Quiz:
Looking for Patterns

Directions: Identify the pattern or patterns used to organize the following paragraphs.

1. The presence or absence of adequate food supplies is often what determines the increase or decrease in animal populations. For example, in 1944 a small group of reindeer—twenty-seven in all—was introduced to St. Mathew Island, located off the coast of Alaska. By 1962, the original population had grown to around 6,000 deer, and animal behaviorists were beginning to wonder how to control the deers’ skyrocketing numbers. But then, in 1963, following a particularly cold winter that destroyed a good deal of plant life, the deer population dramatically decreased and the 1964 count revealed that there were only 42 deer left on the island. Autopsies of the dead deer showed that they had died of starvation, probably because lichen, the staple of a deers diet, had all but disappeared in the freezing cold.

2. Prior to the work of astronomer Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), people believed that the sun revolved around the earth. According to this view, known as the Ptolemaic system, the earth was the center of the universe. Copernicus, however, proposed a heliocentric, or sun-centered, view of the universe. According to the heliocentric view, the sun is the central star in the universe (helios is the Greek word for sun) and is surrounded by orbiting planets, which, in turn, have their own orbiting moons. When it was first put forward, the Copernican view was highly unpopular because it made Earth just one planet among several. More important, it contradicted church teachings, and many of the people who openly supported the heliocentric view were put to death. Copernicus himself waited until he was near death to publish his ideas in a book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543). The Catholic church promptly banned the book and continued to deny Copernican theory until 1922.

3. For years, the effects of television on children’s learning have been hotly debated. Hard evidence for either side, however, was hard to find. But in 1984, a team of researchers did have the opportunity to test children’s intellectual progress before and after the coming of television, and their results suggest that television viewing discourages children’s intellectual development. Researcher Tannis Williams discovered a northwestern Canadian town that prior to 1984 had not been able to receive television broadcasts but was getting ready to be hooked up. Williams and her colleagues quickly tested the towns younger residents right before television arrived and then again two years later. The experiment revealed that reading development among young children had declined with the advent of television. In addition, children’s test scores in creativity had dropped. There was also a marked increase in physical and verbal aggression. As if that weren’t enough, childrens perceptions of sex roles became more stereotyped after they had been exposed to T.V.

4. Psychologists divide mood disorders into two categories—depressive and bipolar disorders. With depressive disorders, the patient feels sad, despairing, hopeless. These feelings don’t just come and go in a day. They persist over long periods of time, with only occasional periods of relief. Typical, too, are fatigue, sleeplessness, and digestive problems. Bipolar disorders are also likely to be accompanied by feelings of despair and hopelessness, but these feelings alternate with excited or manic moods, in which the individual is sure that he or she can accomplish great things. During the manic periods of bipolar disorder, the patient is likely to be extremely energetic and full of plans for new and exciting projects; however, those plans vanish like smoke when the disorder swings into its depressed phase.

5. In the early nineteen sixties, John Lewis and Diane Nash were two of the young people who risked their lives to integrate segregated lunch counters and buses throughout the South. Outwardly, the two young people could not have been more different. A former beauty queen, Nash was beautiful, polished, and articulate. The product of a middle-class family, she had an air of sophistication that belied her youth. It was no surprise when she became a media favorite. Lewis, in contrast, had the look of a country bumpkin, which, in fact, he was. Before joining the civil rights movement, he had been an Alabama farm boy, anxious to escape a life of peanut-picking. While everyone who met Nash was struck by her intelligence and beauty, people who met Lewis tended to underestimate him. They were fooled by his tendency to stutter and stumble over words. But that was their mistake. For Lewis, like Nash, was a person to be reckoned with. He was capable of standing and fighting not just for his own rights, but for the rights of others as well.

6. How does corn on the cob get off the cob and into the can? The short answer is, not easily. After truckloads of freshly picked corn arrive at a processing plant, the ears are dumped onto a huge conveyor belt that takes them to what’s called the husking machine. At this point, each ear of corn is stripped of its leaves and stalk. Then the corn is sent on for inspection, and real human beings, not machines, remove diseased or immature kernels. After this stage is complete, workers line up the ears of corn and send them into cutting machines where they will be stripped of their kernels at around one hundred ears per minute. Finally, the corn is vacuum packed, sealed, and canned before it is cooked. Once the corn is put into cans, the cans enter a huge pressure cooker, where they sit until they reach the desired temperature. Once the corn is cooked, it is allowed to cool. Finally, labels are added to the cans. At this point, the corn is ready for the market.

7. Body fat can be divided into two basic categories, essential fat and storage fat. Essential fat is the fat that is necessary for the body to function normally. It is stored in the tissues and major organs. Typically, essential fat makes up about 3 percent of body weight for men and between 10 and 12 percent for women. (Women need more essential fat in order to maintain hormonal and reproductive functions.) The second kind of fat is called storage fat. Storage fat protects the internal organs and helps keep the body warm during periods of extreme cold. It accumulates around the stomach, buttocks, hips, thighs, and upper arms. Although the body needs some storage fat for protection, most people carry around a good deal more storage fat than they need.

8. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain ranges have a common origin. They result from the continual movement of the plates making up the earths crust (There are seven large plates and many smaller ones). Though the theory of what we now call "continental drift" first emerged around 1910, it wasn’t until the 1960s that hard evidence for the theory came to light. Newly developed sonar equipment showed that ocean ridges were more than underwater mountain ranges. The ridges were filled to bursting with hot, liquid lava that, from time to time, would cause ocean floors to convulse and move. When the floor of an ocean moved, so too did the plates in the earth’s crust—often with dramatic results. When, for example, the Indian-Australian plate crashed into the plate beneath the continent of Europe and Asia, the Himalayan mountains were left behind. Thanks to crustal plate movement, the earth’s surface is full of variety, change, and sometimes danger.

9. Teaching dogs to sniff out drugs hidden in cars or luggage is a long and delicate process that requires patience on the part of both dog and trainer. The first step is to get the dog interested in a bag of marijuana by throwing the bag in the air and telling the dog to retrieve it. Sometimes the dog gets bored when it discovers that the trainer has hurled a bag rather than a stick, but with repeated throws it will usually give in and start retrieving. Each time the dog retrieves the bag, it gets praise and a treat. The next step is hiding the bag in the dogs presence. Now the dog has to sniff out the bag. But if it knows where to look, it will keep trying to find the bag in an effort to get more treats. In the next stage, the dog stays while the trainer hides the bag at some distance from where the dog sits. At this point, the dog has to depend on its nose to locate the bag. If it manages to sniff it out successfully, the dog once again gets patted, praised and fed. If the dog shows a knack for retrieving the bag, then it’s ready for the luggage test. The trainer puts the bag in a small pile of luggage and turns the dog loose. Dogs who do well at this stage of the training are then given bigger and bigger piles of luggage to explore. After about two months of straight luggage training, the trainer will disguise the smell of the bag with perfume or powder and hide it in a car or building. If the dog succeeds at finding the bag when it’s hidden in a cellar and smells like Chanel No.5, the animal is officially ready to go to work.

10. According to psychologist Marvin Zuckerman, not everyone has the same tolerance for new experiences or sensations. Zuckerman should know whereof he speaks. He’s devised an entire test designed to measure the ability to tolerate the new and different. He calls it the sensation-seeking scale. Zuckerman claims that high sensation seekers are likely to smoke, play risky sports and prefer hot, spicy food. Responding to his test, they are likely to say yes to questions like "I would like to try parachute jumping" and no to questions such as "I enjoy taking care of others." In contrast, low sensation seekers are more likely to hate the idea of bungee jumping or snow boarding. They like order in their lives, and repetition doesn’t bore them. While a little spice in their food—and in their lives—is acceptable, low sensation seekers are not perpetually in pursuit of new taste sensations. Generally, they like the tried and true foods they have eaten for years. Although most of the people who take Zuckermans test are a mixture of both types, some people do turn out to be purely high or low sensation seekers. Those people at the extreme ends of the sensation-seeking scale should definitely not share a vacation. Whereas one group would be happy lying on the beach, the other would prefer deep sea diving in search of sunken treasure.

Last change made to this page: Jan. 8, 2007

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