501 Critical Reading Questions

a. a moving force.
b. a serious obstacle.
c. a slight annoyance.
d. a slight hindrance.
e. an area of very warm water.
419.
The author’s description of the transformation of a smooth
undulating wave to a breaking wave (lines 18–21) indicates that
a. The distance of a wave’s break is dependent upon the bottom of
the approaching the shoreline.
b. It is rare for a wave to break gradually.
c. It common for a wave to break abruptly.
d. The size of a wave has to do with its speed through the water.
e. A wave only travels through deep water.
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501
Critical Reading Questions

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420.
The sentence A wave is a communicated agitation (line 1) is best
defined by which statement?
a. the roar of a wave sounds angry when it breaks upon the shore.
b. waves are a display of the ocean’s fury.
c. a wave is a surging movement that travels through the water.
d. the size of a wave can vary.
e. the ocean has baffled sailors for centuries.
421.
What is the secret referred to in line 35?
a. why a good wave for surfing must to be at least six feet tall
b. A six-foot wave is between a quarter mile and a half mile in length.
c. how a surfer can slide down a six-foot wave for a quarter of mile
d. The smarter surfers paddle out to the deep water to catch the
best waves.
e. The water that composes a wave remains with the wave until it
reaches the shore.
Questions 422–430 are based on the following passage.
This passage details the life and career of Althea Gibson, an African-American
pioneer in the sport of tennis.
Today, watching Venus and Serena Williams dominate the sport of
women’s tennis with their talent and flair, it is hard to imagine that just
over fifty years ago African-American tennis players were barred from
competing on the grandest stages of their sport. Jackie Robinson broke
the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947, but the walls that kept
African-Americans from playing professional sports did not come tum-
bling down overnight. Almost four years passed from Jackie Robinson’s
major league debut until a female African-American made a similar
impact upon the sport of women’s tennis. That woman’s name was Althea
Gibson.
Althea Gibson was born on a cotton farm on August 25, 1927, in Sil-
ver, South Carolina. The early stages of the Great Depression forced her
sharecropper father to move the family from the bucolic Silver to the
urban bustle of New York City when she was just three years old. As a
child growing up in the Harlem section of the Manhattan, Althea found
she had an affinity for athletics. Basketball and paddle tennis were her
favorite sports, and she excelled at both. In fact, her talent at paddle ten-
nis was so remarkable that in 1939 she won her age group at the New
York City paddle tennis championships. Shortly after, a very good friend
of Althea’s suggested that she try lawn tennis. She showed an incredible
aptitude for the sport and her play caught the attention of members of the
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