9- ] Model SAT Tests - Test Nine

9 - ] Model SAT Tests

 

Test Nine

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 .   

The following passage is taken from a major historical text on life in the Middle Ages .

            To the world when it was half a thousand years younger , the outlines of all things seemed more clearly marked than to us . The contrast between suffering and joy , between adversity and happiness , appeared more striking . All experience had yet to the minds of men the directness and absoluteness of the pleasure and pain of child-life . Every event , every action , was still embodied in expressive and solemn forms , which raised them to the dignity of a ritual . For it was not merely the great facts of birth , marriage , and death which by their sacredness , were raised to the rank of mysteries :incidents of less importance ,like a journey , a task , a visit , were equally attended by a thousand formalities , benedictions , ceremonies , formulae .

            Calamities and indigence were more afflicting than at present ; it was more difficult to guard against them , and to find solace . Illness and health presented a more striking contrast ; the cold and darkness of winter were more real evils . Honors and riches were relished with greater avidity and contrasted more vividly with surrounding misery . We , at the present day , can hardly understand the keenness with which a fur coat , a good fire on the hearth , a soft red , a glass of wine , were formerly enjoyed .

            Then again , all things in life were of a proud or cruel publicity . Lepers sounded their rattles and went about in processions , beggars exhibited their deformity and their misery in churches . Every order and estate , every rank and profession , was distinguished by its costume . The great lords never moved about without a glorious display of arms and liveries , exciting feat and envy . Executions and other public acts of justice , hawking , marriages and funerals , were all announced by cries and processions , songs and music . The lover wore the colors of his lady ; companions the emblem of their confraternity : parties and servants the badges of blazon of their lords . Between town and country , too , the contrast was very marked . A medieval town did not lose itself in extensive suburbs of factories and villas : girded by its walls , it stood forth as a compact whole , bristling with innumerable turrets . However tall and threatening the houses of noblemen or merchants might be ,in the aspect of the town the lofty mass of the churches always remained dominant .

              The contrast between silence and sound , darkness and light , like that between summer and winter , was more strongly marked than it is in our lives . The modern town hardly knows silence or darkness in their purity , nor the effect of a solitary light or a single distant cry .   

            All things presenting themselves to the mind in violent contrasts and impressive forms , lent a tone of excitement and of passion to everyday life and tended to produce the perpetual oscillation between despair and distracted joy , between cruelty and pious tenderness which characterizes life in the Middle Ages .

1 . The author’s main purpose in the passage is best defined as an attempt to show how          

(A) extremes of feeling and experience marked the Middle Ages

(B) the styles of the very poor and the very rich complemented each other

(C) twentieth century standards of behavior cannot be applied to the Middle Ages

(D) the Middle Ages developed out of the Dark Ages

(E) the medieval spirit languished five hundred years ago

2 . According to lines 6 - 9 , surrounding an activity with formalities makes it 

(A) less important

(B) more stately

(C) less expensive

(D) more indirect

(E) less solemn

3 . The author’s use of the underlined term ‘ formulae” could best be interpreted to mean which of the following ?

(A) set forms of  words or rituals

(B) mathematical rules of principles

(C) chemical symbols

(D) nourishment for infants

(E) prescriptions for drugs

4 . The underlined word “order” in paragraph three means 

(A) command (B) harmony (C) sequence (D) physical condition (E) social class

5 . According to the passage , well above the typical medieval town there towered

 (A) houses of worship

(B) manufacturing establishments

(C) the mansions of the aristocracy

(D) great mercantile houses

(E) walled suburbs

6 . To the author , the Middle Ages seem to be all the following EXCEPT

(A) routine and boring

(B) festive and joyful

(C) dignified and ceremonious

(D) passionate and turbulent

(E) harsh and bleak

Questions 7 - 14 are based on the following passage .

The following passage is excerpted from Hunger of Memory , the autobiography of Mexican-American writer Richard Rodriguez who speaks of lessons he learned as the child of working-class immigrant parents .

            I remember to start with that day in Sacramento - a California now nearly thirty years past - when I first entered a classroom , able to understand some fifty stray English words .

            The third of four children , I had been preceded to a neighborhood Roman Catholic school by an older brother and sister . Each afternoon they returned as they left in the morning , always together , speaking in Spanish as they climbed the five steps of the porch . And their mysterious books , wrapped in shopping-bag paper , remained on the table next to the door , closed firmly behind them .

            An accident of geography sent me to a school where all my classmates were white , many the children of doctors and lawyers and business executives . All my classmates certainly must have been uneasy on that first day of school - as most children are uneasy - to find themselves apart from their families in the first institution of their lives . But I was astonished .

            The men said , in a friendly but oddly impersonal voice , “Boy and girls , this is Richard Rodriguez ,” ( I heard her sound out : Richard Rodriguez .) It was the first time I had heard anyone name me in English . “Richard,” the nun repeated more slowly , writing my name down in her black leather book . Quickly I turned to see my mother’s face dissolve in a watery blur behind the pebbled glass door .

         Many years later there is something called bilingual education - a scheme proposed in the late 1960s by Hispanic-American social activists ,later endorsed by a congressional vote . It is a program that seeks to permit non-English-speaking children , many from lower class homes , to use their family language as the languages of school . (Such is the goal its supporters announce .) I hear them and am forced to say no : It is not possible for a child - any child - ever to use his family’s language in school . Not to understand this is to misunderstand the public uses of schooling and to trivialize the nature of intimate life - a family’s “language .”

            Memory teaches me what I know of these matters : the boy reminds the adult . I was a bilingual child , a certain kind - socially disadvantaged - the son of working-class parents , both Mexican immigrants .

            In the early years of my parents coped very well in America . My father had steady work . My mother managed at home . They were nobody’s victims  . Optimism and ambition led them to a house ( our home ) many blocks from the Mexican south side of town . We lived among gringos and only a block from the biggest , whitest houses . It never occurred to my parents that they couldn’t live wherever they chose . Nor was the Sacramento of the fifties bent on teaching them a contrary lesson . My mother and father were more annoyed than intimidated by those two or here neighbors who tired initially to make us unwelcome . ( “Keep your brats away from my sidewalk!” ) But despite all they achieved , any deep feeling of ease , the confidence of “belonging” in public was with held from them both . They regarded the people at work , the faces in crowds , as very distant from us . They were the others , los gringos . That term was interchangeable in their speech with another , even more telling , los americanos .

7 . The family members in the passage are discussed primarily in terms of             

(A) the different personalities of each

(B) the common heritage they shared

(C) the ambitions they possessed

(D) their interaction with the English-speaking world

(E) their struggle against racial discrimination

8 . The author’s description of his older brothers and sister’s return from school lines 4 - 7 suggests that they 

(A) enjoyed exploring the mysteries of American culture

(B) were afraid to speak English at home

(C) wished to imitate their English-speaking classmates

(D) readily ignored the need to practice using English

(E) regretted their inability to make friends

9 . What initially confused the author on his first day of school ?

(A) His mother’s departure took him by surprise.

(B) Hearing his name in English dis oriented him .

(C) His older brother and sister had told him lies about the school

(D) He had never before seen a nun .

(E) He had never previously encountered white children .

10 . The author rejects bilingual education on the grounds that

(A) allowing students to use their family’s language in school presents only trivial difficulties to teachers

(B) its champions fail to see that public education must meet public needs , not necessarily personal ones

(C) most students prefer using standard English both at homer and in the classroom

(D) the proposal was made only by social activists and does not reflect the wishes of the Hispanic-American community

(E) it is an unnecessary program that puts a heavy financial burden upon the taxpayer

11 . In paragraph six , the author most likely outlines his specific background in order to

(A) emphasize how far he has come in achieving his current academic success

(B) explain the sort of obstacles faced by the children of immigrants

(C) indicate what qualifies him to speak authoritatively on the issue

(D) dispel any misunderstandings about how much he remembers of his childhood

(E) evoke the reader’s sympathy for socially disadvantaged children

12 . The author’s attitude toward his parents in paragraph seven can best be described as

(A) admiring (B) contemptuous (C) indifferent (D) envious (E) diffident

13 . Which of the following statements regarding Mexican-Americans in Sacramento would be most true of the author’s experiences ?  

(A) They were unable to find employment

(B) They felt estranged from the community as a whole

(C) They found a ready welcome in white neighborhoods

(D) They took an active part in public affairs .

(E) They were un aware of academic institutions .

14 . The word underlined “telling” as used in paragraph seven means

(A) outspoken (B) interchangeable (C) unutterable (D) embarrassing (E) revealing