Test Prep OAT Exam Prep
Optometry Admission (Page 3 )

On a bad day, have you ever been irritable? Have you ever used a harsh tone or even been verbally disrespectful to your parents or teachers? Everyone has a short temper from time to time, but current statistics indicate that between 16% and 20% of a school population suffer from a psychological condition known as Oppositional Defiance Disorder, or ODD.
ODD symptoms include difficulty complying with adult requests, excessive arguments with adults, temper tantrums, difficulty accepting responsibility for actions, low frustration tolerance, and behaviors intended to annoy or upset adults. Parents of children with ODD can often feel as though their whole relationship is based on conflict after conflict.
Unfortunately, ODD can be caused by a number of factors. Some students affected by ODD suffer abuse, neglect, and severe or unpredictable discipline at home. Others have parents with mood disorders or have experienced family violence. Various types of therapy are helpful in treating ODD, and some drugs can treat particular symptoms. However, no single cure exists.
The best advice from professionals is directed toward parents. Therapists encourage parents to avoid situations that usually end in power struggles, to try not to feed into oppositional behavior by reacting emotionally, to praise positive behaviors, and to discourage negative behaviors with timeouts instead of harsh discipline.
Based on the passage, which of the following statements seems most true?

PLASTICS
Plastics have long been considered one of the great conveniences of the modern era, but evidence is mounting to indicate that these conveniences have come at an incredible cost. The chief benefit of plastics is their durability, but this benefit turns out to be the same reason plastic has become a significant problem: It takes 200 to 400 years to decompose. All of this plastic has accumulated into a catastrophic mess and has also caused disease in humans.
Between Hawaii and Japan, a giant mass of plastic twice the size of Texas slowly swirls with the currents of the Pacific Ocean. This area has come to be known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and its effects on the ecology of the ocean are unimaginable. According to United Nations researchers, a hundred thousand sea mammals and a million seabirds die each year. They are found with cigarette lighters, syringes, and other plastics that they mistake for food in their stomachs.
Evidence also indicates that the plastic receptacles that people store their food in poses health risks. For instance, phthalates have been shown to have detrimental effects on the reproductive system, yet they are found in many plastic products including baby bottles and water bottles. They have also been linked to various forms of cancer. Additionally, a chemical called bisphenol A that is found in many plastics can mimic the effects of the hormone estrogen, which can also affect the reproductive system.
Which of the following best describes the author’s purpose in writing this passage?

PLASTICS
Plastics have long been considered one of the great conveniences of the modern era, but evidence is mounting to indicate that these conveniences have come at an incredible cost. The chief benefit of plastics is their durability, but this benefit turns out to be the same reason plastic has become a significant problem: It takes 200 to 400 years to decompose. All of this plastic has accumulated into a catastrophic mess and has also caused disease in humans.
Between Hawaii and Japan, a giant mass of plastic twice the size of Texas slowly swirls with the currents of the Pacific Ocean. This area has come to be known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and its effects on the ecology of the ocean are unimaginable. According to United Nations researchers, a hundred thousand sea mammals and a million seabirds die each year. They are found with cigarette lighters, syringes, and other plastics that they mistake for food in their stomachs.
Evidence also indicates that the plastic receptacles that people store their food in poses health risks. For instance, phthalates have been shown to have detrimental effects on the reproductive system, yet they are found in many plastic products including baby bottles and water bottles. They have also been linked to various forms of cancer. Additionally, a chemical called bisphenol A that is found in many plastics can mimic the effects of the hormone estrogen, which can also affect the reproductive system.
As used in this passage, the word “chief” most nearly means:

PLASTICS
Plastics have long been considered one of the great conveniences of the modern era, but evidence is mounting to indicate that these conveniences have come at an incredible cost. The chief benefit of plastics is their durability, but this benefit turns out to be the same reason plastic has become a significant problem: It takes 200 to 400 years to decompose. All of this plastic has accumulated into a catastrophic mess and has also caused disease in humans.
Between Hawaii and Japan, a giant mass of plastic twice the size of Texas slowly swirls with the currents of the Pacific Ocean. This area has come to be known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and its effects on the ecology of the ocean are unimaginable. According to United Nations researchers, a hundred thousand sea mammals and a million seabirds die each year. They are found with cigarette lighters, syringes, and other plastics that they mistake for food in their stomachs.
Evidence also indicates that the plastic receptacles that people store their food in poses health risks. For instance, phthalates have been shown to have detrimental effects on the reproductive system, yet they are found in many plastic products including baby bottles and water bottles. They have also been linked to various forms of cancer. Additionally, a chemical called bisphenol A that is found in many plastics can mimic the effects of the hormone estrogen, which can also affect the reproductive system.
Which of the following statements can be inferred from paragraph two?

PLASTICS
Plastics have long been considered one of the great conveniences of the modern era, but evidence is mounting to indicate that these conveniences have come at an incredible cost. The chief benefit of plastics is their durability, but this benefit turns out to be the same reason plastic has become a significant problem: It takes 200 to 400 years to decompose. All of this plastic has accumulated into a catastrophic mess and has also
caused disease in humans.
Between Hawaii and Japan, a giant mass of plastic twice the size of Texas slowly swirls with the currents of the Pacific Ocean. This area has come to be known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and its effects on the ecology of the ocean are unimaginable. According to United Nations researchers, a hundred thousand sea mammals and a million seabirds die each year. They are found with cigarette lighters, syringes, and other plastics that they mistake for food in their stomachs.
Evidence also indicates that the plastic receptacles that people store their food in poses health risks. For instance, phthalates have been shown to have detrimental effects on the reproductive system, yet they are found in many plastic products including baby bottles and water bottles. They have also been linked to various forms of cancer. Additionally, a chemical called bisphenol A that is found in many plastics can mimic the effects of the hormone estrogen, which can also affect the reproductive system.
Which of the following statements best summarizes the main idea of this passage?

PLASTICS
Plastics have long been considered one of the great conveniences of the modern era, but evidence is mounting to indicate that these conveniences have come at an incredible cost. The chief benefit of plastics is their durability, but this benefit turns out to be the same reason plastic has become a significant problem: It takes 200 to 400 years to decompose. All of this plastic has accumulated into a catastrophic mess and has also caused disease in humans.
Between Hawaii and Japan, a giant mass of plastic twice the size of Texas slowly swirls with the currents of the Pacific Ocean. This area has come to be known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and its effects on the ecology of the ocean are unimaginable. According to United Nations researchers, a hundred thousand sea mammals and a million seabirds die each year. They are found with cigarette lighters, syringes, and other plastics that they mistake for food in their stomachs.
Evidence also indicates that the plastic receptacles that people store their food in poses health risks. For instance, phthalates have been shown to have detrimental effects on the reproductive system, yet they are found in many plastic products including baby bottles and water bottles. They have also been linked to various forms of cancer. Additionally, a chemical called bisphenol A that is found in many plastics can mimic the effects of the hormone estrogen, which can also affect the reproductive system.
As used in this passage, the word “mimic” most nearly means:

PLASTICS
Plastics have long been considered one of the great conveniences of the modern era, but evidence is mounting to indicate that these conveniences have come at an incredible cost. The chief benefit of plastics is their durability, but this benefit turns out to be the same reason plastic has become a significant problem: It takes 200 to 400 years to decompose. All of this plastic has accumulated into a catastrophic mess and has also caused disease in humans.
Between Hawaii and Japan, a giant mass of plastic twice the size of Texas slowly swirls with the currents of the Pacific Ocean. This area has come to be known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and its effects on the ecology of the ocean are unimaginable. According to United Nations researchers, a hundred thousand sea mammals and a million seabirds die each year. They are found with cigarette lighters, syringes, and other plastics that they mistake for food in their stomachs.
Evidence also indicates that the plastic receptacles that people store their food in poses health risks. For instance, phthalates have been shown to have detrimental effects on the reproductive system, yet they are found in many plastic products including baby bottles and water bottles. They have also been linked to various forms of cancer. Additionally, a chemical called bisphenol A that is found in many plastics can mimic the effects of the hormone estrogen, which can also affect the reproductive system.
What particular risk does the author say the Great Pacific Garbage Patch poses to marine animals?

It is most likely that you have never had diphtheria. You probably don’t even know anyone who has suffered from this disease. In fact, you may not even know what diphtheria is. Similarly, diseases like whooping cough, measles, mumps, and rubella may all be unfamiliar to you. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these illnesses struck hundreds of thousands of people in the United States each year, mostly children, and tens of thousands of people died. The names of these diseases were frightening household words. Today, they are all but forgotten. That change happened largely because of vaccines.
You probably have been vaccinated against diphtheria. You may even have been exposed to the bacterium that causes it, but the vaccine prepared your body to fight off the disease so quickly that you were unaware of the infection. Vaccines take advantage of your body’s natural ability to learn how to combat many disease-causing germs, or microbes. What’s more, your body remembers how to protect itself from the microbes it has encountered before. Collectively, the parts of your body that remember and repel microbes are called the immune system. Without the proper functioning of the immune system, the simplest illness – even the common cold – could quickly turn deadly.
On average, your immune system needs more than a week to learn how to fight off an unfamiliar microbe. Sometimes, that isn’t enough time. Strong microbes can spread through your body faster than the immune system can fend them off. Your body often gains the upper hand after a few weeks, but in the meantime you are sick. Certain microbes are so virulent that they can overwhelm or escape your natural defenses. In those situations, vaccines can make all the difference.
Traditional vaccines contain either parts of microbes or whole microbes that have been altered so that they don’t cause disease. When your immune system confronts these harmless versions of the germs, it quickly clears them from your body. In other words, vaccines trick your immune system in order to teach your body important lessons about how to defeat its opponents.
What is the main idea of the passage?