How Do We Make Inferences?

READING COMPREHENSION

This test measures your ability to understand what you read. You may be asked to:

 identify the relationship between sentences

 distinguish between the main and secondary ideas

 make inferences

DIRECTIONS: Read the statement or passage and then choose the best answer to the question. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the statement or passage.

1. Myths are stories, the products of fertile imagination, sometimes simple, often containing profound truths. They are not meant to be taken too literally. Details may sometimes appear childish, but most myths express a culture's most serious beliefs about human beings, eternity, and God.

The main idea of this passage is that myths

(a) are created primarily to

In embarking on the fight for independence, America faced formidable obstacles. The Continental Congress did not have the authority to pass binding legislation or to impose taxes. The new nation had no army and no navy, and its population numbered only 2.5 million people, 20 percent of whom were slaves. Britain, by contrast, was a mighty power of 11 million people with the world's best navy and a well-disciplined army. Fifty thousand troops were in North America in 1778, and Britain hired thirty thousand German soldiers to supplement its forces during the war (from An American History by Rebecca Brooks Gruver).

What is the main point of the passage?

(a) Britain was a great power whose population outnumbered that of America.

(b) America's military forces were less experienced than Britain's military.

(c) America's Continental Congress had limited authority.

(d) As America was about to engage in its struggle for autonomy, it was faced with arduous