The Way Things Work, David Macaulay
The kind of nuclear reaction that happens inside a nuclear reactor is
called nuclear fission. The fuel is uranium or plutonium, two very heavy
elements which have many protons and neutrons in their nuclei. Fission
starts when a fast-moving neutron strikes a nucleus. The nucleus cannot
take in the extra neutron, and the whole nucleus breaks apart into two
smaller nuclei.

What is Macaulay’s tone in this passage?

• respected

• aggressive

• impartial

• awe

We refused to get out of bed when the bugle blew in the morning, we fought

against scrubbing our teeth in public to music, we sneered when the flag was

ceremoniously lowered at sunset, we avoided doing a good deed a day, we

complained loudly about the food . . . and we bought some chalk and wrote all

over the Recreation Cabin, “We hate Camp Hi Wah.”

• hostile

• avoidance

• perplexed

• hopeful

I perceived, as I read, how the collective white man had been actually

nothing but a piratical opportunist who used Faustian machinations to

make his own Christianity his initial wedge in criminal conquest. First,

always “religiously,” he branded “heathen” and “pagan” labels upon ancient non-white cultures and civilizations. The stage thus set, he

then turned upon his non-white victims his weapons of war.

• impartial

• aggressive

• inferior

• bored

I’m _____________________about my job: sometimes I love it, and

sometimes I hate it.

• hostile

• inferior

• submissive

• ambivalent

Each year in the middle of February, when slush is underfoot and the sky is a depressing gray, I begin dreaming of warm beaches, tropical fruits and sunsets. If only I could save enough for a winter vacation! Maybe next year I’ll win the lottery. Meanwhile, I’ll read travel brochures and sigh.

• avoidance

• aggressive

• hopeful

• impartial