27 - ] Model SAT Tests - Test Twenty Seven

27 - ] Model SAT Tests

Test Twenty Seven

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

In this adaptation of an excerpt from a short story set in Civil War times , a man is about to be hanged . The first two paragraphs set the scene ; the remainder of the passage presents a flashback to an earlier ,critical encounter .

            A man stood upon a railroad bridge in Northern Alabama ,looking down into the swift waters twenty feet below . The man’s hands were behind his back , the wrists bound with a cord . A rope loosely encircled his neck . It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head , and the slack fell to the level of his knees . Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers supporting the metals of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners - two private soldiers of the Federal army , directed by a sergeant , who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff . At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank , armed . He was a captain . A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as ‘support’ - a formal and unnatural position , enforcing an erect carriage of the body . It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center  of the bridge ; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot plank which traversed it .

            The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age . He was a civilian ,if one might judge from his dress , which was that of a planter . His features were good - a straight nose , firm mouth , broad forehead , from which his long , dark hair was combed straight back ., falling behind his ears to the collar of his well-fitting frock coat . He wore a moustache and pointed beard , but no whiskers ; his eyes were large and dark grey and had a kindly expression that one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp . Evidently this was no vulgar assassin . The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of people , and gentlemen are not excluded .

            Peyton Farquhar was a well-to-do planter , of an old and highly respected Alabama family . Being a slave-owner , and , like other slave-owners , a politician , he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause . circumstances had prevented him from taking service with the gallant army that had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth , and he chafed under the inglorious restraint , longing for the release of his energies , the larger life of the soldier , the opportunity for distinction . That opportunity for distinction . That opportunity , he felt , would come , as it comes to all in war time . Meanwhile , he did what he could . No service was too humble for him to perform in aid of the South , no adventure too perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier , and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war .

            One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting near the entrance to his grounds , a grey-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water . Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands . While she was gone to fetch the water , her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front .

            “The Yankees are repairing the railroads ,” said the man , “and getting ready for another advance . They have reached the Owl Creek bridge ,put it in order , and built a stockade on the other bank . The commandant has issued an order , which is posted everywhere , declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad ,its bridges , tunnels ,or trains , will be summarily hanged . I saw the order .”

            “How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge ?” Farquhar asked .

            “About thirty miles .”

            “Is there no force on this side of the creek ?”

            “Only a picket post half a mile out , on the railroad , and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge .”

            “Support a man - a civilian and a student of hanging - should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel .” said Farquhar , smiling , “what could he accomplish ?”

            The soldier reflected . “I was there a month ago .” he replied . “I observed that the floor of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at the end of the bridge . It is now dry and would burn like tow.”

            The lady had now brought the water , which the soldier drank . He thanked her ceremoniously , bowed to her husband , and rode away . An hour later , after nightfall , he repassed the plantation , going northward in the direction from which je had come . He was a Yankee scout .

1 . The underlined word “civil” in paragraph one means  

(A) polite (B) individual (C) legal (D) collective  (E) nonmilitary

2 . In cinematic terms , the first two paragraphs most nearly resemble

(A) a wide-angle shot followed by a close-up

(B) a sequence of cameo appearances

(C) a trailer advertising a feature film

(D) two episodes of an ongoing serial

(E) an animated cartoon

3 . The underlined lines in paragraph two , by commenting on the planter’s amiable physical appearance , the author suggests that

(A) he was innocent of any criminal intent

(B) he seemed an unlikely candidate for execution

(C) the sentinels had no need to fear an attempted escape

(D) the planter tried to assume a harmless demeanor

(E) the eyes are the windows of the soul

4 . The author’s tone in discussing “the liberal military code” at the end of paragraph two can best be described as 

(A) approving  (B) ironic (C) irked (D) regretful (E) reverent

5 . Peyton Farquhar would most likely consider which of the following a good example of how a citizen should behave in wartime ?

(A) He should use even underhanded methods to support his cause .

(B) He should enlist in the army without delay.

(C) He should turn to politics as a means of  enforcing his will .

(D) He should avoid involving himself in disastrous campaigns .

(E) He should concentrate on his duties as a planter .

6 . The underlined word “consistent” in paragraph three means

(A) unfailing (B) agreeable (C) dependable (D) constant (E) compatible

7 . The underlined word “qualification”  in paragraph three most nearly means

(A) competence (B) eligibility (C) restriction (D) reason (E) liability

8 . It can be inferred from the last lines in paragraph four that Mrs. Farquhar is

(A) sympathetic to the Confederate cause

(B) uninterested in news of the war

(C) too proud to perform mental tasks

(D) reluctant to ask her slaves to fetch water

(E) inhospitable by nature

9. Farquhar’s inquiry about what a man could accomplish “Suppose a man….accomplish.” illustrates which aspect of his character ?

(A) Morbid longing for death

(B) Weighty sense of personal responsibility

(C) Apprehension about his family’s future

(D) Keenly inquisitive intellect

(E) Romantic vision of himself as a hero

10 . From Farquhar’s exchange with the soldier lines “How far ……like tow” , we can infer that Farquhar most likely is going to

(A) sneak across the bridge to join the Confederate forces

(B) attempt to burn down the bridge to halt the Yankee advance

(C) remove the driftwood blocking the Confederates’ access to the bridge

(D) attack the stockade that overlooks the Owl Creek bridge

(E) undermine the pillars that support the railroad bridge

11 . As used in the next-to-last paragraph , “tow” is

(A) an act of hauling something

(B) a tugboat

(C) a railroad bridge

(D) a highly combustible substance

(E) a picket post

12 . We may infer from lines “ An hour …..Yankee scout” that

(A) the soldier has deserted from the Southern army

(B) the soldier has lost his sense of direction

(C) the scout has been tempting Farquhar into an unwise action

(D) Farquhar knew the soldier was a Yankee scout

(E) the soldier returned to the plantation unwillingly

Test Twenty Eight

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

            The law is the busy fireman that puts out society’s brush fires ; that gives people a nonphysical method to discharge hostile feelings and settle violent differences ; that substitutes orderly ritual for the rule of teeth and claw . The very slowness of the law ,its massive impersonality , its insistence upon proceeding according to settled and ancient rules - these all tend to cool and bank the fires of passion and violence and replace them with order and reason .

1 . The underlined word “discharge” most nearly means

(A) perform  (B) fire (C) exonerate (D) execute (E) release

2 . The underlined phrase “bank the fires” echoes the language of the opening sentence by 

(A) reiterating the metaphor of fire

(B) emphasizing the fireman’s diverse tasks

(C) demonstrating that violence always flares up

(D) denying the need for judicial intervention

(E) criticizing the legal system

3 . According to the passage , the legal system’s way of resolving differences can be described as all of the following EXCEPT   

(A) objective (B) nonviolent  (C) formal  (D) hasty  (E) methodical

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

            If the reader thinks he is done now , and that this book has no moral to it , he is in error . The moral of it is this :If you are of any account , stay at home and make your way by faithful diligence ; but if you are “no account ,” go away from home , and then you will have to work , whether you want to or not . Thus you become a blessing to your friends by ceasing to be a nuisance to them - if the people you go among suffer by the operation .

1 . The passage suggests that the book mentioned in line one is most likely  

(A) a career guide

(B) a mystery novel

(C) a humorous tale

(D) a collection of fables

(E) a religious tract

2 . The author’s moral can best be described as   

(A) cautionary (B) didactic (C) ironic  (D) allegorical (E) hypocritical

3 . The underlined word “operation” as used in the last line most nearly means

 (A) action (B) planning (C) campaign (D) surgery (E) correlation