CRITICAL READING TEST 3 - TESTS FOR PRACTICE - SAT CRITICAL READING WORKBOOK

SAT CRITICAL READING

PART 6

TESTS FOR PRACTICE

ANSWER SHEET CRITICAL READING TEST 3

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

CRITICAL READING TEST 3

Section 1

TIME—25 MINUTES

24 QUESTIONS

For each of the following questions, select the best answer from the choices provided and fill in the appropriate circle on the answer sheet.

Each of the following sentences contains one or two blanks; each blank indicates that a word or set of words has been left out. Below the sentence are five words or phrases, lettered A through E. Select the word or set of words that best completes the sentence.

Example:

Fame is ----; today’s rising star is all too soon tomorrow’s washed-up has-been.

(A) rewarding	(B) gradual
(C) essential	(D) spontaneous
(E) transitory

1. Though financially successful, the theater season, once again, is more noted for its ____ than for its original productions.

(A) musicals

(B) revivals

(D) rehearsals

(E) commercials

2. During the Ice Ages, musk oxen ranged as far south as Iowa, in North America, and Spain, in Europe, but in recent centuries the species has been ____ arctic tundra habitats, such as Greenland and the arctic islands of Canada.

(A) barred from

(B) confined to

(D) enervated by

(E) unknown in

3. Just as an orchestra cannot consist only of violins, a society cannot consist only of managers, for society is an ____ in which different parts have different ____.

(A) anarchy…powers

(B) edifice…complaints

(D) institution…results

(E) urbanity…ambitions

4. A ____ person is one who will ____ something on the slightest of evidence.

(A) restive…forget

(B) garrulous…criticize

(D) phlegmatic…condemn

(E) credulous…believe

5. That the brain physically changes when stimulated, instead of remaining ____ from infancy to death, as previously thought, was Dr. Marian Diamond’s first, and perhaps most far-reaching discovery.

(A) mutable

(B) static

(D) vigorous

(E) fluid

6. There were ____ in her nature that made her seem an ____ enigma: she was severe and gentle; she was modest and disdainful; she longed for affection and was cold.

(A) aspirations…irreducible

(B) contradictions…inexplicable

(D) disparities…interminable

(E) incongruities…irrelevant

7. At a time when biographies that debunk their subjects are all the rage, it is refreshing to have one idol who not only lives up to her legend but also ____ it.

(A) complicates

(B) surpasses

(D) rejects

(E) subverts

8. Morphing is a term ____ for the metamorphosis of one shape into another, such as the smooth formation of a live actor from a silvery puddle as seen in Terminator 2.

(A) coined

(B) denigrated

(D) mistaken

(E) repudiated

Read each of the passages below, and then answer the questions that follow the passage. The correct response may be stated outright or merely suggested in the passage.

Questions 9 and 10 are based on the following passage.

“Paint me as I am,” said Oliver Cromwell1
to the artist Lely. “If you leave out the scars
and wrinkles, I will not pay you a shilling.”

Line Even in such a trifle, Cromwell showed good

(5) sense. He did not wish all that was characteristic
in his countenance to be lost, in a vain
attempt to give him regular features and
smooth cheeks. He was content that his face
should show all the blemishes put on it by

(10) time, by war, by sleepless nights, by anxiety,
perhaps by remorse; but with valor, policy,
authority, and public care written on it as
well. If great men knew what was in their best
interests, it is thus that they would wish their

(15) minds to be portrayed.

9. The author views Cromwell’s choice about the way in which he wanted to be painted with

(A) detachment

(B) condescension

(D) approbation

(E) distaste

10. The passage suggests that painters who conceal their subjects’ blemishes and imperfections

(A) are more skillful than those who portray their subjects with greater accuracy

(B) are better paid than those who paint more realistically

(D) expose their own aesthetic preferences

(E) are doing their subjects no real favor

Questions 11 and 12 are based on the following passage.

On receiving the Congressional Medal for
Distinguished Civilian Achievement, Dr.
Jonas Salk declared, “I feel that the greatest

Line reward for doing is the opportunity to do

(5) more.” People worldwide would agree that, in
his forty-year medical career, Salk did a stunning
amount for humanity. His work developing
the first polio vaccine was the opening
shot in a war that has led to the disease’s virtual

(10) eradication. (In 2001, polio, which once
paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children
annually, claimed only 600 new victims
worldwide.) Though Salk’s vaccine has been
superseded by Albert Sabin’s cheaper oral

(15) vaccine, Salk’s legacy and name live on.

11. In the course of the passage, the author does all of the following EXCEPT

(A) use a metaphor

(B) cite a statistic

(D) describe a process

(E) make an assertion

12. In line 6, “stunning” most nearly means

(A) gorgeous

(B) perplexing

(D) critical

(E) unique

Questions 13–24 are based on the following passage.

The following passage is taken from an article by a contemporary poet about Clement Clarke Moore, the nineteenth-century writer best known as the author of “A Visit From Saint Nicholas.”

If he wasn’t a myth maker himself, at least
Clement Clarke Moore was a great myth
refiner. He started with St. Nicholas, giver of

Line presents, whom the Dutch settlers had brought

(5) over to New York. Moore’s portrait of the
good saint is as fleshy and real as some Frans
Hals painting of a burgher:

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his

(10) teeth,

And the smoke it encircled his head like a
wreath.

But with American efficiency, Moore

(15) combines the figure of St. Nicholas with that
of Kris Kringle, who (in Norwegian lore)
helped the saint by driving a reindeer-drawn
sleigh. Moore fires Kris, leaving St. Nick to
do his own driving. The result is our own

(20) American Santa Claus. Moore removes St.
Nick’s bishop’s miter, decks him out in fur,
gives him a ruddy face and a pot belly, hands
him a sack of toys and calls him an elf—suggesting
a pointed cap. Thomas Nast, our most

(25) authoritative Santa Claus delineator, stuck
closely to Moore’s description, and ever since,
few artists have dared depart from it.

To see how good Moore’s imagination is,
you have only to compare his version of St.

(30) Nicholas with Washington Irving’s of a few
years earlier. In 1809, in “Knickerbocker’s
History of New York,” Irving makes St. Nick a
friendly Dutch-American deity “riding jollily
among the tree-tops” in (of all things) a

(35) wagon, not only on Christmas but also on any
old holiday afternoon. What pulled that silly
wagon Irving doesn’t say, or why it didn’t
snag itself on a branch and bust both axles.

But Moore in his genius provides St. Nick
with reindeer power. And by laying marvelous
names on those obedient steeds, he makes

(40) each one an individual. Though ruminants
may be poorly designed for flight, Moore
doesn’t worry his head about aerodynamics;
he just sidesteps the whole problem. Dasher,
Dancer, Prancer, and the rest of the crew simply

(45) whiz up to the rooftop by pure magic. It
never occurs to us to question such a feat. We
are one with Moore’s protagonist, a man with
“wondering eyes.”

Delving into John Hollander’s recent

(50) Library of America anthology “American Poetry:
The Nineteenth Century,” I was glad
to find “A Visit From St. Nicholas” right there
along with works by Whitman, Emily
Dickinson and Jones Very. Professional deconstructionists

(55) may sneer, but popular demand
has fixed the poem securely in our national
heritage. If Mr. Hollander had left it out, it
would have been missed. Statistics are scarce,
but it seems likely that Moore’s masterwork

(60) has been reprinted, recited and learned by
heart more often than any other American
poem—and that goes for “The Raven,” “Casey
at the Bat,” and Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy.”

To be sure, mere popularity doesn’t make

(65) a work of art great. If it did, then “September
Morn,” that delicate tribute to skinny-dipping
once reproduced on calendars hung in barbershops
and pool halls galore, would be a better
painting than “Nude Descending a Staircase”

(70) any day. And yet a poem like Moore’s that has
stuck around for 171 years has to have something
going for it.

Well then, what? I submit that the poem’s
immortality may be due not only to Moore’s

(75) perfecting a great myth, but also to his skill in
music-making. It is a moribund reader who
doesn’t feel the spell of its bounding anapests,
as hard to ignore as a herd of reindeer on your
roof. Poets today tend to shy away from such

(80) obvious rhythms. They shrink too from alliteration,
which, applied badly, seems bric-a-brac.
But Moore lays it on thick, and makes it work
like a charm: the “fl” sounds in “Away to the
window I flew like a flash,” the hard “c”

(85) sounds in “More rapid than eagles his coursers
they came.” As for his rhymes, most clunk
along unsurprisingly (like “house” and
“mouse”), but a few sound Muse-inspired. If
any later versifier ever hits upon another pair

(90) of rhyming words as fresh and precise as
these, let him die smug:

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a
whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of

(95) a thistle.

History doesn’t tell us whether Moore’s
daughters, who first received the poem as a
Christmas present in 1822, were disappointed
at not getting dolls instead. Anyhow, it is a

(100) safe bet that, a hundred years from now, many
a more serious and respectable poem will have
departed from human memory like the down
of a thistle, while Moore’s vision of that wonderful
eight-deer sleigh will go thundering on.

(105) “A Visit From St. Nicholas” may be only a
sweet confection, yet how well it lasts. On a
cold winter night, it can warm you to the
quick: a homemade verbal cookie dipped in
Ovaltine.

13. The passage serves primarily to

(A) inform the reader of a new anthology featuring “A Visit from St. Nicholas”

(B) encourage contemporary poets to adopt the literary techniques used by Clement Clarke Moore

(D) correct a misconception about the origins of Santa Claus

(E) explain the enduring appeal of a classic example of light verse

14. By calling Clement Clarke Moore “a great myth refiner,” the author intends to convey that Moore

(A) was skillful at explaining myths

(B) created brand new legends

(D) transformed old myths into something new

(E) disdained the crudity of early mythology

15. Moore’s sources for his Saint Nicholas can best be described as

(A) eclectic

(B) pagan

(D) illusory

(E) authoritative

16. We can infer from lines 22–25 that Thomas Nast most likely was

(A) an imitator of Moore’s verse

(B) a critic of Moore’s changes to traditional figures

(D) an iconoclastic artist

(E) a competitor of Moore’s

17. Which statement best summarizes the point made in lines 26–48?

(A) Moore’s portrait of Saint Nicholas antedates Washington Irving’s interpretation.

(B) Irving’s version of Saint Nicholas sur-passes the one created by Moore.

(D) Moore preferred his version of Saint Nicholas to Irving’s variant.

(E) Moore showed greater creativity than Irving in constructing his picture of Saint Nicholas.

18. The statement in lines 46–48 (“We are one … eyes’”) is best interpreted as conveying the idea that

(A) we share the identity of the protagonist

(B) we too view the proceedings with astonishment and awe

(D) we question the events as they occur

(E) we also resemble Saint Nicholas in nature

19. The author’s attitude toward “professional deconstructionists” (lines 54–57) can best be described as

(A) respectful

(B) dismissive

(D) timorous

(E) perplexed

20. In line 62, “goes for” most nearly means

(A) aims at

(B) passes for

(D) gives approval to

(E) attacks physically

21. In line 64, “mere” most nearly means

(A) insignificant

(B) involuntary

(D) simple

(E) problematic

22. In line 76, the author uses the word “moribund” to emphasize the reader’s

(A) immortality

(B) fear of dying

(D) reservations about magic

(E) insensitivity to verse

23. The author regards Moore’s use of the rhyming words “whistle” and “thistle” with

(A) self-satisfaction and complacency

(B) amusement and condescension

(D) interest yet envy

(E) derision and disdain

24. One aspect of the passage that might make it difficult to appreciate is the author’s apparent assumption that readers will

(A) prefer the realistic paintings of Hals to later artworks

(B) have read Hollander’s anthology of American poetry

(D) understand the author’s childhood associations with Saint Nicholas

(E) already be familiar in great detail with Moore’s poem

If you finish before time is called, you may check your work on this section only. Do not work on any other section in the test.

____________

1Oliver Cromwell led the forces of Parliament during England’s Civil Wars; he was Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1653 to 1658 during the republican Commonwealth.

Section 2

TIME—25 MINUTES

24 QUESTIONS

For each of the following questions, select the best answer from the choices provided and fill in the appropriate circle on the answer sheet.

Example:

Fame is ----; today’s rising star is all too soon tomorrow’s washed-up has-been.

(A) rewarding	(B) gradual
(C) essential	(D) spontaneous
(E) transitory

1. Despite the current expansion of fencing association membership in America, the governing body of world fencing fears that fencing could be in danger of ____ if it does not become more ____ to spectators.

(A) monotony…intelligible

(B) overcrowding…resistant

(D) corruption…cordial

(E) remoteness…handy

2. Precision of wording is necessary in good writing; by choosing words that exactly convey the desired meaning, one can avoid ____.

(A) redundancy

(B) complexity

(D) ambiguity

(E) lucidity

3. Despite the ____ size of her undergraduate class, the professor made a point of getting to know as many as possible of the more than 700 students personally.

(A) negligible

(B) modest

(D) daunting

(E) moderate

4. Biographer Janet Malcolm maintains that biography is a spurious art, for the orderly narrative it creates is ____; the “facts” aren’t facts at all, but literary ____.

(A) illusory…inventions

(B) genuine…commonplaces

(D) brilliant…triumphs

(E) sincere…criticisms

5. Something in Christopher responded to the older man’s air of authority: he looked ____, accustomed to ____.

(A) magisterial…command

(B) monumental…intimidate

(D) masterful…obey

(E) decisive…fret

Read the passages below, and then answer the questions that follow. The correct response may be stated outright or merely suggested in the passages.

Questions 6–9 are based on the following passages.

Both passages relate to English author Jane Austen and her readers. Passage 1 is taken from E. M. Forster’s 1924 review of Chapman’s edition, The Works of Jane Austen. Passage 2 is taken from an article written in 2005.

Passage 1

I am a Jane Austenite, and, therefore,
slightly imbecile about Jane Austen. My
fatuous expression and airs of personal

Line immunity—how ill they set on the face, say,

(5) of a Stevensonian. But Jane Austen is so different.
One’s favorite author! One reads and
re-reads, the mouth open and the mind closed.
Shut up in measureless content, one greets her
by the name of most kind hostess, while criticism

(10) slumbers. The Jane Austenite possesses
none of the brightness he ascribes to his idol.
Like all regular churchgoers, he scarcely
notices what is being said.

Passage 2

Line Jane Austen never suffered fools gladly,

(15) nor should we. Her letters and novels are filled
with sharp, cutting comments—zingers,
remarks that startle, even shock, the unwary
reader. At the ball there “was a scarcity of
Men in general, & a still greater scarcity of

(20) any that were good for much.” Zing! Who,
reading that caustic comment, can ever again
think of Austen as Gentle Jane? As Natalie
Tyler says, “She is the one person whose
insights about yourself you would most fear

(25) because you realize that her perceptions are
penetrating, perspicacious, and piercingly
accurate.”

6. Passage 1 supports which of the following generalizations about the Jane Austenites?

(A) They also enjoy the novels of Robert Louis Stevenson.

(B) They are irregular in their reading habits.

(D) They grow increasingly immune to Austen’s appeal.

(E) Their reverence for Austen is uncritical.

7. The author of Passage 2 views Austen primarily as

(A) an ironic observer

(B) an ardent feminist

(D) an objective witness

(E) a reluctant critic

8. The author of Passage 2 does all of the following EXCEPT

(A) pose a question

(B) cite an authority

(D) provide an example

(E) propose a hypothesis

9. Both passages support the generalization that Austen

(A) was restricted by the limitations of her society

(B) was unusually sensitive to her environment

(D) possessed an acute intellect

(E) is more reverent than other authors

Questions 10–15 are based on the following passage.

In this excerpt from The Way to Rainy Mountain, the writer N. Scott Momaday tells of his grandmother, a member of the Kiowa tribe, who was born at a key time in Kiowa history.

I like to think of my grandmother as a
child. When she was born, the Kiowas were
living the last great moment of their history.

Line For more than a hundred years they had controlled

(5) the open range from the Smoky Hill
River to the Red, from the headwaters of the
Canadian to the fork of the Arkansas and
Cimarron. In alliance with the Comanches,
they had ruled the whole of the southern

(10) Plains. War was their sacred business, and
they were among the finest horsemen the
world has ever known. But warfare for the
Kiowas was preeminently a matter of disposition
rather than of survival, and they never

(15) understood the grim, unrelenting advance of
the U.S. Cavalry. When at last, divided and ill-
provisioned, they were driven onto the Staked
Plains in the cold rains of autumn, they fell
into panic. In Palo Duro Canyon they abandoned

(20) their crucial stores to pillage and had
nothing then but their lives. In order to save
themselves, they surrendered to the soldiers at
Fort Sill and were imprisoned in the old stone
corral that now stands as a military museum.

(25) My grandmother was spared the humiliation
of those high gray walls by eight or ten years,
but she must have known from birth the affliction
of defeat, the dark brooding of old
warriors.

(30) Her name was Aho, and she belonged to
the last culture to evolve in North America.
Her forebears came down from the high country
in western Montana nearly three centuries
ago. They were a mountain people, a mysterious

(35) tribe of hunters whose language has never
been positively classified in any major group.
In the late seventeenth century they began a
long migration to the south and east. It was a
journey toward the dawn, and it led to a

(40) golden age. Along the way the Kiowas were
befriended by the Crows, who gave them the
culture and religion of the Plains. They
acquired horses, and their ancient nomadic
spirit was suddenly free of the ground. They

(45) acquired Tai-Me, the sacred Sun Dance doll,
from that moment the object and symbol of
their worship, and so shared in the divinity of
the sun. Not least, they acquired the sense of
destiny, therefore courage and pride. When

(50) they entered upon the southern Plains they had
been transformed. No longer were they slaves
to the simple necessity of survival; they were
a lordly and dangerous society of fighters and
thieves, hunters and priests of the sun.

(55) According to their origin myth, they entered
the world through a hollow log. From one
point of view, their migration was the fruit of
an old prophecy, for indeed they emerged
from a sunless world.

10. The author of this passage indicates in lines 12–16 that the Kiowas waged war predominantly because they

(A) feared the Comanches

(B) wanted more land

(D) had been humiliated by the cavalry

(E) believed they would perish otherwise

11. Compared to the Kiowa warriors, the cavalrymen were

(A) more idealistic about warfare

(B) exceptionally fine horsemen

(D) unswerving in determination

(E) less given to brooding

12. The author’s grandmother directly experienced

(A) imprisonment at Fort Sill

(B) the bleak attitude of the older Kiowa men

(D) the loss of the tribe’s provisions

(E) surrender to the white soldiers

13. The author views the Kiowas of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with a sense of

(A) urgency

(B) ambivalence

(D) admiration

(E) irony

14. By “their ancient nomadic spirit was suddenly free of the ground” (lines 43 and 44), the author most nearly means

(A) the wanderers were now free to worship the sun

(B) the acquisition of horses liberated them to rove more freely

(D) the oldest of the migratory Kiowas lacked ties to the soil

(E) they no longer believed in the earth spirits of their ancestors

15. An “origin myth” (line 55) as used by the author is

(A) a theory of reproduction told to Native American children

(B) a religion the Kiowas learned from the Crows

(D) an explanation of how the Kiowas came into being

(E) a natural tale about trees and the sun

Questions 16–24 are based on the following passage.

African elephants now are an endangered species. The following passage, taken from an article written in 1989, discusses the potential ecological disaster that might occur if the elephant were to become extinct.

The African elephant—mythic symbol of
a continent, keystone of its ecology and the
largest land animal remaining on earth—has

Line become the object of one of the biggest,

(5) broadest international efforts yet mounted to
turn a threatened species off the road to
extinction. But it is not only the elephant’s
survival that is at stake, conservationists say.
Unlike the endangered tiger, unlike even the

(10) great whales, the African elephant is in great
measure the architect of its environment. As a
voracious eater of vegetation, it largely shapes
the forest-and-savanna surroundings in which
it lives, thereby setting the terms of existence

(15) for millions of other storied animals—from
zebras to gazelles to giraffes and wilde-
beests—that share its habitat. And as the elephant
disappears, scientists and conservationists
say, many other species will also disappear

(20) from vast stretches of forest and savanna,
drastically altering and impoverishing whole
ecosystems.

It is the elephant’s metabolism and appetite
that make it a disturber of the environment

(25) and therefore an important creator of habitat.
In a constant search for the 300 pounds of
vegetation it must have every day, it kills
small trees and underbrush and pulls branches
off big trees as high as its trunk will reach.

(30) This creates innumerable open spaces in both
deep tropical forests and in the woodlands that
cover part of the African savannas. The resulting
patchwork, a mosaic of vegetation in various
stages of regeneration, in turn creates a

(35) greater variety of forage that attracts a greater
variety of other vegetation-eaters than would
otherwise be the case.

In studies over the last twenty years in
southern Kenya near Mount Kilimanjaro,

(40) Dr. David Western has found that when elephants
are allowed to roam the savannas naturally
and normally, they spread out at
“intermediate densities.” Their foraging creates
a mixture of savanna woodlands (what the

(45) Africans call bush) and grassland. The result is
a highly diverse array of other plant-eating
species: those like the zebra, wildebeest and
gazelle, that graze; those like the giraffe, bush-
buck and lesser kudu, that browse on tender

(50) shoots, buds, twigs and leaves; and plant-eating
primates like the baboon and vervet monkey.
These herbivores attract carnivores like the
lion and cheetah.

When the elephant population thins out,

(55) Dr. Western said, the woodlands become
denser and the grazers are squeezed out.
When pressure from poachers forces elephants
to crowd more densely onto reservations,
the woodlands there are knocked out

(60) and the browsers and primates disappear.

Something similar appears to happen in
dense tropical rain forests. In their natural
state, because the overhead forest canopy
shuts out sunlight and prevents growth on the

(65) forest floor, rain forests provide slim pickings
for large, hoofed plant-eaters. By pulling
down trees and eating new growth, elephants
enlarge natural openings in the canopy, allowing
plants to regenerate on the forest floor

(70) and bringing down vegetation from the
canopy so that smaller species can get at it.

In such situations, the rain forest becomes
hospitable to large plant-eating mammals
such as bongos, bush pigs, duikers, forest

(75) hogs, swamp antelopes, forest buffaloes,
okapis, sometimes gorillas and always a host
of smaller animals that thrive on secondary
growth. When elephants disappear and the
forest reverts, the larger animals give way to

(80) smaller, nimbler animals like monkeys, squirrels
and rodents.

16. The passage is primarily concerned with

(A) explaining why elephants are facing the threat of extinction

(B) explaining difficulties in providing sufficient forage for plant-eaters

(D) distinguishing between savannas and rain forests as habitats for elephants

(E) contrasting elephants with members of other endangered species

17. In line 5, “mounted” most nearly means

(A) ascended

(B) increased

(D) attached

(E) exhibited

18. In the opening paragraph, the author mentions tigers and whales in order to emphasize which point about the elephant?

(A) Like them, it faces the threat of extinction.

(B) It is herbivorous rather than carnivorous.

(D) Unlike them, it physically alters its environment.

(E) It is the largest extant land mammal.

19. A necessary component of the elephant’s ability to transform the landscape is its

(A) massive intelligence

(B) threatened extinction

(D) lack of grace

(E) ability to regenerate

20. The author’s style can best be described as

(A) hyperbolic

(B) naturalistic

(D) esoteric

(E) sentimental

21. It can be inferred from the passage that

(A) the lion and the cheetah commonly prey upon elephants

(B) the elephant is dependent upon the existence of smaller plant-eating mammals for its survival

(D) the floor of the tropical rain forest is too overgrown to accommodate larger plant-eating species

(E) the natural tendency of elephants is to crowd together in packs

22. The passage contains information that would answer which of the following questions?

I. How does the elephant’s foraging affect its surroundings?

II. How do the feeding patterns of gazelles and giraffes differ?

III. What occurs in the rain forest when the elephant population dwindles?

(A) I only

(B) II only

(D) II and III only

(E) I, II, and III

23. In line 76, “host” most nearly means

(A) food source for parasites

(B) very large number

(D) military force

(E) angelic company

24. Which of the following statements best expresses the author’s attitude toward the damage to vegetation caused by foraging elephants?

(A) It is an unfortunate by-product of the feeding process.

(B) It is a necessary but undesirable aspect of elephant population growth.

(D) It has the unexpected advantage that it allows scientists access to the rain forest.

(E) It reinforces the impression that elephants are a disruptive force.

If you finish before time is called, you may check your work on this section only. Do not work on any other section in the test.

Section 3

TIME—20 MINUTES

19 QUESTIONS

For each of the following questions, select the best answer from the choices provided and fill in the appropriate circle on the answer sheet.

Example:

Fame is ----; today’s rising star is all too soon tomorrow’s washed-up has-been.

(A) rewarding	(B) gradual
(C) essential	(D) spontaneous
(E) transitory

1. A subway modernization program intended to ____ a host of problems ranging from dangerous tracks to overcrowded stairwells has failed to meet its schedule for repairs.

(A) augment

(B) initiate

(D) disclose

(E) eliminate

2. To astronomers, the moon has long been an ____, its origin escaping simple solution.

(A) interval

(B) ultimatum

(D) affront

(E) opportunity

3. The amusements of modern urban people tend more and more to be ____ and to consist of the ____ of the skilled activities of others.

(A) strenuous…contemplation

(B) healthful…enjoyment

(D) passive…observation

(E) intellectual…repetition

4. As matter condenses out of the thin disk of hot gas and dust revolving around a new sun, it ____ into larger particles, just as snowflakes stick together as they fall.

(A) crashes

(B) protrudes

(D) evaporates

(E) dissolves

5. The term mole rat is a ____, for these small, furless rodents are neither moles nor rats.

(A) pseudonym

(B) digression

(D) nonentity

(E) preference

6. Einstein’s humility was so ____ that it might have seemed a pose affected by a great man had it not been so obviously ____.

(A) spurious…genuine

(B) convincing…assumed

(D) heartfelt…hypocritical

(E) modest…contrived

The questions that follow the next two passages relate to the content of both, and to their relationship. The correct response may be stated outright in the passage or merely suggested.

Questions 7–19 are based on the following passages.

These passages are portraits of two fathers. The first appeared in a contemporary novel, the second in a memoir written in the 1990s by a person looking back on experiences in the San Francisco Bay area.

Passage 1

In 1948 my father was serving his second
term as sheriff of Mercer County, Montana.
We lived in Bentrock, the county seat and the

Line only town of any size in the region. In 1948

(5) its population was less than two thousand
people… .

Many of the men in Mercer County had
spent the preceding years in combat. (But not
my father; he was 4-F. When he was sixteen a

(10) horse kicked him, breaking his leg so severely
that he walked with a permanent limp, and
eventually a cane, his right leg V-ed in, his
right knee perpetually pointing to the left.)
When these men came back from war they

(15) wanted nothing more than to work their farms
and ranches and to live quietly with their families.
The county even had fewer hunters after
the war than before.

All of which made my father’s job a relatively

(20) easy one. Oh, he arrested the usual
weekly drunks, mediated an occasional dispute
about fence lines or stray cattle, calmed a
few domestic disturbances, and warned the
town’s teenagers about getting rowdy in

(25) Wood’s Cafe, but by and large being sheriff of
Mercer County did not require great strength
or courage. The ability to drive the county’s
rural roads, often drifted over in the winter or
washed out in the summer, was a much more

(30) necessary skill than being good with your fists
or a gun. One of my father’s regular duties
was chaperoning Saturday night dances in the
county, but the fact that he often took along
my mother (and sometimes me) shows how

(35) quiet those affairs—and his job—usually
were.

And that disappointed me at the time. As
long as my father was going to be sheriff, a
position with so much potential for excitement,

(40) danger, and bravery, why couldn’t some
of that promise be fulfilled? No matter how
many wheat fields or cow pastures surrounded
us, we were still Montanans, yet my father
didn’t even look like a western sheriff. He

(45) wore a shirt and tie, as many of the men in
town did, but at least they wore boots and
Stetsons; my father wore brogans and a
fedora. He had a gun but he never carried it,
on duty or off. I knew because I checked, time

(50) and time again. When he left the house I ran to
his dresser and the top drawer on the right
side. And there it was, there it always was.
Just as well. As far as I was concerned it was
the wrong kind of gun for a sheriff. He should

(55) have had a nickel-plated Western Colt .45,
something with some history and heft. Instead,
my father had a small .32 automatic,
Italian-made and no bigger than your palm.
My father didn’t buy such a sorry gun; he confiscated

(60) it from a drunken transient in one of
his first arrests. My father kept the gun but in
fair exchange bought the man a bus ticket to
Billings, where he had family.

Passage 2

He was good-looking, in a Southern,

(65) romantic poet sort of way. He needed those
good looks, one of the aunts said; why else
would my otherwise sensible mother have
married a man like him, an actor-writer
hyphenate who lived on dreams and spent his

(70) free evenings carrying a spear at the Opera
House. But that was in later times, when he
had moved out of the rundown communal
house in the Berkeley Hills, leaving my
mother and the ever-changing cast of nominal

(75) uncles and aunts to patch the ancient water
heater and pump out the basement when the
overpressured valve finally blew. He needed
separateness to write, he said, solitude, something
we’d never given him, and he was tired,

(80) tired of being dragged from his study to tend
to the latest household eruption that bubbled
up “like gas from a Calistoga mud bath,” he
said, with relentless regularity.

He looked tired by then, as tired of us as

(85) we were of him, of forgotten birthdays and
surprises that failed to surprise. When he did
bring us a present, I even wondered why, for it
was always somehow off: last season’s hot toy
no one played with any more, or a complicated

(90) model no boy could assemble without a
father’s help. Which we never got. He was an
actor, after all, not tech crew, an artist, not
someone who could fix a toy.

If he was an actor, we were props at best.

(95) Reluctant ones—had there been a Plantagenet
Pleasure Faire, he would have strutted his
hour as Wicked Dick III, while Geoffrey and I,
thrust into burlap sacks, were hauled off, two
little princes in shabby tights, to be disposed

(100) of elsewhere. That was his glory, kinging it.
Living History,1 he called it, and in the early
days he followed the fairs up and down the
state, living the Renaissance first in Agoura,
then in Marin, finally winding up the acting

(105) season with Victoria’s England in San
Francisco or even Oakland for one or two
slow years.

Not that anyone ever hired him to act the
king. No, he was a minor figure even on that

(110) rude stage, a charming but lesser nobleman in
Elizabeth’s court, an attentive councilor in
Victoria’s entourage. But he shared the perks
of royalty, such as they were, stood center
stage in black velvet pantaloons while the

(115) September sun burned overhead, or posed
handsomely (in a Prince Albert coat, no less)
as the royal party made its way through the
Christmas crowds at Dickens Fair. Why he
stuck to it, I never understood. Certainly not

(120) for the pay.

Between fairs he wrote, or thought of
writing, shut up in his study, into which we
children were not allowed, or did research for
his one-man-shows (in which he played a

(125) series of writers, one per show, so that one
year we saw his Edgar Allan Poe, another
year, his Ambrose Bierce). He was a writer, or
at least a writer once removed, writing down
other men’s words and speaking them as if

(130) they were his own. At times it seemed he
thought they were his own, he paraphrased
them so freely, vamping upon the themes of
The Devil’s Dictionary.2 And he probably
thought we were his own as well, as little

(135) acquainted with us as he was. And so we were,
if only by example and heredity.

7. In Passage 1 the narrator uses the parenthetical material (lines 8–13) to

(A) suggest that his father became sheriff to compensate for his disability

(B) highlight the difference between his father and other men in Mercer County

(D) belittle his father

(E) indicate that the voters felt sorry for his father when they elected him sheriff

8. Mentioning that Mercer County “had fewer hunters after the war than before”

(lines 17 and 18) is the author’s way of saying that

(A) the men had had their fill of shooting and death

(B) the men worked long hours and had no time for hunting

(D) the men thought hunting was too dangerous

(E) many of the hunters were killed in the war

9. By describing his father’s work clothes (lines 44–48), the narrator is suggesting that his father

(A) wanted to dress like other men

(B) didn’t take the sheriff’s job seriously

(D) was a nonconformist

(E) was concerned about his image

10. By wishing that his father had a gun with “some history and some heft” (lines 54–56), the narrator means

(A) an antique gun

(B) a more expensive gun

(D) a gun that could be worn in a holster

(E) a more impressive gun

11. In Passage 1 which of the following best describes the narrator’s feelings about his father?

(A) Regret

(B) Hostility

(D) Affection

(E) Indifference

12. The narrator of Passage 2 compares himself and his brother to “props”

(line 94) because they

(A) reinforced their father’s image as a parent

(B) were assets to theatrical productions

(D) supported their father’s dramatic efforts

(E) possessed essential attributes their father lacked

13. In line 110, “rude” most nearly means

(A) roughly made

(B) deliberately impolite

(D) inconsiderate

(E) tempestuous

14. The narrator mentions his father’s sharing the perks of royalty (lines 112–118) in order to emphasize that his father

(A) had gone far in his chosen field

(B) wanted to share these privileges with his children

(D) demanded only the best for himself

(E) received very little for his efforts

15. In Passage 2, which of the following is NOT an accurate description of the narrator’s father?

(A) He was not dependable to his children.

(B) He enjoyed being the center of attention.

(D) He was well liked by those who shared his home.

(E) He was uncomfortable with his responsibilities.

16. The narrator’s purpose in writing this portrait of his father was

(A) to show readers the effects of a bohemian lifestyle on one man

(B) to help himself understand his complex feelings toward his father

(D) to tell about the difficulties of his boyhood

(E) to praise his father, a man he both loved and feared

17. In which respect is the portrait of the father in Passage 1 similar to the portrait in Passage 2?

(A) In both passages we see the father through the eyes of a young boy.

(B) Both passages portray the father as deficient in some important way.

(D) Both passages tell us as much about the narrator as about the father.

(E) Both passages imply that the narrators would like to emulate their fathers.

18. As presented in the two passages, the relationship between each narrator and his father is

(A) loving

(B) competitive

(D) distant

(E) tense

19. The authors of both passages come across as

(A) loyal sons

(B) intolerant of their fathers

(D) rebellious sons

(E) puzzled by their fathers

If you finish before time is called, you may check your work on this section only. Do not work on any other section in the test.

_______________

1Since the 1960s, California’s Living History Centre has produced fairs and festivals in northern and southern California. The Renaissance Pleasure Faire is set in the time of Queen Elizabeth I; the Dickens Christmas Fair and Pickwick Comic Annual, in the time of Queen Victoria.

2A book of diabolical epigrams by Ambrose Bierce.