ASVAB — All Questions

Galvanizing coats steel with a thin layer of zinc. The zinc keeps water off the steel, but it does more than that: where the coating is scratched through, the zinc around the scratch corrodes in place of the exposed steel rather than leaving it to rust. Zinc is used up slowly as it does this, which is why a galvanized rail can last for decades and then fail within a few years once the coating is gone. According to the passage, what happens at a scratch in the zinc coating?

• a.the zinc nearby corrodes instead of the steel✓
• b.water is kept away from the steel by the coating
• c.the exposed steel rusts faster than bare steel
• d.the coating flows back over the bare metal

The middle sentence answers it directly: at a scratch the zinc around it corrodes in place of the exposed steel. Keeping water off is stated too, but the paragraph gives that as the job of the intact coating, and the question asks about the place where the coating is broken.

The moon pulls hardest on the water directly beneath it, raising a bulge there. The same pull tugs the solid earth away from the water on the far side, leaving a second bulge behind. As the planet turns, a given shore passes through both bulges in a day, which is why most coasts see two high tides rather than one. The sun adds a smaller pull that strengthens or weakens the moon's, depending on where the three bodies stand. The paragraph mainly explains

• a.why the sea is deeper far from any shore
• b.how a sailor predicts the tide at a harbor
• c.why most coasts have two high tides each day✓
• d.how the sun and moon differ in their size

Both bulges are described, and the paragraph says outright that a shore passing through both is why most coasts see two high tides rather than one. The sun arrives in the last sentence as something that modifies the moon's pull, which makes it a detail inside the explanation.

A hurricane and a tornado both turn wind into destruction, but they work on very different scales. A hurricane is hundreds of miles across, forms over warm ocean, and takes days to arrive, which leaves time to evacuate a coast. A tornado is rarely more than a mile wide, forms inside a thunderstorm in minutes, and may give a town only a few minutes of warning. The larger storm destroys more; the smaller one is far harder to escape. The author wrote this paragraph mainly to

• a.explain how warm ocean water feeds a storm
• b.set two kinds of storm against each other✓
• c.describe the damage a single tornado can cause
• d.warn readers to evacuate a threatened coast

The paragraph runs the two storms side by side on the same three points, size, formation and warning time, then names the trade between them. That is comparison. Warm water and evacuation both appear, but each is one item on the hurricane's side rather than the reason the paragraph exists.

A sentry may not leave his post until he is properly relieved, and the rule holds even when the reason for leaving looks urgent. A post left empty is covered by nobody, and the guard who wanders off to investigate a noise has taken the only set of eyes off the area he was given. If something needs looking into, the sentry reports it and the sergeant of the guard decides who goes. The post is the duty; the noise is not. According to the passage, a sentry who hears something suspicious should

• a.investigate and then return to the post
• b.wake a relief before looking into it
• c.leave the post when the noise repeats
• d.tell the sergeant and stay on post✓

The passage handles this case explicitly: the sentry reports it and the sergeant of the guard decides who goes. Investigating is exactly what the paragraph rules out, since the guard who does it has taken the only set of eyes off the area he was given.

The raised dot alphabet now in use was invented by a blind teenager who was impatient with the system his school already had. That system embossed the ordinary printed letters, which a finger could follow but only slowly, one curve at a time. The dots he substituted are small enough to sit under a single fingertip at once, so the reader identifies a character in one touch instead of tracing it. Reading speed, not simplicity, was the gain. The paragraph is mainly about

• a.why dots read faster than raised letters✓
• b.the life of the boy who invented the code
• c.how a school for blind children was organized
• d.how a fingertip senses a raised shape

The closing line names the point: reading speed, not simplicity, was the gain, and the sentences before it explain why one touch beats tracing a curve. The inventor and his school are how the paragraph gets there. A main idea has to cover the comparison, not just the biography inside it.

Water boils when it is hot enough to push back the air pressing down on it, so where the air presses less the boiling point falls. On a high plateau water may boil at a temperature well below what it reaches at sea level. The bubbling looks the same, but the pot is cooler, and food left in it cooks more slowly rather than faster. A cook who moves uphill and keeps the old timings serves beans that are still hard. That is why so many package directions carry a separate line for high elevations. The paragraph was written mainly to

• a.explain why the same recipe takes longer at elevation✓
• b.describe the way bubbles form in a heated pot
• c.compare cooking on a plateau with cooking below
• d.urge cooks to follow the package directions

A purpose question asks what the paragraph is built to do, and each sentence carries one explanation forward: lower pressure lowers the boiling point, the pot is cooler than it looks, and the food needs more time. Plateau and sea level appear to make that point, not to be weighed against each other.

Under the Homestead Act a citizen could claim a quarter section of surveyed public land, and the claim cost almost nothing to file. Title, however, did not pass at filing. The claimant had to live on the parcel and farm it for five years before the government would issue a deed, and a claimant who left early forfeited everything put into it. Many did leave, defeated less by the paperwork than by the weather on the plains. According to the passage, a claimant received a deed only after

• a.filing the claim at the nearest land office
• b.living on and farming the land five years✓
• c.having the quarter section surveyed on his own
• d.paying the government the full value of the land

The requirement follows the sentence saying title did not pass at filing: five years of living on the parcel and farming it. Filing appears in the passage, but the paragraph puts it on the other side of that line, and the land is described as already surveyed before any claim.

A gunsmith once filed every part of a musket to fit that musket alone, so a broken lock meant a new lock made by hand. Making the parts to a fixed measurement instead, close enough that any one of them fits any weapon, was slow and expensive to set up and cheap forever after. Repair became a matter of fitting a spare rather than making one, and the same idea moved from muskets into clocks, sewing machines and engines. Which title best fits this paragraph?

• a.Why Muskets Were Expensive to Build
• b.How a Gunsmith Filed a Musket Lock
• c.Making Parts Alike Changed Repair Work✓
• d.The First Sewing Machines and Clocks

The paragraph sets hand-fitted parts against parts made to a measurement, then follows the consequence into repair and into other trades. A title has to cover that arc. The gunsmith's filing is where the contrast starts, and clocks and engines are the last item on the list of where the idea went.

The advice to wear a hat because most body heat escapes through the head traces back to a study in which volunteers were dressed warmly everywhere except the head. Any uncovered part of the body loses heat at about the same rate for its area, so the head's share is roughly its share of the surface, well under a fifth. A hat is still worth wearing in the cold. It is worth wearing for the same reason gloves are, not a special one. The author's main purpose is to

• a.argue that hats are unnecessary in cold weather
• b.correct a rule of thumb by showing its origin✓
• c.describe how the body produces its own heat
• d.compare the warmth of a hat with a pair of gloves

The paragraph names a familiar claim, traces it to a study whose setup created it, gives the real share, and then protects the hat itself. That is correction rather than dismissal, so arguing hats away misreads the last two lines. Gloves appear once, as the standard the hat is returned to.

Sound travels through water about four times faster than through air, and it carries much farther before fading. A whale call that would be lost in a mile of air can cross an ocean basin in water. The same property complicates work for a diver, because the difference in arrival time between one ear and the other, which is how a listener places a sound, nearly vanishes underwater. A diver hears the engine clearly and cannot tell where it is. According to the passage, a diver has trouble locating a sound because

• a.water muffles a sound before it reaches the ear
• b.an engine underwater is quieter than in air
• c.the arrival times at the two ears nearly match✓
• d.the sound fades much faster in water than in air

The passage names the mechanism and then breaks it: a listener places a sound by the difference in arrival time between the ears, and underwater that difference nearly vanishes. Fading and muffling reverse the passage, which stresses that sound carries farther and is heard clearly.

The count taken every ten years does more than satisfy curiosity about how many people live in the country. The number of seats each state holds in the House of Representatives is recalculated from it, so a state that grew faster than its neighbors gains a seat and one that grew slower loses one. Federal money for roads, schools and clinics is handed out on the same figures. A household that is missed is missed for ten years. The paragraph is mainly about

• a.how a census taker counts a household
• b.what the ten-year count is used for✓
• c.why some states grow faster than others
• d.where federal road money is finally spent

The first sentence says the count does more than count, and each sentence after it supplies one use: seats in the House, federal money, and the ten-year cost of a missed household. A main idea has to cover all of them. Seats and road money are two of those uses, not the subject alone.

When the back of a car slides out in a turn, the reflex is to steer away from the slide, which turns the front wheels across the direction the car is actually traveling and makes the skid worse. Steering into the slide points the front wheels where the car is going, so they roll instead of scrubbing and the back end has a chance to line up behind them again. The correction ends the moment the car straightens. The paragraph was written mainly to

• a.warn drivers to slow down before every turn
• b.describe how a tire keeps its grip on a wet road
• c.explain why steering into a skid corrects it✓
• d.compare front-wheel and rear-wheel drive cars

The paragraph sets the reflex against the correction and gives the reason for each: wheels turned across the car's travel scrub, wheels pointed along it roll. That is explanation of a technique. Slowing down is never mentioned, and no two kinds of car are set against each other.

A satellite navigation receiver does not send anything. It listens for the timed signals of satellites overhead and works out how long each one took to arrive, which fixes its distance from that satellite. Three distances would place the receiver at a point; a fourth is used to correct the receiver's own cheap clock, which is nothing like as accurate as the atomic clocks aboard the satellites. That is why coverage is reported in satellites in view. According to the passage, the fourth satellite signal is used to

• a.measure the receiver's height above the sea
• b.send the receiver's position to a station
• c.correct the clock inside the receiver✓
• d.confirm the distance to the first three

The passage assigns each signal a role: three distances place the receiver, and a fourth is used to correct the receiver's own cheap clock. The opening sentence rules out sending anything at all, and height never appears, though a real receiver does report it.

A mold spore that drifted onto a forgotten culture dish killed the bacteria growing around it, and the researcher who noticed the clear ring published what he saw and then largely set the work aside. Turning that observation into a medicine took another decade, a different laboratory, and a wartime effort to grow the mold in quantity. The discovery is remembered as an accident, but only the first step was accidental. Which title best fits this paragraph?

• a.The Man Who Noticed a Clear Ring
• b.Wartime Laboratories and Their Work
• c.An Accident That Still Took Ten Years✓
• d.How Mold Grows on a Forgotten Dish

The last sentence states the paragraph's claim: the discovery is remembered as an accident, but only the first step was accidental. A title has to carry both halves, the luck and the decade of work that followed. The researcher who noticed the ring is that first step by itself.

A hydraulic jack is built to lift a vehicle, not to hold one. A seal that has been sound for years can pass fluid without warning, and a jack standing on soft ground can sink or tip while the load is on it. Jack stands take the weight through steel that cannot leak, and they cost less than a single day in a hospital. No part of a car is worth reaching under until the stands are set and the vehicle has been rocked to test them. The paragraph was written mainly to

• a.describe how to change a tire on the road
• b.compare the price of a jack and of a jack stand
• c.explain how a hydraulic jack multiplies force
• d.warn against working under a vehicle on a jack✓

The paragraph names the two ways a jack can fail, supplies the alternative, and closes with an instruction never to reach under until the stands are set. That is a warning. Price appears in one clause to make that point, and nothing is said about how a jack lifts a load.

A coastal marsh is often treated as land waiting to be filled, but the grass and mud in it absorb a storm surge the way a sponge absorbs a spill. Each mile of marsh a surge crosses takes some height off it before it reaches a road or a house. Filled and paved, the same acre passes the water along at full force and adds the runoff from its own hard surface. The bill for the fill arrives at the next storm. According to the passage, what happens to a storm surge crossing a marsh?

• a.it loses some of its height with every mile✓
• b.it is held in the marsh until the storm ends
• c.it moves faster over the flat wet ground
• d.it picks up runoff from the paved surface

The second sentence gives the mechanism in measurable terms: each mile of marsh a surge crosses takes some height off it. Runoff is in the passage, but the paragraph attributes that to the same acre after it has been filled and paved. Nothing says the water is held until the storm ends.

A password made of a long string of ordinary words resists guessing better than a short one stuffed with symbols, because a machine trying every combination is defeated by the number of positions, not by how strange each character looks. Substituting a zero for an o adds almost nothing, since the programs that guess try those substitutions first. Rules that demand a symbol and cap the length push users toward exactly the wrong trade. The paragraph is mainly about

• a.how a password guessing program works
• b.which symbols belong in a good password
• c.why length beats strange characters✓
• d.why short passwords are easy to type

The opening sentence states the claim and gives the reason for it, the number of positions rather than odd characters, and both later sentences apply that reason to letter swaps and to length caps. The guessing program appears as the thing being defeated, not as the subject.

The gap you feel in a long bridge deck is there on purpose. Steel and concrete grow longer as they warm, and a span of several hundred feet can change by a few inches between a winter night and an August afternoon. With no gap to grow into, that change becomes force, and force of that size buckles a deck or cracks the piers holding it. The joint gives the span somewhere to go and turns a destructive push into ordinary movement. The main purpose of this paragraph is to

• a.explain what the gaps in a bridge deck are for✓
• b.warn drivers to slow down at a bridge joint
• c.compare steel and concrete as building materials
• d.describe how a bridge pier is built

The paragraph opens by saying the gap is deliberate and then supplies the reason step by step: the materials lengthen, a blocked change becomes force, and force of that size buckles a deck. That is explanation. Steel and concrete are named together as one group, never set against each other.

In a mass-casualty event, medics sort the injured before treating any of them. Those who will die without immediate help but can still be saved are treated first. Patients whose injuries are minor enough to wait are tagged and set aside, even though they are awake and asking for help, and so are patients whose wounds are so severe that saving one of them would take the resources several others need. The sorting is repeated as conditions change. It can be inferred from the passage that the order of treatment is decided by:

• a.how loudly each patient is able to call out for help
• b.the order in which the patients arrived
• c.how severe each patient's injuries appear to be
• d.how much the outcome depends on care right now✓

The text treats first those who will die without help but 'can still be saved,' and defers both the minor cases and the ones whose care would take 'the resources several others need.' Since both ends of the severity scale wait, severity alone cannot be the rule. An inference must be the smallest step the text forces.

Lumber sawn from a newly felled tree is called green, and it can be nearly half water by weight. As the board dries it shrinks unevenly across the grain and may cup or twist. A carpenter who frames a wall with green studs may find nail heads standing proud and drywall seams cracked a season later. Kiln drying drives most of that water off before the board ever leaves the mill. As used in the passage, the word 'green' most nearly means:

• a.cut from a young tree
• b.still full of moisture✓
• c.colored by fresh sap
• d.grown without chemicals

The passage defines the word by water: green lumber is 'nearly half water by weight,' and kiln drying 'drives most of that water off.' A vocabulary item asks what the word does in this passage, not what it does elsewhere. Age is the near miss: the text says newly felled, which describes the cut, not the tree.

A pothole begins as a crack too small to notice. Water works into the crack and, when the temperature drops, freezes and expands, widening the opening and lifting the pavement above it. The ice melts, the lifted slab settles back loosely, and the next truck that passes breaks the weakened piece free. Repeat that cycle through a winter and the hole is wide enough to swallow a tire. This is why potholes appear in numbers in early spring. According to the passage, the pavement is actually broken away by:

• a.meltwater draining away in spring
• b.ice expanding inside the opening
• c.water seeping into the first crack
• d.traffic passing over the loosened slab✓

The passage assigns each step to an agent, and the breaking to one of them: 'the next truck that passes breaks the weakened piece free.' Freezing water is the step before, which widens and lifts but does not remove; a cause-and-effect item wants the link the text actually draws, not the first event in the chain.

The new tracking system arrived with a memo promising that it would end paper forms in the shop. Eighteen months on, the clerks still print every work order, because the inspectors sign in ink and the file room accepts nothing else. The system does keep a tidy record of what was printed. Whether that is worth the two hours a week now spent entering the same numbers twice is a question the memo did not anticipate. The writer's attitude toward the tracking system is best described as:

• a.hostile toward the clerks
• b.confident of its eventual success
• c.unconcerned with what it actually costs
• d.skeptical of its claimed benefit✓

The tone sits in the gap between 'promising that it would end paper forms' and 'still print every work order,' then in the dry concession that the system records what was printed. Hostility is a notch too strong: the writer blames no person, and the closing line about the memo is doubt, not anger.

A tree adds one ring of wood a year, and the ring is wide in a year with plenty of rain and narrow in a dry one. Because the pattern of wide and narrow rings across several decades is rarely repeated, a beam pulled from an old building can be matched against rings taken from living trees in the same region, and the year the beam was cut can then be fixed exactly. It can be inferred from the passage that dating a beam this way requires:

• a.a written record of the building's age
• b.a run of rings from the same region✓
• c.rings of the same width year to year
• d.a beam still attached to a growing tree

The method is matching: the beam's pattern is compared with 'rings taken from living trees in the same region,' so a regional reference sequence has to exist first. A written record is the tempting wrong step: a document would make the ring matching pointless, and the passage offers dating as what the rings alone accomplish.

A dye is called fast when it holds its color through washing and sunlight. Fastness is not a property of the dye alone. The same dye may be fast on wool and wash straight out of cotton, because what has to survive is the bond between the dye and the fiber. Uniform makers run a sample through many wash cycles before they will accept a bolt of cloth. In this passage, 'fast' most nearly means:

• a.quick to take hold
• b.applied at high speed
• c.firmly held in place✓
• d.bright and deeply colored

The passage explains the word twice: the color 'holds' through washing, and what must survive is 'the bond between the dye and the fiber.' The everyday sense of speed is the trap, and both speed options import it. Fast here is the sense in stuck fast, a matter of grip rather than of hurry or of brightness.

A bill introduced in either chamber goes first to a committee, where most bills die without a vote. A bill the committee reports out is debated and voted on by the full chamber, then sent to the other chamber, which may amend it. If the two versions differ, a conference of members from both chambers works out a single text. That text goes back to both floors, where it may be accepted or rejected but not amended, and only then does the bill go to the president. According to the passage, when the conference text returns to the two chambers, they may:

• a.call a second conference on the same text
• b.amend it once more before the final vote
• c.send it back to the original committee
• d.accept or reject it but not change its text✓

The passage attaches a limit to that second vote: the single text goes back to both floors, where it 'may be accepted or rejected but not amended.' Changing it again is the tempting reading and is what the sentence rules out. Nothing in the text sends the bill back to committee.

The clinic rewrote its discharge instructions so that a sixth-grader could read them. Doses are given in spoons as well as milliliters, and every sheet ends with the two symptoms that should bring a patient back the same day. Nurses report fewer calls asking what a word meant. The change cost nothing but an afternoon of somebody's time, and it is hard to find anyone who wants the old sheets back. The writer's attitude toward the rewritten instructions is best described as:

• a.approving of a modest improvement✓
• b.doubtful that it helped much
• c.amused by the old wording
• d.certain it will save lives

Approval shows in the result reported, 'fewer calls asking what a word meant,' and in the closing note that the change 'cost nothing but an afternoon' and that nobody wants the old sheets back. The praise stays small, so a claim about saving lives is a notch stronger than the passage measures.

When lava that is full of dissolved gas reaches the surface, the pressure drops, the gas comes out of solution as bubbles, and the rock cools and hardens around them. The result, pumice, is so riddled with sealed pockets of gas that a fist-sized piece will float. Rafts of pumice from an undersea eruption have been seen drifting hundreds of miles from the vent that made them. It can be inferred from the passage that a piece of volcanic rock that sinks:

• a.cooled with fewer bubbles inside✓
• b.was thrown out much farther from the vent
• c.came from an eruption on dry land
• d.cooled much more slowly than pumice does

Floating is credited to one thing: pumice is 'riddled with sealed pockets of gas.' Take the pockets away and the reason to float is gone, which is the smallest step the text forces. Slow cooling is the tempting leap, a real process the passage never links to bubbles or to whether a rock floats.

Load a steel bar lightly and it stretches, then returns to its original length when the load comes off. Past a certain load, called the yield point, it does not return: the bar keeps some of that stretch for good. Designers hold working loads well below yield, because a beam that has yielded is still carrying its load but is no longer the shape the drawings show. As used in the passage, 'yielded' most nearly means:

• a.stretched out permanently✓
• b.given way completely
• c.produced a harvest
• d.surrendered to a rival

The passage supplies the meaning directly: past yield the bar 'does not return' and 'keeps some of that stretch for good.' Total collapse is the near miss, ruled out by the clause saying the beam is 'still carrying its load.' The familiar senses, surrender and harvest, are what the word means outside this paragraph.

Screw a copper fitting onto a steel pipe, leave the joint where it stays wet, and the steel around it rusts through long before the copper is marked at all. The water carries enough dissolved salt to conduct, so the two metals and the water together make a small battery. Current flows, and the metal that gives up electrons more readily is eaten away. A plastic-lined union set between the two metals breaks that circuit. According to the passage, the plastic-lined union stops the corrosion because:

• a.the metals no longer make one circuit✓
• b.the copper begins to corrode instead
• c.the salt water can no longer reach the joint
• d.the steel is sealed away from air

The passage builds one mechanism, two metals and salted water forming a battery in which 'current flows,' then takes it away: the union 'breaks that circuit.' Keeping the water out is the plausible substitute, but a thin insulating ring is never said to seal the joint or to dry it.

A coating meant to keep ice from bonding to an aircraft wing performed well through one winter of testing on three aircraft. The engineers who reported the result were careful to note the size of the sample and the mildness of the season. They recommend a second winter of trials in colder conditions before the coating is written into any maintenance manual. The writer's attitude toward the coating is best described as:

• a.interested but not convinced✓
• b.alarmed by the danger it poses
• c.dismissive of the idea
• d.convinced it is ready for use

Two signals set the tone: the coating 'performed well,' and the engineers were 'careful to note' the small sample before asking for another winter. Dismissal contradicts the first; readiness contradicts the second. A tone item is settled by the words on the page, and these withhold endorsement without withdrawing interest.

A credit card that charges interest on the unpaid balance bills a minimum payment each month, often about two percent of what is owed. Paying only that amount covers the month's interest and a little of the principal, so the balance falls slowly while interest keeps being charged on whatever remains. A balance of a few thousand dollars, paid at the minimum, can take more than a decade to clear even with no new purchases. It can be inferred from the passage that the minimum payment is set:

• a.to clear off the whole balance in a year
• b.as the same dollar amount each month
• c.just above the month's interest charge✓
• d.by the total of the month's purchases

The minimum 'covers the month's interest and a little of the principal,' which places it barely above interest and no higher. A fixed dollar amount is the near miss, contradicted by 'about two percent of what is owed,' a figure that shrinks as the balance does. The inference is arithmetic already stated, not a prediction.

A firebreak is a strip of ground cleared of brush ahead of a wildfire. It rarely puts a fire out by itself, and on a windy day embers cross it easily. What a good break does is check the fire long enough for crews to work the flanks, and a fire that has been checked on one side can often be turned away from a town. In this passage, 'check' most nearly means:

• a.slow and hold back✓
• b.put out entirely
• c.leave for storage
• d.examine it for damage

The sentence itself limits the word: the break checks the fire 'long enough for crews to work the flanks,' and the passage has already said it 'rarely puts a fire out by itself.' That clause kills the extinguish reading. Inspecting and storing are everyday senses this paragraph never uses.

A pearl starts when a grain of sand or a small parasite works its way inside an oyster's shell and lodges against the soft body. The oyster cannot expel it, so it coats the intruder with the same material it uses to line its shell, layer upon layer. Years of layers make a pearl. Cultured pearls skip the accident: a technician inserts a small bead, and the oyster does the rest. According to the passage, the oyster begins coating the intruder because:

• a.the object has cut the shell lining
• b.it cannot push the object out✓
• c.a technician has inserted the bead
• d.a pearl has to form from hardened layers

The passage puts the cause and effect in one sentence: 'cannot expel it, so it coats the intruder.' Everything after the so is the result. A cut lining sounds like a reason a creature would respond, but no injury is mentioned, and the bead belongs only to the cultured case described at the end.

Every form in the office carries a box for the requester's badge number, and every form also carries a box for the requester's name. The badge number is what the system searches on. The name is copied by hand from the badge, compared against the badge by a clerk who is holding the badge, and then filed. Nobody can say when the second box was added, and nobody has proposed removing it. The writer's attitude toward the second box is best described as:

• a.gently amused by its uselessness✓
• b.respectful toward the office's habits
• c.puzzled about how the forms are read
• d.openly angry at the office clerks

The humor is built by repetition: the name is checked 'against the badge by a clerk who is holding the badge,' and nobody 'has proposed removing it.' Anger is a notch too strong, since no one is blamed and no harm is claimed; respect runs the other way, as the whole point is that the box does nothing.

A contagious disease keeps spreading only while each infected person passes it to at least one more. Vaccination lowers the number of people available to be infected, and once enough of a community is protected, a chain of transmission tends to die out before it reaches those who cannot be vaccinated at all, such as newborns and people taking certain medicines. It can be inferred from the passage that a newborn in a highly vaccinated community is:

• a.at the same risk as everyone else
• b.protected though not vaccinated✓
• c.unable to catch the disease at all
• d.made immune by the mother's vaccination

The chain 'tends to die out before it reaches those who cannot be vaccinated,' so the newborn gains cover from other people's vaccination rather than its own. Complete immunity is the step too far: tends to die out is not never, and the passage credits the community, not any immunity carried in the newborn.

A corporate bond pays a fixed rate and matures on a set date, when the issuer returns the face amount to whoever holds it. Before that date the holder may sell the bond to someone else, but the price will depend on what interest rates have done since it was issued. A bond bought at five percent is worth less to a buyer who can get seven percent elsewhere. As used in the passage, 'matures' most nearly means:

• a.comes due for repayment✓
• b.increases steadily in value
• c.becomes safer to hold
• d.reaches full development

The clause after the word defines it: the bond matures 'on a set date, when the issuer returns the face amount.' A steady rise in value is contradicted by the next two sentences, where a bond bought at five percent is worth less once a buyer can get seven. Full development is the everyday sense.

Sand carried by a river settles where the current slows, usually in a delta or a shallow sea. More sand buries what settled earlier, and the weight of the pile squeezes the water out from between the grains. Minerals dissolved in that last water crystallize in the spaces and glue the grains to one another. Lift the bed by mountain building, wear the cover away, and sandstone stands at the surface. According to the passage, the sand grains are cemented together by:

• a.heat from deep inside the earth's crust
• b.the weight of the sand piled above it
• c.the current of the river that carried it
• d.minerals that crystallize between the grains✓

The gluing is stated outright: minerals in the last water 'crystallize in the spaces and glue the grains to one another.' Weight is the step immediately before, and the passage gives it a different job, squeezing water out. Cause-and-effect items punish reaching for the nearest event instead of the one the text names.

Line crews go out while the storm is still blowing, because a wire down in a flooded street is a hazard whether or not anyone is watching it. The work is done in the dark, in the rain, from a bucket forty feet up, by people who have done it before and know exactly which part of it can kill them. They do not describe it as brave. They describe it as the job. The writer's attitude toward the line crews is best described as:

• a.respectful without being sentimental✓
• b.indifferent to the danger
• c.critical of the risks they take on
• d.admiring to the point of hero-worship

Respect is carried by the detail, 'know exactly which part of it can kill them,' while the last two sentences refuse the heroic word on the crews' behalf. Hero-worship is one notch too strong for a passage that declines to call them brave, and indifference cannot survive the care spent naming the conditions.

The tool crib issues each mechanic twenty brass tokens stamped with his number. To draw a tool he hands over a token, which hangs on the hook where that tool belongs until he brings it back. At the end of a shift the attendant does not have to count tools or question anybody. He walks the wall, and every hook holding a token tells him a tool is out and whose it is. It can be inferred from the passage that the token system is valuable mainly because it:

• a.proves which tools were borrowed most often
• b.shows at a glance which tools are out✓
• c.keeps mechanics from losing their tools
• d.rewards the mechanics who return tools

The last sentence is the argument: the attendant 'walks the wall,' and each hook with a token on it reports both the absence and the owner without a count or a question. Preventing loss is the appealing overreach, an outcome someone may hope for that the passage never claims the tokens produce.

On a topographic map the brown contour lines show relief. The sheet itself is flat, so the lines have to carry the rise and fall of the ground: where they crowd together the ground climbs steeply, and where they spread apart the slope is gentle. A hiker who can read relief can tell before setting out whether a two-mile route climbs a ridge or follows a valley. As used in the passage, 'relief' most nearly means:

• a.a design raised in stone
• b.differences in ground elevation✓
• c.aid sent to a stricken area
• d.the easing of pain or strain

The passage makes the sheet flat and hands the job to the lines: crowded lines mean ground that 'climbs steeply,' spread lines a gentle slope. That fixes the word as the rise and fall of the land. Easing, aid and raised carving are everyday senses this paragraph never uses.

A lock lifts a boat from one level of a canal to a higher one. The boat enters with the upper gate shut and the lower gate open. The lower gate is closed behind it and valves are opened to let water in from the upper reach. The chamber fills and the boat rises with the water until the two levels match. Only then can the upper gate swing open, because no gate can be moved against the weight of water on one side. According to the passage, the upper gate can be opened only after:

• a.the valves have been closed once more
• b.the boat has been tied to the wall
• c.the lower gate has been opened again
• d.the water inside has risen to match✓

The passage marks the moment with its own phrase: the chamber fills 'until the two levels match. Only then can the upper gate swing open,' and it gives the reason, since a gate cannot move against water pushing on one side. Reopening the lower gate would undo the fill and is never part of the order described.

A shop that buys the cheapest available drill bit will buy it again in three weeks, and again after that, and will pay besides for the holes it wandered out of true. The purchasing clerk's report shows a saving on every line. What the report does not show is the hour a machinist spends drilling those holes over, which lands in a different column and is charged to somebody else. The writer's attitude toward the shop's purchasing practice is best described as:

• a.critical of a false economy✓
• b.neutral on the trade-off
• c.amused by the clerk's mistake
• d.alarmed at an unsafe habit

The criticism is in the piling up: buy it again 'in three weeks, and again after that,' then the cost that 'lands in a different column.' The target is the accounting, not any person, so treating it as a clerk's blunder misreads it, and nothing in the passage raises a question of safety.

A forklift's rated capacity assumes the load's center of gravity sits a set distance ahead of the forks, usually twenty-four inches. The truck balances on its front axle, with the load on one side and the truck's own weight on the other. A pallet of the same weight but twice as deep puts its center farther out, and the rated capacity no longer applies to it. It can be inferred from the passage that lifting a deeper pallet of the rated weight would:

• a.raise the rated capacity of the forklift
• b.cut the margin against tipping over✓
• c.leave the truck's balance unaffected
• d.call for a longer pair of fork blades

The passage describes a balance on the front axle with load on one side, and says a deeper pallet puts its center 'farther out,' which is why the rating stops applying. Farther out on the load side means less to spare. Longer forks answer a support problem the passage never connects to capacity.

Before a timber goes into a bridge deck it is tapped along its length with a hammer. A sound piece answers with a sharp ring. A piece with rot or a hidden split answers dull, because the flaw interrupts the path the vibration would travel. The dull ones are set aside no matter how good the outside surface looks. In this passage, 'sound' most nearly means:

• a.sensible and practical
• b.loud enough to hear
• c.free of hidden defect✓
• d.able to carry a tone

The contrast makes the meaning: a sound piece rings, while one with 'rot or a hidden split' answers dull and is set aside. The word names the timber's condition, not the noise. Carrying a tone borrows from the sentence about vibration, and sensible is the everyday sense as in sound advice.

A heater burning fuel without enough air produces carbon monoxide, a gas with no color and no smell. Breathed in, it binds to the same sites on the blood cells that carry oxygen, and it binds to them far more readily than oxygen does. The blood keeps circulating, but it carries less oxygen with every pass. The early signs, headache and confusion, are easy to blame on something else. According to the passage, carbon monoxide harms a person by:

• a.slowing the beating of the heart muscle
• b.burning away the lining of the airways
• c.taking the sites oxygen would occupy✓
• d.using up the oxygen in the room air

The mechanism is inside the blood: the gas 'binds to the same sites on the blood cells that carry oxygen,' and more readily than oxygen does, so less oxygen moves with each pass. Using up room air is the tempting swap, confusing what the heater's flame does with what the gas does once breathed.

A portable extinguisher is checked once a month. The inspector confirms that it hangs in its assigned place, that the seal and pin are intact, that the gauge needle stands in the green band, and that the nameplate is legible. He records the date and his initials on the tag. Anything failing one of these checks goes to the service contractor, and a spare takes its place on the bracket. The tone of the passage is best described as:

• a.cautionary and alarmed
• b.plain and matter-of-fact✓
• c.admiring of the procedure
• d.impatient with the routine

Every verb is flat and procedural: the inspector 'confirms,' 'records,' and a failed unit 'goes to the service contractor.' Nothing warns of consequence and nothing praises the routine. Reading it as cautionary imports an alarm the wording never supplies, which is the usual way a tone item is missed.

The Pony Express carried mail across the western territories in ten days, a speed no stagecoach could match, and it did so for eighteen months. Two days after the transcontinental telegraph line was completed, the company announced that the service would stop. Its riders and relay stations had always cost far more than the postage ever brought in. What the company had really been selling was time. It can be inferred from the passage that the service ended when it did because:

• a.what it sold could now be had faster✓
• b.the stage lines had finally driven it out
• c.its costs had finally caught up with it
• d.its riders would not work for the pay

Two facts sit side by side: the announcement came 'two days after' the telegraph was finished, and what the company sold 'was time.' The telegraph moved a message faster, so the product was gone. Cost is the trap, since the passage says the losses had 'always' been there and so cannot explain the timing.

A cook who wants a thicker, more concentrated sauce will reduce it. The pan is left uncovered over steady heat and the water in the sauce leaves as steam. Nothing is added. What remains is the same flavor in a smaller volume, which is why a reduced sauce tastes sharper and why salt should be judged at the end of the process rather than at the beginning. As used in the passage, 'reduce' most nearly means:

• a.lower the price charged
• b.simmer away the water✓
• c.cut into smaller parts
• d.weaken it by adding water

The passage spells the process out: the pan stays uncovered, 'the water in the sauce leaves as steam,' and 'nothing is added.' That last clause rules out diluting. The familiar senses of making something less or cheaper point the wrong way here, because the volume falls while the flavor grows stronger.

Evidence taken from a scene is sealed in a bag, and the label carries the collector's name, the date and the time. Everyone who handles the bag afterward signs the label and records when it passed to them. Opening the bag for testing is allowed, so long as whoever opens it reseals the bag and signs across the new seal. What a court will not accept is a stretch of time with no signature for it, because at that point nobody can say where the bag was. According to the passage, a court refuses the evidence when:

• a.the test uses up part of what was collected
• b.the bag passes through several hands
• c.a stretch of time carries no signature✓
• d.the bag is opened for laboratory testing

The passage names one failure and only one: a span of time with no signature for it, after which nobody can say where the bag was. Opening the bag for a test is allowed when the opener reseals and signs, and a long list of handlers is what the label is for rather than a defect in it.

Before electronic machines, the tables that ships and gunners depended on were worked out by rooms of people, most of them women, doing long arithmetic by hand. Each value was computed twice by different workers and the two results compared. An error in the fifth decimal place could put a shell in the wrong field. The work ran for years at a stretch, page after page, with no prospect that anyone outside the room would read a name. The writer's attitude toward these workers is best described as:

• a.indifferent to what the work cost
• b.amused by their outdated methods
• c.appreciative of work never recognized✓
• d.sorrowful over a great wrong

The writer chooses details that show care and anonymity: each value 'computed twice by different workers,' the work running 'page after page,' and nobody outside ever reading a name. Grief over a great wrong is a notch too strong, since the passage states the anonymity plainly and calls it no one's fault.