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TOEFL READING PRACTICE WITH ANSWERS
TOEFL 2 (PART 1)
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Questions 1-7
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Joyce Carol Oates published her first collection
of short stories. By The Gate, in 1963, two years after she had received
her master's degree from the University of Wisconsin and become an instructor
of English at the University of Detroit. Her productivity since then has
been prodigious, accumulating in less than two decades to nearly thirty titles,
including novels, collections of short stories and verse, plays, and
literary criticism. In the meantime, she has continued to teach, moving in
1967 from the University of Detroit to the University of Windsor, in
Ontario, and, in 1978, to Princeton University. Reviewers have admired her
enormous energy, but find a productivity of such magnitude difficult to
assess.
In a period characterized by the abandonment of
so much of the realistic tradition by authors such as John Barth, Donald
Barthelme, and Thomas Pynchon, Joyce Carol Oates has seemed at times
determinedly old-fashioned in her insistence on the essentially mimetic
quality of her fiction. Hers is a world of violence, insanity, fractured
love, and hopeless loneliness. Although some of it appears to come from her
own direct observations, her dreams, and her fears, much more is clearly
from the experiences of others. Her first novel, With Shuddering
Fall(1964), dealt with stock car racing, though she had never seen a race.
IN Them(1969) she focused on Detroit from the Depression through the notes
of 1967, drawing much of her material from the deep impression made on her
by the problems of one of her students. Whatever the source and however shocking
the events or the motivations, however, her fictive world remains
strikingly akin to that real one reflected in the daily newspapers, the
television news and talk shows, and the popular magazines of our day.
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1
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What is the main purpose of
the passage?
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(A)
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To review Oates's By the
North Gate
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(B)
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To compare some modern writers
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(C)
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To describe Oates's childhood
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(D)
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To outline Oates's career
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2
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Which of the following does
the passage indicate about Joyce Carol Qate's first publication?
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(A)
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It was part of her master's thesis.
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(B)
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It was a volume of short
fiction.
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(C)
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It was not successful.
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(D)
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It was about an English
instructor in Detroit.
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3
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Which of the following does the passage suggest
about Joyce Carol Oates in terms of her writing career?
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(A)
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She has experienced long non-productive
periods in her writing.
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(B)
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Her style is imitative of other contemporary
authors
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(C)
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She has produced a surprising
amount of fictions in a relative short time.
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(D)
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Most of her work is based on personal experience.
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4
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The word
"characterized" in line 10 can best replaced by which of the
following?
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(A)
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Shocked
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(B)
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Impressed
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(C)
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Distinguished
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(D)
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Helped
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5
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What was the subject of Joyce Carol Oates's
first novel?
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(A)
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Loneliness
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(B)
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Inanity
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(C)
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Teaching
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(D)
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Racing
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6
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Why does the author mention
Oates's book Them?
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(A)
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It is a typical novel of the 1960's
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(B)
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It is her best piece of
nonfiction.
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(C)
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It is a fictional work based on the experiences
of another person.
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(D)
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It is an autobiography.
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7
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Which of the following would Joyce Carol Oates be
most likely to write?
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(A)
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A story with an unhappy
ending
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(B)
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A romancer novel set in the nineteenth century
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(C)
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A science fiction novel
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(D)
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A dialogue for a talk show
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CLICK HERE FOR READING TOEFL 1
CLICK HERE FOR READING POST TEST
ANSWER
KEY
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1
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D
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2
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B
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3
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C
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4
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C
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5
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D
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6
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C
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7
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A
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