Late Victorian and modern ideas of culture are indebted to Matthew Arnold, who, largely through his
Culture and Anarchy (1869), placed the word at the center of debates about the goals of intellectual life
and humanistic society. Arnold defined culture as "the pursuit of perfection by getting to know the best
which has been thought and said." Through this knowledge, Arnold hoped, we can turn "a fresh and free
thought upon our stock notions and habits." Although Arnold helped to define the purposes of the liberal
arts curriculum in the century following the publication of Culture, three concrete forms of dissent from his
views have had considerable impact of their own. The first protests Arnold's fearful designation of
"anarchy" as culture's enemy, viewing this dichotomy simply as another version of the struggle between a
privileged power structure and radical challenges to its authority. But while Arnold certainly tried to define
the arch-the legitimizing order of value-against the anarch of existentialist democracy, he himself was
plagued in his soul by the blind arrogances of the reactionary powers in his world. The writer who
regarded the contemporary condition with such apprehension in Culture is the poet who wrote "Dover
Beach," not an ideologue rounding up all the usual modern suspects. Another form of opposition saw
Arnold's culture as a perverse perpetuation of classical and literary learning, outlook, and privileges in a
world where science had become the new arch and from which any substantively new order of thinking
must develop. At the center of the "two cultures" debate were the goals of the formal educational
curriculum, the principal vehicle through which Arnoldian culture operates. However, Arnold himself had
viewed culture as enacting its life in a much more broadly conceived set of institutions. A third form is
so-called "multiculturalism," a movement aimed largely at gaining recognition for voices and visions that
Arnoldian culture has implicitly suppressed. In educational practice, multiculturalists are interested in
deflating the imperious authority that "high culture" exercises over curriculum while bringing into play the
principle that we must learn what is representative, for we have overemphasized what is exceptional.
Though the multiculturalists' conflict with Arnoldian culture has clear affinities with the radical critique,
multiculturalism actually affirms Arnold by returning us more specifically to a tension inherent in the idea
of culture rather than to the cultureanarchy dichotomy. The social critics, defenders of science, and
multiculturalists insist that Arnold's culture is simply a device for ordering us about. Instead, however, it is
designed to register the gathering of ideological clouds on the horizon. There is no utopian motive in
Arnold's celebration of perfection. Perfection mattered to Arnold as the only background against which we
could form a just image of our actual circumstances, just as we can conceive finer sunsets and unheard
melodies.
Based on the information in the passage, Arnold would probably agree that the educational curriculum
should

• A. reflect the dominant culture of the day
• B. strike a balance between practicality and theory
• C. deemphasize what is representative
• D. focus on the sciences more than the humanities
• E. be more rigorous than during the past

A certain strain of bacteria called lyngbya majuscula, an ancient ancestor of modern-day algae, is making
a comeback in ocean waters just off the world's most industrialized coastal regions. This primitive bacteria
has survived for nearly three billion years due to a variety of survival mechanisms. It can produce its own
fertilizer by pulling nitrogen out of the air; it relies on a different spectrum of light than algae do, allowing it
to thrive even in deep, murky waters; and when it dies and decays, it releases its own nitrogen and
phosphorous, on which the next generation of lyngbya feeds. Lyngbya emits more than one hundred
different toxins harmful to other ocean life as well as to humans. Commercial fishermen and divers who
come in contact with the bacteria frequently complain of skin rashes and respiratory problems, which can
keep these workers off the job for months at a time. The bacteria further disrupts local economies by
blocking sunlight to sea grasses that attract fish and other sea life. Scientists attribute the modern-day
reappearance of lyngbya, and the resulting problems, chiefly to nitrogen- and phosphorous-rich sewage
partially processed at wastewater treatment plants and pumped into rivers that feed coastal ocean waters.
According to passage, the lyngbya majuscula strain
I. depends largely on nitrogen and phosphorous as nutrients
II. can harm other ocean life as a result of its high toxicity
III. thrives mainly in waters where algae is largely absent

• A. I, II, and III
• B. III only
• C. I only
• D. I and II only
• E. II and III only

For absolute dating of archeological artifacts, the radiocarbon method emerged during the latter half of
the twentieth century as the most reliable and precise method. The results of obsidian (volcanic glass)
dating, a method based on the belief that newly exposed obsidian surfaces absorb moisture from the
surrounding atmosphere at a constant rate, proved uneven. It was initially thought that the thickness of
the hydration layer would provide a means of calculating the time elapsed since the fresh surface was
made. But this method failed to account for the chemical variability in the physical and chemical
mechanism of obsidian hydration. Moreover, each geographic source presented unique chemical
characteristics, necessitating a trace element analysis for each such source. Yet despite its limitations,
obsidian dating helped archeologists identify the sources of many obsidian artifacts, and to identify in turn
ancient exchange networks for the flow of goods. Nor were ceramic studies and fluoride analysis
supplanted entirely by the radiocarbon method, which in use allows for field labeling and laboratory errors,
as well as sample contamination. In addition, in the 1970s, dendrochronological (tree-ring) studies on the
bristlecone pine showed that deviation from radiocarbon values increases as one moves back in time.
Eventually calibration curves were developed to account for this phenomenon; but in the archeological
literature we still find dual references to radiocarbon and sidereal, or calendar, time.
The author mentions all of the following as problems with radiocarbon dating EXCEPT for

• A. identification errors by archeological field workers
• B. mistakes by laboratory workers
• C. deterioration of samples
• D. disparities with the calendar dating system
• E. contamination of artifacts

SCALE : TONE :

• A. spectrum : color
• B. prism : hue
• C. wave : frequency
• D. form : shape
• E. texture : sensation