Central Ideas and Details Lv Medium (Part2)

The following text is from Ezra Pound’s 1909 poem “Hymn III,” based on the work of Marcantonio Flaminio.

As a fragile and lovely flower unfolds its gleaming  foliage on the breast of the fostering earth, if  the dew and the rain draw it forth; So doth my tender mind flourish, if it be fed with the  sweet dew of the fostering spirit, Lacking this, it beginneth straightway to languish,  even as a floweret born upon dry earth, if the  dew and the rain tend it not.

Based on the text, in what way is the human mind like a flower?

 

The following text is adapted from Christina Rossetti’s 1881 poem “Monna Innominata 2.”

I wish I could remember that first day,  First hour, first moment of your meeting me,  If bright or dim the season, it might be Summer or Winter for [all] I can say; So unrecorded did it slip away,  So blind was I to see and to foresee,  So dull to mark the budding of my tree That would not blossom yet for many a May.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

The recovery of a 1,000-year-old Chinese shipwreck in the Java Sea near present-day Indonesia has yielded a treasure trove of artifacts, including thousands of small ceramic bowls. Using a portable X-ray fluorescence analyzer tool, Lisa Niziolek and her team were able to detect the chemical composition of these bowls without damaging them. By comparing the chemical signatures of the bowls with those of the materials still at old Chinese kiln sites, Niziolek and her team can pinpoint which Chinese kilns likely produced the ceramic bowls.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

The following text is adapted from Guy de Maupassant’s nineteenth-century short story “The Trip of Le Horla” (translated by Albert M. C. McMaster, A. E. Henderson, Mme. Quesada, et al.). The narrator is part of a group traveling in a hot-air balloon at night.

The earth no longer seems to exist, it is buried in milky vapors that resemble a sea. We are now alone in space with the moon, which looks like another balloon travelling opposite us; and our balloon, which shines in the air, appears like another, larger moon, a world wandering in the sky amid the stars, through infinity. We no longer speak, think nor live; we float along through space in delicious inertia. The air which is bearing us up has made of us all beings which resemble itself, silent, joyous, irresponsible beings, peculiarly alert, although motionless.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

The following text is adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 novel Treasure Island. Bill is a sailor staying at the Admiral Benbow, an inn run by the narrator’s parents.

Every day when [Bill] came back from his stroll he would ask if any seafaring men had gone by along the road. At first we thought it was the want of company of his own kind that made him ask this question, but at last we began to see he was desirous to avoid them. When a seaman did [stay] at the Admiral Benbow (as now and then some did) he would look in at him through the curtained door before he entered the parlour; and he was always sure to be as silent as a mouse when any such was present.

According to the text, why does Bill regularly ask about “seafaring men”?

In many of his sculptures, artist Richard Hunt uses broad forms rather than extreme accuracy to hint at specific people or ideas. In his first major work, Arachne (1956), Hunt constructed the mythical character Arachne, a weaver who was changed into a spider, by welding bits of steel together into something that, although vaguely human, is strange and machine-like. And his large bronze sculpture The Light of Truth (2021) commemorates activist and journalist Ida B. Wells using mainly flowing, curved pieces of metal that create stylized flame.

Which choice best states the text’s main idea about Hunt?

Many intellectual histories of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s rely heavily on essays and other explicitly ideological works as primary sources, a tendency that can overrepresent the perspectives of a small number of thinkers, most of whom were male. Historian Ashley D. Farmer has shown that expanding the array of primary sources to encompass more types of print material—including political cartoons, advertisements, and artwork—leads to a much better understanding of the movement and the crucial and diverse roles that Black women played in shaping it.

Which choice best describes the main idea of the text?

NASA’s Aspera mission, led by Carlos Vargas, will investigate the circumgalactic medium (CGM), the huge swaths of lowdensity gas that fill and surround galaxies. Specifically, the team will focus on portions of the gas that exist in a “warmhot” phase: these portions haven’t previously been observable but are thought to fuel new star formation and hold most of the mass that makes up a galaxy. Using a telescope capable of revealing these parts of the CGM, the Aspera mission should help answer long-standing questions about how galaxies emerge, change, and even interact.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

Choctaw/Cherokee artist Jeffrey Gibson turns punching bags used by boxers into art by decorating them with beadwork and elements of Native dressmaking. These elements include leather fringe and jingles, the metal cones that cover the dresses worn in the jingle dance, a women’s dance of the Ojibwe people. Thus, Gibson combines an object commonly associated with masculinity (a punching bag) with art forms traditionally practiced by women in most Native communities (beadwork and dressmaking). In this way, he rejects the division of male and female gender roles.

Which choice best describes Gibson’s approach to art, as presented in the text?

The painter María Izquierdo played an important role in the development of twentieth-century Mexican art, but her work has never been well-known in the United States except among art historians. One reason for Izquierdo’s relative obscurity is the enormous popularity of some of her peers. In particular, the painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera have so captivated the interest of US audiences that Izquierdo and other Mexican artists from the period often get overlooked, despite the high quality of their work.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

To dye wool, Navajo (Diné) weaver Lillie Taylor uses plants and vegetables from Arizona, where she lives. For example, she achieved the deep reds and browns featured in her 2003 rug In the Path of the Four Seasons by using Arizona dock roots, drying and grinding them before mixing the powder with water to create a dye bath. To intensify the appearance of certain colors, Taylor also sometimes mixes in clay obtained from nearby soil.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

Philadelphia’s Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, founded by Jeri Lynne Johnson, performs classical music, from wellknown compositions by Beethoven to contemporary works by Jessie Montgomery. For the orchestra’s iConduct! program, Johnson invites community members to learn some basic elements of conducting and then experience conducting the Black Pearl orchestra themselves.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

In West Africa, jalis have traditionally been keepers of information about family histories and records of important events. They have often served as teachers and advisers, too. New technologies may have changed some aspects of the role today, but jalis continue to be valued for knowing and protecting their peoples’ stories.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?