Passage A

Practice Tests
Practice for the Florida College Basic Skills Exit Test
Passage A

Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow.

1. Which sentence states the main ideas of this passage?

A. Beginning acquaintances often view their relationship as too temporary to reveal personal feelings and emotions.

B. People must begin to see themselves as a unit in order for friendships to grow.

C. People must become close friends in order to have effective interpersonal communication.

D. Friendship develops over three stages, each having its own distinct characteristics.

2. The main idea of paragraph 4 is

A. The qualities of effective interpersonal interaction begin to be seen more clearly at this stage.

B. You start to express yourself openly and become interested in the other person's disclosures.

C. You begin to own your feelings and thoughts and respond openly to her or her communications.

D. As friendships deepen, people tend to value each other more highly.

3. What is the relationship between the parts of the following sentence?

"Your ability to empathize with or to orient yourself significantly to the other is limited because you don't yet know the other person." (lines 4–5)

A. cause and effect

B. addition

C. time order

D. comparison and/or contrast

4. The author uses an overall organization pattern that

A. compares and contrasts the three stages of friendship.

B. classifies and describes the development of the three stages of friendship.

C. provides examples of the stages of friendship.

D. explains the time line of the stages of friendship.

5. Based on the passage, responses between acquaintances

A. will most likely deepen to stronger bonds of friendship.

B. are most likely to depend on the communication skills one has learned from one's parents or peers.

C. are more likely a result of politeness than any feelings of friendship.

D. are usually of an intimate and more personal nature because there is no fear of judgment from one who does not know you well.

6. Identify the relationship between the following two sentences from paragraph one.

"Close and intimate friendships have an intensification of the casual friendship. This is the third stage, and you and your friend see yourselves more as an exclusive unit."

A. classification

B. cause and effect

C. contrast

D. simple listing

7. The word immediacy (line 11) means

A. conversation.

B. feeling.

C. ideas.

D. closeness.

8. "The relationship—at this stage, at least—is probably viewed as too temporary to be worth the effort." (lines 5–6)

The above sentence is a statement of

A. fact.

B. opinion.

C. informed opinion.

D. bias.

9. The tone of this passage could best be described as

A. nostalgic.

B. empathetic.

C. sarcastic.

D. objective.

10. The primary purpose of this passage is to

A. describe the three stages of friendship and the characteristics of interpersonal communication that accompany each.

B. provide the background of interpersonal communications.

C. list the advantages and disadvantages of each type of friendship.

D. argue that men usually do have deep and intimate friendships.