Free ACT Test Exam Braindumps (page: 85)

NATURAL SCIENCE: Diabetes

(1) There are two types of diabetes, insulin-dependent and non-insulin-dependent. Between 90 and 95 percent of the estimated 13 to 14 million people in the United States with diabetes have non-insulin-dependent, or Type II, diabetes. Because this form of diabetes usually begins in adults over the age of 40 and is most common after the age of 55, it used to be called adult-onset diabetes. Its symptoms often develop gradually and are hard to identify at first; therefore, nearly half of all people with diabetes do not know they have it. Someone who has developed Type II diabetes may feel tired or ill without knowing why, a circumstance which can be particularly dangerous because untreated diabetes can cause damage to the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys, and nerves. While the causes, short-term effects, and treatments of the two types of diabetes differ, both types can cause the same long-term health problems.

(2) Most importantly, both types of diabetes affect the body's ability to use digested food for energy. Diabetes does not interfere with digestion, but it does prevent the body from using an important product of digestion, glucose (commonly known as sugar), for energy. After a meal, the normal digestive system extracts glucose from some foods. The blood carries the glucose or sugar throughout the body, causing blood glucose levels to rise. In response to this rise, the hormone insulin is released into the bloodstream and signals the body tissues to metabolize or burn the glucose for fuel, which causes blood glucose levels to return to normal. The glucose that the body does not use right away is stored in the liver, muscle, or fat.

(3) In both types of diabetes, this normal process malfunctions. A gland called the pancreas, found just behind the stomach, makes insulin. In patients with insulin-dependent diabetes, the pancreas does not produce insulin at all. This condition usually begins in childhood and is known as Type I (formerly called juvenile-onset) diabetes. These patients must have daily insulin injections to survive. People with non-insulin-dependent diabetes usually produce some insulin in their pancreas, but the body's tissues do not respond very well to the insulin signal and therefore do not metabolize the glucose properly ­ a condition known as insulin resistance.

(4) Insulin resistance is an important factor in non-insulin-dependent diabetes, and scientists are researching the causes of insulin resistance. They have identified two possibilities. The first is that there could be a defect in the insulin receptors on cells. Like an appliance that needs to be plugged into an electrical outlet, insulin has to bind to a receptor in order to function. Several things can go wrong with receptors. For example, there may not be enough receptors for insulin to bind to, or a defect in the receptors may prevent insulin from binding. The second possible cause of insulin resistance is that, although insulin may bind to the receptors, the cells may not read the signal to metabolize the glucose. Scientists continue to study these cells to see why this might happen.

(5) There is no cure for diabetes yet. However, there are ways to alleviate its symptoms. In 1986, a National Institutes of Health panel of experts recommended that the best treatment for noninsulin dependent diabetes is a diet that helps one maintain a normal weight and pays particular attention to a proper balance of the different food groups. Many experts, including those in the American Diabetes Association, recommend that 50 to 60 percent of daily calories come from carbohydrates, 12 to 20 percent from protein, and no more than 30 percent from fat. Foods that are rich in carbohydrates, such as breads, cereals, fruits, and vegetables, break down into glucose during digestion, causing blood glucose to rise. Additionally, studies have shown that cooked foods raise blood glucose higher than raw, unpeeled foods. A doctor or nutritionist should always be consulted for more information and for help in planning a diet to offset the effects of this form of diabetes.

As it is used in last paragraph, what is the closest meaning of the word offset in the final sentence of the passage?

How the Other Half Lives

(1) Long ago it was said that "one half of the world does not know how the other half lives." That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate of those who were underneath, so long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat. There came a time when the discomfort and crowding below were so great, and the consequent upheavals so violent, that it was no longer an easy thing to do, and then the upper half fell to wondering what the matter was. Information on the subject has been accumulating rapidly since, and the whole world has had its hands full answering for its old ignorance.

(2) In New York, the youngest of the world's great cities, that time came later than elsewhere, because the crowding had not been so great. There were those who believed that it would never come; but their hopes were vain. Greed and reckless selfishness delivered similar results here as in the cities of older lands. "When the great riot occurred in 1863," reads the testimony of the Secretary of the Prison Association of New York before a legislative committee appointed to investigate causes of the increase of crime in the State twenty-five years ago, "every hiding-place and nursery of crime discovered itself by immediate and active participation in the operations of the mob. Those very places and domiciles, and all that are like them, are today nurseries of crime, and of the vices and disorderly courses which lead to crime. By far the largest part ­ 80% at least ­ of crimes against property and people are perpetrated by individuals who have either lost connection with home life, or never had any, or whose homes had ceased to afford what are regarded as ordinary wholesome influences of home and family... The younger criminals seem to come almost exclusively from the worst tenement house districts, that is, when traced back to the very laces where they had their homes in the city here." One thing New York was made of sure at that early stage of the inquiry: the boundary line of the Other Half lies through the tenements.

(3) It is ten years and over, now, since that line divided New York's population evenly. Today three-fourths of New Yorkers live in the tenements, and the nineteenth century drift of the population to the cities is only increasing those numbers. The fifteen thousand tenant houses in the past generation have swelled into thirty- seven thousand, and more than twelve hundred thousand persons call them home. The one way out ­ rapid transit to the suburbs ­ has brought no relief. We know now that there is no way out; that the "system" that was the evil offspring of public neglect and private greed is here to stay, forever a center of our civilization. Nothing is left but to make the best of a bad bargain.

(4) The story is dark enough, drawn from the plain public records, to send a chill to any heart. If it shall appear that the sufferings and the sins of the "other half," and the evil they breed, are but as a fitting punishment upon the community that gave it no other choice, it will be because that is the truth. The boundary line lies there because, while the forces for good on one side vastly outweigh the bad ­ not otherwise ­ in the tenements all the influences make for evil; because they are the hotbeds of the epidemics that carry death to rich and poor alike; the nurseries of poverty and crime that fill our jails and courts; that throw off forty thousand human wrecks to the island asylums and workhouses year by year; that turned out in the last eight years a round half million beggars to prey upon our charities; that maintain a standing army of ten thousand panhandlers with all that that implies; because, above all, they touch the family life with deadly moral poison. This is their worst crime, inseparable from the system. That we have to own it, the child of our own wrong, does not excuse it, even though it gives it claim upon our utmost patience and tenderest charity.

The main idea of the first paragraph is:

How the Other Half Lives

(1) Long ago it was said that "one half of the world does not know how the other half lives." That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate of those who were underneath, so long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat. There came a time when the discomfort and crowding below were so great, and the consequent upheavals so violent, that it was no longer an easy thing to do, and then the upper half fell to wondering what the matter was. Information on the subject has been accumulating rapidly since, and the whole world has had its hands full answering for its old ignorance.

(2) In New York, the youngest of the world's great cities, that time came later than elsewhere, because the crowding had not been so great. There were those who believed that it would never come; but their hopes were vain. Greed and reckless selfishness delivered similar results here as in the cities of older lands. "When the great riot occurred in 1863," reads the testimony of the Secretary of the Prison Association of New York before a legislative committee appointed to investigate causes of the increase of crime in the State twenty-five years ago, "every hiding-place and nursery of crime discovered itself by immediate and active participation in the operations of the mob. Those very places and domiciles, and all that are like them, are today nurseries of crime, and of the vices and disorderly courses which lead to crime. By far the largest part ­ 80% at least ­ of crimes against property and people are perpetrated by individuals who have either lost connection with home life, or never had any, or whose homes had ceased to afford what are regarded as ordinary wholesome influences of home and family... The younger criminals seem to come almost exclusively from the worst tenement house districts, that is, when traced back to the very laces where they had their homes in the city here." One thing New York was made of sure at that early stage of the inquiry: the boundary line of the Other Half lies through the tenements.

(3) It is ten years and over, now, since that line divided New York's population evenly. Today three-fourths of New Yorkers live in the tenements, and the nineteenth century drift of the population to the cities is only increasing those numbers. The fifteen thousand tenant houses in the past generation have swelled into thirty- seven thousand, and more than twelve hundred thousand persons call them home. The one way out ­ rapid transit to the suburbs ­ has brought no relief. We know now that there is no way out; that the "system" that was the evil offspring of public neglect and private greed is here to stay, forever a center of our civilization. Nothing is left but to make the best of a bad bargain.

(4) The story is dark enough, drawn from the plain public records, to send a chill to any heart. If it shall appear that the sufferings and the sins of the "other half," and the evil they breed, are but as a fitting punishment upon the community that gave it no other choice, it will be because that is the truth. The boundary line lies there because, while the forces for good on one side vastly outweigh the bad ­ not otherwise ­ in the tenements all the influences make for evil; because they are the hotbeds of the epidemics that carry death to rich and poor alike; the nurseries of poverty and crime that fill our jails and courts; that throw off forty thousand human wrecks to the island asylums and workhouses year by year; that turned out in the last eight years a round half million beggars to prey upon our charities; that maintain a standing army of ten thousand panhandlers with all that that implies; because, above all, they touch the family life with deadly moral poison. This is their worst crime, inseparable from the system. That we have to own it, the child of our own wrong, does not excuse it, even though it gives it claim upon our utmost patience and tenderest charity.

According to the passage, the "other half" refers to:

How the Other Half Lives

(1) Long ago it was said that "one half of the world does not know how the other half lives." That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate of those who were underneath, so long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat. There came a time when the discomfort and crowding below were so great, and the consequent upheavals so violent, that it was no longer an easy thing to do, and then the upper half fell to wondering what the matter was. Information on the subject has been accumulating rapidly since, and the whole world has had its hands full answering for its old ignorance.

(2) In New York, the youngest of the world's great cities, that time came later than elsewhere, because the crowding had not been so great. There were those who believed that it would never come; but their hopes were vain. Greed and reckless selfishness delivered similar results here as in the cities of older lands. "When the great riot occurred in 1863," reads the testimony of the Secretary of the Prison Association of New York before a legislative committee appointed to investigate causes of the increase of crime in the State twenty-five years ago, "every hiding-place and nursery of crime discovered itself by immediate and active participation in the operations of the mob. Those very places and domiciles, and all that are like them, are today nurseries of crime, and of the vices and disorderly courses which lead to crime. By far the largest part ­ 80% at least ­ of crimes against property and people are perpetrated by individuals who have either lost connection with home life, or never had any, or whose homes had ceased to afford what are regarded as ordinary wholesome influences of home and family... The younger criminals seem to come almost exclusively from the worst tenement house districts, that is, when traced back to the very laces where they had their homes in the city here." One thing New York was made of sure at that early stage of the inquiry: the boundary line of the Other Half lies through the tenements.

(3) It is ten years and over, now, since that line divided New York's population evenly. Today three-fourths of New Yorkers live in the tenements, and the nineteenth century drift of the population to the cities is only increasing those numbers. The fifteen thousand tenant houses in the past generation have swelled into thirty- seven thousand, and more than twelve hundred thousand persons call them home. The one way out ­ rapid transit to the suburbs ­ has brought no relief. We know now that there is no way out; that the "system" that was the evil offspring of public neglect and private greed is here to stay, forever a center of our civilization. Nothing is left but to make the best of a bad bargain.

(4) The story is dark enough, drawn from the plain public records, to send a chill to any heart. If it shall appear that the sufferings and the sins of the "other half," and the evil they breed, are but as a fitting punishment upon the community that gave it no other choice, it will be because that is the truth. The boundary line lies there because, while the forces for good on one side vastly outweigh the bad ­ not otherwise ­ in the tenements all the influences make for evil; because they are the hotbeds of the epidemics that carry death to rich and poor alike; the nurseries of poverty and crime that fill our jails and courts; that throw off forty thousand human wrecks to the island asylums and workhouses year by year; that turned out in the last eight years a round half million beggars to prey upon our charities; that maintain a standing army of ten thousand panhandlers with all that that implies; because, above all, they touch the family life with deadly moral poison. This is their worst crime, inseparable from the system. That we have to own it, the child of our own wrong, does not excuse it, even though it gives it claim upon our utmost patience and tenderest charity.

According to the Secretary of the Prison Association, the main reason for increased crime was: