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The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1868,prohibits state governments from denying citizens the “equal protection of the laws.” Although precisely what the framers of the amendment meant by this equal protection clause remains unclear, all interpreters agree that the framers’ immediate objective was to provide a constitutional warrant for the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which guaranteed the citizenship of all persons born in the United States and subject to United States jurisdiction. This declaration, which was echoed in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, was designed primarily to counter the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford that Black people in the United States could be denied citizenship. The act was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson, who argued that the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, did not provide Congress with the authority to extend citizenship and equal protection to the freed slaves. Although Congress promptly overrode Johnson’s veto, supporters of the act sought to ensure its constitutional foundations with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The broad language of the amendment strongly suggests that its framers were proposing to write into the Constitution not a laundry list of specific civil rights but a principle of equal citizenship that forbids organized society from treating any individual as a member of an inferior class. Yet for the first eight decades of the amendment’s existence, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the amendment betrayed this ideal of equality. In the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, for example, the Court invented the “state action” limitation, which asserts that “private” decisions by owners of public accommodations and other commercial business to segregate their facilities are insulated form the reach of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.
After the Second World War, a judicial climate more hospitable to equal protection claims culminated in the Supreme Court;s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that racially segregated schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Two doctrines embraced by the Supreme Court during this period extended the amendment’s reach. First, the Court required especially strict scrutiny of legislation that employed a “suspect classification,” meaning discrimination against a group on grounds that could be construed as racial. This doctrine has broadened the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to other, nonracial forms of discrimination, for while some justices have refused to find any legislative classification other than race to be constitutionally disfavored, most have been receptive to arguments that at least some nonracial discriminations, sexual discrimination in particular, are “suspect” and deserve this heightened scrutiny by the courts. Second, the Court relaxed the state action limitation on the Fourteenth Amendment, bringing new forms of private conduct within the amendment’ s reach.
1. Which of the following best describes the main idea of the passage?
A. By presenting a list of specific rights, framers of the Fourteenth Amendment were attempting to provide a constitutional basis for broad judicial protection of the principle of equal citizenship
B. Only after the Supreme Court adopted the suspect classification approach to reviewing potentially discrimination legislation was the applicability of the Fourteenth Amendment extended to include sexual discrimination
C. Not until after the Second World War did the Supreme Court begin to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment in a manner consistent with the principle of equal citizenship that it express.
D. Interpreters of the Fourteenth Amendment have yet to reach consensus with regard to what its framers meant by the equal protection clause
E. Although the reluctance of judges to extend the reach of the Fourteenth Amendment to nonracial discrimination has betrayed the principle of equal citizenship, the Supreme Court’s use of the state action limitation to insulate private activity fro the amendment’s reach has been more harmful.
2. The passage suggests that the principle effect of the state action limitation was to
A. allow some discriminatory practices to continue unimpeded by the Fourteenth Amendment
B. influence the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
C. provide expanded guidelines describing prohibited actions
D. prohibit states from enacting laws that violated the intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1866
E. shift to state government the responsibility for enforcement of laws prohibiting discriminatory practices
3. The author’s position regarding the intent of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment would be most seriously undermined if which of the following were true?
A. The framers had anticipated state action limitations as they are described in the passage.
B. The framers had merely sought to prevent discriminatory acts by federal officials.
C. The framers were concerned that the civil rights act of 1866 would be overturned by the Supreme Court.
D. The framers were aware that the phrase “equal protection of the laws”had broad implications.
E. The framers believed that racial as well as non-racial forms of discrimination were unacceptable.
4. According to the passage, the original proponents of the Fourteenth Amendment were primarily concerned with
A. detailing the rights afforded by the principle of equal citizenship
B. providing support in the Constitution for equal protection for all citizens of the United States
C. closing a loophole that could be used to deny individuals the right to sue for enforcement of their civil rights
D. asserting that the civil rights protect by the Constitution included nonracial discrimination as well as racial discrimination
E. granting state government broader discretion in interpreting the Civil Rights Act in 1866
5. The author implies that the Fourteenth Amendment might not have been enacted if
A. congress’ authority with regard to legislating civil rights had not been challenged
B. the framers has anticipated the Supreme Courts ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
C. the framers had believed that it would be used in deciding cases of discrimination involving non-racial groups
D. most state governments had been willing to protect citizens’ civil rights
E. its essential elements had not been implicit in the Thirteenth Amendment
6. According to the passage, which of the following most accurately indicates the sequence of the events listed below?
Ⅰ. civil rights act of 1866
Ⅱ. Dred Scott v. Sandford
Ⅲ. Fourteenth Amendment
Ⅳ. Veto by President Johnson
A. Ⅰ Ⅱ Ⅲ Ⅳ
B. Ⅰ Ⅳ Ⅱ Ⅲ
C. Ⅰ Ⅳ Ⅲ Ⅱ
D. Ⅱ Ⅰ Ⅳ Ⅲ
E. Ⅲ Ⅱ Ⅰ Ⅳ
7. Which of the following can be inferred about the second of the two doctrines (highlighted sentence) of the passage?
A. It caused some justice to rule that all types of discrimination are prohibited by the Constitution.
B. It shifted the focus of the Supreme Court from racial to nonracial discrimination.
C. It narrowed the concern of the Supreme Court to legislation that employed a suspect classification.
D. It caused legislators who were writing new legislation to reject language that could be construed as permitting racial discrimination.
E. It made it more difficult for commercial business to practice racial discrimination.
Architectural morphology is the study of how shifting cultural and environmental conditions produce changes in an architectural form. When applied to the mission churches of New Mexico exemplifying seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Spanish colonial architecture in what is now the southwestern United States, architectural morphology reveals much about how Native American culture transformed the traditional European church architecture of the Spanish missionaries who hoped to convert Native Americans to Christianity.
Many studies of these mission churches have carefully documented the history and design of their unique architectural form, most attribute the churches’ radical departure from their sixteenth-century European predecessors to local climate and a less-mechanized building technology. Certainly, the limitations imposed by manual labor and the locally available materials of mud-brick and timber necessitated a divergence from the original European church model. However, the emergence of a church form suited to life in the Southwest was rooted in something more fundamental than material and technique. The new architecture resulted from cultural forces in both the Spanish colonial and indigenous Native American societies, each with competing ideas about form and space and different ways of conveying these ideas symbolically.
For example, the mission churches share certain spatial qualities with the indigenous kiva,a round, partly subterranean room used by many Southwest Native American communities for important rituals. Like the kiva it was intended to replace, the typical mission church had thick walls of adobe (sun-dried earth and straw), a beaten-earth floor, and one or two small windows. In deference to European custom, the ceilings of these churches were higher than those of the traditional kiva. However, with the limited lighting afforded by their few small windows, these churches still suggest the kiva's characteristically low, boxlike, earth-hugging interior. Thus, although pragmatic factors of construction may have contributed to the shape of the mission churches, as earlier studies suggest, the provision of a sacred space consistent with indigenous traditions may also have been an important consideration in their design.
The continued viability of the kiva itself in Spanish mission settlements has also been underestimated by historians. Freestanding kivas discovered in the ruins of European-style missionary communities have been explained by some historians as examples of “superposition”. Under this theory, Christian domination over indigenous faiths is dramatized by surrounding the kiva with Christian buildings. However, as James Ivey points out, such superposition was unlikely, since historical records indicate that most Spanish missionaries, arriving in the Southwest with little or no military support, wisely adopted a somewhat conciliatory attitude toward the use of the kiva at least initially. This fact, and the careful, solitary placement of the kiva in the center of the mission-complex courtyards, suggests an intention to highlight the importance of the kiva rather than to diminish it.
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
A. correct some misinterpretations about the development of an architectural form
B. compare the traditional church architectures of two different cultures
C. examine the influence of a religious architectural style on secular buildings
D. explain the nature of the contrast between two different architectural styles
E. trace the European roots of an architectural style used in the United Stales
2. The passage suggests that the indicated historians regarded the placement of kivas in the midst of Christian buildings as which of the following?
A. exemplary of an arrangement of religious buildings typical of a kind of Native American architecture common prior to the arrival of the Spanish
B. largely responsible for the evolution of a distinctive Spanish mission architectural style
C. indicative of the Spanish missionaries’ desire to display an attitude of acceptance toward the kiva
D. symbolic of the controversy among Spanish missionaries in New Mexico regarding their treatment of the indigenous population
E. reflective of the Spanish missionary’s desire to diminish the kiva's importance
3. Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument about the Spanish missionaries’ attitude toward the kiva?
A. The period of most intensive settlement by Spanish missionaries in the Southwest occurred before the period in which the mission churches of New Mexico were built.
B. There are no traces of kivas in Spanish mission settlements that were protected by a large military presence.
C. Little of the secular Spanish colonial architecture of the Southwest of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is predominantly European in style.
D. Some Spanish missionary communities of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were attached to Spanish military installations.
E. New Mexico contains by far the largest concentration of Spanish mission-style church architecture in the United States.
4. According to the passage, the building techniques prevailing in the Southwest during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries played a role in which of the following?
A. preventing missionaries in the Southwest from duplicating traditional European churches
B. influencing missionaries in the Southwest to incorporate a freestanding kiva into certain mission settlements
C. causing missionaries in the Southwest to limit the building of churches to New Mexico only
D. jeopardizing the viability of Spanish religious settlements throughout the Southwest
E. encouraging many missionaries in the Southwest to reexamine the continued viability of a highly ceremonial European religious tradition
Writing about nineteenth-century women’s travel writing, Lila Harper notes that the four women she discussed used their own names, in contrast with the nineteenth-century female novelists who either published anonymously or used male pseudonyms. The novelists doubtless realized that they were breaking boundaries, whereas three of the four daring, solitary travelers espoused traditional values, eschewing radicalism and women’s movements. Whereas the female novelists criticized their society, the female travelers seemed content to leave society as it was while accomplishing their own liberation. In other words, they lived a contradiction. For the subjects of Harper’s study, solitude in both the private and public spheres prevailed—a solitude that conferred authority, hitherto a male prerogative, but that also precluded any collective action or female solidarity.
1. Which of the following best characterizes the “contradiction” that the author refers to?
A. The subjects of Harper’s study enjoyed solitude, and yet as travelers they were often among people.
B. Nineteenth-century travel writers used their own names, but nineteenth-century novelists used pseudonyms.
C. Women’s movements in the nineteenth-century were not very radical in comparison with those of the twentieth-century.
D. Nineteenth-century female novelists thought they were breaking boundaries, but it was the nineteenth-century women who traveled alone who were really doing so.
E. While traveling alone in the nineteenth-century was considered a radical act for a woman, the nineteenth-century solitary female travelers generally held conventional views.
Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.
2. According to the passage, solitude had which of the following effects for the nineteenth century female travelers?
A. It conferred an authority typically enjoyed only by men.
B. It prevented formation of alliances with other women.
C. It relieved peer pressure to conform to traditional values.
An influential early view held that ecosystems contain niches for a limited number of species and that competition for resources among species—whether native or nonnative invading ones—determines ecosystems’ species composition. However, factors other than competition often help explain invading species’ success. For example, the American grey squirrel, often cited as a classic example of competitively superior invading species, was introduced in England in 1876 and now thrives, while the native red squirrel population has declined. Although scientists have found gray squirrels to be more efficient foragers than red ones, they also note that even before the gray squirrel’s arrival, Britain’s red squirrel populations had a periodic tendency to die out, only to be subsequently reintroduced. Furthermore, many gray squirrels are silent carriers of a disease fatal to red squirrels.
1. It can be inferred that the author of the passage mentions the efficiency with which gray squirrels forage primarily in order to
A. identify a factor that explains a certain phenomenon
B. call attention to an inconsistency in a particular theory
C. suggest that competition cannot be the factor responsible for a particular outcome
D. acknowledge a fact that appears to support a view that the author intends to qualify
E. cite evidence that is not consistent with an early influential view about species competition
2. It can be inferred that the author of the passage would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements about the “early view?”
A. It reflects a mistaken assumption about the means by which nonnative species are introduced into ecosystems.
B. Its basic premise is shown to be valid by the effect of American gray squirrels on Britain’s red squirrel population.
C. It presents a simplistic picture of the means by which species composition within ecosystems is determined.
D. It can effectively explain the formation of ecosystems that contain few species but cannot adequately account for the formation of complex ecosystems.
E. It understates the importance of competition as a factor determining species composition within ecosystems.