Analyze complex sets of ideas or sequences: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.3 - AP English Language and Composition
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Adapted from “Federalist No.19” in The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (1788)
Among the confederacies of antiquity, the most considerable was that of the Grecian republics, associated under the Amphictyonic council. From the best accounts transmitted of this celebrated institution, it bore a very instructive analogy to the present Confederation of the American States. The members retained the character of independent and sovereign states, and had equal votes in the federal council. This council had a general authority to propose and resolve whatever it judged necessary for the common welfare of Greece; to declare and carry on war; to decide, in the last resort, all controversies between the members; to fine the aggressing party; to employ the whole force of the confederacy against the disobedient; and to admit new members.
The Amphictyons were the guardians of religion, and of the immense riches belonging to the temple of Delphos, where they had the right of jurisdiction in controversies between the inhabitants and those who came to consult the oracle. As a further provision for the efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath, and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple.
In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers seems amply sufficient for all general purposes. In several material instances, they exceed the powers enumerated in the Articles of Confederation. The Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition of the times, one of the principal engines by which government was then maintained; they had a declared authority to use coercion against refractory cities, and were bound by oath to exert this authority on the necessary occasions.
Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory. The powers, like those of the present Congress, were administered by deputies appointed wholly by the cities in their political capacities, and exercised over them in the same capacities. Hence the weakness, the disorders, and finally the destruction of the confederacy. The more powerful members, instead of being kept in awe and subordination, tyrannized successively over all the rest. Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the arbiter of Greece seventy-three years. The Lacedaemonians next governed it twenty-nine years; at a subsequent period, after the battle of Leuctra, the Thebans had their turn of domination. It happened but too often, according to Plutarch, that the deputies of the strongest cities awed and corrupted those of the weaker; and that judgment went in favor of the most powerful party. Even in the midst of defensive and dangerous wars with Persia and Macedon, the members never acted in concert, and were, more or fewer of them, eternally the dupes or the hirelings of the common enemy. The intervals of foreign war were filled up by domestic vicissitudes, convulsions, and carnage.
After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it appears that the Lacedaemonians required that a number of the cities should be turned out of the confederacy for the unfaithful part they had acted. The Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer partisans by such a measure than themselves, and would become masters of the public deliberations, vigorously opposed and defeated the attempt. This piece of history proves at once the inefficiency of the union, the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest. The smaller members, though entitled by the theory of their system to revolve in equal pride and majesty around the common center, had become, in fact, satellites of the orbs of primary magnitude.
Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise as they were courageous, they would have been admonished by experience of the necessity of a closer union, and would have availed themselves of the peace which followed their success against the Persian arms to establish such a reformation. Instead of this obvious policy, Athens and Sparta, inflated with the victories and the glory they had acquired, became first rivals and then enemies, and did each other infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes. Their mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and injuries ended in the celebrated Peloponnesian war, which itself ended in the ruin and slavery of the Athenians who had begun it.
What key rhetorical contrast does the author use to structure his discussion of the Amphictyons?
Adapted from “Federalist No.19” in The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (1788)
Among the confederacies of antiquity, the most considerable was that of the Grecian republics, associated under the Amphictyonic council. From the best accounts transmitted of this celebrated institution, it bore a very instructive analogy to the present Confederation of the American States. The members retained the character of independent and sovereign states, and had equal votes in the federal council. This council had a general authority to propose and resolve whatever it judged necessary for the common welfare of Greece; to declare and carry on war; to decide, in the last resort, all controversies between the members; to fine the aggressing party; to employ the whole force of the confederacy against the disobedient; and to admit new members.
The Amphictyons were the guardians of religion, and of the immense riches belonging to the temple of Delphos, where they had the right of jurisdiction in controversies between the inhabitants and those who came to consult the oracle. As a further provision for the efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath, and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple.
In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers seems amply sufficient for all general purposes. In several material instances, they exceed the powers enumerated in the Articles of Confederation. The Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition of the times, one of the principal engines by which government was then maintained; they had a declared authority to use coercion against refractory cities, and were bound by oath to exert this authority on the necessary occasions.
Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory. The powers, like those of the present Congress, were administered by deputies appointed wholly by the cities in their political capacities, and exercised over them in the same capacities. Hence the weakness, the disorders, and finally the destruction of the confederacy. The more powerful members, instead of being kept in awe and subordination, tyrannized successively over all the rest. Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the arbiter of Greece seventy-three years. The Lacedaemonians next governed it twenty-nine years; at a subsequent period, after the battle of Leuctra, the Thebans had their turn of domination. It happened but too often, according to Plutarch, that the deputies of the strongest cities awed and corrupted those of the weaker; and that judgment went in favor of the most powerful party. Even in the midst of defensive and dangerous wars with Persia and Macedon, the members never acted in concert, and were, more or fewer of them, eternally the dupes or the hirelings of the common enemy. The intervals of foreign war were filled up by domestic vicissitudes, convulsions, and carnage.
After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it appears that the Lacedaemonians required that a number of the cities should be turned out of the confederacy for the unfaithful part they had acted. The Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer partisans by such a measure than themselves, and would become masters of the public deliberations, vigorously opposed and defeated the attempt. This piece of history proves at once the inefficiency of the union, the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest. The smaller members, though entitled by the theory of their system to revolve in equal pride and majesty around the common center, had become, in fact, satellites of the orbs of primary magnitude.
Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise as they were courageous, they would have been admonished by experience of the necessity of a closer union, and would have availed themselves of the peace which followed their success against the Persian arms to establish such a reformation. Instead of this obvious policy, Athens and Sparta, inflated with the victories and the glory they had acquired, became first rivals and then enemies, and did each other infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes. Their mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and injuries ended in the celebrated Peloponnesian war, which itself ended in the ruin and slavery of the Athenians who had begun it.
What key rhetorical contrast does the author use to structure his discussion of the Amphictyons?
This question is interrogating the reader's ability to recognize stylistic and rhetorical features within a passage. Now, the question asks you which rhetorical contrast is used to structure the analogical example of the Amphictyons, and here an understanding of the nature of rhetorical structures can help you. Two of the answer choices discuss contrasts between the Amphictyons and other cultures, Americans and Persians, which is inherently a weaker, less rhetorically effective structure. Since, the discussion of the Greek republics is being used as a "very instructive analogy," it makes sense to look past a literal (and almost certainly oversimplified) direct contrast between the whole of one culture and the whole of another. Analogies are metaphorical tools, and so it makes sense that the contrast structuring the example of the Amphictyons would not be so strictly literal, that it would relate to a larger thematic concept with a direct application to the contemporary climate of American political thinking to which the author is contributing.
So, we are left with two options: a contrast between theory and practice and a contrast between religious and secular law-making. The Amphictyons are said to have been "the guardians of religion," and a good deal of their political power is said to be dependent on and devoted to their ability to "inflict vengeance on the sacrilegious despoilers of the temple" they are charged with protecting. Now, if we were being extremely hasty, we might rush right into making a choice, but how wrong we would be. In order for a contrast to be in play we must also see evidence of the other end of this spectrum, secular law-making. The description of the Amphictyons makes no mention of any kind of secularity, so the contrast cannot exist, as we cannot find evidence to support one end of that contrast.
Also, there is ample evidence to support all elements of the correct answer. The author tells us that "In theory, and upon paper this apparatus seems amply sufficient," implying with the use of seems that it is not. The rest of the example then demonstrates how "very different \[...\] was the experiment from the theory." Here, "experiment" is being used to mean "practice." This answer is also the best as it presents the clearest allegorical lesson for the political thinkers of the United States, in setting down the laws of a nation they must be careful to attend to the practical realities of ruling and the cooperation of different regions and levels of government, not just the theoretical side of law-making.
This question is interrogating the reader's ability to recognize stylistic and rhetorical features within a passage. Now, the question asks you which rhetorical contrast is used to structure the analogical example of the Amphictyons, and here an understanding of the nature of rhetorical structures can help you. Two of the answer choices discuss contrasts between the Amphictyons and other cultures, Americans and Persians, which is inherently a weaker, less rhetorically effective structure. Since, the discussion of the Greek republics is being used as a "very instructive analogy," it makes sense to look past a literal (and almost certainly oversimplified) direct contrast between the whole of one culture and the whole of another. Analogies are metaphorical tools, and so it makes sense that the contrast structuring the example of the Amphictyons would not be so strictly literal, that it would relate to a larger thematic concept with a direct application to the contemporary climate of American political thinking to which the author is contributing.
So, we are left with two options: a contrast between theory and practice and a contrast between religious and secular law-making. The Amphictyons are said to have been "the guardians of religion," and a good deal of their political power is said to be dependent on and devoted to their ability to "inflict vengeance on the sacrilegious despoilers of the temple" they are charged with protecting. Now, if we were being extremely hasty, we might rush right into making a choice, but how wrong we would be. In order for a contrast to be in play we must also see evidence of the other end of this spectrum, secular law-making. The description of the Amphictyons makes no mention of any kind of secularity, so the contrast cannot exist, as we cannot find evidence to support one end of that contrast.
Also, there is ample evidence to support all elements of the correct answer. The author tells us that "In theory, and upon paper this apparatus seems amply sufficient," implying with the use of seems that it is not. The rest of the example then demonstrates how "very different \[...\] was the experiment from the theory." Here, "experiment" is being used to mean "practice." This answer is also the best as it presents the clearest allegorical lesson for the political thinkers of the United States, in setting down the laws of a nation they must be careful to attend to the practical realities of ruling and the cooperation of different regions and levels of government, not just the theoretical side of law-making.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Adapted from the First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson (March 4th, 1801)
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.
But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
What is the relationship between the first and second paragraphs?
Adapted from the First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson (March 4th, 1801)
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.
But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
What is the relationship between the first and second paragraphs?
This question interrogates your literal understanding of the content of the text, while also querying your ability to understand the ways in which different parts of the text relate to one another in terms of sequence. First, let's establish the subject and purpose of the opening paragraph. Right away, you should get the sense that the option that suggests that the function of this paragraph is to "introduce the speaker as a figure of authority" is inaccurate or, at least, not the strongest interpretation. The focus of this passage is on the "contest of opinion through which we have passed" as a nation. By including himself in the group of his listeners with "we" the author is seeking to do the opposite of introducing himself as of authority over his audience. He is seeking common ground with his listeners, not seeking to establish his individual ability or authority to rule over them.
The key phrase to solve this question can be found at the very opening of the second paragraph, where Jefferson's use of the the imperative ("Let us") acts as a clear signal that he is proposing action, and the method by which he and his audience can resolve the various "contest\[s\] of opinion" that have led to the division of society he is describing. The "solution" he proposes is found in the very actions he exhorts of his listeners.
This question interrogates your literal understanding of the content of the text, while also querying your ability to understand the ways in which different parts of the text relate to one another in terms of sequence. First, let's establish the subject and purpose of the opening paragraph. Right away, you should get the sense that the option that suggests that the function of this paragraph is to "introduce the speaker as a figure of authority" is inaccurate or, at least, not the strongest interpretation. The focus of this passage is on the "contest of opinion through which we have passed" as a nation. By including himself in the group of his listeners with "we" the author is seeking to do the opposite of introducing himself as of authority over his audience. He is seeking common ground with his listeners, not seeking to establish his individual ability or authority to rule over them.
The key phrase to solve this question can be found at the very opening of the second paragraph, where Jefferson's use of the the imperative ("Let us") acts as a clear signal that he is proposing action, and the method by which he and his audience can resolve the various "contest\[s\] of opinion" that have led to the division of society he is describing. The "solution" he proposes is found in the very actions he exhorts of his listeners.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Adapted from “Geographical Evolution” by Archibald Geikie (1879)
In the quaint preface to his Navigations and Voyages of the English Nation, Hakluyt calls geography and chronology "the sunne and moone, the right eye and the left of all history." The position thus claimed for geography three hundred years ago by the great English chronicler was not accorded by his successors, and has hardly been admitted even now. The functions of the geographer and the traveller, popularly assumed to be identical, have been supposed to consist in descriptions of foreign countries, their climate, productions, and inhabitants, bristling on the one hand with dry statistics, and relieved on the other by as copious an introduction as may be of stirring adventure and personal anecdote. There has indeed been much to justify this popular assumption. It was not until the key-note of its future progress was struck by Karl Ritter, within the present century, that geography advanced beyond the domain of travellers' tales and desultory observation into that of orderly, methodical, scientific progress. This branch of inquiry, however, is now no longer the pursuit of mere numerical statistics, nor the chronicle of marvelous and often questionable adventures by flood and fell. It seeks to present a luminous picture of the earth's surface, its various forms of configuration, its continents, islands, and oceans, its mountains, valleys, and plains, its rivers and lakes, its climates, plants, and animals. It thus endeavours to produce a picture which shall not be one of mere topographical detail. It ever looks for a connection between scattered facts, tries to ascertain the relations which subsist between the different parts of the globe, their reactions on each other and the function of each in the general economy of the whole. Modern geography studies the distribution of vegetable and animal life over the earth's surface, with the action and reaction between it and the surrounding inorganic world. It traces how man, alike unconsciously and knowingly, has changed the face of nature, and how, on the other hand, the conditions of his geographical environment have moulded his own progress.
With these broad aims geography comes frankly for assistance to many different branches of science. It does not, however, claim in any measure to occupy their domain. It brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient; for it demands first of all to know how the problems to be solved bear upon the position and history of man and of this marvelously-ordered world wherein he finds himself undisputed lord. Geography freely borrows from meteorology, physics, chemistry, geology, zoology, and botany; but the debt is not all on one side. Save for the impetus derived from geographical research, many of these sciences would not be in their present advanced condition. They gain in vast augmentation of facts, and may cheerfully lend their aid in correlating these for geographical requirements.
In no respect does modern geography stand out more prominently than in the increased precision and fullness of its work. It has fitted out exploratory expeditions, and in so doing has been careful to see them provided with the instruments and apparatus necessary to enable them to contribute accurate and definite results. It has guided and fostered research, and has been eager to show a generous appreciation of the labours of those by whom our knowledge of the earth has been extended. Human courage and endurance are not less enthusiastically applauded than they once were; but they must be united to no common powers of observation before they will now raise a traveller to the highest rank. When we read a volume of recent travel, while warmly appreciating the spirit of adventure, fertility of resource, presence of mind, and other moral qualities of its author, we instinctively ask ourselves, as we close its pages, what is the sum of its additions to our knowledge of the earth? From the geographical point of view - and it is to this point alone that these remarks apply - we must rank an explorer according to his success in widening our knowledge and enlarging our views regarding the aspects of nature.
The demands of modern geography are thus becoming every year more exacting. It requires more training in its explorers abroad, more knowledge on the part of its readers at home. The days are drawing to a close when one can gain undying geographical renown by struggling against man and beast, fever and hunger and drought, across some savage and previously unknown region, even though little can be shown as the outcome of the journey. All honour to the pioneers by whom this first exploratory work has been so nobly done! They will be succeeded by a race that will find its laurels more difficult to win - a race from which more will be expected, and which will need to make up in the variety, amount, and value of its detail, what it lacks in the freshness of first glimpses into new lands.
What is the relationship between geography and other sciences outlined in the second paragraph?
Adapted from “Geographical Evolution” by Archibald Geikie (1879)
In the quaint preface to his Navigations and Voyages of the English Nation, Hakluyt calls geography and chronology "the sunne and moone, the right eye and the left of all history." The position thus claimed for geography three hundred years ago by the great English chronicler was not accorded by his successors, and has hardly been admitted even now. The functions of the geographer and the traveller, popularly assumed to be identical, have been supposed to consist in descriptions of foreign countries, their climate, productions, and inhabitants, bristling on the one hand with dry statistics, and relieved on the other by as copious an introduction as may be of stirring adventure and personal anecdote. There has indeed been much to justify this popular assumption. It was not until the key-note of its future progress was struck by Karl Ritter, within the present century, that geography advanced beyond the domain of travellers' tales and desultory observation into that of orderly, methodical, scientific progress. This branch of inquiry, however, is now no longer the pursuit of mere numerical statistics, nor the chronicle of marvelous and often questionable adventures by flood and fell. It seeks to present a luminous picture of the earth's surface, its various forms of configuration, its continents, islands, and oceans, its mountains, valleys, and plains, its rivers and lakes, its climates, plants, and animals. It thus endeavours to produce a picture which shall not be one of mere topographical detail. It ever looks for a connection between scattered facts, tries to ascertain the relations which subsist between the different parts of the globe, their reactions on each other and the function of each in the general economy of the whole. Modern geography studies the distribution of vegetable and animal life over the earth's surface, with the action and reaction between it and the surrounding inorganic world. It traces how man, alike unconsciously and knowingly, has changed the face of nature, and how, on the other hand, the conditions of his geographical environment have moulded his own progress.
With these broad aims geography comes frankly for assistance to many different branches of science. It does not, however, claim in any measure to occupy their domain. It brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient; for it demands first of all to know how the problems to be solved bear upon the position and history of man and of this marvelously-ordered world wherein he finds himself undisputed lord. Geography freely borrows from meteorology, physics, chemistry, geology, zoology, and botany; but the debt is not all on one side. Save for the impetus derived from geographical research, many of these sciences would not be in their present advanced condition. They gain in vast augmentation of facts, and may cheerfully lend their aid in correlating these for geographical requirements.
In no respect does modern geography stand out more prominently than in the increased precision and fullness of its work. It has fitted out exploratory expeditions, and in so doing has been careful to see them provided with the instruments and apparatus necessary to enable them to contribute accurate and definite results. It has guided and fostered research, and has been eager to show a generous appreciation of the labours of those by whom our knowledge of the earth has been extended. Human courage and endurance are not less enthusiastically applauded than they once were; but they must be united to no common powers of observation before they will now raise a traveller to the highest rank. When we read a volume of recent travel, while warmly appreciating the spirit of adventure, fertility of resource, presence of mind, and other moral qualities of its author, we instinctively ask ourselves, as we close its pages, what is the sum of its additions to our knowledge of the earth? From the geographical point of view - and it is to this point alone that these remarks apply - we must rank an explorer according to his success in widening our knowledge and enlarging our views regarding the aspects of nature.
The demands of modern geography are thus becoming every year more exacting. It requires more training in its explorers abroad, more knowledge on the part of its readers at home. The days are drawing to a close when one can gain undying geographical renown by struggling against man and beast, fever and hunger and drought, across some savage and previously unknown region, even though little can be shown as the outcome of the journey. All honour to the pioneers by whom this first exploratory work has been so nobly done! They will be succeeded by a race that will find its laurels more difficult to win - a race from which more will be expected, and which will need to make up in the variety, amount, and value of its detail, what it lacks in the freshness of first glimpses into new lands.
What is the relationship between geography and other sciences outlined in the second paragraph?
Here, you are being asked to correctly identify the relationship between two ideas in a specific paragraph of the text. Note that for this question, you are restricted to the content of the second paragraph.
The first answer that we can safely and easily eliminate is the one that claims a "direct and adversarial relationship" between the fields. The second sentence of the paragraph specifically tells us that geography "does not, however, claim to occupy \[the sciences'\] domain."
Now, the answer that claim that, although they overlap in subject matter, the fields are unrelated is also dismissible, since we've just read an entire paragraph talking about the ways in which they are, in fact, related.
So, having eliminated these options, we are left to decide if the relationship is characterized as mutually beneficial or one-sided in favor of the geographers. The first sentence of the paragraph asserts geography's debt to "many different branches of science," but later the argument is made that geography "brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient, thereby filling a gap and bringing their own contribution to science. The relationship, then, is characterized as mutually beneficial.
Here, you are being asked to correctly identify the relationship between two ideas in a specific paragraph of the text. Note that for this question, you are restricted to the content of the second paragraph.
The first answer that we can safely and easily eliminate is the one that claims a "direct and adversarial relationship" between the fields. The second sentence of the paragraph specifically tells us that geography "does not, however, claim to occupy \[the sciences'\] domain."
Now, the answer that claim that, although they overlap in subject matter, the fields are unrelated is also dismissible, since we've just read an entire paragraph talking about the ways in which they are, in fact, related.
So, having eliminated these options, we are left to decide if the relationship is characterized as mutually beneficial or one-sided in favor of the geographers. The first sentence of the paragraph asserts geography's debt to "many different branches of science," but later the argument is made that geography "brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient, thereby filling a gap and bringing their own contribution to science. The relationship, then, is characterized as mutually beneficial.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Adapted from “Federalist No.19” in The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (1788)
Among the confederacies of antiquity, the most considerable was that of the Grecian republics, associated under the Amphictyonic council. From the best accounts transmitted of this celebrated institution, it bore a very instructive analogy to the present Confederation of the American States. The members retained the character of independent and sovereign states, and had equal votes in the federal council. This council had a general authority to propose and resolve whatever it judged necessary for the common welfare of Greece; to declare and carry on war; to decide, in the last resort, all controversies between the members; to fine the aggressing party; to employ the whole force of the confederacy against the disobedient; and to admit new members.
The Amphictyons were the guardians of religion, and of the immense riches belonging to the temple of Delphos, where they had the right of jurisdiction in controversies between the inhabitants and those who came to consult the oracle. As a further provision for the efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath, and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple.
In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers seems amply sufficient for all general purposes. In several material instances, they exceed the powers enumerated in the Articles of Confederation. The Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition of the times, one of the principal engines by which government was then maintained; they had a declared authority to use coercion against refractory cities, and were bound by oath to exert this authority on the necessary occasions.
Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory. The powers, like those of the present Congress, were administered by deputies appointed wholly by the cities in their political capacities, and exercised over them in the same capacities. Hence the weakness, the disorders, and finally the destruction of the confederacy. The more powerful members, instead of being kept in awe and subordination, tyrannized successively over all the rest. Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the arbiter of Greece seventy-three years. The Lacedaemonians next governed it twenty-nine years; at a subsequent period, after the battle of Leuctra, the Thebans had their turn of domination. It happened but too often, according to Plutarch, that the deputies of the strongest cities awed and corrupted those of the weaker; and that judgment went in favor of the most powerful party. Even in the midst of defensive and dangerous wars with Persia and Macedon, the members never acted in concert, and were, more or fewer of them, eternally the dupes or the hirelings of the common enemy. The intervals of foreign war were filled up by domestic vicissitudes, convulsions, and carnage.
After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it appears that the Lacedaemonians required that a number of the cities should be turned out of the confederacy for the unfaithful part they had acted. The Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer partisans by such a measure than themselves, and would become masters of the public deliberations, vigorously opposed and defeated the attempt. This piece of history proves at once the inefficiency of the union, the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest. The smaller members, though entitled by the theory of their system to revolve in equal pride and majesty around the common center, had become, in fact, satellites of the orbs of primary magnitude.
Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise as they were courageous, they would have been admonished by experience of the necessity of a closer union, and would have availed themselves of the peace which followed their success against the Persian arms to establish such a reformation. Instead of this obvious policy, Athens and Sparta, inflated with the victories and the glory they had acquired, became first rivals and then enemies, and did each other infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes. Their mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and injuries ended in the celebrated Peloponnesian war, which itself ended in the ruin and slavery of the Athenians who had begun it.
What key rhetorical contrast does the author use to structure his discussion of the Amphictyons?
Adapted from “Federalist No.19” in The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (1788)
Among the confederacies of antiquity, the most considerable was that of the Grecian republics, associated under the Amphictyonic council. From the best accounts transmitted of this celebrated institution, it bore a very instructive analogy to the present Confederation of the American States. The members retained the character of independent and sovereign states, and had equal votes in the federal council. This council had a general authority to propose and resolve whatever it judged necessary for the common welfare of Greece; to declare and carry on war; to decide, in the last resort, all controversies between the members; to fine the aggressing party; to employ the whole force of the confederacy against the disobedient; and to admit new members.
The Amphictyons were the guardians of religion, and of the immense riches belonging to the temple of Delphos, where they had the right of jurisdiction in controversies between the inhabitants and those who came to consult the oracle. As a further provision for the efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath, and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple.
In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers seems amply sufficient for all general purposes. In several material instances, they exceed the powers enumerated in the Articles of Confederation. The Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition of the times, one of the principal engines by which government was then maintained; they had a declared authority to use coercion against refractory cities, and were bound by oath to exert this authority on the necessary occasions.
Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory. The powers, like those of the present Congress, were administered by deputies appointed wholly by the cities in their political capacities, and exercised over them in the same capacities. Hence the weakness, the disorders, and finally the destruction of the confederacy. The more powerful members, instead of being kept in awe and subordination, tyrannized successively over all the rest. Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the arbiter of Greece seventy-three years. The Lacedaemonians next governed it twenty-nine years; at a subsequent period, after the battle of Leuctra, the Thebans had their turn of domination. It happened but too often, according to Plutarch, that the deputies of the strongest cities awed and corrupted those of the weaker; and that judgment went in favor of the most powerful party. Even in the midst of defensive and dangerous wars with Persia and Macedon, the members never acted in concert, and were, more or fewer of them, eternally the dupes or the hirelings of the common enemy. The intervals of foreign war were filled up by domestic vicissitudes, convulsions, and carnage.
After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it appears that the Lacedaemonians required that a number of the cities should be turned out of the confederacy for the unfaithful part they had acted. The Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer partisans by such a measure than themselves, and would become masters of the public deliberations, vigorously opposed and defeated the attempt. This piece of history proves at once the inefficiency of the union, the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest. The smaller members, though entitled by the theory of their system to revolve in equal pride and majesty around the common center, had become, in fact, satellites of the orbs of primary magnitude.
Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise as they were courageous, they would have been admonished by experience of the necessity of a closer union, and would have availed themselves of the peace which followed their success against the Persian arms to establish such a reformation. Instead of this obvious policy, Athens and Sparta, inflated with the victories and the glory they had acquired, became first rivals and then enemies, and did each other infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes. Their mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and injuries ended in the celebrated Peloponnesian war, which itself ended in the ruin and slavery of the Athenians who had begun it.
What key rhetorical contrast does the author use to structure his discussion of the Amphictyons?
This question is interrogating the reader's ability to recognize stylistic and rhetorical features within a passage. Now, the question asks you which rhetorical contrast is used to structure the analogical example of the Amphictyons, and here an understanding of the nature of rhetorical structures can help you. Two of the answer choices discuss contrasts between the Amphictyons and other cultures, Americans and Persians, which is inherently a weaker, less rhetorically effective structure. Since, the discussion of the Greek republics is being used as a "very instructive analogy," it makes sense to look past a literal (and almost certainly oversimplified) direct contrast between the whole of one culture and the whole of another. Analogies are metaphorical tools, and so it makes sense that the contrast structuring the example of the Amphictyons would not be so strictly literal, that it would relate to a larger thematic concept with a direct application to the contemporary climate of American political thinking to which the author is contributing.
So, we are left with two options: a contrast between theory and practice and a contrast between religious and secular law-making. The Amphictyons are said to have been "the guardians of religion," and a good deal of their political power is said to be dependent on and devoted to their ability to "inflict vengeance on the sacrilegious despoilers of the temple" they are charged with protecting. Now, if we were being extremely hasty, we might rush right into making a choice, but how wrong we would be. In order for a contrast to be in play we must also see evidence of the other end of this spectrum, secular law-making. The description of the Amphictyons makes no mention of any kind of secularity, so the contrast cannot exist, as we cannot find evidence to support one end of that contrast.
Also, there is ample evidence to support all elements of the correct answer. The author tells us that "In theory, and upon paper this apparatus seems amply sufficient," implying with the use of seems that it is not. The rest of the example then demonstrates how "very different \[...\] was the experiment from the theory." Here, "experiment" is being used to mean "practice." This answer is also the best as it presents the clearest allegorical lesson for the political thinkers of the United States, in setting down the laws of a nation they must be careful to attend to the practical realities of ruling and the cooperation of different regions and levels of government, not just the theoretical side of law-making.
This question is interrogating the reader's ability to recognize stylistic and rhetorical features within a passage. Now, the question asks you which rhetorical contrast is used to structure the analogical example of the Amphictyons, and here an understanding of the nature of rhetorical structures can help you. Two of the answer choices discuss contrasts between the Amphictyons and other cultures, Americans and Persians, which is inherently a weaker, less rhetorically effective structure. Since, the discussion of the Greek republics is being used as a "very instructive analogy," it makes sense to look past a literal (and almost certainly oversimplified) direct contrast between the whole of one culture and the whole of another. Analogies are metaphorical tools, and so it makes sense that the contrast structuring the example of the Amphictyons would not be so strictly literal, that it would relate to a larger thematic concept with a direct application to the contemporary climate of American political thinking to which the author is contributing.
So, we are left with two options: a contrast between theory and practice and a contrast between religious and secular law-making. The Amphictyons are said to have been "the guardians of religion," and a good deal of their political power is said to be dependent on and devoted to their ability to "inflict vengeance on the sacrilegious despoilers of the temple" they are charged with protecting. Now, if we were being extremely hasty, we might rush right into making a choice, but how wrong we would be. In order for a contrast to be in play we must also see evidence of the other end of this spectrum, secular law-making. The description of the Amphictyons makes no mention of any kind of secularity, so the contrast cannot exist, as we cannot find evidence to support one end of that contrast.
Also, there is ample evidence to support all elements of the correct answer. The author tells us that "In theory, and upon paper this apparatus seems amply sufficient," implying with the use of seems that it is not. The rest of the example then demonstrates how "very different \[...\] was the experiment from the theory." Here, "experiment" is being used to mean "practice." This answer is also the best as it presents the clearest allegorical lesson for the political thinkers of the United States, in setting down the laws of a nation they must be careful to attend to the practical realities of ruling and the cooperation of different regions and levels of government, not just the theoretical side of law-making.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Adapted from the First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson (March 4th, 1801)
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.
But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
What is the relationship between the first and second paragraphs?
Adapted from the First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson (March 4th, 1801)
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.
But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
What is the relationship between the first and second paragraphs?
This question interrogates your literal understanding of the content of the text, while also querying your ability to understand the ways in which different parts of the text relate to one another in terms of sequence. First, let's establish the subject and purpose of the opening paragraph. Right away, you should get the sense that the option that suggests that the function of this paragraph is to "introduce the speaker as a figure of authority" is inaccurate or, at least, not the strongest interpretation. The focus of this passage is on the "contest of opinion through which we have passed" as a nation. By including himself in the group of his listeners with "we" the author is seeking to do the opposite of introducing himself as of authority over his audience. He is seeking common ground with his listeners, not seeking to establish his individual ability or authority to rule over them.
The key phrase to solve this question can be found at the very opening of the second paragraph, where Jefferson's use of the the imperative ("Let us") acts as a clear signal that he is proposing action, and the method by which he and his audience can resolve the various "contest\[s\] of opinion" that have led to the division of society he is describing. The "solution" he proposes is found in the very actions he exhorts of his listeners.
This question interrogates your literal understanding of the content of the text, while also querying your ability to understand the ways in which different parts of the text relate to one another in terms of sequence. First, let's establish the subject and purpose of the opening paragraph. Right away, you should get the sense that the option that suggests that the function of this paragraph is to "introduce the speaker as a figure of authority" is inaccurate or, at least, not the strongest interpretation. The focus of this passage is on the "contest of opinion through which we have passed" as a nation. By including himself in the group of his listeners with "we" the author is seeking to do the opposite of introducing himself as of authority over his audience. He is seeking common ground with his listeners, not seeking to establish his individual ability or authority to rule over them.
The key phrase to solve this question can be found at the very opening of the second paragraph, where Jefferson's use of the the imperative ("Let us") acts as a clear signal that he is proposing action, and the method by which he and his audience can resolve the various "contest\[s\] of opinion" that have led to the division of society he is describing. The "solution" he proposes is found in the very actions he exhorts of his listeners.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Adapted from “Geographical Evolution” by Archibald Geikie (1879)
In the quaint preface to his Navigations and Voyages of the English Nation, Hakluyt calls geography and chronology "the sunne and moone, the right eye and the left of all history." The position thus claimed for geography three hundred years ago by the great English chronicler was not accorded by his successors, and has hardly been admitted even now. The functions of the geographer and the traveller, popularly assumed to be identical, have been supposed to consist in descriptions of foreign countries, their climate, productions, and inhabitants, bristling on the one hand with dry statistics, and relieved on the other by as copious an introduction as may be of stirring adventure and personal anecdote. There has indeed been much to justify this popular assumption. It was not until the key-note of its future progress was struck by Karl Ritter, within the present century, that geography advanced beyond the domain of travellers' tales and desultory observation into that of orderly, methodical, scientific progress. This branch of inquiry, however, is now no longer the pursuit of mere numerical statistics, nor the chronicle of marvelous and often questionable adventures by flood and fell. It seeks to present a luminous picture of the earth's surface, its various forms of configuration, its continents, islands, and oceans, its mountains, valleys, and plains, its rivers and lakes, its climates, plants, and animals. It thus endeavours to produce a picture which shall not be one of mere topographical detail. It ever looks for a connection between scattered facts, tries to ascertain the relations which subsist between the different parts of the globe, their reactions on each other and the function of each in the general economy of the whole. Modern geography studies the distribution of vegetable and animal life over the earth's surface, with the action and reaction between it and the surrounding inorganic world. It traces how man, alike unconsciously and knowingly, has changed the face of nature, and how, on the other hand, the conditions of his geographical environment have moulded his own progress.
With these broad aims geography comes frankly for assistance to many different branches of science. It does not, however, claim in any measure to occupy their domain. It brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient; for it demands first of all to know how the problems to be solved bear upon the position and history of man and of this marvelously-ordered world wherein he finds himself undisputed lord. Geography freely borrows from meteorology, physics, chemistry, geology, zoology, and botany; but the debt is not all on one side. Save for the impetus derived from geographical research, many of these sciences would not be in their present advanced condition. They gain in vast augmentation of facts, and may cheerfully lend their aid in correlating these for geographical requirements.
In no respect does modern geography stand out more prominently than in the increased precision and fullness of its work. It has fitted out exploratory expeditions, and in so doing has been careful to see them provided with the instruments and apparatus necessary to enable them to contribute accurate and definite results. It has guided and fostered research, and has been eager to show a generous appreciation of the labours of those by whom our knowledge of the earth has been extended. Human courage and endurance are not less enthusiastically applauded than they once were; but they must be united to no common powers of observation before they will now raise a traveller to the highest rank. When we read a volume of recent travel, while warmly appreciating the spirit of adventure, fertility of resource, presence of mind, and other moral qualities of its author, we instinctively ask ourselves, as we close its pages, what is the sum of its additions to our knowledge of the earth? From the geographical point of view - and it is to this point alone that these remarks apply - we must rank an explorer according to his success in widening our knowledge and enlarging our views regarding the aspects of nature.
The demands of modern geography are thus becoming every year more exacting. It requires more training in its explorers abroad, more knowledge on the part of its readers at home. The days are drawing to a close when one can gain undying geographical renown by struggling against man and beast, fever and hunger and drought, across some savage and previously unknown region, even though little can be shown as the outcome of the journey. All honour to the pioneers by whom this first exploratory work has been so nobly done! They will be succeeded by a race that will find its laurels more difficult to win - a race from which more will be expected, and which will need to make up in the variety, amount, and value of its detail, what it lacks in the freshness of first glimpses into new lands.
What is the relationship between geography and other sciences outlined in the second paragraph?
Adapted from “Geographical Evolution” by Archibald Geikie (1879)
In the quaint preface to his Navigations and Voyages of the English Nation, Hakluyt calls geography and chronology "the sunne and moone, the right eye and the left of all history." The position thus claimed for geography three hundred years ago by the great English chronicler was not accorded by his successors, and has hardly been admitted even now. The functions of the geographer and the traveller, popularly assumed to be identical, have been supposed to consist in descriptions of foreign countries, their climate, productions, and inhabitants, bristling on the one hand with dry statistics, and relieved on the other by as copious an introduction as may be of stirring adventure and personal anecdote. There has indeed been much to justify this popular assumption. It was not until the key-note of its future progress was struck by Karl Ritter, within the present century, that geography advanced beyond the domain of travellers' tales and desultory observation into that of orderly, methodical, scientific progress. This branch of inquiry, however, is now no longer the pursuit of mere numerical statistics, nor the chronicle of marvelous and often questionable adventures by flood and fell. It seeks to present a luminous picture of the earth's surface, its various forms of configuration, its continents, islands, and oceans, its mountains, valleys, and plains, its rivers and lakes, its climates, plants, and animals. It thus endeavours to produce a picture which shall not be one of mere topographical detail. It ever looks for a connection between scattered facts, tries to ascertain the relations which subsist between the different parts of the globe, their reactions on each other and the function of each in the general economy of the whole. Modern geography studies the distribution of vegetable and animal life over the earth's surface, with the action and reaction between it and the surrounding inorganic world. It traces how man, alike unconsciously and knowingly, has changed the face of nature, and how, on the other hand, the conditions of his geographical environment have moulded his own progress.
With these broad aims geography comes frankly for assistance to many different branches of science. It does not, however, claim in any measure to occupy their domain. It brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient; for it demands first of all to know how the problems to be solved bear upon the position and history of man and of this marvelously-ordered world wherein he finds himself undisputed lord. Geography freely borrows from meteorology, physics, chemistry, geology, zoology, and botany; but the debt is not all on one side. Save for the impetus derived from geographical research, many of these sciences would not be in their present advanced condition. They gain in vast augmentation of facts, and may cheerfully lend their aid in correlating these for geographical requirements.
In no respect does modern geography stand out more prominently than in the increased precision and fullness of its work. It has fitted out exploratory expeditions, and in so doing has been careful to see them provided with the instruments and apparatus necessary to enable them to contribute accurate and definite results. It has guided and fostered research, and has been eager to show a generous appreciation of the labours of those by whom our knowledge of the earth has been extended. Human courage and endurance are not less enthusiastically applauded than they once were; but they must be united to no common powers of observation before they will now raise a traveller to the highest rank. When we read a volume of recent travel, while warmly appreciating the spirit of adventure, fertility of resource, presence of mind, and other moral qualities of its author, we instinctively ask ourselves, as we close its pages, what is the sum of its additions to our knowledge of the earth? From the geographical point of view - and it is to this point alone that these remarks apply - we must rank an explorer according to his success in widening our knowledge and enlarging our views regarding the aspects of nature.
The demands of modern geography are thus becoming every year more exacting. It requires more training in its explorers abroad, more knowledge on the part of its readers at home. The days are drawing to a close when one can gain undying geographical renown by struggling against man and beast, fever and hunger and drought, across some savage and previously unknown region, even though little can be shown as the outcome of the journey. All honour to the pioneers by whom this first exploratory work has been so nobly done! They will be succeeded by a race that will find its laurels more difficult to win - a race from which more will be expected, and which will need to make up in the variety, amount, and value of its detail, what it lacks in the freshness of first glimpses into new lands.
What is the relationship between geography and other sciences outlined in the second paragraph?
Here, you are being asked to correctly identify the relationship between two ideas in a specific paragraph of the text. Note that for this question, you are restricted to the content of the second paragraph.
The first answer that we can safely and easily eliminate is the one that claims a "direct and adversarial relationship" between the fields. The second sentence of the paragraph specifically tells us that geography "does not, however, claim to occupy \[the sciences'\] domain."
Now, the answer that claim that, although they overlap in subject matter, the fields are unrelated is also dismissible, since we've just read an entire paragraph talking about the ways in which they are, in fact, related.
So, having eliminated these options, we are left to decide if the relationship is characterized as mutually beneficial or one-sided in favor of the geographers. The first sentence of the paragraph asserts geography's debt to "many different branches of science," but later the argument is made that geography "brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient, thereby filling a gap and bringing their own contribution to science. The relationship, then, is characterized as mutually beneficial.
Here, you are being asked to correctly identify the relationship between two ideas in a specific paragraph of the text. Note that for this question, you are restricted to the content of the second paragraph.
The first answer that we can safely and easily eliminate is the one that claims a "direct and adversarial relationship" between the fields. The second sentence of the paragraph specifically tells us that geography "does not, however, claim to occupy \[the sciences'\] domain."
Now, the answer that claim that, although they overlap in subject matter, the fields are unrelated is also dismissible, since we've just read an entire paragraph talking about the ways in which they are, in fact, related.
So, having eliminated these options, we are left to decide if the relationship is characterized as mutually beneficial or one-sided in favor of the geographers. The first sentence of the paragraph asserts geography's debt to "many different branches of science," but later the argument is made that geography "brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient, thereby filling a gap and bringing their own contribution to science. The relationship, then, is characterized as mutually beneficial.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Adapted from “Federalist No.19” in The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (1788)
Among the confederacies of antiquity, the most considerable was that of the Grecian republics, associated under the Amphictyonic council. From the best accounts transmitted of this celebrated institution, it bore a very instructive analogy to the present Confederation of the American States. The members retained the character of independent and sovereign states, and had equal votes in the federal council. This council had a general authority to propose and resolve whatever it judged necessary for the common welfare of Greece; to declare and carry on war; to decide, in the last resort, all controversies between the members; to fine the aggressing party; to employ the whole force of the confederacy against the disobedient; and to admit new members.
The Amphictyons were the guardians of religion, and of the immense riches belonging to the temple of Delphos, where they had the right of jurisdiction in controversies between the inhabitants and those who came to consult the oracle. As a further provision for the efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath, and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple.
In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers seems amply sufficient for all general purposes. In several material instances, they exceed the powers enumerated in the Articles of Confederation. The Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition of the times, one of the principal engines by which government was then maintained; they had a declared authority to use coercion against refractory cities, and were bound by oath to exert this authority on the necessary occasions.
Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory. The powers, like those of the present Congress, were administered by deputies appointed wholly by the cities in their political capacities, and exercised over them in the same capacities. Hence the weakness, the disorders, and finally the destruction of the confederacy. The more powerful members, instead of being kept in awe and subordination, tyrannized successively over all the rest. Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the arbiter of Greece seventy-three years. The Lacedaemonians next governed it twenty-nine years; at a subsequent period, after the battle of Leuctra, the Thebans had their turn of domination. It happened but too often, according to Plutarch, that the deputies of the strongest cities awed and corrupted those of the weaker; and that judgment went in favor of the most powerful party. Even in the midst of defensive and dangerous wars with Persia and Macedon, the members never acted in concert, and were, more or fewer of them, eternally the dupes or the hirelings of the common enemy. The intervals of foreign war were filled up by domestic vicissitudes, convulsions, and carnage.
After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it appears that the Lacedaemonians required that a number of the cities should be turned out of the confederacy for the unfaithful part they had acted. The Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer partisans by such a measure than themselves, and would become masters of the public deliberations, vigorously opposed and defeated the attempt. This piece of history proves at once the inefficiency of the union, the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest. The smaller members, though entitled by the theory of their system to revolve in equal pride and majesty around the common center, had become, in fact, satellites of the orbs of primary magnitude.
Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise as they were courageous, they would have been admonished by experience of the necessity of a closer union, and would have availed themselves of the peace which followed their success against the Persian arms to establish such a reformation. Instead of this obvious policy, Athens and Sparta, inflated with the victories and the glory they had acquired, became first rivals and then enemies, and did each other infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes. Their mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and injuries ended in the celebrated Peloponnesian war, which itself ended in the ruin and slavery of the Athenians who had begun it.
What key rhetorical contrast does the author use to structure his discussion of the Amphictyons?
Adapted from “Federalist No.19” in The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (1788)
Among the confederacies of antiquity, the most considerable was that of the Grecian republics, associated under the Amphictyonic council. From the best accounts transmitted of this celebrated institution, it bore a very instructive analogy to the present Confederation of the American States. The members retained the character of independent and sovereign states, and had equal votes in the federal council. This council had a general authority to propose and resolve whatever it judged necessary for the common welfare of Greece; to declare and carry on war; to decide, in the last resort, all controversies between the members; to fine the aggressing party; to employ the whole force of the confederacy against the disobedient; and to admit new members.
The Amphictyons were the guardians of religion, and of the immense riches belonging to the temple of Delphos, where they had the right of jurisdiction in controversies between the inhabitants and those who came to consult the oracle. As a further provision for the efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath, and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple.
In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers seems amply sufficient for all general purposes. In several material instances, they exceed the powers enumerated in the Articles of Confederation. The Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition of the times, one of the principal engines by which government was then maintained; they had a declared authority to use coercion against refractory cities, and were bound by oath to exert this authority on the necessary occasions.
Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory. The powers, like those of the present Congress, were administered by deputies appointed wholly by the cities in their political capacities, and exercised over them in the same capacities. Hence the weakness, the disorders, and finally the destruction of the confederacy. The more powerful members, instead of being kept in awe and subordination, tyrannized successively over all the rest. Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the arbiter of Greece seventy-three years. The Lacedaemonians next governed it twenty-nine years; at a subsequent period, after the battle of Leuctra, the Thebans had their turn of domination. It happened but too often, according to Plutarch, that the deputies of the strongest cities awed and corrupted those of the weaker; and that judgment went in favor of the most powerful party. Even in the midst of defensive and dangerous wars with Persia and Macedon, the members never acted in concert, and were, more or fewer of them, eternally the dupes or the hirelings of the common enemy. The intervals of foreign war were filled up by domestic vicissitudes, convulsions, and carnage.
After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it appears that the Lacedaemonians required that a number of the cities should be turned out of the confederacy for the unfaithful part they had acted. The Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer partisans by such a measure than themselves, and would become masters of the public deliberations, vigorously opposed and defeated the attempt. This piece of history proves at once the inefficiency of the union, the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest. The smaller members, though entitled by the theory of their system to revolve in equal pride and majesty around the common center, had become, in fact, satellites of the orbs of primary magnitude.
Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise as they were courageous, they would have been admonished by experience of the necessity of a closer union, and would have availed themselves of the peace which followed their success against the Persian arms to establish such a reformation. Instead of this obvious policy, Athens and Sparta, inflated with the victories and the glory they had acquired, became first rivals and then enemies, and did each other infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes. Their mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and injuries ended in the celebrated Peloponnesian war, which itself ended in the ruin and slavery of the Athenians who had begun it.
What key rhetorical contrast does the author use to structure his discussion of the Amphictyons?
This question is interrogating the reader's ability to recognize stylistic and rhetorical features within a passage. Now, the question asks you which rhetorical contrast is used to structure the analogical example of the Amphictyons, and here an understanding of the nature of rhetorical structures can help you. Two of the answer choices discuss contrasts between the Amphictyons and other cultures, Americans and Persians, which is inherently a weaker, less rhetorically effective structure. Since, the discussion of the Greek republics is being used as a "very instructive analogy," it makes sense to look past a literal (and almost certainly oversimplified) direct contrast between the whole of one culture and the whole of another. Analogies are metaphorical tools, and so it makes sense that the contrast structuring the example of the Amphictyons would not be so strictly literal, that it would relate to a larger thematic concept with a direct application to the contemporary climate of American political thinking to which the author is contributing.
So, we are left with two options: a contrast between theory and practice and a contrast between religious and secular law-making. The Amphictyons are said to have been "the guardians of religion," and a good deal of their political power is said to be dependent on and devoted to their ability to "inflict vengeance on the sacrilegious despoilers of the temple" they are charged with protecting. Now, if we were being extremely hasty, we might rush right into making a choice, but how wrong we would be. In order for a contrast to be in play we must also see evidence of the other end of this spectrum, secular law-making. The description of the Amphictyons makes no mention of any kind of secularity, so the contrast cannot exist, as we cannot find evidence to support one end of that contrast.
Also, there is ample evidence to support all elements of the correct answer. The author tells us that "In theory, and upon paper this apparatus seems amply sufficient," implying with the use of seems that it is not. The rest of the example then demonstrates how "very different \[...\] was the experiment from the theory." Here, "experiment" is being used to mean "practice." This answer is also the best as it presents the clearest allegorical lesson for the political thinkers of the United States, in setting down the laws of a nation they must be careful to attend to the practical realities of ruling and the cooperation of different regions and levels of government, not just the theoretical side of law-making.
This question is interrogating the reader's ability to recognize stylistic and rhetorical features within a passage. Now, the question asks you which rhetorical contrast is used to structure the analogical example of the Amphictyons, and here an understanding of the nature of rhetorical structures can help you. Two of the answer choices discuss contrasts between the Amphictyons and other cultures, Americans and Persians, which is inherently a weaker, less rhetorically effective structure. Since, the discussion of the Greek republics is being used as a "very instructive analogy," it makes sense to look past a literal (and almost certainly oversimplified) direct contrast between the whole of one culture and the whole of another. Analogies are metaphorical tools, and so it makes sense that the contrast structuring the example of the Amphictyons would not be so strictly literal, that it would relate to a larger thematic concept with a direct application to the contemporary climate of American political thinking to which the author is contributing.
So, we are left with two options: a contrast between theory and practice and a contrast between religious and secular law-making. The Amphictyons are said to have been "the guardians of religion," and a good deal of their political power is said to be dependent on and devoted to their ability to "inflict vengeance on the sacrilegious despoilers of the temple" they are charged with protecting. Now, if we were being extremely hasty, we might rush right into making a choice, but how wrong we would be. In order for a contrast to be in play we must also see evidence of the other end of this spectrum, secular law-making. The description of the Amphictyons makes no mention of any kind of secularity, so the contrast cannot exist, as we cannot find evidence to support one end of that contrast.
Also, there is ample evidence to support all elements of the correct answer. The author tells us that "In theory, and upon paper this apparatus seems amply sufficient," implying with the use of seems that it is not. The rest of the example then demonstrates how "very different \[...\] was the experiment from the theory." Here, "experiment" is being used to mean "practice." This answer is also the best as it presents the clearest allegorical lesson for the political thinkers of the United States, in setting down the laws of a nation they must be careful to attend to the practical realities of ruling and the cooperation of different regions and levels of government, not just the theoretical side of law-making.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Adapted from the First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson (March 4th, 1801)
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.
But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
What is the relationship between the first and second paragraphs?
Adapted from the First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson (March 4th, 1801)
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.
But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
What is the relationship between the first and second paragraphs?
This question interrogates your literal understanding of the content of the text, while also querying your ability to understand the ways in which different parts of the text relate to one another in terms of sequence. First, let's establish the subject and purpose of the opening paragraph. Right away, you should get the sense that the option that suggests that the function of this paragraph is to "introduce the speaker as a figure of authority" is inaccurate or, at least, not the strongest interpretation. The focus of this passage is on the "contest of opinion through which we have passed" as a nation. By including himself in the group of his listeners with "we" the author is seeking to do the opposite of introducing himself as of authority over his audience. He is seeking common ground with his listeners, not seeking to establish his individual ability or authority to rule over them.
The key phrase to solve this question can be found at the very opening of the second paragraph, where Jefferson's use of the the imperative ("Let us") acts as a clear signal that he is proposing action, and the method by which he and his audience can resolve the various "contest\[s\] of opinion" that have led to the division of society he is describing. The "solution" he proposes is found in the very actions he exhorts of his listeners.
This question interrogates your literal understanding of the content of the text, while also querying your ability to understand the ways in which different parts of the text relate to one another in terms of sequence. First, let's establish the subject and purpose of the opening paragraph. Right away, you should get the sense that the option that suggests that the function of this paragraph is to "introduce the speaker as a figure of authority" is inaccurate or, at least, not the strongest interpretation. The focus of this passage is on the "contest of opinion through which we have passed" as a nation. By including himself in the group of his listeners with "we" the author is seeking to do the opposite of introducing himself as of authority over his audience. He is seeking common ground with his listeners, not seeking to establish his individual ability or authority to rule over them.
The key phrase to solve this question can be found at the very opening of the second paragraph, where Jefferson's use of the the imperative ("Let us") acts as a clear signal that he is proposing action, and the method by which he and his audience can resolve the various "contest\[s\] of opinion" that have led to the division of society he is describing. The "solution" he proposes is found in the very actions he exhorts of his listeners.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Adapted from “Geographical Evolution” by Archibald Geikie (1879)
In the quaint preface to his Navigations and Voyages of the English Nation, Hakluyt calls geography and chronology "the sunne and moone, the right eye and the left of all history." The position thus claimed for geography three hundred years ago by the great English chronicler was not accorded by his successors, and has hardly been admitted even now. The functions of the geographer and the traveller, popularly assumed to be identical, have been supposed to consist in descriptions of foreign countries, their climate, productions, and inhabitants, bristling on the one hand with dry statistics, and relieved on the other by as copious an introduction as may be of stirring adventure and personal anecdote. There has indeed been much to justify this popular assumption. It was not until the key-note of its future progress was struck by Karl Ritter, within the present century, that geography advanced beyond the domain of travellers' tales and desultory observation into that of orderly, methodical, scientific progress. This branch of inquiry, however, is now no longer the pursuit of mere numerical statistics, nor the chronicle of marvelous and often questionable adventures by flood and fell. It seeks to present a luminous picture of the earth's surface, its various forms of configuration, its continents, islands, and oceans, its mountains, valleys, and plains, its rivers and lakes, its climates, plants, and animals. It thus endeavours to produce a picture which shall not be one of mere topographical detail. It ever looks for a connection between scattered facts, tries to ascertain the relations which subsist between the different parts of the globe, their reactions on each other and the function of each in the general economy of the whole. Modern geography studies the distribution of vegetable and animal life over the earth's surface, with the action and reaction between it and the surrounding inorganic world. It traces how man, alike unconsciously and knowingly, has changed the face of nature, and how, on the other hand, the conditions of his geographical environment have moulded his own progress.
With these broad aims geography comes frankly for assistance to many different branches of science. It does not, however, claim in any measure to occupy their domain. It brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient; for it demands first of all to know how the problems to be solved bear upon the position and history of man and of this marvelously-ordered world wherein he finds himself undisputed lord. Geography freely borrows from meteorology, physics, chemistry, geology, zoology, and botany; but the debt is not all on one side. Save for the impetus derived from geographical research, many of these sciences would not be in their present advanced condition. They gain in vast augmentation of facts, and may cheerfully lend their aid in correlating these for geographical requirements.
In no respect does modern geography stand out more prominently than in the increased precision and fullness of its work. It has fitted out exploratory expeditions, and in so doing has been careful to see them provided with the instruments and apparatus necessary to enable them to contribute accurate and definite results. It has guided and fostered research, and has been eager to show a generous appreciation of the labours of those by whom our knowledge of the earth has been extended. Human courage and endurance are not less enthusiastically applauded than they once were; but they must be united to no common powers of observation before they will now raise a traveller to the highest rank. When we read a volume of recent travel, while warmly appreciating the spirit of adventure, fertility of resource, presence of mind, and other moral qualities of its author, we instinctively ask ourselves, as we close its pages, what is the sum of its additions to our knowledge of the earth? From the geographical point of view - and it is to this point alone that these remarks apply - we must rank an explorer according to his success in widening our knowledge and enlarging our views regarding the aspects of nature.
The demands of modern geography are thus becoming every year more exacting. It requires more training in its explorers abroad, more knowledge on the part of its readers at home. The days are drawing to a close when one can gain undying geographical renown by struggling against man and beast, fever and hunger and drought, across some savage and previously unknown region, even though little can be shown as the outcome of the journey. All honour to the pioneers by whom this first exploratory work has been so nobly done! They will be succeeded by a race that will find its laurels more difficult to win - a race from which more will be expected, and which will need to make up in the variety, amount, and value of its detail, what it lacks in the freshness of first glimpses into new lands.
What is the relationship between geography and other sciences outlined in the second paragraph?
Adapted from “Geographical Evolution” by Archibald Geikie (1879)
In the quaint preface to his Navigations and Voyages of the English Nation, Hakluyt calls geography and chronology "the sunne and moone, the right eye and the left of all history." The position thus claimed for geography three hundred years ago by the great English chronicler was not accorded by his successors, and has hardly been admitted even now. The functions of the geographer and the traveller, popularly assumed to be identical, have been supposed to consist in descriptions of foreign countries, their climate, productions, and inhabitants, bristling on the one hand with dry statistics, and relieved on the other by as copious an introduction as may be of stirring adventure and personal anecdote. There has indeed been much to justify this popular assumption. It was not until the key-note of its future progress was struck by Karl Ritter, within the present century, that geography advanced beyond the domain of travellers' tales and desultory observation into that of orderly, methodical, scientific progress. This branch of inquiry, however, is now no longer the pursuit of mere numerical statistics, nor the chronicle of marvelous and often questionable adventures by flood and fell. It seeks to present a luminous picture of the earth's surface, its various forms of configuration, its continents, islands, and oceans, its mountains, valleys, and plains, its rivers and lakes, its climates, plants, and animals. It thus endeavours to produce a picture which shall not be one of mere topographical detail. It ever looks for a connection between scattered facts, tries to ascertain the relations which subsist between the different parts of the globe, their reactions on each other and the function of each in the general economy of the whole. Modern geography studies the distribution of vegetable and animal life over the earth's surface, with the action and reaction between it and the surrounding inorganic world. It traces how man, alike unconsciously and knowingly, has changed the face of nature, and how, on the other hand, the conditions of his geographical environment have moulded his own progress.
With these broad aims geography comes frankly for assistance to many different branches of science. It does not, however, claim in any measure to occupy their domain. It brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient; for it demands first of all to know how the problems to be solved bear upon the position and history of man and of this marvelously-ordered world wherein he finds himself undisputed lord. Geography freely borrows from meteorology, physics, chemistry, geology, zoology, and botany; but the debt is not all on one side. Save for the impetus derived from geographical research, many of these sciences would not be in their present advanced condition. They gain in vast augmentation of facts, and may cheerfully lend their aid in correlating these for geographical requirements.
In no respect does modern geography stand out more prominently than in the increased precision and fullness of its work. It has fitted out exploratory expeditions, and in so doing has been careful to see them provided with the instruments and apparatus necessary to enable them to contribute accurate and definite results. It has guided and fostered research, and has been eager to show a generous appreciation of the labours of those by whom our knowledge of the earth has been extended. Human courage and endurance are not less enthusiastically applauded than they once were; but they must be united to no common powers of observation before they will now raise a traveller to the highest rank. When we read a volume of recent travel, while warmly appreciating the spirit of adventure, fertility of resource, presence of mind, and other moral qualities of its author, we instinctively ask ourselves, as we close its pages, what is the sum of its additions to our knowledge of the earth? From the geographical point of view - and it is to this point alone that these remarks apply - we must rank an explorer according to his success in widening our knowledge and enlarging our views regarding the aspects of nature.
The demands of modern geography are thus becoming every year more exacting. It requires more training in its explorers abroad, more knowledge on the part of its readers at home. The days are drawing to a close when one can gain undying geographical renown by struggling against man and beast, fever and hunger and drought, across some savage and previously unknown region, even though little can be shown as the outcome of the journey. All honour to the pioneers by whom this first exploratory work has been so nobly done! They will be succeeded by a race that will find its laurels more difficult to win - a race from which more will be expected, and which will need to make up in the variety, amount, and value of its detail, what it lacks in the freshness of first glimpses into new lands.
What is the relationship between geography and other sciences outlined in the second paragraph?
Here, you are being asked to correctly identify the relationship between two ideas in a specific paragraph of the text. Note that for this question, you are restricted to the content of the second paragraph.
The first answer that we can safely and easily eliminate is the one that claims a "direct and adversarial relationship" between the fields. The second sentence of the paragraph specifically tells us that geography "does not, however, claim to occupy \[the sciences'\] domain."
Now, the answer that claim that, although they overlap in subject matter, the fields are unrelated is also dismissible, since we've just read an entire paragraph talking about the ways in which they are, in fact, related.
So, having eliminated these options, we are left to decide if the relationship is characterized as mutually beneficial or one-sided in favor of the geographers. The first sentence of the paragraph asserts geography's debt to "many different branches of science," but later the argument is made that geography "brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient, thereby filling a gap and bringing their own contribution to science. The relationship, then, is characterized as mutually beneficial.
Here, you are being asked to correctly identify the relationship between two ideas in a specific paragraph of the text. Note that for this question, you are restricted to the content of the second paragraph.
The first answer that we can safely and easily eliminate is the one that claims a "direct and adversarial relationship" between the fields. The second sentence of the paragraph specifically tells us that geography "does not, however, claim to occupy \[the sciences'\] domain."
Now, the answer that claim that, although they overlap in subject matter, the fields are unrelated is also dismissible, since we've just read an entire paragraph talking about the ways in which they are, in fact, related.
So, having eliminated these options, we are left to decide if the relationship is characterized as mutually beneficial or one-sided in favor of the geographers. The first sentence of the paragraph asserts geography's debt to "many different branches of science," but later the argument is made that geography "brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient, thereby filling a gap and bringing their own contribution to science. The relationship, then, is characterized as mutually beneficial.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Adapted from “Federalist No.19” in The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (1788)
Among the confederacies of antiquity, the most considerable was that of the Grecian republics, associated under the Amphictyonic council. From the best accounts transmitted of this celebrated institution, it bore a very instructive analogy to the present Confederation of the American States. The members retained the character of independent and sovereign states, and had equal votes in the federal council. This council had a general authority to propose and resolve whatever it judged necessary for the common welfare of Greece; to declare and carry on war; to decide, in the last resort, all controversies between the members; to fine the aggressing party; to employ the whole force of the confederacy against the disobedient; and to admit new members.
The Amphictyons were the guardians of religion, and of the immense riches belonging to the temple of Delphos, where they had the right of jurisdiction in controversies between the inhabitants and those who came to consult the oracle. As a further provision for the efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath, and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple.
In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers seems amply sufficient for all general purposes. In several material instances, they exceed the powers enumerated in the Articles of Confederation. The Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition of the times, one of the principal engines by which government was then maintained; they had a declared authority to use coercion against refractory cities, and were bound by oath to exert this authority on the necessary occasions.
Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory. The powers, like those of the present Congress, were administered by deputies appointed wholly by the cities in their political capacities, and exercised over them in the same capacities. Hence the weakness, the disorders, and finally the destruction of the confederacy. The more powerful members, instead of being kept in awe and subordination, tyrannized successively over all the rest. Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the arbiter of Greece seventy-three years. The Lacedaemonians next governed it twenty-nine years; at a subsequent period, after the battle of Leuctra, the Thebans had their turn of domination. It happened but too often, according to Plutarch, that the deputies of the strongest cities awed and corrupted those of the weaker; and that judgment went in favor of the most powerful party. Even in the midst of defensive and dangerous wars with Persia and Macedon, the members never acted in concert, and were, more or fewer of them, eternally the dupes or the hirelings of the common enemy. The intervals of foreign war were filled up by domestic vicissitudes, convulsions, and carnage.
After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it appears that the Lacedaemonians required that a number of the cities should be turned out of the confederacy for the unfaithful part they had acted. The Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer partisans by such a measure than themselves, and would become masters of the public deliberations, vigorously opposed and defeated the attempt. This piece of history proves at once the inefficiency of the union, the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest. The smaller members, though entitled by the theory of their system to revolve in equal pride and majesty around the common center, had become, in fact, satellites of the orbs of primary magnitude.
Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise as they were courageous, they would have been admonished by experience of the necessity of a closer union, and would have availed themselves of the peace which followed their success against the Persian arms to establish such a reformation. Instead of this obvious policy, Athens and Sparta, inflated with the victories and the glory they had acquired, became first rivals and then enemies, and did each other infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes. Their mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and injuries ended in the celebrated Peloponnesian war, which itself ended in the ruin and slavery of the Athenians who had begun it.
What key rhetorical contrast does the author use to structure his discussion of the Amphictyons?
Adapted from “Federalist No.19” in The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (1788)
Among the confederacies of antiquity, the most considerable was that of the Grecian republics, associated under the Amphictyonic council. From the best accounts transmitted of this celebrated institution, it bore a very instructive analogy to the present Confederation of the American States. The members retained the character of independent and sovereign states, and had equal votes in the federal council. This council had a general authority to propose and resolve whatever it judged necessary for the common welfare of Greece; to declare and carry on war; to decide, in the last resort, all controversies between the members; to fine the aggressing party; to employ the whole force of the confederacy against the disobedient; and to admit new members.
The Amphictyons were the guardians of religion, and of the immense riches belonging to the temple of Delphos, where they had the right of jurisdiction in controversies between the inhabitants and those who came to consult the oracle. As a further provision for the efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath, and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple.
In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers seems amply sufficient for all general purposes. In several material instances, they exceed the powers enumerated in the Articles of Confederation. The Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition of the times, one of the principal engines by which government was then maintained; they had a declared authority to use coercion against refractory cities, and were bound by oath to exert this authority on the necessary occasions.
Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory. The powers, like those of the present Congress, were administered by deputies appointed wholly by the cities in their political capacities, and exercised over them in the same capacities. Hence the weakness, the disorders, and finally the destruction of the confederacy. The more powerful members, instead of being kept in awe and subordination, tyrannized successively over all the rest. Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the arbiter of Greece seventy-three years. The Lacedaemonians next governed it twenty-nine years; at a subsequent period, after the battle of Leuctra, the Thebans had their turn of domination. It happened but too often, according to Plutarch, that the deputies of the strongest cities awed and corrupted those of the weaker; and that judgment went in favor of the most powerful party. Even in the midst of defensive and dangerous wars with Persia and Macedon, the members never acted in concert, and were, more or fewer of them, eternally the dupes or the hirelings of the common enemy. The intervals of foreign war were filled up by domestic vicissitudes, convulsions, and carnage.
After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it appears that the Lacedaemonians required that a number of the cities should be turned out of the confederacy for the unfaithful part they had acted. The Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer partisans by such a measure than themselves, and would become masters of the public deliberations, vigorously opposed and defeated the attempt. This piece of history proves at once the inefficiency of the union, the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest. The smaller members, though entitled by the theory of their system to revolve in equal pride and majesty around the common center, had become, in fact, satellites of the orbs of primary magnitude.
Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise as they were courageous, they would have been admonished by experience of the necessity of a closer union, and would have availed themselves of the peace which followed their success against the Persian arms to establish such a reformation. Instead of this obvious policy, Athens and Sparta, inflated with the victories and the glory they had acquired, became first rivals and then enemies, and did each other infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes. Their mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and injuries ended in the celebrated Peloponnesian war, which itself ended in the ruin and slavery of the Athenians who had begun it.
What key rhetorical contrast does the author use to structure his discussion of the Amphictyons?
This question is interrogating the reader's ability to recognize stylistic and rhetorical features within a passage. Now, the question asks you which rhetorical contrast is used to structure the analogical example of the Amphictyons, and here an understanding of the nature of rhetorical structures can help you. Two of the answer choices discuss contrasts between the Amphictyons and other cultures, Americans and Persians, which is inherently a weaker, less rhetorically effective structure. Since, the discussion of the Greek republics is being used as a "very instructive analogy," it makes sense to look past a literal (and almost certainly oversimplified) direct contrast between the whole of one culture and the whole of another. Analogies are metaphorical tools, and so it makes sense that the contrast structuring the example of the Amphictyons would not be so strictly literal, that it would relate to a larger thematic concept with a direct application to the contemporary climate of American political thinking to which the author is contributing.
So, we are left with two options: a contrast between theory and practice and a contrast between religious and secular law-making. The Amphictyons are said to have been "the guardians of religion," and a good deal of their political power is said to be dependent on and devoted to their ability to "inflict vengeance on the sacrilegious despoilers of the temple" they are charged with protecting. Now, if we were being extremely hasty, we might rush right into making a choice, but how wrong we would be. In order for a contrast to be in play we must also see evidence of the other end of this spectrum, secular law-making. The description of the Amphictyons makes no mention of any kind of secularity, so the contrast cannot exist, as we cannot find evidence to support one end of that contrast.
Also, there is ample evidence to support all elements of the correct answer. The author tells us that "In theory, and upon paper this apparatus seems amply sufficient," implying with the use of seems that it is not. The rest of the example then demonstrates how "very different \[...\] was the experiment from the theory." Here, "experiment" is being used to mean "practice." This answer is also the best as it presents the clearest allegorical lesson for the political thinkers of the United States, in setting down the laws of a nation they must be careful to attend to the practical realities of ruling and the cooperation of different regions and levels of government, not just the theoretical side of law-making.
This question is interrogating the reader's ability to recognize stylistic and rhetorical features within a passage. Now, the question asks you which rhetorical contrast is used to structure the analogical example of the Amphictyons, and here an understanding of the nature of rhetorical structures can help you. Two of the answer choices discuss contrasts between the Amphictyons and other cultures, Americans and Persians, which is inherently a weaker, less rhetorically effective structure. Since, the discussion of the Greek republics is being used as a "very instructive analogy," it makes sense to look past a literal (and almost certainly oversimplified) direct contrast between the whole of one culture and the whole of another. Analogies are metaphorical tools, and so it makes sense that the contrast structuring the example of the Amphictyons would not be so strictly literal, that it would relate to a larger thematic concept with a direct application to the contemporary climate of American political thinking to which the author is contributing.
So, we are left with two options: a contrast between theory and practice and a contrast between religious and secular law-making. The Amphictyons are said to have been "the guardians of religion," and a good deal of their political power is said to be dependent on and devoted to their ability to "inflict vengeance on the sacrilegious despoilers of the temple" they are charged with protecting. Now, if we were being extremely hasty, we might rush right into making a choice, but how wrong we would be. In order for a contrast to be in play we must also see evidence of the other end of this spectrum, secular law-making. The description of the Amphictyons makes no mention of any kind of secularity, so the contrast cannot exist, as we cannot find evidence to support one end of that contrast.
Also, there is ample evidence to support all elements of the correct answer. The author tells us that "In theory, and upon paper this apparatus seems amply sufficient," implying with the use of seems that it is not. The rest of the example then demonstrates how "very different \[...\] was the experiment from the theory." Here, "experiment" is being used to mean "practice." This answer is also the best as it presents the clearest allegorical lesson for the political thinkers of the United States, in setting down the laws of a nation they must be careful to attend to the practical realities of ruling and the cooperation of different regions and levels of government, not just the theoretical side of law-making.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Adapted from the First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson (March 4th, 1801)
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.
But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
What is the relationship between the first and second paragraphs?
Adapted from the First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson (March 4th, 1801)
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.
But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
What is the relationship between the first and second paragraphs?
This question interrogates your literal understanding of the content of the text, while also querying your ability to understand the ways in which different parts of the text relate to one another in terms of sequence. First, let's establish the subject and purpose of the opening paragraph. Right away, you should get the sense that the option that suggests that the function of this paragraph is to "introduce the speaker as a figure of authority" is inaccurate or, at least, not the strongest interpretation. The focus of this passage is on the "contest of opinion through which we have passed" as a nation. By including himself in the group of his listeners with "we" the author is seeking to do the opposite of introducing himself as of authority over his audience. He is seeking common ground with his listeners, not seeking to establish his individual ability or authority to rule over them.
The key phrase to solve this question can be found at the very opening of the second paragraph, where Jefferson's use of the the imperative ("Let us") acts as a clear signal that he is proposing action, and the method by which he and his audience can resolve the various "contest\[s\] of opinion" that have led to the division of society he is describing. The "solution" he proposes is found in the very actions he exhorts of his listeners.
This question interrogates your literal understanding of the content of the text, while also querying your ability to understand the ways in which different parts of the text relate to one another in terms of sequence. First, let's establish the subject and purpose of the opening paragraph. Right away, you should get the sense that the option that suggests that the function of this paragraph is to "introduce the speaker as a figure of authority" is inaccurate or, at least, not the strongest interpretation. The focus of this passage is on the "contest of opinion through which we have passed" as a nation. By including himself in the group of his listeners with "we" the author is seeking to do the opposite of introducing himself as of authority over his audience. He is seeking common ground with his listeners, not seeking to establish his individual ability or authority to rule over them.
The key phrase to solve this question can be found at the very opening of the second paragraph, where Jefferson's use of the the imperative ("Let us") acts as a clear signal that he is proposing action, and the method by which he and his audience can resolve the various "contest\[s\] of opinion" that have led to the division of society he is describing. The "solution" he proposes is found in the very actions he exhorts of his listeners.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Adapted from “Geographical Evolution” by Archibald Geikie (1879)
In the quaint preface to his Navigations and Voyages of the English Nation, Hakluyt calls geography and chronology "the sunne and moone, the right eye and the left of all history." The position thus claimed for geography three hundred years ago by the great English chronicler was not accorded by his successors, and has hardly been admitted even now. The functions of the geographer and the traveller, popularly assumed to be identical, have been supposed to consist in descriptions of foreign countries, their climate, productions, and inhabitants, bristling on the one hand with dry statistics, and relieved on the other by as copious an introduction as may be of stirring adventure and personal anecdote. There has indeed been much to justify this popular assumption. It was not until the key-note of its future progress was struck by Karl Ritter, within the present century, that geography advanced beyond the domain of travellers' tales and desultory observation into that of orderly, methodical, scientific progress. This branch of inquiry, however, is now no longer the pursuit of mere numerical statistics, nor the chronicle of marvelous and often questionable adventures by flood and fell. It seeks to present a luminous picture of the earth's surface, its various forms of configuration, its continents, islands, and oceans, its mountains, valleys, and plains, its rivers and lakes, its climates, plants, and animals. It thus endeavours to produce a picture which shall not be one of mere topographical detail. It ever looks for a connection between scattered facts, tries to ascertain the relations which subsist between the different parts of the globe, their reactions on each other and the function of each in the general economy of the whole. Modern geography studies the distribution of vegetable and animal life over the earth's surface, with the action and reaction between it and the surrounding inorganic world. It traces how man, alike unconsciously and knowingly, has changed the face of nature, and how, on the other hand, the conditions of his geographical environment have moulded his own progress.
With these broad aims geography comes frankly for assistance to many different branches of science. It does not, however, claim in any measure to occupy their domain. It brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient; for it demands first of all to know how the problems to be solved bear upon the position and history of man and of this marvelously-ordered world wherein he finds himself undisputed lord. Geography freely borrows from meteorology, physics, chemistry, geology, zoology, and botany; but the debt is not all on one side. Save for the impetus derived from geographical research, many of these sciences would not be in their present advanced condition. They gain in vast augmentation of facts, and may cheerfully lend their aid in correlating these for geographical requirements.
In no respect does modern geography stand out more prominently than in the increased precision and fullness of its work. It has fitted out exploratory expeditions, and in so doing has been careful to see them provided with the instruments and apparatus necessary to enable them to contribute accurate and definite results. It has guided and fostered research, and has been eager to show a generous appreciation of the labours of those by whom our knowledge of the earth has been extended. Human courage and endurance are not less enthusiastically applauded than they once were; but they must be united to no common powers of observation before they will now raise a traveller to the highest rank. When we read a volume of recent travel, while warmly appreciating the spirit of adventure, fertility of resource, presence of mind, and other moral qualities of its author, we instinctively ask ourselves, as we close its pages, what is the sum of its additions to our knowledge of the earth? From the geographical point of view - and it is to this point alone that these remarks apply - we must rank an explorer according to his success in widening our knowledge and enlarging our views regarding the aspects of nature.
The demands of modern geography are thus becoming every year more exacting. It requires more training in its explorers abroad, more knowledge on the part of its readers at home. The days are drawing to a close when one can gain undying geographical renown by struggling against man and beast, fever and hunger and drought, across some savage and previously unknown region, even though little can be shown as the outcome of the journey. All honour to the pioneers by whom this first exploratory work has been so nobly done! They will be succeeded by a race that will find its laurels more difficult to win - a race from which more will be expected, and which will need to make up in the variety, amount, and value of its detail, what it lacks in the freshness of first glimpses into new lands.
What is the relationship between geography and other sciences outlined in the second paragraph?
Adapted from “Geographical Evolution” by Archibald Geikie (1879)
In the quaint preface to his Navigations and Voyages of the English Nation, Hakluyt calls geography and chronology "the sunne and moone, the right eye and the left of all history." The position thus claimed for geography three hundred years ago by the great English chronicler was not accorded by his successors, and has hardly been admitted even now. The functions of the geographer and the traveller, popularly assumed to be identical, have been supposed to consist in descriptions of foreign countries, their climate, productions, and inhabitants, bristling on the one hand with dry statistics, and relieved on the other by as copious an introduction as may be of stirring adventure and personal anecdote. There has indeed been much to justify this popular assumption. It was not until the key-note of its future progress was struck by Karl Ritter, within the present century, that geography advanced beyond the domain of travellers' tales and desultory observation into that of orderly, methodical, scientific progress. This branch of inquiry, however, is now no longer the pursuit of mere numerical statistics, nor the chronicle of marvelous and often questionable adventures by flood and fell. It seeks to present a luminous picture of the earth's surface, its various forms of configuration, its continents, islands, and oceans, its mountains, valleys, and plains, its rivers and lakes, its climates, plants, and animals. It thus endeavours to produce a picture which shall not be one of mere topographical detail. It ever looks for a connection between scattered facts, tries to ascertain the relations which subsist between the different parts of the globe, their reactions on each other and the function of each in the general economy of the whole. Modern geography studies the distribution of vegetable and animal life over the earth's surface, with the action and reaction between it and the surrounding inorganic world. It traces how man, alike unconsciously and knowingly, has changed the face of nature, and how, on the other hand, the conditions of his geographical environment have moulded his own progress.
With these broad aims geography comes frankly for assistance to many different branches of science. It does not, however, claim in any measure to occupy their domain. It brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient; for it demands first of all to know how the problems to be solved bear upon the position and history of man and of this marvelously-ordered world wherein he finds himself undisputed lord. Geography freely borrows from meteorology, physics, chemistry, geology, zoology, and botany; but the debt is not all on one side. Save for the impetus derived from geographical research, many of these sciences would not be in their present advanced condition. They gain in vast augmentation of facts, and may cheerfully lend their aid in correlating these for geographical requirements.
In no respect does modern geography stand out more prominently than in the increased precision and fullness of its work. It has fitted out exploratory expeditions, and in so doing has been careful to see them provided with the instruments and apparatus necessary to enable them to contribute accurate and definite results. It has guided and fostered research, and has been eager to show a generous appreciation of the labours of those by whom our knowledge of the earth has been extended. Human courage and endurance are not less enthusiastically applauded than they once were; but they must be united to no common powers of observation before they will now raise a traveller to the highest rank. When we read a volume of recent travel, while warmly appreciating the spirit of adventure, fertility of resource, presence of mind, and other moral qualities of its author, we instinctively ask ourselves, as we close its pages, what is the sum of its additions to our knowledge of the earth? From the geographical point of view - and it is to this point alone that these remarks apply - we must rank an explorer according to his success in widening our knowledge and enlarging our views regarding the aspects of nature.
The demands of modern geography are thus becoming every year more exacting. It requires more training in its explorers abroad, more knowledge on the part of its readers at home. The days are drawing to a close when one can gain undying geographical renown by struggling against man and beast, fever and hunger and drought, across some savage and previously unknown region, even though little can be shown as the outcome of the journey. All honour to the pioneers by whom this first exploratory work has been so nobly done! They will be succeeded by a race that will find its laurels more difficult to win - a race from which more will be expected, and which will need to make up in the variety, amount, and value of its detail, what it lacks in the freshness of first glimpses into new lands.
What is the relationship between geography and other sciences outlined in the second paragraph?
Here, you are being asked to correctly identify the relationship between two ideas in a specific paragraph of the text. Note that for this question, you are restricted to the content of the second paragraph.
The first answer that we can safely and easily eliminate is the one that claims a "direct and adversarial relationship" between the fields. The second sentence of the paragraph specifically tells us that geography "does not, however, claim to occupy \[the sciences'\] domain."
Now, the answer that claim that, although they overlap in subject matter, the fields are unrelated is also dismissible, since we've just read an entire paragraph talking about the ways in which they are, in fact, related.
So, having eliminated these options, we are left to decide if the relationship is characterized as mutually beneficial or one-sided in favor of the geographers. The first sentence of the paragraph asserts geography's debt to "many different branches of science," but later the argument is made that geography "brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient, thereby filling a gap and bringing their own contribution to science. The relationship, then, is characterized as mutually beneficial.
Here, you are being asked to correctly identify the relationship between two ideas in a specific paragraph of the text. Note that for this question, you are restricted to the content of the second paragraph.
The first answer that we can safely and easily eliminate is the one that claims a "direct and adversarial relationship" between the fields. The second sentence of the paragraph specifically tells us that geography "does not, however, claim to occupy \[the sciences'\] domain."
Now, the answer that claim that, although they overlap in subject matter, the fields are unrelated is also dismissible, since we've just read an entire paragraph talking about the ways in which they are, in fact, related.
So, having eliminated these options, we are left to decide if the relationship is characterized as mutually beneficial or one-sided in favor of the geographers. The first sentence of the paragraph asserts geography's debt to "many different branches of science," but later the argument is made that geography "brings to the consideration of their problems a central human interest in which these sciences are sometimes apt to be deficient, thereby filling a gap and bringing their own contribution to science. The relationship, then, is characterized as mutually beneficial.
Compare your answer with the correct one above