"Clara and Mr. Tiffany" Reading Notes

Reading Test Notes

• The reading test has 65 minutes to answer 52 questions.
• Each passage or pair of passages is followed by a series of questions.
• Base each answer on what is stated or implied in the passage.

Passage from "Clara and Mr. Tiffany"

• The narrator is seeing her previous boss, Louis Comfort Tiffany.
• Tiffany's company would be known for its stained-glass lampshades.
• The narrator asks Tiffany for work, wants to be rehired for merit, not pity.
• Tiffany is planning a Byzantine chapel for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
• The Exposition is four times bigger than the Paris Exposition Universelle.
• The Exposition should have artists' assemblies not seen since the 15th century.
• Tiffany plans two round windows: "The Infancy of Christ" and "Botticelli's Madonna and Child".
• A dozen scenic side windows are also planned.
• Tiffany displays large watercolors of the windows he wants to create on a Persian carpet.
• Tiffany is creating an eight-foot mosaic behind the altar showing peacocks with grapevines.
• Tiffany transformed the Christian crown of thorns into a shimmering regal headdress for God, replacing thorns with glass jewels.
• Tiffany's watercolors have a vibrant, lacquer-like quality.
• The hues have exotic names: emerald green, sapphire blue, vermilion, Spanish ocher, Florida gold, mandarin yellow, peridot, turquoise, and cobalt.
• The narrator admires Tiffany's originality, especially the peacocks in a chapel.
• Peacocks symbolize eternal life in Byzantine art; their flesh was thought incorruptible.
• Tiffany displays more drawings, including a marble-and-mosaic altar and baptismal font of opaque leaded glass and mosaic.
• Tiffany describes a dome to the basin as opaque leaded glass.
• He shows the dome's size with outstretched arms.
• The narrator envisions reducing the dome's size and using translucent glass for a lampshade.
• The narrator imagines a wraparound window of peacock feathers.
• Tiffany is startled by the idea; he repeats "Lampshades in leaded glass" with wonder.

Passage on Urbanization and City Size

• Two studies suggest industrialized nations benefited from larger cities, but rapidly urbanizing areas do not.
• The studies are by Susanne A. Frick and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, London School of Economics.
• The studies examine city size and nationwide economic performance.
• The initial study examines the connection between GDP per capita and average metropolitan-area size in 114 countries between 1960 and 2010.
• The study controls for national population size, physical land area, education levels, and economic openness.
• City sizes have grown significantly, especially in the developing world.
• Between 1960 and 2010, the median city in high-income countries grew from 500,000 to 650,000 people.
• The median city in the less-developed world nearly quadrupled, expanding from 220,000 to 845,000 people.
• In 1960, 12 of the top 20 largest average city sizes belonged to high-income countries.
• By 2010, 14 of the top 20 were in the less-developed world.
• Advanced nations experience a 0.7% increase in economic growth for every additional 100,000 people in average population among its large cities over five years.
• Developing nations adding 100,000 people in large cities is associated with a -2.3% economic growth over five years.
• Developing nations find relatively smaller cities more beneficial.
• These countries see the most economic benefit from having a larger proportion of their urban population living in cities of 500,000 people or less.
• Larger countries benefit most from metro areas with more than 10 million inhabitants.
• A metro with 10 million inhabitants produces a nationwide economic benefit only if the total urban population is at least 28.5 million.
• Larger countries are more likely to host knowledge-based industries that require urban agglomeration economies.
• Many rapidly urbanizing megacities fail to spur growth.
• Most areas urbanizing rapidly today are the poorest and least-developed parts of the world.
• Places that urbanized a century ago were among the richest and most developed.
• Globalization has severed the connection between cities, local agriculture, and local industry.
• Raw materials can now be sourced from anywhere inexpensively.
• A consequence is the connection between cities and growth is more tenuous and it causes "urbanization without growth".

Passages on Human Brain Evolution

• Passage 1 is adapted from "Humans' Big Brains May Be Partly due to Three Newly Found Genes."
• Passage 2 is adapted from "Brain Size of Human Ancestors Evolved Gradually over 3 Million Years."
• Passage 1 describes that human brains are larger than ape brains, but the genes responsible for this difference are mostly unknown.
• Since humans and chimps split, the human genome changed by 15 million edits.
• Six years ago, David Haussler's lab discovered the gene NOTCH2NL.
• NOTCH2 is a critical gene for early brain development, controls neuron production.
• The Haussler team found NOTCH2NL located near a region linked to abnormal brain size.
• In version 37 of the human genome, NOTCH2NL appeared to be located in chromosome 1 which is near a region linked to abnormal brain size.
• Deleting the chromosomal region caused smaller brains, duplicating it caused overgrowth.
• The team mapped NOTCH2NL's precise location and the gene wasn't actually in the crucial region
• Version 38 of the genome placed NOTCH2NL in the correct region and had three versions of it.
• NOTCH2NL was copied and pasted into the genome for the last 3 million years.
• The three genes exist only in humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans. They aren't in chimps, gorillas, or orangutans.
• The timing of the genes matches up to the time our ancestors' craniums began expanding.
• NOTCH2NL genes likely played a role in increasing human brain size.
• Passage 2 indicates that modern human brains tripled relative to relatives like chimps and bonobos.
• there is no agreement when this increase took place, but research on 94 hominin fossils shows the increase happened over 3 million years.
• The trend was caused primarily by the evolution of larger brains within species populations, though larger-brained species and extinction of smaller-brained contributed as well.
• Brain size relates to cultural complexity, language, tool making, and the traits that make humans unique.
• The earliest hominins had chimpanzee-like brain volumes, which dramatically grew.
• Du compared published research data with the skull volumes of 94 fossil specimens from beginning with Australopithecus 3.2 million years ago.
• They compared the data to pre-modern Homo erectus from 500,000 years ago when brain size began overlapping that of modern humans.
• When species were counted at the clade level, brain sizes increased gradually over three million years.
• Closer study showed that primarily evolution created larger sizes in species populations, but addition of new, larger-brained species and extinction of smaller-brained ones helped.
• The study shows when and by how much each of these factors contributed to the clade-level pattern.
• Du likens this to a football coach building the weight of bigger players.
• The coach could also recruit new, larger players and cut the smallest ones.

Passage on Indigenous Rights in Australia

• The passage consists of a speech by Tom Calma titled, "Still Riding for Freedom.”

• The speech focuses on the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, indigenous to to Australia.

• For too long, it has been argued a focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' rights takes away from addressing their disadvantage.

• This view is flawed for several reasons.

• It represents a false dichotomy of poorer health, lack of housing, lower education, and higher employment which equates to, human rights issues relating to their cultural circumstances.

• It disguises any causal relationship between government actions and outcomes, and limits accountability and responsibilities.

• Human rights provide a means for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to express claims to equal goods, services, and protections of the law.

• The government is required to measure up to the standard of basic human rights.

• The focus on 'practical measures' is exemplified by the emphasis previous governments placed on recording record levels of expenditure annually on Indigenous issues.

• Size of expenditure became more important than the intended outcomes, the government never explaining its point or achievements.

• It's impossible to decide if progress has ever been ‘good enough'. and this ‘practical’ approach has lacked any accountability

• A ‘practical’ approach has allowed governments to devise policies and programs without engaging with Indigenous peoples.

• It is the ‘fundamental flaw’ of the federal government’s efforts where Indigenous peoples are passive recipients or are not heard.

• The current challenge is to redefine issues as human rights issues

• A major challenge is skilling up the government and bureaucracy to utilize rights as tools for policy development and accountability.

• In March, the Prime Minister, Opposition Leader, Ministers for Health and Indigenous Affairs signed A Statement of Intent.

• The Statement would close the gap in health inequality and outline how the commitment would be met.

• Commitments include:

• A long-term plan of action to address inequities;

• The full participation of Indigenous peoples;

• Addressing social determinants impacting health equality;

• Respecting Indigenous people's rights;

• Measuring joint efforts to realize shared ambitions.

• These health commitments form a template for an approach needed across poverty, marginalization, and disadvantage experienced by them.

• These commitments provide the basis for the necessary cultural shift through the country that claims poverty, or marginalization are real challenges.

• There is a need to address those challenges in the shortest time-frame possible which helps realize a vision of equality.

Passage on Asteroid Belt Composition

• The passage discusses differentiated vs Primitive Asteroids
• Differentiated asteroids have different layers of material like an iron core, rocky mantle, and thin volcanic crust.
• Primitive asteroids, aka undifferntiated have changed little since forming.
• Scientists think Iron meteorites come from asteroid cores that melted but the corresponding rocky mantle material is mostly nonexistent.
• A few asteroids match mantle rock spectra, however are rare; some non-metallic meteorites come from melted asteroids, but do not match minerals in the missing mantles.
• This missing mantle rock is a long standing puzzle
• Iron fragments survive better than rock because iron is at the core and rocky material at the surface.
• Rocky material is removed first followed by Iron being disrupted later therefore the rocky fragments survive less time.
• Rocky mantle gets peeled away in small pieces making the iron harder to disrupt from the core.
• Iron is much stronger than rock meaning it could could survive at least 10x times more
• Most differentiated asteroid bodies broke apart early then they could have been ground down to dust and lost.
• Meaning, the main intact differedentaited ones is Vesta along with handfulls of others.
• The erosian cannot be the whole story being the rocks and meteors of both asteroids have relatively equal strength.
• Part of the reason being the bodies differentiated were rare and none survived.
• Scientist recently hypothesized Bodies that help Iron meteorites form are closer.
• More of the iron disrupted closer caused smaller bodies closer to the sun so they collided and scattered more.
• Surviving as intact or premitive along with what was left.

Reading notes for the passage "Clara and Mr. Tiffany." The passage is about Clara meeting her former boss, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and his plans for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Tiffany displays watercolors of stained-glass windows he wants to create.