Reading for Meaning Practice

1. Select the best answer choice based on the passages.

What topic do both Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 116 have in common?

Sonnet 18

by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1041/1041-h/1041-h.htm

Sonnet 116

by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1041/1041-h/1041-h.htm

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A. travel
B. sports
C. romance
D. astronomy

2. Read the following excerpt from A Tale of Two Cities.

“He had now to attend while Mr. Stryver fitted the prisoner’s case on the
jury, like a compact suit of clothes; showing them how the patriot, Barsad,
was a hired spy and traitor, an unblushing trafficker in blood, and one of
the greatest scoundrels upon earth since accursed Judas—which he
certainly did look rather like.”

What is the best definition of the word scoundrel?

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Mr. Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust off his fingers in
his following of the evidence. He had now to attend while Mr. Stryver
fitted the prisoner’s case on the jury, like a compact suit of clothes;
showing them how the patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy and traitor, an
unblushing trafficker in blood, and one of the greatest scoundrels upon
earth since accursed Judas—which he certainly did look rather like. How
the virtuous servant, Cly, was his friend and partner, and was worthy to
be; how the watchful eyes of those forgers and false swearers had rested
on the prisoner as a victim, because some family affairs in France, he
being of French extraction, did require his making those passages across
the Channel—though what those affairs were, a consideration for others
who were near and dear to him, forbade him, even for his life, to disclose.

How the evidence that had been warped and wrested from the young
lady, whose anguish in giving it they had witnessed, came to nothing,
involving the mere little innocent gallantries and politenesses likely to
pass between any young gentleman and young lady so thrown together;—
with the exception of that reference to George Washington, which was
altogether too extravagant and impossible to be regarded in any other
light than as a monstrous joke. How it would be a weakness in the
government to break down in this attempt to practice for popularity on
the lowest national antipathies and fears, and therefore Mr. Attorney-
General had made the most of it; how, nevertheless, it rested upon
nothing, save that vile and infamous character of evidence too often
disfiguring such cases, and of which the State Trials of this country were
full. But, there my Lord interposed (with as grave a face as if it had not
been true), saying that he could not sit upon that Bench and suffer those
allusions.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/98/98-h/98-h.htm

A. a person who is funny and well liked

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B. a dishonest and untrustworthy person
C. a dangerous or violent animal
D. a person who is easily scared

3. Which sentence or phrase from the passage is an example of

antanagoge?
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

A young man--we can sketch his portrait at a dash. Imagine to yourself a

Don Quixote of eighteen; a Don Quixote without his corselet, without his
coat of mail, without his cuisses; a Don Quixote clothed in a woolen
doublet, the blue color of which had faded into a nameless shade between
lees of wine and a heavenly azure; face long and brown; high cheek
bones, a sign of sagacity; the maxillary muscles enormously developed,
an infallible sign by which a Gascon may always be detected, even
without his cap--and our young man wore a cap set off with a sort of
feather; the eye open and intelligent; the nose hooked, but finely chiseled.
Too big for a youth, too small for a grown man, an experienced eye might
have taken him for a farmer’s son upon a journey had it not been for the
long sword which, dangling from a leather baldric, hit against the calves of
its owner as he walked, and against the rough side of his steed when he
was on horseback.

For our young man had a steed which was the observed of all observers. It
was a Bearn pony, from twelve to fourteen years old, yellow in his hide,
without a hair in his tail, but not without windgalls on his legs, which,
though going with his head lower than his knees, rendering a martingale
quite unnecessary, contrived nevertheless to perform his eight leagues a
day. Unfortunately, the qualities of this horse were so well concealed
under his strange-colored hide and his unaccountable gait, that at a time
when everybody was a connoisseur in horseflesh, the appearance of the
aforesaid pony at Meung--which place he had entered about a quarter of
an hour before, by the gate of Beaugency--produced an unfavorable
feeling, which extended to his rider.

And this feeling had been more painfully perceived by young d’Artagnan--
for so was the Don Quixote of this second Rosinante named--from his not
being able to conceal from himself the ridiculous appearance that such a
steed gave him, good horseman as he was. He had sighed deeply,
therefore, when accepting the gift of the pony from M. d’Artagnan the
elder. He was not ignorant that such a beast was worth at least twenty
livres; and the words which had accompanied the present were above all
price.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1257/1257-h/1257-h.htm

A. “the eye open and intelligent”

B. “the nose hooked, but finely chiseled”
C. “his strange-colored hide and his unaccountable gait”

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D. “the words which had accompanied the present were beyond all price”

4. What was one result of post-Civil War politics?

The Civil War and New Patterns of American Politics

The controversies of the 1850s had destroyed the Whig Party, created the
Republican Party, and divided the Democratic Party along regional lines.
The Civil War demonstrated that the Whigs were gone beyond recall and
the Republicans on the scene to stay. It also laid the basis for a reunited
Democratic Party.

The Republicans could seamlessly replace the Whigs throughout the North
and West because they were far more than a free-soil/antislavery force.
Most of their leaders had started as Whigs and continued the Whig
interest in federally assisted national development. The need to manage a
war did not deter them from also enacting a protective tariff (1861) to
foster American manufacturing, the Homestead Act (1862) to encourage
Western settlement, the Morrill Act (1862) to establish “land grant”
agricultural and technical colleges, and a series of Pacific Railway Acts
(1862-64) to underwrite a transcontinental railway line. These measures
rallied support throughout the Union from groups to whom slavery was a
secondary issue and ensured the party’s continuance as the latest
manifestation of a political creed that had been advanced by Alexander
Hamilton and Henry Clay.

The war also laid the basis for Democratic reunification because Northern
opposition to it centered in the Democratic Party. As might be expected
from the party of “popular sovereignty,” some Democrats believed that
full-scale war to reinstate the Union was unjustified. This group came to
be known as the Peace Democrats. Their more extreme elements were
called “Copperheads.”

Moreover, few Democrats, whether of the “war” or “peace” faction,

believed the emancipation of the slaves was worth Northern blood.
Opposition to emancipation had long been party policy. In 1862, for
example, virtually every Democrat in Congress voted against eliminating
slavery in the District of Columbia and prohibiting it in the territories.

Much of this opposition came from the working poor, particularly Irish and
German Catholic immigrants, who feared a massive migration of newly
freed African Americans to the North. They also resented the
establishment of a military draft (March 1863) that disproportionately
affected them. Race riots erupted in several Northern cities. The worst of
these occurred in New York, July 13-16, 1863, precipitated by Democratic
Governor Horatio Seymour’s condemnation of military conscription.
Federal troops, who just days earlier had been engaged at Gettysburg,
were sent to restore order.

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The Republicans prosecuted the war with little regard for civil liberties. In
September 1862, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and
imposed martial law on those who interfered with recruitment or gave aid
and comfort to the rebels. This breech of civil law, although
constitutionally justified during times of crisis, gave the Democrats
another opportunity to criticize Lincoln. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
enforced martial law vigorously, and many thousands — most of them
Southern sympathizers or Democrats — were arrested.

Despite the Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in 1863,

Democratic “peace” candidates continued to play on the nation’s
misfortunes and racial sensitivities. Indeed, the mood of the North was
such that Lincoln was convinced he would lose his re-election bid in
November 1864. Largely for that reason, the Republican Party renamed
itself the Union Party and drafted the Tennessee Democrat Andrew
Johnson to be Lincoln’s running mate. Sherman’s victories in the South
sealed the election for them.

Lincoln’s assassination, the rise of Radical Republicanism, and Johnson’s

blundering leadership all played into a postwar pattern of politics in which
the Republican Party suffered from overreaching in its efforts to remake
the South, while the Democrats, through their criticism of Reconstruction,
allied themselves with the neo-Confederate Southern white majority. U.S.
Grant’s status as a national hero carried the Republicans through two
presidential elections, but as the South emerged from Reconstruction, it
became apparent that the country was nearly evenly divided between the
two parties.

The Republicans would be dominant in the industrial Northeast until the

1930s and strong in most of the rest of the country outside the South.
However, their appeal as the party of strong government and national
development increasingly would be perceived as one of allegiance to big
business and finance.

When President Hayes ended Reconstruction, he hoped it would be

possible to build the Republican Party in the South, using the old Whigs as
a base and the appeal of regional development as a primary issue. By
then, however, Republicanism as the South’s white majority perceived it
was identified with a hated African-American supremacy. For the next
three quarters of a century, the South would be solidly Democratic. For
much of that time, the national Democratic Party would pay solemn
deference to states’ rights while ignoring civil rights. The group that would
suffer the most as a legacy of Reconstruction was the African Americans.

Source: Hamby, Alonzo L.. Outline of U.S. History. New edition.

[Washington, D.C.]: Bureau of International Information
Programs, U.S. Department of State, 2011

A. The Republican Party was rebuilt in the South.

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B. African Americans made great gains.
C. Civil rights suffered.
D. Most African Americans began to vote Democrat.

5. Which of the following would best change the meaning of the

following sentence if it replaced the word trivial:

“Twice that week I had been aroused long after midnight for the
most trivial causes.”
The Gold Ingot

I had just retired to rest, with my eyes almost blind with the study of a
new work on physiology by M. Brown-Sequard, when the night bell was
pulled violently.

It was winter, and I confess I grumbled as I rose and went downstairs to

open the door. Twice that week I had been aroused long after midnight for
the most trivial causes. Once, to attend upon the son and heir of a
wealthy family, who had cut his thumb with a penknife, which, it seems,
he insisted on taking to bed with him; and once, to restore a young
gentleman to consciousness, who had been found by his horrified parent
stretched insensible on the staircase. Diachylon in the one case and
ammonia in the other were all that my patients required; and I had a faint
suspicion that the present summons was perhaps occasioned by no case
more necessitous than those I have quoted. I was too young in my
profession, however, to neglect opportunities. It is only when a physician
rises to a very large practice that he can afford to be inconsiderate. I was
on the first step of the ladder, so I humbly opened my door.

A woman was standing ankle deep in the snow that lay upon the stoop. I
caught but a dim glimpse of her form, for the night was cloudy; but I could
hear her teeth rattling like castanets, and, as the sharp wind blew her
clothes close to her form, I could discern from the sharpness of the
outlines that she was very scantily supplied with raiment.

"Come in, come in, my good woman," I said hastily, for the wind seemed
to catch eagerly at the opportunity of making itself at home in my hall,
and was rapidly forcing an entrance through the half-open door. "Come in,
you can tell me all you have to communicate inside."

Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2043/pg2043-
images.html

A. crucial
B. unimportant
C. inconsequential
D. Minor

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6. What best describes the relationship between the first
paragraph and the second paragraph of the passage?
"Cross Currents"

Bored and disillusioned with the drift of her new life, Vanessa was
undisguisedly glad when distraction offered itself in the person of Mr.
Dobrinton, a chance acquaintance whom they had first run against in the
primitive hostelry of a benighted Caucasian town. Dobrinton was
elaborately British, in deference perhaps to the memory of his mother,
who was said to have derived part of her origin from an English governess
who had come to Lemberg a long way back in the last century. If you had
called him Dobrinski when off his guard he would probably have
responded readily enough; holding, no doubt, that the end crowns all, he
had taken a slight liberty with the family patronymic.

To look at, Mr. Dobrinton was not a very attractive specimen of masculine
humanity, but in Vanessa’s eyes he was a link with that civilization which
Clyde seemed so ready to ignore and forgo. He could sing “Yip-I-Addy”
and spoke of several duchesses as if he knew them—in his more inspired
moments almost as if they knew him. He even pointed out blemishes in
the cuisine or cellar departments of some of the more august London
restaurants, a species of Higher Criticism which was listened to by
Vanessa in awe-stricken admiration.

And, above all, he sympathised, at first discreetly, afterwards with more

latitude, with her fretful discontent at Clyde’s nomadic instincts.

Business connected with oil-wells had brought Dobrinton to the

neighbourhood of Baku; the pleasure of appealing to an appreciative
female audience induced him to deflect his return journey so as to
coincide a good deal with his new aquaintances’ line of march. And while
Clyde trafficked with Persian horse-dealers or hunted the wild grey pigs in
their lairs and added to his notes on Central Asian game-fowl, Dobrinton
and the lady discussed the ethics of desert respectability from points of
view that showed a daily tendency to converge. And one evening Clyde
dined alone, reading between the courses a long letter from Vanessa,
justifying her action in flitting to more civilized lands with a more
congenial companion.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1870/1870-h/1870-
h.htm#page94

A. Both paragraphs explain Vanessa’s annoyance with Clyde.

B. Both paragraphs explain Vanessa’s attraction to Mr. Dobrinton’s
cultured background.
C. The first paragraph explains what Vanessa likes Mr. Dobrinton, and the
second explains what she does not like about Mr. Dobrinton.
D. The first paragraph explains how Vanessa met Mr. Dobrinton, and the
second explains how they fell in love.

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7. How does the second paragraph emphasize that Pip did not
know his parents?
An Excerpt from Great Expectations by Charles Dickins

My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my

infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit
than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his tombstone

and my sister,—Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never
saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them
(for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies
regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their
tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea
that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the
character and turn of the inscription, “Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,”
I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To
five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were
arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the
memory of five little brothers of mine,—who gave up trying to get a living,
exceedingly early in that universal struggle,—I am indebted for a belief I
religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with
their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this
state of existence.

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river
wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression
of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a
memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for
certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard;
and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the
above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew,
Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also
dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard,
intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle
feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was
the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing
was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all
and beginning to cry, was Pip.

“Hold your noise!” cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among
the graves at the side of the church porch. “Keep still, you little devil, or
I’ll cut your throat!”

A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man with
no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A
man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by

8|Page
stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who
limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose teeth chattered
in his head as he seized me by the chin.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1400/1400-h/1400-h.htm

A. It focuses on the people who raised Pip.

B. It describes his parents being killed by a robber.
C. It describes him trying to imagine his parents.
D. It tells the story of how his parents abandoned him.

8. Read the following statistic from the fifth paragraph.

“We have also helped prevent millions of new infections worldwide,

including in more than 1.5 million babies of HIV-positive mothers who
were born free of HIV.”

What role does the above excerpt play in the passage?

Presidential Proclamation -- World AIDS Day, 2016

Thirty-five years ago the first documented cases of AIDS brought about an
era of uncertainty, fear, and discrimination. HIV/AIDS has taken tens of
millions of lives. And far too many people with HIV have struggled to get
the care, treatment, and compassion they deserve. But in the decades
since those first cases, with ingenuity, leadership, research, and historic
investments in evidence-based practices, we have begun to move toward
an era of resilience and hope -- and we are closer than ever to reaching an
AIDS-free generation. On World AIDS Day, we join with the international
community to remember those we have lost too soon, reflect on the
tremendous progress we have made in battling this disease, and carry
forward our fight against HIV/AIDS.

By shining a light on this issue and educating more communities about

the importance of testing and treatment, we have saved and improved
lives. Although we have come far in recent decades, our work is not yet
done and the urgency to intervene in this epidemic is critical. In the
United States, more than 1.2 million people are living with HIV. Gay and
bisexual men, transgender people, youth, black and Latino Americans,
people living in the Southern United States, and people who inject drugs
are at a disproportionate risk. People living with HIV can face stigma and
discrimination, creating barriers to prevention and treatment services.

My Administration has made significant efforts to fight HIV/AIDS. We are

encouraging treatment, prevention, expanding access to pre-exposure
prophylaxis, eliminating waiting lists for medication assistance programs,
and working toward a vaccine. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, no one
can be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions like HIV. Millions of
people can now access quality, affordable health insurance plans that
cover important services like HIV testing and screening. In 2010, I

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introduced the first comprehensive National HIV/AIDS Strategy in the
United States, and last year I updated it to serve as a guiding path to
2020. This update builds on the primary goals of the original Strategy,
including reducing the number of HIV-infected individuals and HIV-related
health disparities. This will improve health outcomes for anyone living
with HIV and increase their access to care, strengthening our coordinated
national response to this epidemic.

Currently, more than 36 million people are living with HIV/AIDS across the
globe. The majority of people living with HIV reside in low- to middle-
income countries. We need to do more to reach those who are at risk for
contracting HIV/AIDS. The United States is helping shape the world's
response to this crisis and working alongside the international community
to end this epidemic by 2030.

We have strengthened and expanded the President's Emergency Plan for

AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), with now more than $70 billion invested, to
accelerate our progress and work to control this epidemic with
comprehensive and data-focused efforts. There are now more than 18
million people getting HIV treatment and care. Because in sub-Saharan
Africa young women and adolescent girls are over eight times more likely
to get HIV/AIDS than young men, we launched a comprehensive
prevention program to reduce HIV infections among this population in 10
sub-Saharan African countries. This summer, PEPFAR established an
innovative investment fund to expand access to quality HIV/AIDS services
for key populations affected by the epidemic and reduce the stigma and
discrimination that persists. We have also helped prevent millions of new
infections worldwide, including in more than 1.5 million babies of HIV-
positive mothers who were born free of HIV. By translating
groundbreaking research and scientific tools into action, for the first time
we are seeing early but promising signs of controlling the spread of HIV.

Accelerating the progress we have made will require sustained

commitment and passion from every sector of society and across every
level of government around the world. A future where no individual has to
suffer from HIV/AIDS is within our reach, and today, we recommit to
ensuring the next generation has the tools they need to continue fighting
this disease. Let us strive to support all people living with HIV/AIDS and
rededicate ourselves to ending this epidemic once and for all. Together,
we can achieve what once seemed impossible and give more people the
chance at a longer, brighter, AIDS-free future.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of

America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and
the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim December 1, 2016, as
World AIDS Day. I urge the Governors of the States and the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, officials of the other territories subject to
the jurisdiction of the United States, and the American people to join me

10 | P a g e
in appropriate activities to remember those who have lost their lives to
AIDS and to provide support and compassion to those living with HIV.

Source:
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/11/3
0/presidential-proclamation-world-aids-day-2016-1

A. It provides proof that the United States is the largest producer of AIDS
drugs in the world.
B. It provides proof that new treatments to AIDS haven’t been as effective
as some hoped.
C. It provides proof that the United States’ international AIDS efforts are
making an impact.
D. It provides proof that AIDS has been wiped out in large parts of the
modern world.

9. What rhetorical device is used in the following sentence:

“His gait was rustic and awkward. His form was ungainly and
disproportioned.”
Wieland

One sunny afternoon I was standing in the door of my house, when I

marked a person passing close to the edge of the bank that was in front.
His pace was a careless and lingering one, and had none of that
gracefulness and ease which distinguish a person with certain advantages
of education from a clown. His gait was rustic and awkward. His form was
ungainly and disproportioned. Shoulders broad and square, breast sunken,
his head drooping, his body of uniform breadth, supported by long and
lank legs, were the ingredients of his frame. His garb was not ill adapted
to such a figure. A slouched hat, tarnished by the weather, a coat of thick
gray cloth, cut and wrought, as it seemed, by a country tailor, blue
worsted stockings, and shoes fastened by thongs and deeply discolored
by dust, which brush had never disturbed, constituted his dress.

There was nothing remarkable in these appearances: they were frequently

to be met with on the road and in the harvest-field. I cannot tell why I
gazed upon them, on this occasion, with more than ordinary attention,
unless it were that such figures were seldom seen by me except on the
road or field. This lawn was only traversed by men whose views were
directed to the pleasures of the walk or the grandeur of the scenery.

He passed slowly along, frequently pausing, as if to examine the prospect

more deliberately, but never turning his eye toward the house, so as to
allow me a view of his countenance. Presently he entered a copse at a
small distance, and disappeared. My eye followed him while he remained
in sight. If his image remained for any duration in my fancy after his
departure, it was because no other object occurred sufficient to expel it.

11 | P a g e
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2043/pg2043-
images.html

A. metonymy
B. parallelism
C. oxymoron
D. understatement

10. Which of the following caused an uptick in immigration

numbers in the mid 19th century?

I. Food shortages
II. Continued war
III. Increased immigration from non-European countries
A Nation of Nations

No country’s history has been more closely bound to immigration than

that of the United States. During the first 15 years of the 20th century
alone, over 13 million people came to the United States, many passing
through Ellis Island, the federal immigration center that opened in New
York harbor in 1892. (Though no longer in service, Ellis Island reopened in
1992 as a monument to the millions who crossed the nation’s threshold
there.)

The first official census in 1790 had numbered Americans at 3,929,214.

Approximately half of the population of the original 13 states was of
English origin; the rest were Scots-Irish, German, Dutch, French, Swedish,
Welsh, and Finnish. These white Europeans were mostly Protestants. A
fifth of the population was enslaved Africans.

From early on, Americans viewed immigrants as a necessary resource for

an expanding country. As a result, few official restrictions were placed
upon immigration into the United States until the 1920s. As more and
more immigrants arrived, however, some Americans became fearful that
their culture was threatened.

The Founding Fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson, had been ambivalent

over whether or not the United States ought to welcome arrivals from
every corner of the globe. Jefferson wondered whether democracy could
ever rest safely in the hands of men from countries that revered monarchs
or replaced royalty with mob rule. However, few supported closing the
gates to newcomers in a country desperate for labor.

Immigration lagged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as wars
disrupted trans-Atlantic travel and European governments restricted
movement to retain young men of military age. Still, as European
populations increased, more people on the same land constricted the size
of farming lots to a point where families could barely survive. Moreover,
cottage industries were falling victim to an Industrial Revolution that was

12 | P a g e
mechanizing production. Thousands of artisans unwilling or unable to find
jobs in factories were out of work in Europe.

In the mid-1840s millions more made their way to the United States as a
result of a potato blight in Ireland and continual revolution in the German
homelands. Meanwhile, a trickle of Chinese immigrants, most from
impoverished Southeastern China, began to make their way to the
American West Coast. Almost 19 million people arrived in the United
States between 1890 and 1921, the year Congress first passed severe
restrictions. Most of these immigrants were from Italy, Russia, Poland,
Greece, and the Balkans. Non-Europeans came, too: east from Japan,
south from Canada, and north from Mexico.

By the early 1920s, an alliance was forged between wage-conscious

organized labor and those who called for restricted immigration on racial
or religious grounds, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Immigration
Restriction League. The Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924
permanently curtailed the influx of newcomers with quotas calculated on
nation of origin.

The Great Depression of the 1930s dramatically slowed immigration still

further. With public opinion generally opposed to immigration, even for
persecuted European minorities, relatively few refugees found sanctuary
in the United States after Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933.

Throughout the postwar decades, the United States continued to cling to

nationally based quotas. Supporters of the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952
argued that quota relaxation might inundate the United States with
Marxist subversives from Eastern Europe.

In 1965 Congress replaced national quotas with hemispheric ones.

Relatives of U.S. citizens received preference, as did immigrants with job
skills in short supply in the United States. In 1978 the hemispheric quotas
were replaced by a worldwide ceiling of 290,000, a limit reduced to
270,000 after passage of the Refugee Act of 1980.

Since the mid-1970s, the United States has experienced a fresh wave of
immigration, with arrivals from Asia, Africa, and Latin America
transforming communities throughout the country. Current estimates
suggest a total annual arrival of approximately 600,000 legal newcomers
to the United States.

Because immigrant and refugee quotas remain well under demand,

however, illegal immigration is still a major problem. Mexicans and other
Latin Americans daily cross the Southwestern U.S. borders to find work,
higher wages, and improved education and health care for their families.
Likewise, there is a substantial illegal migration from countries like China
and other Asian nations. Estimates vary, but some suggest that as many
as 600,000 illegals per year arrive in the United States.

13 | P a g e
Large surges of immigration have historically created social strains along
with economic and cultural dividends. Deeply ingrained in most
Americans, however, is the conviction that the Statue of Liberty does,
indeed, stand as a symbol for the United States as she lifts her lamp
before the “golden door,” welcoming those “yearning to breathe free.”
This belief, and the sure knowledge that their forebears were once
immigrants, has kept the United States a nation of nations.

Source: Hamby, Alonzo L.. Outline of U.S. History. New edition.

[Washington, D.C.]: Bureau of International Information
Programs, U.S. Department of State, 2011

A. I, II
B. I, III
C. II, III
D. I, II, III

11. Which of the following statements would the author

be most likely to agree with based upon the passage?
Creation of Israel, 1948

Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917,

which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the
United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and
the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for
Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and
an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish
refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations
with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in
Palestine.

Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to

study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a
special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady,
an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a
parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946,
Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000
displaced persons into Palestine and in October publicly declared his
support for the creation of a Jewish state. Throughout 1947, the United
Nations Special Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian
question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an
Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution
181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great
Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May
1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the
resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would
remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by
the United Nations.

14 | P a g e
Source: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-
israel

A. Because Great Britain had colonized the Palestinian territory, it was up

to them to determine its future.
B. The future of the Palestinian territory was an extremely complex issue
that had to be carefully considered by the international community.
C. President Truman was irresponsible in his consideration of the future of
the Palestinian territory.
D. Despite their efforts, the international community was unable to come
to a resolution regarding the Palestinian territory.

12. Why does the author of the passage bring up the

deindustrialization of the 1980s, which left many blue-collar
workers in Pittsburgh without jobs and caused several major
businesses to leave the city?
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Located at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio

Rivers, Pittsburgh is known as both "the Steel City" for its more than 300
steel-related businesses, and as the "City of Bridges" for its 446 bridges.
The city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclines, a pre-revolutionary
fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. The
city developed as a vital link of the Atlantic coast and Midwest, as the
mineral-rich Allegheny Mountains made the area coveted by the French
and British empires, Virginians, Whiskey Rebels, and Civil War raiders.

Pittsburgh is a leading manufacturer of shipbuilding, petroleum, foods,

sports, transportation, computing, autos, and electronics. For part of the
20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York and Chicago in
corporate headquarters employment; it had the most U.S. stockholders
per capita. America's 1980s deindustrialization laid off area blue-collar
workers and thousands of downtown white-collar workers when the
longtime Pittsburgh-based world headquarters moved out. This heritage
left the area with renowned museums, medical centers, parks, research
centers, libraries, a diverse cultural district and the most bars per capita
in the United States.

Today Google, Apple, Bosch, Facebook, Uber, Nokia, Autodesk, and IBM
are among 1,600 technology firms generating $20.7 billion in annual
Pittsburgh payrolls. The area has served as the long-time federal agency
headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, robotics, energy
research and the nuclear navy. The area is home to 68 colleges and
universities, including research and development leaders Carnegie Mellon
University and the University of Pittsburgh. The nation's fifth-largest bank,
eight Fortune 500 companies, and six of the top 300 U.S. law firms make
their global headquarters in the Pittsburgh area, while RAND, BNY Mellon,
Nova, FedEx, Bayer and NIOSH have regional bases that helped Pittsburgh
become the sixth-best area for U.S. job growth.

15 | P a g e
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh

A. to show the reader that Pittsburgh’s economy has been weak since the
1980s
B. to explain Pittsburgh’s unique culture
C. to contrast the city’s weak economy in the 1980s with the city’s much
stronger economy today
D. to show the reader that deindustrialization can be harmful to cities

13. Which of the following connects the second and third

paragraphs in the passage?
Andy Warhol

By the beginning of the 1960s, pop art was an experimental form that
several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such
as Roy Lichtenstein, would later become synonymous with the movement.
Warhol, who would become famous as the "Pope of Pop,” turned to this
new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. His
early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements,
hand-painted with paint drips. Marilyn Monroe was a pop art painting that
Warhol had done, and it was very popular. Those drips emulated the style
of successful abstract expressionists (such as Willem de Kooning).
Warhol's first pop art paintings were displayed in April 1961, serving as
the backdrop for New York Department Store Bronwit Teller's window
display. This was the same stage his Pop Art contemporaries Jasper Johns,
James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg had also once graceds.

It was the gallerist Muriel Latow who came up with the ideas for both the
soup cans and Warhol's dollar paintings. On November 23, 1961, Warhol
wrote Latow a check for $50 which, according to the 2009 Warhol
biography, Pop, The Genius of Warhol, was payment for coming up with
the idea of the soup cans as subject matter. For his first major exhibition,
Warhol painted his famous cans of Campbell's soup, which he claimed to
have had for lunch for most of his life. A 1964 Large Campbell’s Soup
Can was sold in a 2007 Sotheby's auction to a South American collector
for £5.1 million ($7.4 million).

He loved celebrities, so he painted them as well. From these beginnings

he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a
signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and
more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the handmade from the
artistic process. Warhol frequently used silk-screening; his later drawings
were traced from slide projections. At the height of his fame as a painter,
Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk-screen multiples,
following his directions to make different versions and variations.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol

A. They both discuss Andy Warhol’s love of celebrities.

16 | P a g e
B. They both discuss soup cans.
C. The both discuss silk screening.
D. They both discuss subjects that Andy Warhol painted.

14. Examine the following section of the passage:

“When the young woman—the mother of this child—stood fully revealed

before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant
closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as
that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or
fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one
token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the
baby on her arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and
a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople
and neighbours.”

What is the main purpose of this section?

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The door of the jail being flung open from within there appeared, in the
first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and
grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff
of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his
aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was
his business to administer in its final and closest application to the
offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right
upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward, until,
on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked
with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air
as if by her own free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some
three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too
vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it
acquaintance only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome
apartment of the prison.

When the young woman—the mother of this child—stood fully revealed

before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant
closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as
that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or
fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one
token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the
baby on her arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and
a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople
and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded
with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread,
appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility
and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and
fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore, and which was of a

17 | P a g e
splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond
what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.

The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large
scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the
sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides being beautiful from
regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness
belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was ladylike, too,
after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterised by
a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and
indescribable grace which is now recognised as its indication. And never
had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike, in the antique interpretation
of the term, than as she issued from the prison. Those who had before
known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a
disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her
beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in
which she was enveloped. It may be true that, to a sensitive observer,
there was some thing exquisitely painful in it. Her attire, which indeed,
she had wrought for the occasion in prison, and had modelled much after
her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate
recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the
point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer—so
that both men and women who had been familiarly acquainted with
Hester Prynne were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time
—was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated
upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary
relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.

Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/33/pg33.html

A. to show the reader that the woman is graceful in the face of humiliation
B. to show the reader that the woman is well known in her town
C. to show the reader that the woman has a great deal of affection for her
child
D. to show the reader that the woman is attractive

15. In the following sentence from the passage, which of the

following rhetorical devices does the author employ to add
emphasis?

“We scarcely knew whether to haunt it in spectral fascination, or to shun it

for the sake of our souls and our sanity.”
“The Shunned House” by H.P. Lovecraft

This much I knew before my insistent questioning led my uncle to show

me the notes which finally embarked us both on our hideous investigation.
In my childhood the shunned house was vacant, with barren, gnarled and
terrible old trees, long, queerly pale grass and nightmarishly misshapen
weeds in the high terraced yard where birds never lingered. We boys used

18 | P a g e
to overrun the place, and I can still recall my youthful terror not only at
the morbid strangeness of this sinister vegetation, but at the eldritch
atmosphere and odor of the dilapidated house, whose unlocked front door
was often entered in quest of shudders. The small-paned windows were
largely broken, and a nameless air of desolation hung round the
precarious paneling, shaky interior shutters, peeling wall-paper, falling
plaster, rickety staircases, and such fragments of battered furniture as
still remained. The dust and cobwebs added their touch of the fearful; and
brave indeed was the boy who would voluntarily ascend the ladder to the
attic, a vast raftered length lighted only by small blinking windows in the
gable ends, and filled with a massed wreckage of chests, chairs, and
spinning-wheels which infinite years of deposit had shrouded and
festooned into monstrous and hellish shapes.

But after all, the attic was not the most terrible part of the house. It was
the dank, humid cellar which somehow exerted the strongest repulsion on
us, even though it was wholly above ground on the street side, with only a
thin door and window-pierced brick wall to separate it from the busy
sidewalk. We scarcely knew whether to haunt it in spectral fascination, or
to shun it for the sake of our souls and our sanity. For one thing, the bad
odor of the house was strongest there; and for another thing, we did not
like the white fungous growths which occasionally sprang up in rainy
summer weather from the hard earth floor. Those fungi, grotesquely like
the vegetation in the yard outside, were truly horrible in their outlines;
detestable parodies of toadstools and Indian-pipes, whose like we had
never seen in any other situation. They rotted quickly, and at one stage
became slightly phosphorescent; so that nocturnal passers-by sometimes
spoke of witch-fires glowing behind the broken panes of the fetor-
spreading windows.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31469/31469-h/31469-
h.htm

A. alliteration
B. appositive
C. analogy
D. amplification

16. Which of the words would best change the meaning of the
following sentence if it replaced the word old:

“I was born in the old place where my father, and his father, and all his
predecessors had been born, beyond the memory of man.”
By the Waters of Paradise

I was born in the old place where my father, and his father, and all his
predecessors had been born, beyond the memory of man. It is a very old
house, and the greater part of it was originally a castle, strongly fortified,
and surrounded by a deep moat supplied with abundant water from the

19 | P a g e
hills by a hidden aqueduct. Many of the fortifications have been
destroyed, and the moat has been filled up. The water from the aqueduct
supplies great fountains, and runs down into huge oblong basins in the
terraced gardens, one below the other, each surrounded by a broad
pavement of marble between the water and the flower-beds. The waste
surplus finally escapes through an artificial grotto, some thirty yards long,
into a stream, flowing down through the park to the meadows beyond,
and thence to the distant river. The buildings were extended a little and
greatly altered more than two hundred years ago, in the time of Charles II,
but since then little has been done to improve them, though they have
been kept in fairly good repair, according to our fortunes.

In the gardens there are terraces and huge hedges of box and evergreen,
some of which used to be clipped into shapes of animals, in the Italian
style. I can remember when I was a lad how I used to try to make out what
the trees were cut to represent, and how I used to appeal for explanations
to Judith, my Welsh nurse. She dealt in a strange mythology of her own,
and peopled the gardens with griffins, dragons, good genii and bad, and
filled my mind with them at the same time. My nursery window afforded a
view of the great fountains at the head of the upper basin, and on
moonlight nights the Welshwoman would hold me up to the glass and bid
me look at the mist and spray rising into mysterious shapes, moving
mystically in the white light like living things.

Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2043/pg2043-
images.html

A. ancient
B. modern
C. historic
D. long-settled
17. What is the most important fact revealed about the nobleman
in the first paragraph?
The Vampyre

It happened that in the midst of the dissipations attendant upon a London

winter, there appeared at the various parties of the leaders of the ton a
nobleman, more remarkable for his singularities, than his rank. He gazed
upon the mirth around him, as if he could not participate therein.
Apparently, the light laughter of the fair only attracted his attention, that
he might by a look quell it, and throw fear into those breasts where
thoughtlessness reigned. Those who felt this sensation of awe, could not
explain whence it arose: some attributed it to the dead grey eye, which,
fixing upon the object's face, did not seem to penetrate, and at one
glance to pierce through to the inward workings of the heart; but fell upon
the cheek with a leaden ray that weighed upon the skin it could not pass.
His peculiarities caused him to be invited to every house; all wished to see
him, and those who had been accustomed to violent excitement, and now
felt the weight of ennui, were pleased at having something in their

20 | P a g e
presence capable of engaging their attention. In spite of the deadly hue of
his face, which never gained a warmer tint, either from the blush of
modesty, or from the strong emotion of passion, though its form and
outline were beautiful, many of the female hunters after notoriety
attempted to win his attentions, and gain, at least, some marks of what
they might term affection: Lady Mercer, who had been the mockery of
every monster shewn in drawing-rooms since her marriage, threw herself
in his way, and did all but put on the dress of a mountebank, to attract his
notice:—though in vain:—when she stood before him, though his eyes
were apparently fixed upon her’s, still it seemed as if they were
unperceived;—even her unappalled impudence was baffled, and she left
the field. But though the common adultress could not influence even the
guidance of his eyes, it was not that the female sex was indifferent to him:
yet such was the apparent caution with which he spoke to the virtuous
wife and innocent daughter, that few knew he ever addressed himself to
females. He had, however, the reputation of a winning tongue; and
whether it was that it even overcame the dread of his singular character,
or that they were moved by his apparent hatred of vice, he was as often
among those females who form the boast of their sex from their domestic
virtues, as among those who sully it by their vices.

About the same time, there came to London a young gentleman of the
name of Aubrey: he was an orphan left with an only sister in the
possession of great wealth, by parents who died while he was yet in
childhood. Left also to himself by guardians, who thought it their duty
merely to take care of his fortune, while they relinquished the more
important charge of his mind to the care of mercenary subalterns, he
cultivated more his imagination than his judgment. He had, hence, that
high romantic feeling of honour and candour, which daily ruins so many
milliners' apprentices. He believed all to sympathise with virtue, and
thought that vice was thrown in by Providence merely for the picturesque
effect of the scene, as we see in romances: he thought that the misery of
a cottage merely consisted in the vesting of clothes, which were as warm,
but which were better adapted to the painter's eye by their irregular folds
and various coloured patches. He thought, in fine, that the dreams of
poets were the realities of life. He was handsome, frank, and rich: for
these reasons, upon his entering into the gay circles, many mothers
surrounded him, striving which should describe with least truth their
languishing or romping favourites: the daughters at the same time, by
their brightening countenances when he approached, and by their
sparkling eyes, when he opened his lips, soon led him into false notions of
his talents and his merit. Attached as he was to the romance of his
solitary hours, he was startled at finding, that, except in the tallow and
wax candles that flickered, not from the presence of a ghost, but from
want of snuffing, there was no foundation in real life for any of that
congeries of pleasing pictures and descriptions contained in those
volumes, from which he had formed his study. Finding, however, some
compensation in his gratified vanity, he was about to relinquish his

21 | P a g e
dreams, when the extraordinary being we have above described, crossed
him in his career.

Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6087/6087-h/6087-h.htm

A. Women are interested in him.

B. He was mirthful.
C. He was not alive.
D. He had no vices.

18. The narrator writes, “It had been used, apparently, in remote
feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and, in
later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other highly
combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the whole
interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were
carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had
been, also, similarly protected.” What relationship is emphasized
by the use of the word similarly?
"The Fall of the House of Usher"

At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for

the temporary entombment. The body having been encoffined, we two
alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we placed it (and which had
been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its oppressive
atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp,
and entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great depth,
immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own
sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times,
for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and, in later days, as a place of
deposit for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a
portion of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which
we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive
iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an
unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-
h.htm#link2H_4_0007

A. Like powder, the door was combustible.

B. Unlike the interior of the archway, the door was covered in iron.
C. Like the interior of the archway, the door was encased in metal.
D. Unlike a donjon-keep, the door was not from feudal times.

19. Which of the following sentences from the passage offers the
best example of enumeration?
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

22 | P a g e
It was Phileas Fogg, whose head now emerged from behind his
newspapers, who made this remark. He bowed to his friends, and entered
into the conversation. The affair which formed its subject, and which was
town talk, had occurred three days before at the Bank of England. A
package of banknotes, to the value of fifty-five thousand pounds, had
been taken from the principal cashier's table, that functionary being at the
moment engaged in registering the receipt of three shillings and sixpence.
Of course, he could not have his eyes everywhere. Let it be observed that
the Bank of England reposes a touching confidence in the honesty of the
public. There are neither guards nor gratings to protect its treasures; gold,
silver, banknotes are freely exposed, at the mercy of the first comer. A
keen observer of English customs relates that, being in one of the rooms
of the Bank one day, he had the curiosity to examine a gold ingot
weighing some seven or eight pounds. He took it up, scrutinized it, passed
it to his neighbor, he to the next man, and so on until the ingot, going
from hand to hand, was transferred to the end of a dark entry; nor did it
return to its place for half an hour. Meanwhile, the cashier had not so
much as raised his head. But in the present instance things had not gone
so smoothly. The package of notes not being found when five o'clock
sounded from the ponderous clock in the "drawing office," the amount
was passed to the account of profit and loss. As soon as the robbery was
discovered, picked detectives hastened off to Liverpool, Glasgow, Havre,
Suez, Brindisi, New York, and other ports, inspired by the proffered reward
of two thousand pounds, and five percent on the sum that might be
recovered. Detectives were also charged with narrowly watching those
who arrived at or left London by rail, and a judicial examination was at
once entered upon.

There were real grounds for supposing, as the Daily Telegraph said, that
the thief did not belong to a professional band. On the day of the robbery
a well-dressed gentleman of polished manners, and with a well-to-do air,
had been observed going to and fro in the paying room where the crime
was committed. A description of him was easily procured and sent to the
detectives; and some hopeful spirits, of whom Ralph was one, did not
despair of his apprehension. The papers and clubs were full of the affair,
and everywhere people were discussing the probabilities of a successful
pursuit; and the Reform Club was especially agitated, several of its
members being Bank officials.

Ralph would not concede that the work of the detectives was likely to be
in vain, for he thought that the prize offered would greatly stimulate their
zeal and activity. But Stuart was far from sharing this confidence; and, as
they placed themselves at the whist-table, they continued to argue the
matter. Stuart and Flanagan played together, while Phileas Fogg had
Fallentin for his partner. As the game proceeded the conversation ceased,
excepting between the rubbers, when it revived again.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/103/103-h/103-h.htm

23 | P a g e
A. “The affair which formed its subject, and which was town talk, had
occurred three days before at the Bank of England.”
B. “On the day of the robbery a well-dressed gentleman of polished
manners, and with a well-to-do air, had been observed going to and fro in
the paying room where the crime was committed.”
C. “As soon as the robbery was discovered, picked detectives hastened off
to Liverpool, Glasgow, Havre, Suez, Brindisi, New York, and other ports,
inspired by the proffered reward of two thousand pounds, and five percent
on the sum that might be recovered.”
D. “Ralph would not concede that the work of the detectives was likely to
be in vain, for he thought that the prize offered would greatly stimulate
their zeal and activity.”

20. Which of the following details from the passage least likely
functions to support the tone of the narrative?
The Fall of the House of Usher

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the
year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been
passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country,
and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within
view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was—but, with
the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded
my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that
half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually
receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible.

I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple
landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant
eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks
of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to
no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller
upon opium—the bitter lapse into every-day life—the hideous dropping off
of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an
unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination
could torture into aught of the sublime.

What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the

contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor
could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I
pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion,
that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural
objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this
power lies among considerations beyond our depth.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/932/932-h/932-h.htm

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A. "...I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary
tract of country..."
B. "I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the
simple landscape features of the domain..."
C. "...and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on,
within view of the melancholy House of Usher."
D. "...upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a
few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees..."

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Answer Key
1. The correct answer is C.

Explanation:

Both poems address the subject of romance. Sonnet 18 talks about

someone’s physical beauty and how it surpasses the beauty of summer.
Sonnet 18 states: “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art
more lovely and more temperate.” Similarly, Sonnet 116 talks about the
romantic subject of unchanging love. The speaker claims that true love is
love that doesn’t change. Sonnet 116 states: “Love is not love / Which
alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove: / O,
no! it is an ever-fixed mark.”

2. The correct answer is B.

Explanation:

A scoundrel is a dishonest and untrustworthy person.

In this excerpt, the narrator describes Barstad, a spy and traitor, as

a scoundrel.

3. The correct answer is B.

Explanation:

Answer choice B is an example of antanagoge. Antanagoge is a rhetoric

device in which the writer places a criticism and a compliment together to
lessen the impact of the criticism. In this passage, the author describes
the young man’s nose as “hooked, but finely chiseled.” This shows the
reader that while the young man’s nose isn’t perfect, it is still not
unattractive.

Answer choices A, C, and D are not examples of antanagoge.

4. The correct answer is C.

Explanation:

Unfortunately, one of the results of post-Civil War politics was civil rights
suffered.

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“For much of that time, the national Democratic Party would pay solemn
deference to states’ rights while ignoring civil rights. The group that would
suffer the most as a legacy of Reconstruction was the African Americans.”

Answer choice A is incorrect. The Republican party was not rebuilt in the
South. “[T]he South’s white majority perceived it was identified with a
hated African-American supremacy.”

Answer choice B is incorrect. “The group that would suffer the most as a
legacy of Reconstruction was the African Americans.”

Answer choice D is incorrect. The passage does not give information about
African Americans' choice of political party.

5. The correct answer is A.

Explanation:

“Twice that week I had been aroused long after midnight for the
most trivial causes.”

In this context, unimportant, inconsequential, and minor are

synonyms of trivial. Crucial is an antonym. Therefore, crucial is the
answer choice that best changes the meaning of the sentence.

6. The correct answer is B.

Explanation:

Both paragraphs explain Vanessa’s attraction to Mr. Dobrinton’s cultured

background. The first paragraph mentions that “Dobrinton
was elaborately British,” while the second paragraph calls him “a link
with that civilization which Clyde seemed so ready to ignore and
forgo.” The bits of culture stand out to Vanessa in Baku, which is in the
Caucuses far from Western Europe and its notions of culture.

Of the other answer choices, answer choice A is incorrect because the

neither paragraph explicitly explains why Vanessa is annoyed with Clyde.
Answer choice C is incorrect because the second paragraph does not
explain why Vanessa dislikes Mr. Dobrington, but rather gives more
reasons as to why she likes him. Answer choice D is incorrect because the
first paragraph does not explain how they met, and the second paragraph
does not say that they fell in love.

7. The correct answer is C.

Explanation:

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The second paragraph emphasizes that Pip did not know his parents by
describing him trying to imagine them. The passage states: “As I never
saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them
(for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies
regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their
tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea
that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the
character and turn of the inscription, “Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,” I
drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.”

8. The correct answer is C.

Explanation:

Mentioning that the United States’ programs have helped prevent millions
of new infections worldwide, including the infections of more than 1.5
million babies, shows that the United States’ international AIDS efforts are
making an impact.

9. The correct answer is B.

Explanation:

The rhetorical device used in the following sentence is parallelism, or the

repetition of grammatical structures:
“His gait was rustic and awkward. His form was ungainly and disproport
ioned.”

The other answer choices are not represented in this sentence.

10. The correct answer is D.

Explanation:

Food shortages, continued war, and increased immigration from non-

European countries were all reasons for an uptick in numbers in the mid
19th century.

In the mid-1840s millions more made their way to the United States as a
result of a (I.) potato blight in Ireland and (II.) continual revolution
in the German homelands. (III.) Meanwhile, a trickle of Chinese
immigrants, most from impoverished Southeastern China, began
to make their way to the American West Coast.

11. The correct answer is B.

Explanation:

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Answer choice B reflects that the author considered the future of the
Palestinian territory was an extremely complex issue. The author’s
discussion of the Palestinian territory, the disagreements between the
United States and Great Britain regarding its future, and the participation
of the United Nations in the research for and drafting of the Partition
Resolution suggest that the author would consider this to be an extremely
complex issue that needed to be considered fully by the international
community.

12. The correct answer is B.

Explanation:

Answer choice B explains why the author of the passage brings up the
deindustrialization of the 1980s. The author of the passage explains that
the deindustrialization of the 1980s following decades of a strong blue-
collar economy led to Pittsburgh’s unique culture. This is evidenced by the
sentence, “This heritage left the area with renowned museums, medical
centers, parks, research centers, libraries, a diverse cultural district and
the most bars per capita in the United States.”

13. The correct answer is D.

Explanation:

Each of the other answers is discussed in either the second or third

paragraph, but only the subjects that Warhol painted are discussed in
both the second and third paragraph.

14. The correct answer is A.

Explanation:

This section of the passage shows that although the woman is being
publicly shamed, she still holds her head high and maintains a graceful
demeanor. This is best exemplified by the following sentence: “In a
moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but
poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and with a
burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would
not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours.”

15. The correct answer is A.

Explanation:

Answer choice A is the rhetorical device the author uses for emphasis.
This sentence employs alliteration, or the recurrence of initial consonant
sounds, for emphasis as follows: “We scarcely knew whether to haunt it in
spectral fascination, or to shun it for the sake of our souls and our sanity.”

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Answer choices B, C, and D are not used in the passage.

16. The correct answer is B.

Explanation:

“I was born in the old place where my father, and his father, and all his
predecessors had been born, beyond the memory of man.”

In this context, ancient, historic, and long-settled are synonyms

for old. Modern is an antonym. Therefore, the best answer choice for this
question is modern.

17. The correct answer is C.

Explanation:

The most important fact revealed about the nobleman was that he was
not alive. Several phrases confirm this fact. He had a “dead gray eye.” His
face had a “deadly hue . . . which never gained a warmer tint, either from
the blush of modesty, or from the strong emotion of passion . . . ”

Answer choice A is incorrect. Women were interested in the nobleman, but

this was not the most important fact revealed.

Answer choice B is incorrect. Mirthful means “merry or amusing.” The

details in the first paragraph suggest the nobleman was not mirthful.

Answer choice D is incorrect. At the end of the paragraph, it is suggested

that the nobleman had a “hatred of vice”; however, there are no details to
confirm he had no vices.

18. The correct answer is C.

Explanation:

Similarly is used to compare two ideas or items that share something in

common. Here, the two items that share something in common are the
archway to the vault and the door to the vault, which are both covered in
metal. “It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst
purposes of a donjon-keep, and, in later days, as a place of deposit for
powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its
floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached
it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had
been, also, similarly protected.” Answer choice C best describes this
relationship. The other answer choices are not supported by the passage.

19. The correct answer is C.

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Explanation:

Answer choice C is the example of enumeration. Ennumeration is when a

writer validates a point or signifies its scope by listing specific details. In
the sentence, “As soon as the robbery was discovered, picked detectives
hastened off to Liverpool, Glasgow, Havre, Suez, Brindisi, New York, and
other ports, inspired by the proffered reward of two thousand pounds, and
five percent on the sum that might be recovered,” the author lists each
port individually to signify the scope of the search.

Answer choices A, B and D are not examples of enumeration.

20. The correct answer is B.

Explanation:

B is the only choice that does not include a detail about the mansion that
causes the speaker to feel some sort of melancholy or gloom. The use of
the adjectives "mere" and "simple" to describe the house and its
landscaping may not seem completely optimistic as compared to the
other choices, but it is still the least likely choice for supporting the dark
tone. All other answer choices use explicit adjectives relating to the dark
and dreary tone of the passage.

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