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PART 2
TEST 2
PART 2: READING
MULTIPLE-CHOICE, CHOOSE SINGLE ANSWER
A Read the text and answer the multiple-choice question by selecting the correct response.
Only one response is correct.
So far, we have been looking at the work of humanist historians in the Renaissance and the new way in
which they approached their subject. Not only did they use close reading of ancient texts, as you would
expect, but they also did a lot of research in the archives. That is, they didn't just read the historians
that came before them, they looked for real documents. For example, they studied the records of cases
that went to court, official letters that had survived, and so on to get a fuller picture of how people really
lived and went about their business.
These same techniques of historical research were used in what we can call "legal humanism". The
idea here was to get as accurate a picture as possible of the law and its practice in ancient, especially
Roman, times. Legal historians did this with a view to refining the laws and applying them to the present
historical situation. Legal scholarship's original desire to recover and purify the heritage of the ancient
world later came to be distorted by political views, but even here, in the 16th century, such intense study
could lead to unexpected conclusions. For example, in France, inquiries meant to uncover and apply the
legal wisdom of the Romans ended by uncovering a Roman law so pure that it was totally alien. This law,
in fact, belonged to the past and to a different society, and was therefore unusable.
What was the ultimate aim of legal scholarship?
1 To purify the ancient legal system.
2 To promote humanism in general.
3 To apply Roman law to their own society.
4 To perfect techniques of historical research.
B Read the text and answer the multiple-choice question by selecting the correct response.
Only one response is correct.
When it comes to an organ of such complexity as the eye, it is not difficult to understand why some
people cannot accept that such perfection was arrived at by the trial and error, or gradual development,
of natural selection. Yet people thought the Earth stood still until Copernicus told them otherwise. In the
same way, it shouldn't be hard to believe that a complex eye could be formed by natural selection if it
can be shown that there were numerous stages from a simple and imperfect eye to a complex and perfect
one, with each development being useful to its possessor and the variations being inherited.
However, the search for the stages through which an organ in any one species has come to perfection,
which ideally would mean looking exclusively at its past generations, is rarely possible. Therefore,
researchers are forced to examine species and genera of the same group to discover what stages or
gradual developments are possible. Even the state of development of the same organ in a different class
of creature may throw light on the steps taken towards perfection.
Some people object that in order for the eye to modify and still remain a useful instrument to its owner,
many changes would have had to take place simultaneously. However, it is not necessary to suppose this
if the modifications were extremely slight and gradual.
Why are researchers forced to look outside a specific species for clues to gradual development?
1 Because the eye is so complex and perfect already.
2 Because evidence of its ancestors is almost impossible to find.
3 Because the eye cannot change without losing its usefulness.
4 Because other species have more complex eyes.