a variety of languages, bringing into being oral literatures of power and beauty. (10) Contemporary readers, forgetting the origins of western epic, lyric, and dramatic forms, are easily disposed to think of “literature” only as something written. But on reflection it becomes clear that the more critically useful as well as the more frequently employed sense of the term concerns the artfulness of the verbal creation, not its mode of presentation. Ultimately, literature is aesthetically valued, regardless of language, culture,(15)or mode of presentation, because some significant verbal achievement results from the struggle in words between tradition and talent. Verbal art has the ability to shape out a compelling inner vision in some skillfully crafted public verbal form. Of course, the differences between the written and oral modes of expression are not without consequences for an understanding of Native American literature. The essential(20)difference is that a speech event is an evolving communication, an “emergent form,” the shape, functions, and aesthetic values of which become more clearly realized over the course of the performance. In performing verbal art , the performer assumes responsibility for the manner as well as the content of the performance, while the audience assumes the responsibility for evaluating the performer’s competence in both areas. It is this intense(25)mutual engagement that elicits the display of skill and shapes the emerging performance. Where written literature provides us with a tradition of texts, oral literature offers a tradition of performances. What is the author’’s attitude toward Native American literature
Admiring of its form
B. Critical of the cost of its production
C. Amused by its content
D. Skeptical about its origins
Many ants forage across the countryside in large numbers and undertake mass migrations; these activities proceed because one ant lays a trail on the ground for the others to follow. As a worker ant returns home after finding a source of food, it marks the route by intermittently touching its stinger to the ground and depositing a tiny amount of trail(5)pheromone—a mixture of chemicals that delivers diverse messages as the context changes. These trails incorporate no directional information and may be followed by other ants in either direction. Unlike some other messages, such as the one arising from a dead ant, a food trail has to be kept secret from members of other species. It is not surprising then that ant species use(10)a wide variety of compounds as trail pheromones. Ants can be extremely sensitive to these signals. Investigators working with the trail pheromone of the leafcutter ant Atta texana calculated that one milligram of this substance would suffice to lead a column of ants three times around Earth. The vapor of the evaporating pheromone over the trail guides an ant along the way, (15)and the ant detects this signal with receptors in its antennae. A trail pheromone will evaporate to furnish the highest concentration of vapor right over the trail, in what is called a vapor space. In following the trail, the ant moves to the right and left, oscillating from side to side across the line of the trail itself, bringing first one and then the other antenna into the vapor space. As the ant moves to the right, its left antenna arrives in the vapor space. (20)The signal it receives causes it to swing to the left, and the ant then pursues this new course until its right antenna reaches the vapor space. It then swings back to the right, and so weaves back and forth down the trail. The word “ oscillating “ in line 17 is closest in meaning to
A. falling
B. depositing
C. swinging
D. starting
A survey is a study, generally in the form of an interview or a questionnaire, that provides information concerning how people think and act. In the United States, the best-known surveys are the Gallup poll and the Harris poll. As anyone who watches the news during Line campaigns presidential knows, these polls have become an important part of political life in(5) the United States. North Americans are familiar with the many "person on the street interviews on local television news shows. While such interviews can be highly entertaining, they are not necessarily an accurate indication of public opinion. First, they reflect the opinions of only those people who appear at a certain location. Thus, such samples can be biased in favor(10)of commuters, middle-class shoppers, or factory workers, depending On which area the newspeople select. Second, television interviews tend to attract outgoing people who are willing to appear on the air, while they frighten away others who may feel intimidated by a camera. A survey must be based on a precise, representative sampling if it is to genuinely reflect a broad range of the population.(15) In preparing to conduct a survey, sociologists must exercise great care in the wording of questions. An effective survey question must be simple and clear enough for people to understand it. It must also be specific enough so that there are no problems in interpreting the results. Even questions that are less structured must be carefully phrased in order to elicit the type of information desired. Surveys can be indispensable sources of information, but(20)only if the sampling is done properly and the questions are worded accurately. There are two main forms of surveys: the interview and the questionnaire. Each of these forms of survey research has its advantages. An interviewer can obtain a high response rate because people find it more difficult to turn down a personal request for an interview than to throw away a written questionnaire. In addition, an interviewer can go beyond written(25)questions and probe for a subject’’s underlying feelings and reasons. However, questionnaires have the advantage of being cheaper and more consistent. The word "elicit" in line 18 is closest in meaning to
A. compose
B. rule out
C. predict
D. bring out
Native Americans probably arrived from Asia in successive waves over several millennia, crossing a plain hundreds of miles wide that now lies inundated by 160 feet of water released by melting glaciers. For several periods of time, the first beginning around 60,000 B.C. and the last ending around 7,000 B.C., this land bridge was open. The (5) first people traveled in the dusty trails of the animals they hunted. They brought with them not only their families, weapons, and tools but also a broad metaphysical understanding, sprung from dreams and visions and articulated in myth and song, which complemented their scientific and historical knowledge of the lives of animals and of people. All this they shaped in a variety of languages, bringing into being oral literatures of power and beauty. (10) Contemporary readers, forgetting the origins of western epic, lyric, and dramatic forms, are easily disposed to think of “literature” only as something written. But on reflection it becomes clear that the more critically useful as well as the more frequently employed sense of the term concerns the artfulness of the verbal creation, not its mode of presentation. Ultimately, literature is aesthetically valued, regardless of language, culture,(15)or mode of presentation, because some significant verbal achievement results from the struggle in words between tradition and talent. Verbal art has the ability to shape out a compelling inner vision in some skillfully crafted public verbal form. Of course, the differences between the written and oral modes of expression are not without consequences for an understanding of Native American literature. The essential(20)difference is that a speech event is an evolving communication, an “emergent form,” the shape, functions, and aesthetic values of which become more clearly realized over the course of the performance. In performing verbal art , the performer assumes responsibility for the manner as well as the content of the performance, while the audience assumes the responsibility for evaluating the performer’s competence in both areas. It is this intense(25)mutual engagement that elicits the display of skill and shapes the emerging performance. Where written literature provides us with a tradition of texts, oral literature offers a tradition of performances. What can be inferred from the passage about the difference between written and oral literature
A. Written literature reflects social values better than oral literature does.
B. Written literature involves less interaction between audience and creator during the creative progress than oral literature does.
C. Written literature usually is not based on historical events, whereas oral literature is.
D. Written literature is not as highly respected as oral literature is.