ACT Reading Unit 3: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas — Free with Answer Explanations

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Unit 3: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

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Question 1

Based on the passages in question 1, taken together, the two passages most strongly suggest that disagreements about urban policy often turn on

A.whether the underlying facts can be measured at all.B.the political affiliations of the elected officials involved.C.what the shared facts are taken to mean for the community's interests.D.whether opponents of a project are sincere in their objections.

Question 2

Based on the passages in question 7, Passage B's central objection to the traditional account of the hand axe is that the account

A.underestimates how dangerous prehistoric environments actually were.B.groups functionally different tools together based only on shared appearance.C.ignores the role of language in technological transmission.D.relies too heavily on microwear and refit experiments rather than direct observation.

Question 3

Based on the passages in question 7, the two passages together most strongly imply that progress in archaeology can depend on

A.the discovery of entirely new categories of artifact at undisturbed sites.B.improvements in dating technology that revise the chronology of human evolution.C.reinterpreting familiar artifacts in light of new methods such as microwear analysis.D.abandoning attempts to classify prehistoric tools altogether.

Question 4

Passage A

The hand axe, that almond-shaped stone tool flaked on two sides, dominated the human archaeological record for more than a million years. From roughly 1.7 million years ago to perhaps 200,000 years ago, hominins across Africa, Europe, and western Asia produced essentially the same artifact, with only modest variation in size and refinement. To a modern observer accustomed to technologies that change within a single human lifetime, this stasis is staggering. What it tells us, I think, is that the hand axe was not a "tool" in the way a smartphone is a tool. It was a stable, near-perfect solution to a stable set of problems: butchering carcasses, processing plants, occasionally throwing at small game. Once a design reaches that kind of fit with its environment, it has no reason to change. We sometimes describe deep prehistory as a period of intellectual stagnation, as though our ancestors were too dim to innovate. The more honest reading is the opposite. The hand axe persisted because it worked, and because nothing in the world its makers inhabited demanded that it work differently.

Passage B

The traditional account of the hand axe — a million-year design frozen in place because it was "good enough" — has always struck me as too generous to the artifact and too stingy with the makers. Recent microwear studies and refit experiments suggest that what we have been calling "the hand axe" is, on closer inspection, a family of tools used for quite different purposes in different regions and periods. A hand axe from Olduvai shows wear consistent with heavy butchering; one from the Sussex coast shows polish consistent with reed cutting; some appear never to have been used at all and may have served as cores from which sharp flakes were struck. To call all of these the same tool because they share a silhouette is rather like calling every object with four legs and a flat top a "table" and then marveling at the stasis of furniture design. The makers were not locked in a million-year rut. We have simply been looking at the silhouette and ignoring the work.

The primary purpose of Passage A is to

A.argue that the long persistence of the hand axe reflects a good fit with stable conditions rather than intellectual limitation.B.demonstrate that early hominins were technologically more sophisticated than smartphones.C.catalog the regional variations in hand axe design across Africa, Europe, and Asia.D.criticize archaeologists who describe deep prehistory as stagnant.

Question 5

Passage A

When the city council voted last spring to convert four blocks of Sherman Avenue into a pedestrian-only promenade, the merchants on that stretch reacted as if a hurricane had been forecast. Storefront owners predicted ruined businesses, empty cafés, and a steady migration of customers to suburban malls. Six months later, the data tell a different story. Foot traffic on Sherman is up forty-one percent compared to the same period last year. Three new restaurants have signed leases. Even the hardware store, which sent the loudest delegation to the council meetings, reports a modest gain in weekend sales. The pattern is not unique to our city. From Pontevedra in Spain to Times Square in New York, the conversion of car-clogged streets into walkable space has, again and again, produced exactly the commercial revival that opponents insisted was impossible. The lesson is not that drivers do not matter — they do — but that the imagined customer who arrives only by car is often a fiction. Most shoppers, on most days, arrive on foot, by bicycle, or by transit. Designing streets as if the opposite were true does not serve them; it merely punishes everyone for the convenience of a few.

Passage B

The boosters of the Sherman Avenue pedestrianization love to cite the forty-one percent figure, but they are careful not to mention what it measures. Foot traffic counts everyone who walks past a sensor on the sidewalk — tourists, dog-walkers, teenagers killing time after school. It does not count dollars spent. The hardware store's "modest gain" was three percent in nominal terms, well below the seven percent inflation rate for the same period; in real dollars, the store lost ground. Two of the four storefronts that closed in the past quarter were small family operations that had served the neighborhood for decades; the new tenants are a chain coffee shop and a boutique selling fifty-dollar candles. This is not commercial revival. It is the substitution of one kind of business — affordable, neighborhood-serving — for another aimed at visitors with disposable income. Pedestrianization in dense European city centers is one thing; imposing it on a mid-sized American main street, where many older customers genuinely cannot make the trip without a car, is something else. The council should reopen Sherman to limited vehicle traffic before the damage to our remaining independent merchants becomes irreversible.

The central claim of Passage A is best summarized as which of the following?

A.Pedestrianizing urban streets typically produces commercial gains that opponents fail to predict.B.The Sherman Avenue project has been a failure that the city council should reverse.C.Drivers should be banned from all downtown areas in mid-sized American cities.D.European cities like Pontevedra have superior urban planning compared to American cities.

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Question 6

Based on the passages in question 1, the author of Passage B would most likely view Passage A's mention of Pontevedra and Times Square as

A.compelling evidence that pedestrianization works in any urban context.B.irrelevant comparisons, because dense European centers and Times Square differ from a mid-sized American main street.C.examples that should be dismissed because foreign cities have no lessons for American policy.D.support for Passage B's own argument about preserving independent merchants.

Question 7

Based on the passages in question 1, on which of the following points would the authors of Passages A and B most likely AGREE?

A.The Sherman Avenue pedestrianization has been good for the neighborhood's long-term character.B.Foot traffic on Sherman Avenue has risen substantially since the conversion.C.Cars should be permanently banned from the Sherman Avenue corridor.D.European pedestrianization models translate easily to American main streets.

Question 8

Based on the passages in question 7, the author of Passage A would most likely respond to Passage B's argument by

A.conceding that some hand axes had varied uses but maintaining that the basic design still represents a stable solution.B.rejecting microwear evidence as methodologically unreliable.C.agreeing fully and abandoning the claim that the hand axe was a single tool.D.arguing that Passage B's examples are too recent to bear on the deep prehistoric record.

Question 9

Based on the passages in question 1, which of the following best describes how Passage B responds to Passage A's reference to the hardware store?

A.Passage B disputes that the hardware store ever opposed the project in the first place.B.Passage B accepts the hardware store's reported gain but argues that, after adjusting for inflation, the store lost ground.C.Passage B claims the hardware store has since closed and been replaced by a chain.D.Passage B agrees with Passage A that the hardware store demonstrates revival.

Question 10

Based on the passages in question 7, the 'table' analogy in Passage B is used primarily to

A.illustrate how grouping objects by shape can obscure functional diversity.B.argue that furniture has changed less over time than archaeologists assume.C.suggest that hand axes were used as furniture in some regions.D.show that modern observers are more easily fooled than ancient ones.

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Question 11

Based on the passages in question 1, Passage B's objection to the 'forty-one percent' figure is that the figure

A.was fabricated by city officials to justify the pedestrianization.B.counts foot traffic rather than dollars spent, and so does not establish commercial revival.C.applies only to weekends, not to the full week of business activity.D.was inflated by tourists who do not live in the neighborhood.

Question 12

Based on the passages in question 7, which of the following statements would the authors of Passages A and B most likely BOTH accept?

A.Hominins who made hand axes were intellectually limited.B.Objects we call 'hand axes' were used across a span of more than a million years.C.All hand axes were used primarily for butchering carcasses.D.Modern smartphones are a useful comparison for thinking about prehistoric tools.