PrepositionsExercise 2: Understanding Prepositions
Directions: As you read through the passages, circle
all of the prepositions, and underline all of the prepositional phrases.
First Passage
Public opinion’s influence over government policy has been the
subject of great philosophical debates in the literature of democracy.
This philosophical question may never be resolved, but the empirical
question of whether public opinion influences public policy can be
considered with systematic research.
Second Passage
One problem in identifying the independent effect of
mass opinion on the actions of decision-makers is that the decision-makers
help
mold mass opinion. Public policy may be in accord with mass opinion,
but there is no way to definitively know if mass opinion shaped
policy or if policy shaped mass opinion. V.O. Key Jr., a distinguished
American
political scientist, has argued that government attempts to mold
public opinion toward support of the programs it supports. And although
Key
believed that public opinion did affect public policy, he was not
able to conclusively prove it.
Third Passage
The Reform Bill of 1832 altered England’s class system. It granted
the right to vote to all males who owned property worth 10 pounds
or more in annual rent. This meant that the lower middle classes now
had the right to vote (until 1867). Therefore, parliamentary representation
was redistributed and the landowner’s power was broken down.
Thus, the middle class gained an increasing power, and the result
was that their needs were beginning to be addressed through the government.
Fourth Passage
The Victorian Age (1830-1901), an age of transition, was named after
the reign of Queen Victoria who was England’s ruler from the
years of 1837 to 1901. During this time England was expanding rapidly
due to advances in technology and a shift from a rural/agrarian economy
to one that was based on urban trade and manufacturing. England was
the first country to industrialize and it encountered many problems
as a result of this feat. The responses of Victorian writers aptly
reflect the changing climate of the times in their work. Although
the transitional atmosphere of the country does not really justify
the use of term Victorian, the traits of “…earnestness,
moral responsibility, [and] domestic propriety” were emphasized
by Queen Victoria, and they do have a Victorian quality about them.
These Victorian morals, along with the Queen’s name, justify
the title of the Victoria Age (1044).
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