UH-Victoria

Prepositions

Exercise 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).