SELF-ASSESSMENT TEST - SELF-ASSESSMENT - SAT CRITICAL READING WORKBOOK

SAT CRITICAL READING

PART 2

 

SELF-ASSESSMENT

 

SELF-ASSESSMENT TEST

Section 1

TIME—25 MINUTES
24 Q
UESTIONS

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

 

image

 

   1. While there were some tasks the candidate could _______, others she had to attend to herself.

       (A) perform

       (B) endorse

       (C) delegate

       (D) misconstrue

       (E) rehearse

   2. His dislike of _______ made him regard people who flaunted their wealth or accomplishments as _______.

       (A) flattery…charlatans

       (B) poverty…misers

       (C) boasting…braggarts

       (D) failure…opportunists

       (E) procrastination…spendthrifts

   3. Although caterpillars and spiders belong to distinctly different classes of arthropods and come to produce silk quite independently, the silks they produce have remarkably _______ compositions.

       (A) delicate

       (B) diaphanous

       (C) mutable

       (D) similar

       (E) durable

   4. Concrete actually is _______, like a sponge—it can absorb up to 10 percent of its weight in water.

       (A) delicate

       (B) elastic

       (C) porous

       (D) ubiquitous

       (E) washable

   5. Some of Kandinsky’s artistic innovations are now so much a part of our visual world that they appear on everything from wallpaper to women’s scarves without causing the slightest _________.

       (A) profit

       (B) remorse

       (C) boredom

       (D) effort

       (E) stir

   6. Short stories, in Hemingway’s phrase, have plots that show only “the tip of the iceberg”; such stories _______ a _______ shape below but do not describe that shape in detail.

       (A) cover up…distinctive

       (B) hint at…bulkier

       (C) depart from…nebulous

       (D) thaw out…colder

       (E) revolve around…grimmer

   7. The title Rage of a Privileged Class seems ________, for such a privileged group would seem on the surface to have no _________ sustained anger with anyone.

       (A) incongruous…time for

       (B) paradoxical…reason for

       (C) ambiguous…familiarity with

       (D) ironic…indifference to

       (E) witty…capacity for

   8. Darwin’s ideas, which viewed nature as the result of cumulative, _________ change, triumphed over the older, catastrophist theories, which _________ that mountains and species were created by a few sudden and dramatic events.

       (A) gradual…maintained

       (B) drastic…anticipated

       (C) regular…denied

       (D) frequent…disproved

       (E) abrupt…insinuated

 

 

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.

                    How did the term “spam” come to mean
unsolicited commercial e-mail? Flash back to
1937, when Hormel Foods creates a new

Line canned spiced ham, SPAM. Then, in World

(5)  War II, SPAM luncheon meat becomes a
staple of soldiers’ diets (often GIs ate SPAM
two or three times a day). Next, SPAM’s
wartime omnipresence perhaps inspired the
1987 Monty Python skit in which a breakfast-

(10)  seeking couple unsuccessfully tries to order a
SPAM-free meal while a chorus of Vikings
drowns them out, singing “Spam, spam, spam,
spam … .” To computer users drowning in
junk e-mail, the analogy was obvious.

(15)  “Spam,” they said, “it’s spam.”

   9. The tone of the passage can best be characterized as

       (A) nostalgic

       (B) sardonic

       (C) detached

       (D) chatty

       (E) didactic

   10. The parenthetic remark in lines 6 and 7 (“often … day”) serves primarily to

       (A) establish the soldiers’ fondness for SPAM

       (B) provide evidence of SPAM’s abundance

       (C) refute criticisms of wartime food shortages

       (D) illustrate the need for dietary supplements

       (E) point out the difference between military and civilian diets

Questions 11 and 12 are based on the following passage.

 

                How does an artist train his eye? “First,”
said Leonardo da Vinci, “learn perspective;
then draw from nature.” The self-taught

Line eighteenth century painter George Stubbs followed

(5)  Leonardo’s advice. Like Leonardo, he studied
anatomy, but, unlike Leonardo, instead of
studying human anatomy, he studied the
anatomy of the horse. He dissected carcass
after carcass, peeling away the five separate

(10)  layers of muscles, removing the organs, baring
the veins and arteries and nerves. For 18 long
months he recorded his observations, and
when he was done he could paint horses muscle
by muscle, as they had never been painted

(15)  before. Pretty decent work, for someone self-
taught.

   11. The primary purpose of the passage is to

        (A) explain a phenomenon

        (B) describe a process

        (C) refute an argument

        (D) urge a course of action

        (E) argue against a practice

   12. The use of the phrase “pretty decent” (line 15) conveys

        (A) grudging enthusiasm

        (B) tentative approval

        (C) ironic understatement

        (D) bitter envy

        (E) fundamental indifference

Questions 13–24 are based on the following passage.

 

In this excerpt from an essay on the symbolic language of dreams, the writer Erich Fromm explores the nature of symbols.

 

                One of the current definitions of a symbol
is that it is “something that stands for something
else.” We can differentiate between three

Line kinds of symbols: the conventional,

(5)  and the universal symbol.

                The conventional symbol is the best known
of the three, since we employ it in everyday
language. If we see the word “table” or hear
the sound “table,” the letters t-a-b-l-e stand for

(10)  something else. They stand for the thing
“table” that we see, touch, and use. What is
the connection between the word “table” and
the thing “table”? Is there any inherent relationship
between them? Obviously not. The

(15)  thing table has nothing to do with the sound
table, and the only reason the word symbolizes
the thing is the convention of calling this
particular thing by a name. We learn this connection
as children by the repeated experience

(20)  of hearing the word in reference to the thing
until a lasting association is formed so that we
don’t have to think to find the right word.

                There are some words, however, in which
the association is not only conventional. When

(25)  we say “phooey,” for instance, we make with
our lips a movement of dispelling the air
quickly. It is an expression of disgust in which
our mouths participate. By this quick expulsion
of air we imitate and thus express our

(30)  intention to expel something, to get it out of
our system. In this case, as in some others, the
symbol has an inherent connection with the
feeling it symbolizes. But even if we assume
that originally many or even all words had

(35)  their origins in some such inherent connection
between symbol and the symbolized, most
words no longer have this meaning for us
when we learn a language.

                Words are not the only illustration for conventional

(40)  symbols, although they are the most
frequent and best known ones. Pictures also
can be conventional symbols. A flag, for
instance, may stand for a specific country, and
yet there is no intrinsic connection between

(45)  the specific colors and the country for which
they stand. They have been accepted as denoting
that particular country, and we translate
the visual impression of the flag into the concept
of that country, again on conventional

(50)  grounds.

                The opposite to the conventional symbol is
the accidental symbol, although they have one
thing in common: there is no intrinsic relationship
between the symbol and that which it

(55)  symbolizes. Let us assume that someone has
had a saddening experience in a certain city;
when he hears the name of that city, he will
easily connect the name with a mood of sadness,
just as he would connect it with a mood

(60)  of joy had his experience been a happy one. Quite obviously, there is nothing in the nature
of the city that is either sad or joyful. It is the
individual experience connected with the city
that makes it a symbol of a mood.

(65)     The same reaction could occur in connection
with a house, a street, a certain dress, certain
scenery, or anything once connected with
a specific mood. We might find ourselves
dreaming that we are in a certain city. We ask

(70)  ourselves why we happened to think of that
city in our sleep and may discover that we had
fallen asleep in a mood similar to the one symbolized
by the city. The picture in the dream
represents this mood, the city “stands for” the

(75)  mood once experienced in it. The connection
between the symbol and the experience symbolized
is entirely accidental.

                The universal symbol is one in which there
is an intrinsic relationship between the symbol

(80)  and that which it represents. Take, for instance,
the symbol of fire. We are fascinated by certain
qualities of fire in a fireplace. First of all,
by its aliveness. It changes continuously, it
moves all the time, and yet there is constancy

(85)  in it. It remains the same without being the
same. It gives the impression of power, of
energy, of grace and lightness. It is as if it
were dancing, and had an inexhaustible source
of energy. When we use fire as a symbol, we

(90)  describe the inner experience characterized by
the same elements which we notice in the sensory
experience of fire—the mood of energy,
lightness, movement, grace, gaiety, sometimes one, sometimes
another of these elements

(95)  being predominant in the feeling.

                The universal symbol is the only one in
which the relationship between the symbol
and that which is symbolized is not coincidental,
but intrinsic. It is rooted in the experience

(100)of the affinity between an emotion or thought,
on the one hand, and a sensory experience, on
the other. It can be called universal because it
is shared by all men, in contrast not only to the
accidental symbol, which is by its very nature

(105)entirely personal, but also to the conventional
symbol, which is restricted to a group of
people sharing the same convention. The
universal symbol is rooted in the properties
of our body, our senses, and our mind, which

(110)are common to all men and, therefore, not
restricted to individuals or to specific groups.
Indeed, the language of the universal symbol
is the one common tongue developed by the
human race, a language which it forgot before

(115)it succeeded in developing a universal conventional
language.

13. The passage is primarily concerned with

        (A) refuting an argument

        (B) illustrating an axiom

        (C) describing a process

        (D) proving a thesis

        (E) refining a definition

14. In line 9, “stand for” most nearly means

        (A) tolerate

        (B) represent

        (C) withstand

        (D) endorse

        (E) rise

15. According to lines 8–33, “table” and “phooey” differ in that

        (A) only one is a conventional symbol

        (B) “table” is a better known symbol than “phooey”

        (C) “phooey” has an intrinsic natural link with its meaning

        (D) children learn “phooey” more readily than they learn “table”

        (E) only one is used exclusively by children

16. It can be inferred from the passage that another example of a word with both inherent and conventional associations to its meaning is

        (A) hiss

        (B) hike

        (C) hold

        (D) candle

        (E) telephone

17. The author contends that conventional symbols

        (A) are less meaningful than accidental ones

        (B) necessarily have an innate connection with an emotion

        (C) can be pictorial as well as linguistic

        (D) are less familiar than universal symbols

        (E) appeal chiefly to conventionally minded people

18. Which of the following would the author be most likely to categorize as a conventional symbol?

        (A) a country road

        (B) a patchwork quilt

        (C) a bonfire

        (D) the city of London

        (E) the Statue of Liberty

19. According to the author’s argument, a relationship between the city of Paris and the mood of joy can best be described as

        (A) innate

        (B) dreamlike

        (C) elemental

        (D) coincidental

        (E) immutable

20. A major factor distinguishing a universal symbol from conventional and accidental symbols is

        (A) its origins in sensory experience

        (B) its dependence on a specific occasion

        (C) the intensity of the mood experienced

        (D) its unmemorable nature

        (E) its appeal to the individual

21. By saying “Take … the symbol of fire” (lines 80 and 81), the author is asking the reader to

        (A) grasp it as an element

        (B) consider it as an example

        (C) accept it as a possibility

        (D) prefer it as a category

        (E) assume it as a standard

22. Which of the following would the author most likely categorize as a universal symbol?

        (A) the letters f-i-r-e

        (B) the letters p-h-o-o-e-y

        (C) a red dress

        (D) an American flag

        (E) water in a stream

23. In line 108, “properties” most nearly means

        (A) possessions

        (B) attributes

        (C) investments

        (D) titles

        (E) grounds

24. The author contends in lines 112–116 that the language of the universal symbol

        (A) antedates the development of everyday conventional language

        (B) restricts itself to those capable of comprehending symbolism

        (C) should be adopted as the common tongue for the human race

        (D) grew out of human efforts to create a universal conventional language

        (E) developed accidentally from the human desire to communicate

image

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 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.

 

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

 

image

 

   1. Though their lack of external ears might suggest otherwise, mole rats are able to use _________ to communicate.

        (A) gestures

        (B) touch

        (C) smells

        (D) sounds

        (E) symbols

   2. The word tephra, from the Greek word meaning ash, has come into use among geologists to describe the assortment of fragments, ranging from blocks of material to dust, that is _______ into the air during a volcanic eruption.

        (A) amassed

        (B) ejected

        (C) repressed

        (D) wafted

        (E) absorbed

   3. While most commentators’ reaction to the candidate’s acceptance speech was ____, a highly positive reaction came from columnist William Safire, who called it a rhetorical triumph.

        (A) enthusiastic

        (B) unrehearsed

        (C) tepid

        (D) groundless

        (E) immediate

   4. Scientists are hard-line _____; only after failing to ____ a controversial theory do they accept the evidence.

        (A) militarists…exploit

        (B) optimists…believe

        (C) martinets…punish

        (D) innovators…refute

        (E) cynics…debunk

   5. The founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, Marian Wright Edelman, strongly _________ the lack of financial and moral support for children in America today.

        (A) advocates

        (B) condones

        (C) feigns

        (D) abets

        (E) decries

 

 

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.

Passage 1 is an excerpt from a lecture by American humorist Mark Twain; Passage 2, an excerpt from an essay by English author and critic G. K. Chesterton.

Passage 1

 

                There are several kinds of stories, but only
one difficult kind—the humorous. The humorous
story is American; the comic story,

Line English; the witty story, French. The humorous

(5)   story depends for its effect upon the manner
of the telling; the comic story and the
witty story upon the matter. The humorous
story may be spun out to great length, and
may wander around as much as it pleases, and

(10)  arrive nowhere in particular; but the comic
and witty stories must be brief and end with a
point. The humorous story bubbles gently
along; the others burst.

Passage 2

 

Line            American humor, neither transfiguringly

(15)  lucid and appropriate like the French, nor
sharp and sensible like the Scotch, is simply
the humor of imagination. It consists in piling
towers on towers and mountains on mountains;
of heaping a joke up to the stars and extending

(20)  it to the end of the world. With this distinctively
American humor Bret Harte had little or
nothing in common. The wild, sky-breaking
humor of America has its fine qualities, but it
must in the nature of things be deficient in two

(25)  qualities, not only supremely important to life
and letters, but also supremely important to
humor—reverence and sympathy. And these
two qualities were knit into the closest texture
of Bret Harte’s humor.

   6. Which of the following most resembles the humorous story as described in Passage 1?

        (A) A paradox

        (B) A fairy tale

        (C) An allegory

        (D) A shaggy-dog story

        (E) An amusing limerick

   7. In stating that “The humorous story bubbles gently along; the others burst,” the author of Passage 1 is speaking

        (A) melodramatically

        (B) hypothetically

        (C) metaphorically

        (D) nostalgically

        (E) analytically

   8. Which generalization about American humor is supported by both passages?

        (A) It is witty and to the point.

        (B) It demonstrates greater sophistication than French humor.

        (C) It depends on a lengthy buildup.

        (D) It is by definition self-contradictory.

        (E) It depends on the subject matter for its effect.

   9. The author of Passage 1 would most likely respond to the next-to-last sentence of Passage 2 (lines 22–27) by

        (A) denying that American humor is deficient in any significant way

        (B) apologizing for the lack of reverence in the American humorous story

        (C) noting that Bret Harte was not a particularly sympathetic writer

        (D) arguing that little is actually known about the nature of humor

        (E) agreeing with the author’s assessment of the situation

Questions 10–15 are based on the following passage.

In the following excerpt from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the members of the Bennet family react to news of the marriage of Lydia, the youngest Bennet daughter, to Mr. Wickham. Elizabeth, oldest of the Bennet daughters and the novel’s heroine, is in love with Mr. Darcy and worries how this unexpected marriage may affect her relationship with him.

 

                A long dispute followed this declaration;
but Mr. Bennet was firm: it soon led to
another; and Mrs. Bennet found, with amazement

Line and horror, that her husband would not

(5)   advance a guinea1 to buy clothes for his
daughter. He protested that she should receive
from him no mark of affection whatever, on
the occasion of her marriage. Mrs. Bennet
could hardly comprehend it. That his anger

(10)  could be carried to such a point of inconceivable
resentment, as to refuse his daughter a
privilege, without which her marriage would
scarcely seem valid, exceeded all that she
could believe possible. She was more alive to

(15)  the disgrace, which the want of new clothes
must reflect on her daughter’s nuptials, than
to any sense of shame at her eloping and living
with Wickham, a fortnight before they took
place.

(20)       Elizabeth was now most heartily sorry that
she had, from the distress of the moment, been
led to make Mr. Darcy acquainted with their
fears for her sister; for since her marriage
would so shortly give the proper termination

(25)  to the elopement, they might hope to conceal
its unfavorable beginning, from all those who
were not immediately on the spot.

                She had no fear of its spreading farther,
through his means. There were few people on

(30)  whose secrecy she would have more confidently
depended; but at the same time, there
was no one, whose knowledge of a sister’s
frailty would have mortified her so much. Not,
however, from any fear of disadvantage from

(35)  it, individually to herself; for at any rate, there
seemed a gulf impassable between them. Had
Lydia’s marriage been concluded on the most
honorable terms, it was not to be supposed
that Mr. Darcy would connect himself with a

(40)  family, where to every other objection would
now be added, an alliance and relationship of
the nearest kind with the man whom he so
justly scorned.

                From such a connection she could not

(45)  wonder that he should shrink. The wish of
procuring her regard, which she had assured
herself of his feeling in Derbyshire, could not
in rational expectation survive such a blow as
this. She was humbled, she was grieved; she

(50)  repented, though she hardly knew of what.
She became jealous of his esteem, when she
could no longer hope to be benefitted by it.
She wanted to hear of him, when there seemed
the least chance of gaining intelligence. She

(55)  was convinced that she could have been happy
with him, when it was no longer likely they
should meet.

10. All of the following statements about Mrs. Bennet may be inferred from the passage EXCEPT

        (A) She finds a lack of proper attire more shameful than a lack of proper conduct.

        (B) She is ready to welcome home her newly married daughter.

        (C) She is sensitive to the nature of her husband’s scruples about the elopement.

        (D) She is unable to grasp the degree of emotion her daughter’s conduct has aroused.

        (E) She is primarily concerned with external appearances.

11. The “privilege” that Mr. Bennet refuses to grant his daughter (line 12) is the privilege of

        (A) marrying Mr. Wickham

        (B) buying a new wardrobe

        (C) running away from home

        (D) seeing her mother and sisters

        (E) having a valid wedding ceremony

12. According to the passage, Elizabeth Bennet presently

        (A) has ceased to crave Darcy’s affection

        (B) regrets having told Darcy of her sister’s elopement

        (C) no longer desires to conceal Lydia’s escapade

        (D) fears Darcy will spread the word about the sudden elopement

        (E) cares more for public opinion than for her family’s welfare

13. The expression “a sister’s frailty” (lines 32 and 33) refers to Elizabeth’s sister’s

        (A) delicate health since birth

        (B) embarrassing lack of proper wedding garments

        (C) reluctant marriage to a man whom she disdained

        (D) fear of being considered an old maid

        (E) moral weakness in running away with a man

14. According to lines 38–43, Mr. Darcy feels contempt for

        (A) Lydia’s hasty marriage

        (B) secrets that are entrusted to him

        (C) Elizabeth’s confession to him

        (D) Lydia’s new husband

        (E) Mr. Bennet’s harshness

15. The passage can best be described as

        (A) a description of the origins of a foolish and intemperate marriage

        (B) an account of one woman’s reflections on the effects of her sister’s runaway marriage

        (C) an analysis of the reasons underlying the separation of a young woman from her lover

        (D) a description of a conflict between a young woman and her temperamental parents

        (E) a discussion of the nature of sacred and profane love

Questions 16–24 are based on the following passage.

The following passage is taken from a classic study of tarantulas published in Scientific American in 1952.

 

                A fertilized female tarantula lays from 200
to 400 eggs at a time; thus it is possible for a
single tarantula to produce several thousand

Line young. She takes no care of them beyond

(5)   weaving a cocoon of silk to enclose the eggs.
After they hatch, the young walk away, find
convenient places in which to dig their burrows
and spend the rest of their lives in solitude.
Tarantulas feed mostly on insects and

(10)  millipedes. Once their appetite is appeased,
they digest the food for several days before
eating again. Their sight is poor, being limited
to sensing a change in the intensity of light
and to the perception of moving objects. They

(15)  apparently have little or no sense of hearing,
for a hungry tarantula will pay no attention to
a loudly chirping cricket placed in its cage
unless the insect happens to touch one of
its legs.

(20)       But all spiders, and especially hairy ones,
have an extremely delicate sense of touch.
Laboratory experiments prove that tarantulas
can distinguish three types of touch: pressure
against the body wall, stroking of the body

(25)  hair and riffling of certain very fine hairs on
the legs called trichobothria. Pressure against
the body, by a finger or the end of a pencil,
causes the tarantula to move off slowly for a
short distance. The touch excites no defensive

(30)  response unless the approach is from above,
where the spider can see the motion, in which
case it rises on its hind legs, lifts its front legs,
opens its fangs and holds this threatening posture
as long as the object continues to move.

(35)  When the motion stops, the spider drops back
to the ground, remains quiet for a few seconds,
and then moves slowly away.

                The entire body of a tarantula, especially
its legs, is thickly clothed with hair. Some of it

(40)  is short and woolly, some long and stiff.
Touching this body hair produces one of two
distinct reactions. When the spider is hungry,
it responds with an immediate and swift
attack. At the touch of a cricket’s antennae the

(45)  tarantula seizes the insect so swiftly that a
motion picture taken at the rate of 64 frames
per second shows only the result and not the
process of capture. But when the spider is not
hungry, the stimulation of its hairs merely

(50)  causes it to shake the touched limb. An insect
can walk under its hairy belly unharmed.

                The trichobothria, very fine hairs growing
from disklike membranes on the legs, were
once thought to be the spider’s hearing organs,

(55)  but we now know that they have nothing to do
with sound. They are sensitive only to air
movement. A light breeze makes them vibrate
slowly without disturbing the common hair.
When one blows gently on the trichobothria,

(60)  the tarantula reacts with a quick jerk of its four
front legs. If the front and hind legs are stimulated
at the same time, the spider makes a sudden
jump. This reaction is quite independent
of the state of its appetite.

(65)       These three tactile responses—to pressure
on the body wall, to moving of the common
hair, and to flexing of the trichobothria—are
so different from one another that there is no
possibility of confusing them. They serve the

(70)  tarantula adequately for most of its needs and
enable it to avoid most annoyances and dangers.
But they fail the spider completely when
it meets its deadly enemy, the digger wasp
Pepsis.

16. According to the author, which of the following attributes is (are) characteristic of female tarantulas?

          I. Maternal instincts

         II. Visual acuity

III. Fertility

 

        (A) I only

        (B) II only

        (C) III only

        (D) I and III only

        (E) II and III only

17. Lines 6–9 primarily suggest that the female tarantula

        (A) becomes apprehensive at sudden noises

        (B) is better able to discern pressure than stroking

        (C) must consume insects or millipedes daily

        (D) constructs a cocoon for her young

        (E) is reclusive by nature

18. In line 29, “excites” most nearly means

        (A) irritates

        (B) delights

        (C) stimulates

        (D) exhilarates

        (E) infuriates

19. The author’s attitude toward tarantulas would best be described as

        (A) fearful

        (B) sentimental

        (C) approving

        (D) objective

        (E) incredulous

20. The main purpose of the passage is to

        (A) report on controversial new discoveries about spider behavior

        (B) summarize what is known about the physical and social responses of tarantulas

        (C) challenge the findings of recent laboratory experiments involving tarantulas

        (D) explain the lack of social organization in the spider family

        (E) discuss the physical adaptations that make tarantulas unique

21. The description of what happens when one films a tarantula’s reaction to the touch of a cricket (lines 44–48) chiefly is intended to convey a sense of the tarantula’s

        (A) omnivorous appetite

        (B) photogenic appearance

        (C) graceful movement

        (D) quickness in attacking

        (E) lack of stimulation

22. In line 63, “independent” most nearly means

        (A) individualistic

        (B) self-governing

        (C) affluent

        (D) regardless

        (E) detached

23. In the passage, the author does all of the following EXCEPT

        (A) deny a possibility

        (B) describe a reaction

        (C) correct a misapprehension

        (D) define a term

        (E) pose a question

24. In the paragraphs immediately following this passage, the author most likely will

        (A) explain why scientists previously confused the tarantula’s three tactile responses

        (B) demonstrate how the tarantula’s three tactile responses enable it to meet its needs

        (C) point out the weaknesses of the digger wasp that enable the tarantula to subdue it

        (D) report on plans for experiments to explore the digger wasp’s tactile sense

        (E) describe how the digger wasp goes about attacking tarantulas

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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.

 

___________________________

1A British coin.

 

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.

 

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

 

image

 

   1. Excavation is, in essence, an act of _________: to clear a site down to the lowest level means that all the upper levels are completely obliterated.

        (A) exploration

        (B) destruction

        (C) validation

        (D) malice

        (E) spontaneity

   2. Hummingbirds use spider silk to strengthen nest walls to better _______ the weight and pressure of wriggling hatchlings.

        (A) withstand

        (B) discern

        (C) expose

        (D) transmute

        (E) induce

   3. A map purporting to show that Vikings charted North America long before Columbus, ____ as a fraud in 1974, could turn out to be ____ after all, according to California scientists.

        (A) honored…questionable

        (B) condemned…superficial

        (C) branded…genuine

        (D) labeled…fragmentary

        (E) dismissed…extant

   4. Although the poet Stevie Smith had a childhood that was far from ____, she always envied children, believing they alone had the ideal life.

        (A) idyllic

        (B) envious

        (C) indifferent

        (D) dubious

        (E) neutral

   5. In Christopher’s _____ family, _____ begun over dinner frequently carried over for days.

        (A) contentious…arguments

        (B) abstemious…accusations

        (C) garrulous…doubts

        (D) assiduous…conversations

        (E) irreverent…rituals

   6. A prudent, thrifty New Englander, DeWitt was naturally ____ of investing money in junk bonds, which he looked on as ____ ventures.

        (A) enamored…worthless

        (B) terrified…sound

        (C) chary…risky

        (D) tired…profitable

        (E) cognizant…provincial

 

 

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.

The following passages describe the settling of the American West during the nineteenth century. The first was written by a social historian and scholar. The second comes from a widely used textbook in American history.

Passage 1

 

                The populating of nearly one billion acres
of empty land west of the Mississippi occurred
in a series of peristaltic waves, beginning in

Line the 1840s and continuing for the rest of the

(5)   century. First to arrive was the advance guard,
the trailblazers—explorers, trappers, and
mountain men, hide and tallow traders, freelance
adventurers, the military. Then the settlers
in their wagon trains lumbering over the

(10)  Oregon Trail to the lush meadows of the
Oregon Territory and the inland valleys of
California. Next, the gold-seekers, bowling
across the plains and deserts pell-mell in 1848,
working up and down the California mountain

(15)  ranges, then backtracking to the gold and silver
country in the Rockies and the Southwest.
And finally, a last great wave, first by wagons,
then by railroads, to mop up the leapfrogged
Great Plains. By 1890 the great movement

(20)  west was over, ending in a final hurrahing
stampede of boomers into Oklahoma Territory,
a rush of humanity that created entire towns in
an afternoon.

                The vast, empty land demanded new tools,

(25)  new social organizations, new men and
women. And it produced a new canon of
myths and heroes—the stuff of countless dime
novels, Wild West shows, movies, and television
series for later generations. The heroes

(30)  are familiar enough—the cowboys, the law-
men, the gamblers, the gold-hearted dance-
hall girls, the bad men too, for heroes need
evil to conquer. The western town played a
part, too, mainly as backdrop and chorus,

(35)  before which the central figures enacted their
agon (struggle; contest). The fictional western
town was as rigidly formalized as the set for a
Japanese No play—the false-front stores on a
dusty street lined with hitching rails, the

(40)  saloons with bar, gambling tables, and stage
for the dancers, the general store, the jail, and
the church. The people of the chorus had a
stereotypical form—women in crinolines and
the men in frock coats and string ties, their

(45)  striped pants tucked into boots. Their lives
were projected as dim, ordinary, law-abiding
shadows, against which were contrasted the
bold-hued dramas of the principals. These
were the “decent folk,” whom the heroic law-

(50)  men died for; they were the meek who would
inherit the set after the leading actors left and
the last wild cowboy was interred in Boot Hill.
Colorless, sober, conservative, salt-of-the-earth,
they represented the future—and a dull one it

(55)  was. Occasionally, as in the film High Noon,
their passive virtues were transmogrified into
hypocrisy and timidity, mocking the lonely
courage of the marshal they had hired to risk
his life for them. The implication was: Are

(60)  these dull, cautious folk really the worthy
heirs of the noble cowboys? In Steven Crane’s
short story The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, the
last cowboy is a drunken anachronism, wearing
his nobility in tatters, yet not to be

(65)  scorned.

Passage 2

 

                It was the miners who established the first
outposts of the Far West. The discovery of
gold in California had transformed that commonwealth

Line from a pastoral outpost of New

(70) Spain to a thriving American state and had
opened up new and varied economic activities
—farming, shipping, railroading, and manufacturing.
That experience was to be repeated
again and again in the history of the mining

(75)  kingdom; in the rush to Pike’s Peak country in
1859, to Alder Gulch and Last Chance in
Montana and the banks of the Sweetwater in
Wyoming in the middle sixties, to the Black
Hills of the Dakota country in the seventies.

(80)  Everywhere the miners opened up the country,
established political communities, and laid the
foundations for more permanent settlements.
As the gold and silver played out or fell into
the hands of eastern corporations and mining

(85)  fever abated, the settlers would perceive the
farming and stock-raising possibilities around
them or find work on the railroads that were
pushing in from the East and West. Some
communities remained almost exclusively

(90)  mining, but the real wealth of Montana and
Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho, as of
California, was in their grass and their soil.
Even in mineral wealth the value of the precious
metals which had first lured adventurers

(95)  was shortly exceeded by that of the copper
and coal and oil which were so abundant….

                Even while the miners were grubbing in
the hills of Nevada and Montana, a new and
more important chapter was being written in

(100)the history of the West. This was the rise of
the cattle kingdom. The physical basis of the
kingdom was the grasslands of the West,
stretching unbroken from the Rio Grande to
the northern frontier, from Kansas and

(105)Nebraska into the Rocky Mountain valleys.
Here millions of buffaloes had roamed at will,
but within two decades the buffalo was to
become almost extinct and its place taken by
even more millions of Texas longhorns and

(110)Wyoming and Montana steers….

                The cattle kingdom, like the mining, had
its romantic side, and the remembrance of this
has persisted in the American consciousness
after the cattle kingdom itself has vanished.

(115)The lonely life on the plain, the roundup, the
hieroglyphic brands, the long drive, the stampede,
the war with cattle rustlers, the splendid
horsemanship, the picturesque costume
designed for usefulness, not effect—the wild

(120)life of the cow towns like Abilene and
Cheyenne, all have found their way into
American folklore and song. Children array
themselves now in imitation cowboy suits,
moving-picture ranchmen shoot down rustlers

(125)with unerring aim, and the whole country
sings what was reputed to be President
Franklin Roosevelt’s favorite song:

                Home, home on the range,

                Where the deer and the antelope play

(130)     Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word,
And the skies are not cloudy all day.

   7. According to Passage 1, the settling of the West took place

        (A) during a steady migration that lasted for 60 years

        (B) intermittently as people went farther and farther west

        (C) in two waves, the first during the 1840s, the last in the 1890s

        (D) in no discernible order

        (E) sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly during a 50-year period

   8. Passage 1 implies that the settlers went to the West largely for

        (A) economic advancement

        (B adventure

        (C a desire for more space

        (D free land

        (E) more individual liberty

   9. The comparison between western towns and the set of a Japanese No play (line 38) is intended to make the point that

        (A) in the Old West, people mattered more than towns

        (B) all towns in the Old West looked alike

        (C) the towns looked good on the surface but not underneath

        (D) in books and films, western towns are all the same

        (E) towns were all show and no substance

10. The author of Passage 1 believes that after the westward migration the settlers were portrayed as people who

        (A) settled into routine lives

        (B) yearned for a return to the romantic days of the past

        (C) turned into hypocrites

        (D) failed to do what was expected of them

        (E) were worthy heirs of their noble cowboy predecessors

11. The allusion to the cowboy in The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (lines 62–65) is meant to show that

        (A) the people rejected the heroes of the Old West

        (B) many of the myths of the Old West were false

        (C) the legendary heroes of the Old West became obsolete

        (D) drunkenness and reckless behavior tarnished the image of the heroic cowboys of the Old West

        (E) all glamorous and romantic eras eventually die out

12. The center of the so-called “mining kingdom” (lines 67–82), as described in Passage 2,

        (A) was located in California

        (B) stretched from the Mississippi River to the western mountains

        (C) shifted from place to place

        (D) began in the Far West and then jumped to the East

        (E) drifted west throughout the second half of the nineteenth century

13. According to Passage 2, when the gold and silver ran out, the miners switched to

        (A) working on the land

        (B) searching for oil and other fuels

        (C) cattle rustling

        (D) their previous occupations

        (E) digging for other minerals

14. The author of Passage 2 believes that the defining event in the history of the West was

        (A) the founding of new cities and towns

        (B) the discovery of precious metals

        (C) the growth of the cattle industry

        (D) the development of the mining kingdom

        (E) the coming of the railroad

15. Passage 2 implies that the buffalo became almost extinct in the Great Plains because

        (A) they roamed westward

        (B) their land was fenced off for agriculture

        (C) the land could no longer support huge buffalo herds

        (D) they were killed to make room for cattlegrazing

        (E) they were driven north to Canada and south to Mexico

16. According to Passage 2, the cowboy of the Old West is remembered today for all of the following EXCEPT his

        (A) distinctive clothing

        (B) ability to ride horses

        (C) law-abiding nature

        (D) fights with cattle thieves

        (E) rugged individualism

17. Both passages suggest that settlers were attracted to California because of its

        (A) gold

        (B) mountains

        (C) seacoast

        (D) scenic splendor

        (E) fertile valleys

18. The authors of Passage 1 and Passage 2 seem to have a common interest in

        (A) defining the American dream

        (B) political history

        (C) mining

        (D) American folklore and legend

        (E) the social class structure in America

19. Compared to the account of the westward movement in Passage 1, Passage 2 pays more attention to the role of

        (A) pioneer families

        (B) miners

        (C) politicians

        (D) entrepreneurs

        (E) outlaws discussion of the miner.

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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.