Today, the Secret Service is the agency of the United States government that is charged with the protection of the president and family members of the president. Any time that the president appears in public, neatly dressed Secret Service agents are clearly in evidence alongside the president. Secret Service agents might also accompany a presidential spouse to a committee meeting, on a shopping trip, to a charity event, or out for a walk in the park. Agents accompany the president’s children to school on a daily basis, sitting unobtrusively but hardly unnoticed in the background throughout each hour of class, and tag along with the president’s children on dates and to any type of social event.
The Secret Service is so much in evidence around the president and members of the president’s family, one might question why the activities of these agents are considered secret. The name of the agency, however, is -not derived from its duty in protecting the president but from its original covert duty in protecting the economy of the young United States from counterfeiters. Before the Civil War, the official currency of the United States was in coins; however, after the war, the government began issuing paper money. This new paper currency was easy for counterfeiters to replicate, and soon counterfeit bills flooded the country. Secret Service agents, as part of the Department of the Treasury, posed as criminals interested in purchasing large sums of counterfeit bills in order to gather evidence against counterfeiters and put them out of their illegal business. For quite some time, the government preferred to keep the public in the dark about the extent of the counterfeiting at that time, afraid that the public would lose confidence in the country’s paper money if they knew that there was so much counterfeit money mixed in with the real thing.
It was not until 1901 that the role of the Secret Service was expanded from protecting the currency of the country to protecting its president. In that year, then President William McKinley was shot by an assassin in Buffalo, New York. Sadly, he died eight days later from the wounds inflicted during the assassination attempt. At that time, the Secret Service was assigned to protect the president, in addition to its other duties, and it has carried out that assignment, often not in a secretive fashion, to this day.
2. Which of the following would be the best title for this passage?
A.Protection of the United States Presidency
B. The Duties of the Secret Service
C. The President and Family Members of the President
D.The Role of the Secret Service in Protecting the Currency of the United States
3. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as a responsibility of the Secret Service?
A.Shopping for the president
B. Accompanying the president on public appearances
C. Going for walks with the presidents spouse
D.Attending school with the president’s children
4. According to paragraph 2, the Secret Service is called secret .
A.because its duty in protecting the president is unknown to the public.
B. because of its original covert duty in protecting the economy of the young United States from counterfeiters.
C. because it keeps the public in the dark about its duty of protecting members of the president’s family.
D.because its assignment to protect the president is carried out in a secretive fashion.
5. It can be inferred from the passage that before the Civil War .
A.paper money was used extensively
B. counterfeiting of paper money was not a big problem for the U.S. government
C. coins were relatively easy to counterfeit
D.Secret Service agents spent most of their time protecting the president and his family
6. The expression “posed as” in line 16 is closest in meaning to which of the following?
A. talked with B. chased after C. pretended to be D. looked for
7. The word “them” in line 19 refers to …………..
A.counterfeiters
B. secret agents
C. counterfeit bills
D.criminals
8. According to the passage, the government kept its citizens uninformed about the extent of early counterfeiting because the government………….
A.worried that counterfeiters would learn to make better counterfeit currency
B. believed that the amount of counterfeiting would increase
C. felt embarrassed about how easy it was to counterfeit the currency
D.feared that the citizens would stop using paper currency
9. All of the following are similar in meaning to “covert” (line 12) EXCEPT………….
A. hidden B. secret C. overt D. concealed
10. The word “it” in line 27 refers to………….
A.the assassination attempt
B. the role
C. the country
D.Secret Service
11. According to the last paragraph,…………...
A.By 1901, the Secret Service had stopped protecting the currency of the country
B. the role of the Secret Service was widened as a result of the assassination of President William McKinley
C. since the assassination of President William McKinley, protecting the president has become the sole duty of the Secret Service
D.protecting the president has always been a secret operation
