Tugas Reading: Pearl Buck

Bacalah beberapa paragraf berikut dengan cermat, kemudian pilihlah jawaban yang tepat dari pertanyaan - pertanyaan yang ada dibawahnya.

Passage 1

          One of the most popular literary figures in American literature is a woman who spent almost half of her long life in China, a country on a continent thousands of miles from the United States. In her lifetime she earned this country's most highly acclaimed literary award: the Pulitzer Prize, and also the most prestigious form of literary recognition in the world, the Nobel Prize for Literature. Pearl S. Buck was almost a household word throughout much of her lifetime because of her prolific literary output, which consisted of some eighty - five published works, including several dozen novels, six collections of short stories, fourteen books for children, and more than a dozen works of nonfiction. When she was eighty years old, some twenty - five volumes were awaiting publication. Many of those books were set in China, the land in which she spent so much of her life. Her books and her life served as a bridge between the cultures of the East and the West. As the product of those two cultures she became as the described herself, "mentally bifocal." Her unique background made her into an unusually interesting and versatile human being. As we examine the life of Pearl Buck, we cannot help but be aware that we are in fact meeting three separate people: a wife and mother, an internationally famous writer and a humanitarian and philanthropist. One cannot really get to know Pearl Buck without learning about each of the three. Though honored in her lifetime with the William Dean Howell Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in addition to the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes. Pearl Buck as a total human being, not only a famous author. is a captivating subject of study.

1. What is the author's main purpose in the passage?

(A) To offer a criticism of the works of Pearl Buck.

(B) To illustrate Pearl Buck's views on Chinese literature

(C) To indicate the background and diverse interests of Pearl Buck

(D) To discuss Pearl Buck's influence on the cultures of the East and the West

2. According to the passage, Pearl Buck was an unusual figure in American literature in that she

(A) wrote extensively about a very different culture

(B) published half of her books abroad

(C) won more awards than any other woman of her time

(D) achieved her first success very late in life

3. According to the passage, Pearl Buck described herself as "mentally bifocal" to suggest that she was

(A) capable of resolving the differences between two distinct linguistic systems

(B) keenly aware of how the past could influence the future

(C) capable of producing literary works of interest to both adults and children

(D) equally familiar with two different cultural environments

Passage 2

          When we accept the evidence of our unaided eyes and describe the Sun as a yellow star, we have summed up the most important single fact about it-at this moment in time.

          It appears probable, however, that sunlight will be the color we know for only a negligibly small part of the Sun's history. Stars, like individuals, age and change. As we look out into space, We see around us stars at all stages of evolution. There are faint blood-red dwarfs so cool that their surface temperature is a mere 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, there are searing ghosts blazing at 100, 000 degrees Fahrenheit and almost too hot to be seen, for the great part of their radiation is in the invisible ultraviolet range. Obviously, the "daylight" produced by any star depends on its temperature; today(and for ages to come) our Sun is at about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and this means that most of the Sun's light is concentrated in the yellow band of the spectrum, falling slowly in intensity toward both the longer and shorter light waves.

That yellow "hump" will shift as the Sun evolves, and the light of day will change accordingly. It is natural to assume that as the Sun grows older, and uses up its hydrogen fuel-which it is now doing at the spanking rate of half a billion tons a second- it will become steadily colder and redder.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

(A) Faint dwarf stars                                           (B) The evolutionary cycle of the Sun

(C) The Sun's fuel problem                                (D) The dangers of invisible radiation

5. What does the author say is especially important about the Sun at the present time?

(A) It appears yellow                                           (B) It always remains the same

(C) It has a short history                                                                           (D) It is too cold

6. Why are very hot stars referred to as "ghosts"?

(A) They are short- lived.                                                                        

(B) They are mysterious.

(C) They are frightening.                                                                         

(D) They are nearly invisible.

Passage 3

          Steamships were first introduced into the United States in 1807, and John Molson built the first steamship in Canada(then called British North America) in 1809. By the 1830's dozens of steam vessels were in use in Canada. They offered the traveler reliable transportation in comfortable facilities-a welcome alternative to stagecoach travel, which at the best of times could only be described as wretched. This commitment to dependable river transport became entrenched with the investment of millions of dollars for the improvement of waterways. which included the construction of canals and lock systems. The Lachine and Welland canals. two of the most important systems. were opened in 1825 and 1829, respectively. By the time that Upper and Lower Canada were united into the Province of Canada in 1841. the public debt for canals was more than one hundred dollars per capita. an enormous sum for the time. But it may not seem such a great amount if we consider that improvements allowed steamboats to remain practical for most commercial transport in Canada until the mid-- nineteenth century.

7. What is the main purpose of the passage?

(A) To contrast travel by steamship and stagecoach

(B) To criticize the level of public debt in nineteenth - century Canada  -

(C) To describe the introduction of steamships in Canada

(D) To show how Canada surpassed the United States in transportation improvements

8. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about stagecoach travel in Canada in the 1831's?

(A) It was reasonably comfortable.                    (B) It was extremely efficient.

(C) It was not popular.                                        (D) It was very practical.

9. According to the passage, steamships became practical means of transportation in Canada because of

(A) improvements in the waterways                  (B) large subsidies from John Molson

(C) a relatively small population                         (D) the lack of alternate means

Passage 4

          Archaeology is a source of history, not just a humble auxiliary discipline. Archaeological data are historical documents in their own right, not mere illustrations to written texts. Just as much as any other historian an archaeologist studies and tries to reconstitute the process that has created the human world in which we live-and us ourselves in so far as we are each creatures of our age and social environment. Archaeological data are all changes in the material world resulting from human action or more succinctly the fossilized results of human behavior. The sum total of these constitute what may be called the archaeological record. This record exhibits certain peculiarities and deficiencies the consequences of which produce a rather superficial contrast between archaeological history and the more familiar kind based upon written records.

          Not all human behavior fossilizes. The words I utter and you hear as vibrations in the air are certainly human changes in the material world and may be of great historical significance. Yet they leave no sort of trace in the archaeological records unless they are captured by a dictaphone or written down by a clerk. The movement of troops on the battlefield may "change the course of history", but this is equally ephemeral from the archaeologist's standpoint. What is perhaps worse, most organic materials are perishable. Everything made of wood. hide wool. linen. grass hair. and similar materials will decay and vanish in dust in a few years or centuries, save under very exceptional conditions. In a relatively brief period the archaeological record is reduced to mere scraps of stone. bone, glass. metal, and earthenware. Still modern archaeology, by applying appropriate techniques and comparative methods. aided by a few lucky finds from peat bogs. deserts. and frozen soils. is able to fill up a good deal of the gap.

10. What is the author's main purpose in the passage?

(A) To point out the importance of recent advances in archaeology

(B) To describe an archaeologist’s education

(C) To explain how archaeology is a source of history

(D) To encourage more people to become archaeologists