121. Local crafts people-sign, coach, and house painters-began to paint portraits as a profitable sideline; sometimes a talented man or woman who began by sketching family members gained a local reputation and was besieged with requests for portraits; artists found it worth their while to pack their paints, canvases, and brushes and to travel the countryside, often combining house decorating with portrait painting.
The word "sketching" is closest in meaning to which of following?
(A) drawing
(B) hiring
(C) helping
(D) discussing
122. Both the number and the percentage of people in the United States involved in nonagricultural pursuits expanded rapidly during the half century following the Civil War, with some of the most dramatic increases occurring in the domains of transportation, manufacturing, and trade and distribution.
The word "domains" is closest in meaning to which of following?
(A) fields
(B) locations
(C) organizations
(D) occupations
123. The development of the railroad and telegraph systems during the middle third of the nineteenth century led to significant improvements in the speed, volume, and regularity of shipments and communications, making possible a fundamental transformation in the production and distribution of goods.
The word "fundamental" is closest in meaning to which of following?
(A) possible
(B) basic
(C) gradual
(D) unique
124. To be sure, there were still small workshops, where skilled craftspeople manufactured products ranging from newspapers to cabinets to plumbing fixtures.
The word "skilled" is closest in meaning to which of following?
(A) hardworking
(B) expert
(C) well-paid
(D) industrial
125. And there were factories in occupations such as metalwork where individual contractors presided over what were essentially handicraft proprietorships that coexisted within a single building.
The words "presided over" in line 20 are closest in meaning to
(A) managed
(B) led to
(C) worked in
(D) produced
126. Objects in the universe show a variety of shapes: round planets (some with rings) , tailed comets, wispy cosmic gas and dust clouds, ringed nebulae, pinwheel-shaped spiral galaxies, and so on. But none of the shapes on this list describes the largest single entities in the universe.
The word "entities" is closest in meaning to which of following?
(A) factors
(B) processes
(C) objects
(D) puzzles
127. Stone carvers engraved their motifs of skulls and crossbones and other religious icons of death into the gray slabs that we still see standing today in old burial grounds.
The word "motifs" is closest in meaning to which of following?
(A) tools
(B) prints
(C) signatures
(D) designs
128. Although they often achieved expression and formal excellence in their generally primitive style, they remained artisans skilled in the craft of carving and constituted a group distinct from what we normally think of as "sculptors" in today's use of the word.
The word "distinct" is closest in meaning to which of following?
(A) separate
(B) assembled
(C) notable
(D) inferior
129. On the rare occasion when a fine piece of sculpture was desired, Americans turned to foreign sculptors, as in the 1770's when the cities of New York and Charleston, South Carolina, commissioned the Englishman Joseph Wilton to make marble statues of William Pill.
