Create an account to track your scores
and create your own practice tests:
Flashcards: Authorial Attitude, Tone, and Purpose in Narrative Science Passages
Adapted from The Evolutionist at Large by Grant Allen (1881)
I am engaged in watching a brigade of ants out on foraging duty, and intent on securing for the nest three whole segments of a deceased earthworm. They look for all the world like those busy companies one sees in the Egyptian wall paintings, dragging home a huge granite colossus by sheer force of bone and sinew. Every muscle in their tiny bodies is strained to the utmost as they pry themselves laboriously against the great boulders that strew the path, and that are known to our Brobdingnagian intelligence as grains of sand. Besides the workers themselves, a whole battalion of stragglers runs to and fro upon the broad line that leads to the headquarters of the community. The province of these stragglers, who seem so busy doing nothing, probably consists in keeping communications open, and encouraging the sturdy pullers by occasional relays of fresh workmen. I often wish that I could for a while get inside those tiny brains, and see, or rather smell, the world as ants do. For there can be little doubt that to these brave little carnivores here the universe is chiefly known as a collective bundle of odors, simultaneous or consecutive. As our world is mainly a world of visible objects, theirs, I believe, is mainly a world of olfactible things.
In the head of every one of these little creatures is something that we may fairly call a brain. Of course most insects have no real brains; the nerve-substance in their heads is a mere collection of ill-arranged ganglia, directly connected with their organs of sense. Whatever man may be, an earwig at least is a conscious, or rather a semi-conscious, automaton. He has just a few knots of nerve cells in his little pate, each of which leads straight from his dim eye or his vague ear or his indefinite organs of taste; and his muscles obey the promptings of external sensations without possibility of hesitation or consideration, as mechanically as the valve of a steam engine obeys the governor balls. The poor soul's intellect is wholly deficient, and the senses alone make up all that there is of him, subjectively considered. But it is not so with the highest insects. They have something that truly answers to the real brain of men, apes, and dogs, to the cerebral hemispheres and the cerebellum that are superadded in us mammals upon the simple sense-centers of lower creatures. Besides the eye, with its optic nerve and optic perceptive organs—besides the ear, with its similar mechanism—we mammalian lords of creation have a higher and more genuine brain, that collects and compares the information given to the senses, and sends down the appropriate messages to the muscles accordingly. Now, bees and flies and ants have got much the same sort of arrangement, on a smaller scale, within their tiny heads. On top of the little knots that do duty as nerve centers for their eyes and mouths, stand two stalked bits of nervous matter, whose duty is analogous to that of our own brains. And that is why these three sorts of insects think and reason so much more intellectually than beetles or butterflies, and why the larger part of them have organized their domestic arrangements on such an excellent cooperative plan.
We know well enough what forms the main material of thought with bees and flies, and that is visible objects. For you must think about something if you think at all; and you can hardly imagine a contemplative blow-fly setting itself down to reflect, like a Hindu devotee, on the syllable Om, or on the oneness of existence. Abstract ideas are not likely to play a large part in apian consciousness. A bee has a very perfect eye, and with this eye it can see not only form, but also color, as Sir John Lubbock's experiments have shown us. The information that it gets through its eye, coupled with other ideas derived from touch, smell, and taste, no doubt makes up the main thinkable and knowable universe as it reveals itself to the apian intelligence. To ourselves and to bees alike the world is, on the whole, a colored picture, with the notions of distance and solidity thrown in by touch and muscular effort; but sight undoubtedly plays the first part in forming our total conception of things generally.
The point of view from which the passage is told can best be described as that of __________.
a writer of fiction
an ant
a geologist
a physicist
a biologist
All SSAT Upper Level Reading Resources
Our SSAT Upper Level Reading Comprehension Flashcards each contain one question that might appear on the Upper Level Reading Comprehension section of the SSAT. You can use them to get a comprehensive overview of each topic covered by the SSAT Upper Level Reading Comprehension section one problem at a time, or to do problem drills that focus on particular problem types or content areas found on the SSAT Upper Level Reading Comprehension section.
Reading and comprehending what is written is a very important skill your child needs to learn well to succeed inside and outside of the classroom. If your child is taking the SSAT Upper Level test soon, then they need to prepare well for the Reading section of the test, which will test their reading comprehension rigorously. Varsity Tutors' Learning Tools offers a full suite of SSAT Upper Level Reading study help activities that can be accessed from any computer, tablet, or smartphone.
While other Learning Tools, like the practice tests, are great study materials for your child to use when they have time to sit down and complete them, the SSAT Upper Level Reading Flashcards are perfect for studying when on-the-go or when time is limited. Your child can practice these free flashcards online between classes in school, while riding to and from school and extracurricular activities, or even during commercial breaks of that favorite television show they just can't miss every week!
Unlike the practice tests, the SSAT Upper Level Reading Flashcards don't have timers that determine how long your child takes to answer the questions. While getting in some timed practice is very important, especially when test day is near, if there are topics your child struggles with immensely, then studying the concepts without feeling like they are working “against the clock” can be helpful at first. They can take as long as they need to learn the steps needed to find the right answer without feeling anxious about how long it takes for them to build up this skill. Once they learn to solve the questions they struggle with accurately, they can later work on building up speed during the practice tests.
The SSAT Upper Level Reading review flashcards were created in the same format as the official test, and they each contain a literary passage and a multiple-choice question based on that passage. If you do decide to use the flashcards maker to create additional flashcards for your child to study, they will be most helpful for test preparation if they are also created in this format. When using the flashcards builder, you can also enter the same literary passage on several blank flashcards templates, because each passage on the SSAT will be followed with several questions based on it.
The SSAT Upper Level Reading flashcards have several types of literary passages on them, including humanities, argumentative humanities, narrative humanities, literary fiction, poetry, science, narrative science, social science, and narrative social science passages. The passages on the SSAT will be based on similar topics. Follow-up questions on the flashcards quiz your child on their understanding of authorial attitude, authorial tone, main ideas, and details of the passages. Groups of flashcards also help your child practice determining the meaning of a word based on the context.
The SSAT Upper Level Reading test will contain 40 questions based on a handful of literary passages. Even if your child has great reading skills, don't assume that their reading comprehension skills are at the level they need to be to perform well on the test. Locate the weak areas of your child's reading comprehension skills by having them take a diagnostic exam, and you can then help them build the skills they are weakest in by having them study with the flashcards based on them.
Certified Tutor
Certified Tutor
