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TOEFL Directory > TOEFL writing > TOEFL Reading Class Unit 2_Passage 5_Question 45-55
TOEFL Reading Class Unit 2_Passage 5_Question 45-55
You have about 15 minutes to finish this passage.
First,use about 3-4 minutes to read the passage, try to understand the main idea of this passage.
Don't read it so slowly or try to remember all details.You need to do "fast reading",and "scan" the passage.
Second, read questions 1-11, and with questions you go back the passage again and look for correct answers.
Questions 45-55
Passage 5
Each of the social and humanistic branches of learning apart from sociology seems to have its own distinctive subject matter. Political science, for example, deals with the ways in which society allocates the right to use legitimate power. Sociology, however, has not yet had a special or distinctive subject matter clearly associated with it. The subject matter should be something concrete, specific, and easily identified, something that is not claimed as the central object of study of some other established discipline.
The most cursory glance at the easily identified major institutions, social products, and social processes reveals that there are indeed such unassigned or unclaimed subjects. Politics and economics are spoken for, and so in large measure are literature, language, education, and business. But there remain the family, crime, social classes, ethnic and racial groups, the urban and the rural community. No one of these major components of society has become the distinctive object of study for a specialized branch of learning, which has the status of an independent discipline, such as politics or economics. Instead, each of these subjects has become a focus for research and theory-building within sociology. In this way sociology has, to a degree, become the great residual category of the social sciences. It has not one subject, but many. Indeed, some might argue that in this sense sociology has no distinctive subject matter. It is merely a collection of disciplines united mainly by the fact that they deal with institutions and social processes that have historically failed to become sufficiently specialized and important to win independent standing as intellectual disciplines.
If the long, continuing process of differentiation and specialization in scholarship were to go so far that all the subfields of sociology came to be established as separate disciplines, would sociology then cease to exist as a discipline in its own right? We can properly say "no?only if we can point to a distinctive subject matter that would remain for sociology. Happily we can. We may propose several distinctive subject matters to which sociology could still lay claim. They are, in decreasing order of size and complexity: societies, institutions, social relationships, and families.
45. The author uses political science in paragraph 1 as an example of a discipline that
a) needs to be divided into distinct categories
b) has not been given adequate attention
c) is easily defined
d) overlaps with other subject areas
46. The word allocates in the passage is closest in meaning to
a) returns
b) signifies
c) designates
d) reveals
47. According to the passage, the subject matter on which sociologists need to concentrate should be all of the following EXCEPT
a) concrete
b) specific
c) universal
d) unclaimed by another discipline
48. According to paragraph 2, which of the following is true about sociology?
b) It is a combination of many related subject areas.
c) It is a highly specialized field.
d) It has finally won the respect of researchers.
e) It is not studied by as many people as politics or economics.
49. The phrase spoken for in the passage is closest in meaning to
a) debated
b) pronounced differently
c) combined
d) claimed
50. According to the passage, which of the following is the central object of study of an established academic discipline?
a) Politics
b) Social classes
c) Ethnic groups
d) The rural community
51. The word status in the passage is closest in meaning to
a) development
b) freedom
c) appearance
d) position
52. The word It in the passage refers to
a) focus
b) theory-building
c) sociology
d) degree
53. It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following is true about the institutions and social processes mentioned in the passage?
a) They have not been considered to be as important as business and economics.
b) They were a late addition to the field of sociology.
c) They are not functioning as well as they did in the past.
d) They are clearly distinct from the study of sociology.
54. According to the passage, why is the study of sociology unlikely to disappear?
a) Each of its divisions has become an independent subject.
b) It is still receiving support from other disciplines.
c) It has always been able to define its subject matter clearly.
d) There are still some subjects that belong only to sociology.
55. The phrase in its own right in the passage is closest in meaning to
a) legal
b) independent
c) complete
d) sudden
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