501 Critical Reading Questions

a.
Charles Comiskey
b.
“Shoeless” Joe Jackson
c.
Eddie Ciccotte
d.
Eddie Collins
e.
Chick Gandil
432.
In line 29, the word 
parsimonious
most nearly means
a.
generous.
b.
stingy.
c.
powerful.
d.
friendly.
e.
jovial.
433.
According to facts from the passage, what was the name of the
White Sox’s ballpark?
a.
Chicago Park
b.
Comiskey Park
c.
Sullivan Stadium
d.
White Sox Park
e.
Sox Field
501
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434.
In line 54, the word 
thrown
refers to
a.
losing intentionally.
b.
pitching a baseball.
c.
projecting upon.
d.
dashing upon.
e.
abandoning something.
435.
According to the passage, how many World Series’ did the White
Sox win between 1900 and 1919?
a.
none
b.
one
c.
two
d.
three
e.
four
436.
All of the following questions can be answered based on
information from the passage EXCEPT
a.
Who was the second baseman for the 1915 White Sox?
b.
Did the White Sox play in the American League or the
National League?
c.
What was the White Sox’s original name?
d.
How many games did Eddie Ciccotte pitch in 1918?
e.
Why did many baseball owners lower player salaries for the
1919 season?
437.
In lines 71–72, word 
ignominious
most nearly means
a.
uneducated.
b.
dishonorable.
c.
exalted.
d.
worthy.
e.
unentertaining.
438.
The last paragraph of the passage suggests that Charles Comiskey
a.
thought the team was better off without the eight players.
b.
hoped all eight players would be convicted and sent to jail.
c.
wanted the players involved in the scandal to return to the
team.
d.
was contemplating retirement.
e.
had a plan to get the White Sox back to the World Series.
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439.
The passage as a whole suggests that
a.
The White Sox probably fixed the 1917 World Series, too.
b.
Charles Comiskey may have been in part to blame for his play-
ers’ actions.
c.
ballplayers betting on games was a highly unusual occurrence.
d.
baseball never recovered after World War I.
e.
Charles Comiskey often bet against his own team.
Questions 440–449 are based on the following passage.
The following passage is adapted from a magazine article entitled 
The
Revival of the Olympic Games: Restoring the Stadium at Athens
, published
prior to the first modern Olympics.
For several months an unwonted activity has prevailed in one quarter
of Athens. Herodes Atticus Street behind the royal garden, one of the
most retired streets of the city, has resounded all day long with the rat-
tle of heavy wagons bringing blocks of marble from Pentelikon. At
sunrise and sunset crowds of workingmen are seen moving through
this street, the lower end of which opens upon a bridge across the Ilis-
sos, and on the opposite bank lies the Panathenaic Stadium, now being
lined with marble for the Olympic games which are to be held in it
early in April. The time is short, and the work is being pressed for-
ward.  When  the  International  Athletic  Committee,  at  a  session  in
Paris last year, decided to have a series of athletic contests once in four
years in various countries, it is not surprising that they selected Greece
for the first contest. Although Greece now has as little of the athletic
habit as any nation of the civilized world, its past is interwoven with
athletics. Olympia is a magic word, and the committee were doubtless
swayed partly by sentimental reasons in the choice of name and place.
But some may wonder why, since the games come to Greece, they
are not to be held at Olympia, to justify the name which they have
taken. This is because the originators of the scheme, although they
have conceded something to sentiment, are no visionaries, but men of
practical common sense. Even their concession to sentiment is likely
to turn out to be a clever piece of practical management, calculated to
launch the games upon the world with more success than could have
been secured in any other way. The games also have a name which will
be just as true in 1900 at Paris, and 1904 in America, as it is this year
in Athens.
Now,  however  fine  a  thing  it  might  be  to  let  athletes  stir  real
Olympic dust, and to let runners put their heels into the very groove
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Critical Reading Questions
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of the old starting-sill, with the feeling that thirty centuries looked
down upon them, it would not be practical. A successful athletic con-
test cannot be held in the wilderness. It demands a crowd and suste-
nance for a crowd. The crowd is the one essential concomitant of the
athletes. But a crowd will not go where it cannot eat and sleep. To
bring to Olympia a concourse sufficient to in modern times make the
games  anything  like  a  success  would  demand  the  organization  of  a
first-class commissary department, and that too for a service of half a
month only. Shelter and food for such an occasion come naturally only
in connection with some city with a market. Ancient Olympia, with all
its magnificent buildings, was of course that sort of city, albeit practi-
cally a deserted city except for a few days once in four years.
The visitors at Athens next April—and it is hoped that there will be
tens  of  thousands  of  them—will  doubtless  feel  keenly  enough  the
inadequacy even of a city of 130,000 inhabitants, to give them all that
they seek in the way of material comforts. The problem of seating a
large crowd of spectators did not come up before the International
Committee. But it is this problem which has found a most happy solu-
tion in Athens. The Stadium at Olympia, although excavated at each
end by the Germans, still lies in most of its course under fifteen or
twenty feet of earth. But the Stadium at Athens has always been a fit
place for a monster meeting, provided people would be contented to
sit on its sloping sides without seats. When a local Athenian commit-
tee  was  formed,  composed  of  most  of  the  citizens  conspicuous  for
wealth or position, and some resident foreigners, under the presidency
of  Constantine,  crown  prince  of  Greece,  one  of  the  first  questions
before it was this question of seating; and its attention was naturally
directed to the Stadium.
A wealthy and generous Greek of Alexandria, George Averoff, who
was known as a man always on the watch to do something for Athens,
readily  took  upon  himself  the  expense  of  restoring  the  Stadium  to
something like its former splendor, when it was lined with marble and
seated fifty-thousand spectators. He has already given over nine hun-
dred thousand drachmas, which, if the drachma were at par, would be
$180,000, but which now amounts to only about $100,000. There is
a  sub-committee  of  the  general  committee  above  described,  desig-
nated as the committee on the preparation of the Stadium, composed
of several practical architects, but including also the Ephor General of
Antiquities, and the directors of the foreign archaeological schools.
The presence of the archaeological element on this committee empha-
sizes the fact that the new work is to be a restoration of the old.
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Critical Reading Questions
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2 2 9
440.
In line 1, the word 
unwonted
most nearly means
a.
not welcome.
b.
out of the ordinary.
c.
unexpected.
d.
ancient.
e.
nocturnal.
441.
Herodes Atticus Street (line 2) is located where in relation to the
Stadium at Athens?
a.
behind the royal garden
b.
on Mount Olympus
c.
across the Illissos river
d.
just north of Pentelikon
e.
directly adjacent to
442.
Based on information in the passage, what year were the first
modern Olympics to be held?
a.
1892
b.
1896
c.
1900
d.
1904
e.
1908
443.
One of the 
sentimental reasons
the author refers to in line 16 is
a.
Athens was always the largest city in Greece.
b.
Panathenaic Stadium is the oldest stadium in Ancient Olympia.
c.
Olympia, Greece was the site of the original Olympics.
d.
Paris was a better choice for the first modern Olympic games.
e.
George Averoff was once the King of Greece.
444.
All of the following are reasons why the first modern games were
held in Athens and not in Olympia EXCEPT
a.
Olympia was a much smaller city than Athens.
b.