33. What does the passage mainly discuss? (A) The increased use of private mail services (B) The development of a government postal system (C) A comparison of urban and rural postal services (D) The history of postage stamps. 34. The word "varied" in line 2 could best be replaced by (A) increased (B) differed (C) returned (D) started 35. Which of the following was seen as a disadvantage of the postage stamp? (A) It had to be purchased by the sender in advance. (B) It increased the cost of mail delivery. (C) It was difficult to affix to letters. (D) It was easy to counterfeit. 36. Why does the author mention the city of Philadelphia in line 9? (A) It was the site of the first post office in the United States. (B) Its postal service was inadequate for its population. (C) It was the largest city in the United States in 1847. (D) It was commemorated by the first United States postage stamp. 37. The word "cumbersome" in line 13 is closest in meaning to (A) burdensome (B) handsome (C ) loathsome (D) quarrelsome 38. The word "they" in line 15 refers to (A) Boston and Philadelphia (B) businesses (C) arrangements (D) letters 39. The private postal services of the nineteenth century claimed that they could do which of the following better than the government? (A) Deliver a higher volume of mail. (B) Deliver mail more cheaply. (C) Deliver mail faster. (D) Deliver mail to rural areas. 40. In 1863 the United States government began providing which of the following to mail carriers? (A) A salary (B) Housing (C) Transportation (D) Free postage stamps 41. The word "Confined" in line 21 is closest in meaning to (A) granted (B) scheduled (C) limited (D) recommended Questions 43-50 Archaeology has long been an accepted tool for studying prehistoric cultures. Relatively recently the same techniques have been systematically applied to studies of the more immediate past. This has been called "historical archaeology," a term that is used in the United States to refer to any archaeological investigation into North American sites that postdate the arrival of Europeans. Back in the 1930’s and 1940’s, when building restoration was popular, historical < br>archaeology was primarily a tool of architectural reconstruction. The role of archaeologists was to find the foundations of historic buildings and then take a back seat to architects. The mania for reconstruction had largely subsided by 1950’s. Most people entering historical archaeology during this period came out of university anthropology departments., where they had studied prehistoric cultures. They were, by training, social scientists, not historians, and their work tended to reflect this bias. The questions they framed and the techniques they used were designed to help them understand, as scientists, how people behaved. But because they were treading on historical ground for which there was often extensive written documentation and because their own knowledge of these periods was usually limited, their contributions to American history remained circumscribed. Their reports, highly technical and sometimes poorly written, went unread. |
