ENFRANCHISE : SLAVERY

• A. anatomy : physiology
• B. bondage : subjugation
• C. liberate : confine
• D. appeasement : unreasonable
• E. equation : mathematics

Most people think it's fine to be "busy as a beaver." Little do they know. Beavers may work hard, but often
they don't get much done. Beavers are supposed to be great tree cutters. It is true that a beaver can gnaw
through a tree very quickly. (A six-inch birch takes about ten minutes.) But then what? Often the beaver
does not make use of the tree.
One expert says that beavers waste one out of every five trees they cut. For one thing, they do not choose
their trees wisely. One bunch of beavers cut down a cottonwood tree more than one hundred feet tall.
Then they found that they could not move it. In thick woods a tree sometimes won't fall down. It gets stuck
in the other trees. Of course, doesn't think to cut down the trees that are in the way. So a good tree goes
to waste. Some people think that beavers can make a tree fall the way they want it to. Not true. (In fact, a
beaver sometimes gets pinned under a falling tree.) When beavers cut a tree near a stream, it usually falls
into the water. But they do not plan it that way. The fact is that most trees lean toward the water to start
with. Now what about dam building? Most beaver dams are wonders of engineering. The best ones are
strongly built of trees, stones, and mud. They are wide at the bottom and narrow at the top. Beavers think
nothing of building a dam more than two hundred feet long. One dam, in Montana, was more than two
thousand feet long. The largest one ever seen was in New Hampshire. It stretched four thousand feet. It
made a lake large enough to hold forty beaver homes. So beavers do build good dams. But they don't
always build them in the right places. They just don't plan. They will build a dam across the widest part of
the stream. They don't try to find a place where the stream is narrow. So a lot of their hard work is wasted.
Beavers should learn that it's not enough to be busy. You have to know what you're doing, too. For
example, there was one Oregon beaver that really was a worker. It decided to fix a leak in a man-made
dam. After five days of work it gave up. The leak it was trying to block was the lock that boats go through.
What is the main idea of this passage?

• A. Beavers are poor surveyors of aquatic environments in some cases.
• B. Beavers are excellent dam builders.
• C. Beavers may be hard working animals, but they don't always choose the most efficient mechanisms.
• D. Beavers are well developed tree cutters.
• E. New Hampshire was the site of the largest beaver dam.

The author's overall concern is with describing the process researchers are following to identify the genes
responsible for preventing cell death and with the direction (and goals) of current research based on their
findings. Of the five choices, choice B. best expresses the gist of the discussion. enterprise was prepared
for privatization and which form was most suitable for it. Slow privatization, some claim, is the only way to
establish true private ownership, because only those who must pay for enterprise-ownership rights will be
engaged in its management. But this method would only prolong the core problems of inefficiency and
misallocation of labor and capital, and hence either of two approaches to rapid privatization is preferable.
Under one such approach, shares of an enterprise would be distributed among its employees, who would
become its owners. This socialist reform method is deeply flawed; it discriminates in favor of workers who
happen to be employed by modern, efficient enterprises, and it jeopardizes workers' property by requiring
them to invest in the same enterprise in which they are employed, rather than diversifying their
investments. The better approach involves distribution of enterprise shares, free of charge, among all the
people by means of vouchers-a kind of investment money. Some critics charge that voucher holders
would not be interested in how their enterprises are managed-as may be true of small corporate
shareholders in capitalist countries who pay little attention to their investments until the corporation's
profits wane, at which time they rush to sell their securities. But while the resulting fall in stock prices can
be perilous for the corporation, this very pressure is what drives private firms toward efficiency and
profitability. Other detractors predict that most people will sell their vouchers to foreign capitalists.
However, these skeptics ignore the capacity of individuals to compare the future flow of income secured
by a voucher to the benefits of immediate consumption. Moreover, even if an individual should decide to
sell, the aim of voucher privatization is to secure equality not of property but of opportunity.
Which of the following would the author probably agree is the LEAST desirable outcome of economic
reform in formerly Communist countries?

• A. Equitable distribution of property among citizens
• B. Financial security of private enterprises
• C. Effective allocation of labor
• D. Equal opportunity for financial success among citizens
• E. Financial security of citizens

The author's overall concern is with describing the process researchers are following to identify the genes
responsible for preventing cell death and with the direction (and goals) of current research based on their
findings. Of the five choices, choice B. best expresses the gist of the discussion. enterprise was prepared
for privatization and which form was most suitable for it. Slow privatization, some claim, is the only way to
establish true private ownership, because only those who must pay for enterprise-ownership rights will be
engaged in its management. But this method would only prolong the core problems of inefficiency and
misallocation of labor and capital, and hence either of two approaches to rapid privatization is preferable.
Under one such approach, shares of an enterprise would be distributed among its employees, who would
become its owners. This socialist reform method is deeply flawed; it discriminates in favor of workers who
happen to be employed by modern, efficient enterprises, and it jeopardizes workers' property by requiring
them to invest in the same enterprise in which they are employed, rather than diversifying their
investments. The better approach involves distribution of enterprise shares, free of charge, among all the
people by means of vouchers-a kind of investment money. Some critics charge that voucher holders
would not be interested in how their enterprises are managed-as may be true of small corporate
shareholders in capitalist countries who pay little attention to their investments until the corporation's
profits wane, at which time they rush to sell their securities. But while the resulting fall in stock prices can
be perilous for the corporation, this very pressure is what drives private firms toward efficiency and
profitability. Other detractors predict that most people will sell their vouchers to foreign capitalists.
However, these skeptics ignore the capacity of individuals to compare the future flow of income secured
by a voucher to the benefits of immediate consumption. Moreover, even if an individual should decide to
sell, the aim of voucher privatization is to secure equality not of property but of opportunity.
The author closely associates gradual market deregulation with

• A. state agency determinations as to when enterprises should be privatize
• B. a fall in stock prices
• C. a restrictive monetary policy
• D. government subsidization of steel producers
• E. a policy requiring a monopoly to split into two or more enterprises

CARETAKER : ATTENTIVE ::

• A. writing : legible
• B. hair : curly
• C. meat : broiled
• D. mansion : spacious
• E. mule : obstinate