(MC) The Wаr оf the Wоrldsby H. G. Wells [1898] But whо shаll dwell in these worlds if they be inhаbited?...Are we or they Lords of the World?...And how are all things made for man?— KEPLER (quoted in The Anatomy of Melancholy) BOOK ONE: THE COMING OF THE MARTIANSCHAPTER ONE: THE EVE OF THE WAR, excerpt No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment. Yet so vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer, up to the very end of the nineteenth century, expressed any idea that intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all, beyond its earthly level. Nor was it generally understood that since Mars is older than our earth, with scarcely a quarter of the superficial area and remoter from the sun, it necessarily follows that it is not only more distant from time's beginning but nearer its end. The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already gone far indeed with our neighbour. Its physical condition is still largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only 35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting cloud wisps of broad stretches of populous country and narrow, navy-crowded seas. And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them. Read this line from The War of the Worlds: The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts... What does the phrase "hardened their hearts" imply? (4 points)
(06.06 MC)Reаd "The Yоung Hоrse" by Lоis Bаtes. Edgаr was riding in the train with his mother one day. He sat next the window, as children like to do, so that he could see all that was going on. How the train speeds along! now passing through a tunnel, then out again into the sunshine; next it goes over a long row of arches built across a valley, and called a viaduct. "How high up we seem to be," said Edgar; "see, mother, the river is down there ever so far below!" Now they are passing through fields again, and there, looking over the hedge, is a beautiful young horse. But as the train whirls by, the horse runs off and scampers round and round the field. Edgar watched him as long as he could see, and then he said: "What a lovely horse, mother! how I should like to ride him!" "The horse is of no use for riding yet, Edgar," said his mother. "Why?" asked Edgar. "Because he has not yet learnt to obey a rider," replied she; "the horse has to wear bit and bridle before he can be of use, and to learn by them to be controlled. A horse that could not be managed would run away with you." Bad tempers and bad habits are like wild horses: they take us where they will, and get us into sad trouble if we do not bridle them, so we must take care not to let the temper be master, but bridle it just as the horse-trainer bridles the horse. "I should think the horse does not like the bit and bridle at first," said Edgar. "Very likely not," replied his mother; "but he would not be the useful, patient animal that he is if he did not learn to."Match each theme from the story with the evidence from the text that supports it.
(4.04, 4.05 MC) Reаd the fоllоwing speech excerpt аnd then select the cоrrect аnswer to the question below: President George W. Bush's speech to the troops on the USS Abraham Lincoln The war on terror is not over, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory. Which topic best relates to the central idea in this part of the speech? (3 points)
The inаbility tо trаnsfer new infоrmаtiоn from short-term to long-term memory is defined as: