MCAT English (Reading Comprehension) for Medical College Aptitude Test Preparation (Part VII)
Medical College Entry Test (MCAT) Online Preparation from Topic "Reading Comprehension" (03 Passages and 10 Questions)
Passage #1
From Boston to Los Angeles, from New York City to Chicago or to Dallas, museums are either planning building, or wrapping up wholesale expansion programs. These programs already have radically altered facades and floor plans or are expected to do so in the not-too-distant future.
In New York City alone, six major institutions have spread up and out into the air space and neighborhoods around them or are preparing to do so.
The reasons for this confluence of activity are complex, but one factor is a consideration everywhere –space. With collections expanding, with the needs and functions or museums changing, empty space has become a precious commodity.
Probably nowhere in the country is this truer than at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has needed additional space for decades and which received its last significant facelift -ten years ago. Because of the space crunch, the Art Museum has become increasingly cautious in considering acquisitions and donations of art, in some cases passing up opportunities to strengthen its collections.
Deceasing – or selling off – works of art has taken on new importance because of the museum's space problems. And increasingly, curators have been forced to juggle gallery space, rotating one masterpiece into public view while another is sent to storage. Despite the clear need for additional gallery and storage space, however, "the museum has no plan, no plan to break out of its envelope in the next fifteen years, according to Philadelphia Museum of Art's president.
Passage #2
Even stranger than the lianas are the epiphytes or the air plants. This large group includes orchids, cacti, aroids, bromeliads. They grow high in the trees without benefiting from soil. There are also non flowering lichens and mosses.
Passage #3
The first oil well was drilled by E. L Drake, a retired railroad conductor. In 1859 he began drilling in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The whole venture seemed so impractical and foolish that onlookers called it "Drake's Folly.” But when he had drilled down about 70 feet (21 meters), Drake struck oil. His well began to yield 20 barrels of crude oil a day. News of Drake's success brought oil prospector to the scene. By the early 1860's these wildcatters were drilling for "black gold" all over western Pennsylvania. The boom rivaled the California gold rush of 1848 in its excitement and Wild West atmosphere. And it brought far more wealth to the prospectors than any gold rush.
Crude oil could be refined into many products and for some years kerosene continued to be the principal one. It was sold in grocery stores and door-to door. In the 1880's and 1890's refiners learned how to make other petroleum products such as waxes and lubricating oils. Back then, petroleum was not used to make gasoline or heating oil.
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