ecognition and symbolic significance and there no longer is agreement as to what constitutes initiation ceremonies. Social ones have been replaced by a sequence of steps that lead to increased recognition and social status. For example, grade school graduation, high school graduation and college graduation constitute such a sequence, and while each step implies certain behavioral changes and social recognition, the significance of each depends on the socio-economic status and the educational ambition of the individual. Ceremonies for adolescence have also been replaced by legal definitions of status roles, right, privileges and responsibilities. It is during the nine years from the twelfth birthday to the twenty-first that the protective and restrictive aspects of childhood and minor status are removed and adult privileges and responsibilities are granted. The twelve-year-old is no longer considered a child and has to pay full fare for train, airplane, theater and movie tickets. Basically, the individual at this age loses childhood privileges without gaining significant adult rights. At the age of sixteen the adolescent is granted certain adult rights which increases his social status by providing him with more freedom and choices. He now can obtain a driver’s license; he can leave public schools; and he can work without the restrictions of child labor laws. At the age of eighteen the law provides adult responsibilities as well as rights; the young man can now be a soldier, but he also can marry without parental permission. At the age of twenty-one the individual obtains his full legal rights as an adult. He now can vote, he can buy liquor, he can enter into financial contracts, and he is entitled to run for public office. No additional basic rights are acquired as a function of age after majority status has been attained. None of these legal provisions determine at what point adulthood has been reached but they do point to the prolonged period of adolescence.

36.   The period of adolescence is much longer in industrial societies because ________.

[A] the definition of maturity has changed

[B] the industrialized society is more developed

[C] more education is provided and laws against child labor are made

[D] ceremonies for adolescence have lost their formal recognition and symbolic significance

37.   Former social ceremonies that used to mark adolescence have given place to ________.

[A] graduations from schools and colleges

[B] social recognition

[C] socio-economic status

[D] certain behavioral changes

38.   No one can expect to fully enjoy the adulthood privileges until he is ________.

[A] eleven years old

[B] sixteen years old

[C] twenty-one years old

[D] between twelve and twenty-one years old

39.   Starting from 22, ________.

[A] one will obtain more basic rights

[B] the older one becomes, the more basic rights he will have

[C] one won’t get more basic rights than when he is 21

[D] one will enjoy more rights granted by society

40.   According to the passage, it is true that ________.

[A] in the late 19th century in the United States the dividing line between adolescence and adulthood no longer existed

[B] no one can marry without the permission of his parents until the age of twenty-one

[C] one is considered to have reached adulthood when he has a driver’s license

[D] one is not free from the restrictions of child labor laws until he can join the army

Text 3

Most growing plants contain much more water than all other materials combined. C. R. Darnes has suggested that it is as proper to term the plant a water structure as to call a house composed mainly of brick -- a brick building. Certain it is that all essential processes of plant growth and development occur in water. The mineral elements from the soil that are usable by the plant must be dissolved in the soil solution before they can be taken into the root. They are carried to all parts of the growing plant and are built into essential plant materials while in a dissolved state. The carbon dioxide from the air may enter the leaf as a gas but is dissolved in water in the leaf before it is combined with a part of the water to form simple sugars -- the base material from which the plant body is mainly built. Actively growing plant parts are generally 75 to 90 percent water. Structural parts of plants, such as woody stems no longer actively growing, may have much less water than growing tissues.

The actual amount of water in the plant at any one time, however, is only a very small part of what passes through it during its development. The processes of photosynthesis, by which carbon dioxide and water are combined -- in the presence of chlorophyll (葉綠素) and with energy derived from light -- to form sugars, require that carbon dioxide from the air enter the plant. This occurs mainly in the leaves. The leaf surface is not solid but contains great numbers of minute openings, through which the carbon dioxide enters. The same structure that permits the one gas to enter the leaf, however, permits another gas -- water vapor -- to be lost from it. Since carbon dioxide is present in the air only in trace quantities (3 to 4 parts in 10,000 parts of air) and water vapor is near saturation in the air spaces within the leaf (at 80F, saturated air would contain about 186 parts of water vapor in 10,000 parts of air), the total amount of water vapor lost is many times the carbon dioxide intake. Actually, because of wind and other factors, the loss of water in proportion to carbon dioxide intake may be even greater than the relative concentrations of the two gases. Also, not all of the carbon dioxide that enters the leaf is synthesized into carbohydrates (碳水化合物).

41.   A growing plant needs water for all of the following except ________.

[A] forming sugars

[B] sustaining woody stems

[C] keeping green

[D] producing carbon dioxide

42.   The essential func

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