Why does the couple exchange garlands?

If we believe that clothing has to do with covering the body, and costumes with the choice of a particular form of garment for a particular use, then we can say that clothing depends primarily on such physical conditions as climate, health, and textile manufacture, whereas costumes reflect social factors such as religious beliefs, aesthetics, personal status, and the wish to be distinguished from or to emulate our fellows. The ancient Greeks and the Chinese believed that we first covered our bodies for some physical reason such as protecting ourselves from the weather elements. Ethnologists and psychologists have invoked psychological reasons: modesty in the case of ancients, and taboo, magical influence and the desire to please for the moderns. In early history, costumes must have fulfilled a function beyond that of simple utility, perhaps through some magical significance, investing primitive man with the attributes of other creatures. Ornaments identified the wearer with animals, gods, heroes or other men. This identification remains symbolic in more sophisticated societies. We should bear in mind that the theater has its distant origins in sacred performances, and in all periods children at play have worn disguises, so as to adapt gradually to adult life. Costumes helped inspire fear or impose authority. For a chieftain, costumes embodied attributes expressing his power, while a warrior's costume enhanced his physical superiority and suggested he was superhuman. In more recent times, professional or administrative costume has been devised to distinguish the wearer and express personal or delegated authority; this purpose is seen clearly in the judge's robes and the police officer’s uniform. Costume denotes power, and since power is usually equated with wealth, costume came to be an expression of social caste and material prosperity. Military uniform denotes rank and is intended to intimidate to protect the body and to express membership in a group. At the bottom of the scale, there are such compulsory costumes as the convict’s uniform. Finally, costume can possess a religious significance that combines various elements: an actual or symbolic identification with a god, the desire to express this in earthly life, and the desire to enhance the wearer's position of respect.

The passage mainly discusses costume in terms of its _______

The lack of printing regulations and the unenforceability of British copyright law in the American colonies made it possible for colonial printers occasionally to act as publishers. Although they rarely undertook major sj publishing project because it was difficult to sell books as cheaply as they could be imported from Europe printers 9 in Philadelphia did publish work that required only small amounts of capital, paper, and type. Broadsides could be published with minimal financial risk. Consisting of only one sheet of paper and requiring small amounts of type broadsides involved lower investments of capital than longer works. Furthermore, the broadside format lent itself to subjects of high, if temporary, interest, enabling them to meet with ready sale. If the broadside printer miscalculated, however, and produced a sheet that did not sell, it was not likely to be a major loss and the printer would know this immediately, There would be no agonizing wait with large amounts of capital tied up books gathering dust on the shelves, and creditors impatient for payment. In addition to broadsides, books and pamphlets, consisting mainly of political tracts, catechisms, primers, and chapbooks were relatively inexpensive to print and to buy. Chapbook were pamphlet-sized books, usually containing popular tales, ballads, poems, short plays, and jokes, small, both in formal and number of pages, they were generally bound simply, in boards (a form of cardboard) or merely stitched in paper wrappers (a sewn antecedent of modernday paperbacks). Pamphlets and chapbooks did not require fine paper or a great deal of type to produce they could thus be printed in large, costeffective editions and sold cheaply. By far, the most appealing publishing investments were to be found in small books that had proven to be steady sellers, providing a reasonably reliable source of income for the publisher. They would not, by nature, be highly topical or political, as such publications would prove of fleeting interest. Almanacs, annual publications that contained information on astronomy and weather patterns arranged according to the days, week, and months of a given year, provided the perfect steady seller because their information pertained to the locale in which they would be used. 

Which aspect of colonial printing does the passage mainly discuss?

Animals have an intuitive awareness of quantities. They know without analysis the difference between a number of objects and a smaller number. In his book “ The natural History of Selboure ” (1786 ) , the naturalist Gilbert White tells how he surreptitiously removed one egg a day from a plover’s nest , and how the mother laid another egg each day to make up for the missing one . He noted that other species of birds ignore the absence of a single egg but abandon their nests if more than one egg has been removed. It has also been noted by naturalists that a certain type of wasp always provides five – never four, never six - caterpillars for each of their eggs so that their young have something to eat when the eggs hatch . Research has also shown that both mice and pigeons can be taught to distinguish between odd and even numbers of food pieces. These and similar accounts have led some people to infer that creatures other than humans can actually count. They also point to dogs that have been taught to respond to numerical questions with the correct number of barks, or to horses that seem to solve arithmetic problems by stomping their hooves the proper number of times. Animals respond to quantities only when they are connected to survival as a species – as in the case of the eggs – or survival as individuals - as in the case of food. There is no transfer to other situations or from concrete reality to the abstract notion of numbers. Animals can “count” only when the objects are present and only when the numbers involved are small – not more than seven or eight. In lab experiments, animals trained to “count” one kind of object were unable to count any other type. The objects, not the numbers, are what interest them. Animals admittedly remarkable achievements simply do not amount to evidence of counting, nor do they reveal more than innate instincts, refined by the genes of successive generations, or the results of clever, careful conditioning by trainers. 

What is the main idea of this passage?

The word "derived" in line 13 is closest in meaning to ____________.

The word “evolved” in paragraph two is closest in meaning to ________.

Many ants forage across the countryside in large numbers and undertake mass migrations; these activities proceed because one ant lays a trail on the ground for the others to follow. As a worker ant returns home after finding a source of food, it marks the route by intermittently touching its stinger to the ground and depositing a tiny amount of trail (5) pheromone – a mixture of chemicals that delivers diverse messages as the context changes. These trails incorporate no directional information and may be followed by other ants in either direction. Unlike some other messages, such as the one arising from a dead ant, a food trail has to be kept secret from members of other species. It is not surprising then that ant species use (10) a wide variety of compounds as trail pheromones. Ants can be extremely sensitive to these signals. Investigators working with the trail pheromone of the leafcutter ant Atta texana calculated that one milligram of this substance would suffice to lead a column of ants three times around Earth. The vapor of the evaporating pheromone over the trail guides an ant along the way, (15) and the ant detects this signal with receptors in its antennae. A trail pheromone will evaporate to furnish the highest concentration of vapor right over the trail, in what is called a vapor space. In following the trail, the ant moves to the right and left, oscillating from side to side across the line of the trail itself, bringing first one and then the other antenna into the vapor space. As the ant moves to the right, its left antenna arrives in the vapor space. The signal it receives causes it to swing to the left, and the ant then pursues this new course until its right antenna reaches the vapor space. It then swings back to the right, and so weaves back and forth down the trail. 

What does the passage mainly discuss?

According to the passage, why do ants use different compounds as trail pheromones?

Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word “nocturnal”?

The word "remainder" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to .............