READING B1 | MCQ

WORKSHEET 3

Passage 1: Social Bees

Most bees lead solitary lives. After mating, females dig or find suitable nests in soil or wood.
They begin visiting flowers, making dozens of trips for pollen and nectar. (Think of solitary bees as single
moms with families back home to feed). Sugar from nectar provides flight fuel for their trips to and from
the nest. The proteins and amino acids in pollen are vital nutrients needed for the bees young (larvae).
Females lay eggs on masses of pollen mixed with nectar within urn-shaped earthen nest cells. The eggs
hatch and the grub-like larvae devour the food placed for them. Over a period of weeks they eat pollen,
defecate, and pupate, often spinning a silk cocoon. The new adult generation may emerge then or
during the spring or summer of the coming year.
Solitary bees use diverse building materials for their nests: leaves, mud, sand, stones, plant
resins, downy plant fibers, even abandoned snail shells. Because of the materials they collect, solitary
bees are often called carpenter bees, mason bees, leafcutter bees, carder, or plasterer bees.
About 20% of the world’s more than 20,000 species of bees are social. They live communally in colonies
of hundreds to tens of thousands of individuals. Each colony has one queen who is the mother of sterile
daughters (the worker bees) and a few males called drones.
The best-known social bee around the world is the honeybee (Apis mellifera). Originally native
to Europe, honey bees traveled with their human caretakers and now are found worldwide. Another
well-known group is the fuzzy and charismatic black-and-yellow bumblebee (Bombus spp.). The sacred
stingless bees (Melipona and Trigona) kept by both the ancient and modern Maya also live as highly
social colonies, producing a surplus of honey.
Social bees do not specialize in a particular floral color or shape -- their forte is finding and
exploiting rich sources of nectar and pollen. In fact, their efficiency and numbers can cause problems for
the solitary bees that land on flowers that honeybees have depleted. Honeybees communicate through
a waggle dance in which scout bees return to the nest and inform other bees about the distance and
direction to a newly discovered flower patch.

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1. What is this passage about?
A. honey
B. building materials used by bees
C. bees
2. What can be inferred from the passage?
A. Bees are social.
B. There are two types of bees.
C. Bees are solitary.
3. In the first paragraph, what does the word "They" refer to?
A. female social bees
B. male solitary bees
C. female solitary bees
4. In the second paragraph, what is the meaning of the word "diverse"?
A. similar
B. various
C. identical
5. In the last paragraph, what is NOT the meaning of the word "forte"?
A. strength
B. specialty
C. weakness
6. What can be inferred about social bees?
A. They live by themselves and their larvae.
B. They do not live in colonies.
C. They have defined roles and must cooperate with each other.
7. What bee produces honey that people harvest?
A. carpenter bee
B. mason bee
C. Apis mellifera
8. How do social bees communicate?
A. by flying
B. by dancing
C. by building nests

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9. What does the passage NOT imply?
A. Only social bees pollinate flowers.
B. There is competition between social and solitary bees for nectar and pollen.
C. There are more solitary bees than social bees.
10. Where does the sentence -- "Only the queen can lay eggs."-- best belong?
A. at the end of the fifth paragraph
B. at the end of the second paragraph
C. at the end of the fourth paragraph

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Passage 2: The Culture of the 1950s
During the 1950s, a sense of uniformity pervaded American society. Conformity was common,
as young and old alike followed group norms rather than striking out on their own. Though men and
women had been forced into new employment patterns during World War II, once the war was over,
traditional roles were reaffirmed. Men expected to be the breadwinners; women, even when they
worked, assumed their proper place was at home. Sociologist David Riesman observed the importance
of peer-group expectations in his influential book, The Lonely Crowd. He called this new society "other-
directed," and maintained that such societies lead to stability as well as conformity. Television
contributed to the homogenizing trend by providing young and old with a shared experience reflecting
accepted social patterns.
But not all Americans conformed to such cultural norms. A number of writers, members of the
so-called "beat generation," rebelled against conventional values. Stressing spontaneity and spirituality,
they asserted intuition over reason and Eastern mysticism over Western institutionalized religion. The
"beats" went out of their way to challenge the patterns of respectability and shock the rest of the
culture.
Their literary work displayed their sense of freedom. Jack Kerouac typed his best-selling novel
"On the Road" on a 75-meter roll of paper. Lacking accepted punctuation and paragraph structure, the
book glorified the possibilities of the free life. Poet Allen Ginsberg gained similar notoriety for his poem
"Howl," a scathing critique of modern, mechanized civilization. When police charged that it was obscene
and seized the published version, Ginsberg won national acclaim with a successful court challenge.
Tennessee singer Elvis Presley popularized black music in the form of rock and roll, and shocked
staid Americans with his ducktail haircut and undulating hips. In addition, Elvis and other rock and roll
singers demonstrated that there was a white audience for black music, thus testifying to the increasing
integration of American culture. Painters like Jackson Pollock discarded easels and laid out gigantic
canvases on the floor, and then applied paint, sand and other materials in wild splashes of color. All of
these artists and authors, whatever the medium, provided models for the wider and more deeply felt
social revolution of the 1960s.

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1. In the first paragraph, what is NOT the meaning of the word "pervaded"?
A. spread through
B. contaminated
C. permeated
2. In the first and second paragraphs, what is NOT the meaning of the word "norms"?
A. expected standards of behavior
B. expected patterns of behavior
C. exceptions to standards of behavior

3. What was NOT an American cultural norm during the 1950s?

A. men as breadwinners
B. conformity
C. women as breadwinners

4. What can be inferred from the third paragraph?

A. People could buy Ginsburg's poem after the court's decision.
B. Ginsburg went to jail.
C. Ginsburg's poem could not be distributed.
5. What was one effect of television?
A. It helped solidify uniformity in American society.
B. It helped challenge cultural norms.
C. It helped the rebellious writers.
6. In the third paragraph, what does the word "their" refer to?
A. writers who supported cultural norms
B. writers who were beats
C. writers who were conformists
7. In the last sentence of the third paragraph, what does the word "it" refer to?
A. the poem, "Howl"
B. the novel, "On the Road"
C. a critique
8. Where does the sentence -- "Musicians and artists rebelled as well." -- best belong?
A. at the end of the last paragraph
B. at the end of the second paragraph
C. at the beginning of the last paragraph

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9. In the last paragraph, what is the meaning of the word "staid"?
A. fun
B. dignified
C. rebellious
10. What does the passage imply?
A. The beat generation of the 1950s made possible the social revolution, including racial
integration, of the 1960s.
B. The 1950s was a period of great turmoil and rebellion that set back social progress.
C. As compared with the 1960s, the writers and artists of the 1950s produced little of lasting value.

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Passage 3: Why Largest US Ethnic Group Vanished from American Culture
People with German ancestry have long dominated the U.S. melting pot yet their stamp on
American culture seems to have all but disappeared.
There are more than 49 million Americans - 16 percent of the population - with German
ancestry, according to Ancestry and Ethnicity in America, which used data from the 2010 Census and the
2006-2010 American Community Survey.
At the turn of the century, just before the United States entered World War I, German
Americans accounted for about 10 percent of the population and their presence was keenly felt. They
were very proud and they clung to their culture very strongly. They still spoke German everywhere," said
Erik Kirschbaum, author of Burning Beethoven: The Eradication of German Culture in the United States
during World War I. They wanted to preserve their culture and keep it intact as long as they could."
German immigrants flocked to New York and Chicago, and residents in numerous small Midwestern
towns spoke German almost exclusively. German-language newspapers, theaters and churches
flourished. In some of these areas, the German influence was so pervasive that other non-German
settlers ended up learning German so they could communicate with fellow residents. Germans helped
establish General Electric and designed New York’s Brooklyn Bridge. They dominated the beer industry
and that influence lingers in name brands like Busch, Miller and Pabst.
The situation took a dark turn for German Americans when the United States entered World
War I. Suddenly, as anti-German hysteria swept the country, America’s largest, most powerful minority
was considered suspect. A lot of people thought the country was filled with spies and saboteurs and
actually 30 Germans were killed by mobs and lynch mobs," said Kirschbaum, whose own grandfather
grew up speaking German but refused to speak in the language in his later years.
Shortly after declaring war on Germany, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson required about
250,000 German-born men - aged fourteen and older - to register their address and employment at
their local post office. Within a year, that order was expanded to include women. About 6,000 of these
people were arrested and 2,000 of them, who were deemed dangerous, were sent to internment
camps.
German language books were taken out of schools and libraries and burned by so-called
patriotic organizations that wanted to make sure German was eradicated from the American landscape.
Kirschbaum says German Americans, who saw Germany as their mother and America as their wife, felt
they had to make a choice. They suddenly realized they cannot be both German and American," he said.
And after the war, a lot of them felt they had to assimilate, there was no choice and a lot of them did. A
lot of them became thoroughly American. They stopped speaking German. They stopped teaching their
children German. They stopped reading German newspapers and they became whole-hearted

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Americans." And in doing so, much of the German culture they’d proudly held onto for so long, slowly
vanished from the American landscape.
1. What does the passage imply?
A. German culture was never prevalent in the U.S.
B. German-Americans were not a large ethnic group in pre-WWI United States.
C. If it had not been for WWI, German culture in the U.S. would not have vanished.
2. In the first paragraph, what does the word "their" refer to?
A. the U.S. melting pot
B. people with German ancestry
C. Germans
3. In the third paragraph, what is NOT the meaning of the word "pervasive"?
A. extensive
B. limited
C. common
4. In the fourth paragraph, what is the meaning of the phrase "The situation took a dark turn"?
A. the situation changed from good to bad
B. the situation became better
C. the situation turned in the right direction
5. In the third paragraph, what is NOT the meaning of the word "flocked to"?
A. congregated in
B. gathered in
C. flew to
6. In the fifth paragraph, what is the meaning of the words "internment camps"?
A. a prison for the confinement of aliens or political prisoners, generally during wartime
B. a place for those not fighting in WWI
C. a holding place for Germans before they were returned to Germany
7. In the sixth paragraph, what is NOT the meaning of the word "assimilate"?
A. blend in to another culture
B. isolate oneself
C. adopt another culture
8. What is NOT the topic of this passage?
A. how WWI caused the disappearance of German culture in the US
B. the growth of German culture in the U.S.
C. why German Americans assimilated

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9. Where does the sentence -- "And in doing so, much of the German culture they’d proudly held onto for
so long, slowly vanished from the American landscape." -- best belong?
A. at the end of the fourth paragraph
B. at the end of the fifth paragraph
C. at the end of the last paragraph
10. When did the internment of German Americans take place?
A. shortly before World War I
B. during World War I
C. after World War I