Out of Many, One Experience

On June 20, 1965, murmurs of excitement filled a Kingston, Jamaica, auditorium, where (1) way more people than were expected gathered for commencement services at the University of the West Indies. (2) Along with the 400 graduates, many people had come to hear the words of that year's commencement speaker, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (3) Furthermore, the Jamaican audience was familiar with Dr. King's ongoing campaign for the civil rights in the United States through newspaper reports and television broadcasts and the effect of seeing Dr. King ascend to the podium just feet away from where they stood was thrilling. The day’s (4) preceding not only inspired the audience but also furthered Dr. King’s aim of enhancing solidarity between the two countries.

Without even consulting (5) notes, Dr. King began to speak passionately about challenges common to Jamaica and the United States. At the time, both countries were on the cusp of great change. Jamaica, (6) which would have achieved independence from Great Britain less than three years earlier, was in the process of forming a (7) government. For both countries, the quest for political and social rights was laden with setbacks. Fixing his gaze on the graduating seniors,  Dr. King declared that the present generation must recognize that "no nation can live alone: we are all interdependent." He emphasized the need for a spirit of love and worldwide brotherhood (8) from facing the challenges of the future. For Dr. King, Jamaica's newly minted national motto-"Out of Many, One People" -perfectly encapsulated this precept of unity.

(9) Dr. King spoke about unity that day. He also inspired unity. Years later, when asked by reporters what they remembered most, many audience members cited the same moment in the speech. They all recalled that Dr. King had said, "If it falls to our luck to be like Michelangelo carved marble .... Sweep the streets so street sweepers, sweep the streets like Raphael painted pictures, well that all the hosts of heaven and earth would have to pause and say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper."' For (10) people, building a new nation, these words were particularly meaningful. Everyone's efforts had great worth; everyone had an important role to play.

The experience had a profound effect not only on (11) historians but also on Dr. King, who returned to Jamaica two years later when he needed a place to write his next book. In that work, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, Dr. King envisions a world in which all people are united, a world in which the communal spirit he found in Jamaica has been embraced by all nations.

The Theater Duke

  When Georg II— duke of a small German principality called (12) Saxe-Meiningen established—a local theater in 1866, he oversaw every aspect of each production. (13) This high degree of involvement was unusual: while many principalities had court theaters, a duke would usually appoint a director to oversee the plays. Georg not only supervised the plays but also exercised full artistic control over them. Directors at the time exerted little creative influence, giving actors free rein and reusing generic stage sets. In contrast, Georg advised actors, designed elaborate sets, and choreographed scenes, contributing to the development of greater stage realism and ultimately helping to establish the role of the modern director.

(14)  Georg had recruited several little-known actors when the theater company visited Berlin to perform Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, captivating the metropolitan audience. When the curtain rose at 7 p.m. on May 1, 1874, the audience was immediately amazed by the (15) productions' elaborate sets and costumes, which Georg had modeled after Roman originals. Column and decorative sculptures occupied the foreground of the (16) stage. As audience members marveled at the authentic-looking scenery, actors portraying Roman citizens streamed onto the stage, each bedecked in distinctive clothing, footwear and (17) with headdresses. A trumpet then signaled the entrance of (18) Caeser. His glittering toga and armor made him instantly distinguishable. The audience members were so delighted that they broke into applause before a word was even uttered. “I could have believed myself back in ancient Rome”, one audience member said afterward.

(19)  The venue Georg's company used was quite different from those used in Shakespeare's time. For example, he set the stage for the climactic murder of Caesar by arranging the crowd of conspiring Romans in a circle surrounding Caesar, thereby suggesting the inescapability of the ruler's fate. He also carefully orchestrated the chaotic moments following the murder, when the crowd spins out of control. Georg split the crowd into smaller (20) units, he assigned individual dialogue and stage positions, thereby making the scene more realistic.

"One feels oneself present at the beginnings of a revolution," a theater critic (21) wondered of this climactic scene; the same can perhaps be said of Georg's achievement overall. The play was a hit, launching the duke's group on a seventeen-year tour, during which it delivered over 2,000 performances in venues throughout Europe. Inspiring directors around the continent to design and execute more unified, detailed productions, (22) the title Georg was dubbed with was "The Theater Duke."

Free to Sing

For centuries Japanese bird enthusiasts have bred white-rumped munias, brown finches with tufts of white feathers, for (23) its plumage. Generations of this selective breeding have produced a new species: the Bengalese (24) finch; while existing only in captivity. Such breeding was intended to produce certain physical qualities in the domesticated finches, but it also had an unintended (25) consequence increased song complexity in the Bengalese finch (26) relative to that of the white-rumped munia.

To explain this phenomenon, Tokyo ornithologist Kazuo Okanoya at first reasoned that finch song complexity was driven primarily by mate selection. He found that (27) female finches tend to choose males with loud, high-pitched, improvisational songs. These males are chosen over those with soft, low-pitched, predictable songs, so breeders selecting reproductively successful birds must also have selected the most dynamic singers. However, Berkeley anthropologist Terrence Deacon saw a contradiction in this idea: song complexity should occur when there is pressure to identify a mate of the same species; (28) after all, it should not occur among birds in captivity, where this pressure is lower. Deacon proposed instead that since white-rumped munias in more homogeneous groups lack pressure to find other white-rumped munias, random genetic mutations that result in song improvisation are allowed to propagate, leading to more complex songs.

To test this hypothesis, Okanoya's team tracked wild white-rumped munias in three areas in Taiwan. At each site, they (29) diagnosed flock composition ( the percentage of observed flocks that were "mixed," containing white-rumped munias and another species, scaly-breasted munias) and measured the linearity of the munias' songs (a calculation based on the number of elements in a song, where 1 is simple and O is complex).

The linearity at the mountainous site was (30) more than 0.1 point lower than that at the urban site or the agricultural site, indicating greater song complexity. At the same time, (31) a lower percentage of flocks at the urban site were mixed than at the mountainous site. Together, these data suggest that higher song complexity is associated with greater flock uniformity.

Okanoya's study (32) indicates that, song complexity is subject to the pressure of the birds' need to identify a mate of the same species; when this pressure is relaxed, song complexity increases rather than decreases. Such relaxation explains song complexity in the white-rumped munia's descendant, the domesticated Bengalese finch, and (33) provides intriguing support for the idea that birdsong can evolve through a complex interaction of selective pressures. 

Eyes in the Sky

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Precision agriculture, the use of technology and data analysis in farming, has a new tool at its disposal: the type of remote-controlled aerial vehicle commonly known as a drone. Farmers looking to increase efficiency might decide that drones, (34) which have already proven useful to the film industry, are just what they need.

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Detailed data about crop health provided by drones can guide crucial decisions for farmers such as when (35) to irrigate and whether to use chemical treatments? Agricultural drones come equipped with a video or still image camera that farmers can use to observe the condition of their crops. Some drone companies (36) also offer analysis services: they can combine digital files from drones into color-coded maps that mark zones indicating differences in growth rates or the prevalence of weeds, pests, or weather damage. With these maps, a farmer can irrigate and apply herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers to each part of the a field according to its specific needs.

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Drones compare favorably with image-capturing satellites and piloted aircraft, other technologies that are used to gain aerial views. Drones are less expensive, provide finer-grained images, (37) and they fly low to the ground, can take pictures even on cloudy days. Jean Hediger, whose family operates a 3,400-acre organic grain farm in Colorado, can attest to the advantages of the technology. Hediger (38) acquired a drone after losing half of her harvest in one year to weeds. She estimates that identifying problems faster with timely crop data and using less weed killer (39) will save her tens of thousands of dollars in future (40) years. Considerably more than the$7,000 she paid for the drone and any potential costs associated with reviewing images.

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Pilots who fly planes for crop dusting and other purposes (41) experience disquiet regarding the presence of drones in the airspace above farms. Drones might be accidentally flown into nearby tall objects such as cell phone towers. Objections to drones may be (42) engaged with regulations that require drone operators to keep drones within sight at all times and that require lights on drones to ensure they are visible.

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Despite these challenges, it is important for drones (43) being integrated into the agricultural system. If they are used effectively, drones hold the promise of making farms more productive and cost effective while minimizing waste in water and chemical treatments, which could benefit farmers, consumers, and the environment alike.

Question 44 asks about the previous passage as a whole.