Name:                                                        DATE:

DIRECTIONS: Read each sentence below and select the best word  that completes the sentence.

1. His parents had always ____his poor grades in school to lack of intelligence, but later they found out that he had a hearing problem.
 a)  attributed    b) disparaged c) prejudiced d) precluded

2. When their house burned down, they were left with ___ nothing.
 a)  innately  b) overwhelmingly c) cavalierly  d) virtually

3. The ____ of the criminals allowed the people in the town to sleep better at night.
 a) endangerment b) apprehension c) assault  d) prevalence

4. Please _____ from speaking in a loud voice.  The class is taking a test.
 a) concede  b) comply  c) refrain  d) preclude

5. The politician was overhead making a/an _____ remark about an ethnic group.  Consequently, he lost many votes.
 a) disparaging b) pernicious c) unprecedented d) inebriated

6. She thought the idea was interesting; she was just worried about its _____.
 a) pervasiveness b) liability  c) feasibility  d) inextricability

7. When I first arrived in New York, I was ____by the number of people everywhere.
 a) immersed  b) reconciled c) refrained  d) overwhelmed

8. The judge gave him a light sentence because of the ____ circumstances of the crime.
 a) mitigating  b) inebriating d) overwhelming d) intrusive

9. Howard Hughes, the famous businessman, was a ____.  He only saw the people who worked for him.
 a) destitution b) euphemism c) rebuke  d) recluse

10. He lived a very ___ life - no cigarettes, no alcohol, and no coffee.
 a) exclusive  b) abstinent  c) destitute  d) preclusive

11. Her lack of a high school degree was an ___ in getting a promotion.
 a) impediment b) exclusion  c) incentive  d) endorsement

12. When his visits to the doctor didn't help, he ___ to herbal medicine.
 a) reconciled b) scrutinized c) rebuked  d) resorted

13. In movies today, the heroes are ____ as very clean-living.  They never smoke or drink.
 a) contended b) hindered  c) nurtured  d) depicted
 
 
 
 

14. I always find a long morning walk to be _____.
 a) immersing b) scrutinizing c) disparaging d) invigorating

15. The children had become so ____ that the party was stopped.
 a) arbitrary  b) paradoxical c) rowdy  d) abstinent

16. He was so ____ by the news that he was unable to respond.
 a) grappled  b) traumatized c) taken for granted  d) eroded

17. All of the publicity about the trial _____the basic issues.
 a) eroded  b) plagued  c) paled  d) clouded

18. In the U.S., many people ____ vitamins as a way to fight disease and live longer.
 a) lure  b) balk  c) extol  d) instill

19. Many illegal immigrants live on the ____ of society, afraid that they will be discovered and forced to return home.
 a) periphery  b) aftermath  c) restraint  d) donation

20. The judge was in a/an ____as to how to decide who should receive custody of the child.  Neither parent seemed to be a model of a good father or a good mother.
 a) aftermath  b) conjecture c) trepidation d) quandary

21. Most scientists today___ to the belief that something should be done about the amount of carbon emissions in the air.
 a) empathize b) subscribe  c) ostracize  d) flourish

22. Because of the increasing number of regulations against smoking, many smokers are starting to feel like _____.
 a) epithets  b) cold turkeys c) plagues  d) pariahs

23. The once- ______ Marlboro man is slowly disappearing from view in many countries around the world because of the prohibitions against cigarette advertising.
 a) elusive  b) precocious c) ubiquitous d) notorious

24. Some psychologists fear that test-tube children may be _____ if other children find out how they were conceived.
 a) begrudged b) intimidated c) ostracized  d) restrained

25. In the past, society treated divorced women with great _______.
 a) disdain  b) alarm  c) notoriety  d) viability
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

READING COMPREHENSION
DIRECTIONS:  Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow.
 

 Almost everyone knows of someone with a strong will to live who survived well beyond others' expectations and of others who apparently "gave up" and died sooner than expected.  An extreme case is voodoo death,  in which a healthy person dies apparently just because he or she believes that a curse has destined death.
 Such phenomena were generally ignored by scientists until Walter Cannon (1942) published a collection of reasonably well-documented reports of voodoo death.  In a typical example, a woman who ate a fruit and then learned that it had come from a taboo place died within hours.  The common pattern in such cases was that the intended victims knew about the magic spells and believed that they were sure to die.  Friends and relatives, who also believed in the hex, began to treat the victim as a dying person.  Overwhelmed with dread and hopelessness, the victim refused food and water and died, usually within 24 to 48 hours.  Similar examples occur in almost any society - not necessarily that people die because they believe they are hexed, but people with minor illnesses or injuries die because they expect to.
(taken from Biological Psychology, 6th Ed., by James Kalat)

1. Write a brief 4-5 sentence summary of this passage. Include your own example of "voodoo death".