MCAT English (Reading Comprehension) for Medical College Aptitude Test Preparation (Part VIII)
Medical College Entry Test (MCAT) Online Preparation from Topic "Reading Comprehension" (03 Passages and 10 Questions)
Passage #1
An alternative to the market system is administration control by some agency over all transaction. This agency will issue edicts or commands as to how much of each good and service should be produced, exchanged and consumed by each economic unit. Central planning may be one way of administering such an economy. The central planning drew up by the government shows the amounts of each commodity produced. by the various firms and allocated to different households for consumption. This is an example of a complete plan of production consumption and exchange for the whole economy.
In a traditional society production and consumption patterns are governed by tradition. Every person and place within the economic system is fixed by parentage, religion and custom.
Passage #2
Fishing enthusiasts in the Midwest and New England are complaining about beaver dams that spoil streams for trout and, in the Southeast lumber companies object whenever the animals flood out valuable stands of commercial timber. But some beaver experts champion a more charitable view. Historically, they say, this creature's impact on the environment has been tremendously significant, and its potential as a practical conservation resource is receiving more and more attention.
When it comes to modifying the landscape in a major way, the beaver ranks second only to humans among all living creatures. "Some people think of the beaver the same way they think of the gypsy moth," said one scientist. "They think it just comes through and eats and destroys. What they don't understand is the fact that for centuries this animal has controlled the character of the forests and streams that it occupies."
Passage #3
With the show "Rodeo," Agnes de Mille had been an innovator in the world of ballet. But with the show "Oklahoma," she revolutionized the Broadway stage – brought to an end the dance line routine of high kicks and mechanized movement, and gave in its place dance and plot smoothly integrated where choreography would therefore actions. (Twenty-five years later, in March, 1968, a New Tunes article by theater critic Walter Kerr, headed, “in the beginning "Oklahoma" had a plot). It had to do with whether a boy would succeed in taking a girl to a picnic lunch. At the end of the first half this great issue was still unresolved, so unresolved that its emotional implications had to be danced out at great length in what remains the most exhilarating of dance ever devised for the United States musical comedy stage.”
The impact of Oklahoma was instantaneous. The song "Beautiful Morning" sounded out via radios, in restaurants, from cars passing on the highways and in shoeshine parlors. Full skirts of gingham patterns, street shoes made to look like ballet slippers, the ponytail hairdo, were the rage. The play ran for five years and nine weeks in New York City. A traveling road company played it for nine and a half years. It also toured abroad for several years. In 1955 it became a movie. A newly assembled all – star company was sent abroad by the State Department as representative of a part of United States culture. As for Agnes de Mille, her days of giving recitals and losing 5300 to 51000 each time were over. She became the most sought–after choreographer on Broadway.
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