Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow. Just as the…
2025
Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.
Just as the oceans opened up a new world for clipper ships and Yankee traders, space holds enormous potential for commerce today. The International Space Station (ISS) took 10 years and more than 30 missions to assemble. It is the result of unprecedented scientific and engineering collaboration among five space agencies representing 15 countries. The space station is approximately the size of a football field: a 460-ton, permanently crewed platform orbiting 250 miles above Earth. It is about four times as large as the Russian space station Mir and five times as large as the U.S. Skylab. The idea of a space station was once science fiction, existing only in the imagination until it became clear in the 1940s that construction of such a structure might be attainable by our nation. As the Space Age began in the 1950s, designs of 'space planes' and stations dominated popular media. The first rudimentary station was created in 1969 by the linking of two Russian Soyuz vehicles in space, followed by other stations and developments in space technology until construction began on the ISS in 1998, aided by the first reusable spacecraft ever developed: the American shuttles. Until recently, U.S. research space onboard the ISS had been reserved for mostly government initiatives, but new opportunities for commercial and academic use of the ISS are now available, facilitated by the ISS National Lab.
Identify the tone of the passage.
- A.
Speculative
- B.
Objective
- C.
Subjective
- D.
Calculative
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Tone in a reading-comprehension passage is the author's attitude toward the subject, revealed through word choice and the mode of presentation rather than through an explicit statement. Passages are commonly classified as objective (stating facts neutrally), subjective (expressing personal opinion or emotion), speculative (raising possibilities or hypotheses), or calculative (working through a numeric or logical computation).
The given passage on the International Space Station reports established facts: its assembly timeline, the number of participating agencies and countries, its mass, its orbital altitude, and its size relative to Mir and Skylab, all stated as plain declarative facts. Aside from a couple of mildly appreciative turns of phrase ("enormous potential", "unprecedented ... collaboration"), it avoids sustained praise, criticism, or emotional commentary, and it does not pose open questions or dwell on uncertain future outcomes; the one aside about the idea "becoming clear" in the 1940s reports a historical shift in belief, not the author's own present-day speculation. Throughout, the passage's dominant purpose is to inform the reader of verified information, which is the hallmark of a predominantly objective tone.
A speculative tone would need the passage to dwell on unresolved possibilities or future uncertainty as its main thread; here only a single historical aside touches on an idea taking shape, while the rest of the text reports settled facts, not open questions.
A subjective tone would need the passage's dominant register to be evaluative or emotionally charged language expressing praise, disapproval, or personal feeling; beyond a couple of mildly appreciative phrases, the passage is built almost entirely from measurable or historical facts, so subjective is not the best fit.
A calculative tone would need the passage's purpose to be deriving or working out a numeric result; here the figures (460 tons, 250 miles, four or five times larger) are simply reported values, not a computation carried out for the reader.
Since the passage is built almost entirely from measurable and historical facts, with at most a couple of mildly appreciative asides and no sustained opinion, computation, or unresolved speculation, its dominant tone is objective.