15 - ] Model SAT Tests
Test Fifteen
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 1979 , when the World Health
Organization declared smallpox had finally eradicated , few , if any , people recollected the efforts of an
eighteenth century English aristocrat to combat the then-fatal disease . As a
young woman , Lady Mary Wortely Montagu had suffered severely from smallpox .
In Turkey , she observed the Eastern custom of inoculating people with a mild
form of the pox , thereby immunizing them , a practice she later championed in
England . The Turks , she wrote home , even held house parties during
which inoculated youngsters played together happily until they came down with
the pox , after which they convalesced together .
1 .
The purpose of the passage as a whole is to
(A)
celebrate the eradication of smallpox
(B)
challenge the achievements of Lady Mary Wortely Montagu
(C)
remind us that we can learn from foreign cultures
(D)
show that smallpox was a serious problem in the eighteenth century
(E)
call attention to a neglected figure
2 .
Lady Mary’s efforts to combat smallpox in England came about
(A)
as a direct result of her childhood exposure to the disease
(B)
as part of a World Health Organization campaign against the epidemic
(C)
in response to the migration of Turks to England
(D)
as a consequence of her travels in the EAST
(E)
in the face of opposition from the medical profession
3 .
The author uses the underlined word “even” primarily to
(A)
exaggerate the duration of the house parties
(B)
emphasize the widespread acceptance of the procedure she describes
(C)
indicate the most appropriate setting for treatment
(D)
encourage her readers to travel to Turkey
(E)
underscore the dangers of English methods for treating the disease
The
questions that follow the next two passages relate to the content of both , and
to their relationship . The correct response may be stated outright in the
passage or merely suggested .
Questions
4 - 16 are based on the following passages .
The
following passages are adapted from essays on detective fiction , often known
as mysteries . In the first the poet W.H . Auden discusses the detective
story’s magic formula . In the second , historian Robin Winks assesses whar we
do when we read mysteries .
Passage
1
The
most curious fact about the detective story is that it makes its
greatest appeal precisely to those classes of people who are most immune to
other forms of daydream literature . The typical detective story addict is a
doctor or clergyman or scientist or artist , i.e. a fairly successful
professional man with intellectual interests and well-read in his own field ,
who could never stomach the Saturday Evening Post or True Confessions
or movie magazines or comics .
It is sometimes said that detective
stories are read by respectable law-abiding citizens in order to gratify in
fantasy the violent or murderous wishes they dare not ,or are ashamed to , translate
into action . This may be true for readers of thrillers ( which I rarely enjoy )
, but it is quite false for the reader of detective stories . On the contrary ,
the magical satisfaction the latter provide ( which makes them escape
literature , not works of art ) is the illusion of being dissociated from the
murderer .
The magical formula is an innocence
which is discovered to contain guilt ; then a suspicion of being the guilty one
; and finally a real innocence from which the guilty other has been expelled ,
a cure effected , not by me or my neighbors , but by the miraculous
intervention of a genius from outside who removes guilt by giving knowledge of
guilt . ( The detective story subscribes , in fact , to the Socratic daydream :
“Sin is ignorance.” )
If one thinks of a work of art
which deals with murder , Crime and Punishment for example , its effect
on the reader is to compel an identification with the murderer which he would
prefer not to recognize . The identification of fantasy is always an attempt to
avoid one’s own suffering : the identification of art is a compelled sharing in
the suffering of another . Kafka’s The Trial is another instructive
example of the difference between a work of art and the detective story .
In the latter it is certain that a crime has been committed and , temporarily ,
uncertain to whom guilt should be attached : as soon as this is known , the
innocence of everyone else is certain .(Should it turn out that aftewr all no
crime had been committed , then all would be innocent . ) In The Trial , on the other hand , it is the guilt that is
certain and the crime that is uncertain : the aim of the hero’s investigation
is not to prove his innocence ( which would be impossible for he knows he is
guilty ) , but to discover what ,if anything ,he has done to make himself
guilty .K, the hero ,is ,in fact , a portrait of the kind of person who reads
detective stories for escape .
The fantasy , then , which the
detective story addict indulges is the fantasy of being restorwed to the Garden
of Eden , to a state of innocence , where he may know love as love and not as
the law . The driving force behind this daydream is the feeling of guilt , the
cause of which is unknown to the dreamer . The fantasy of escape is the same ,
whether one explains the guilt in Christian , Freudian , or any other terms .
One’s way of trying to facethe reality , on the other hand , will ,of course ,
depend very much one one’s creed .
Passage
2
Detective fiction creates for us an anonymity ; within it , we may
constitute the last law on earth ,making decisions ( to be “proved” right or
wrong ) as we go ,responsible for them , tricked , disappointed , triumphant ,
joyful , honest as to our mistakes , setting the record straight . As we make
leaps of faith between evidence and decision in our daily lives - to board this
bus , to choose that doctor , to add these pounds - so we make leaps of faith
between evidence and conclusion , through the public historiography and the
private autobiography that we read . We
learn how to define evidence , to use up our intellectual shoe leather
it pursuit of an operable truth , to take joy from the receding horizon and
pleasure in the discovery that the answer has not yet been found , that there
is more work to be done . We learn that what people believe to be true
is as important as the objective truth defined by the researcher / detective .
In Marlowe and Archer we meet people who have no use for their conclusions , no
desire for vengeance , who know that society will supply the uses while they
may engage in the happy ambiguity of simply finding the facts , which ,inert . take on life when embedded
in a context of cause and effect .
Ultimately one reads detective
fiction because it involves judgments - judgments made ,passed upon , tested .
In raising questions about purpose ,it raises questions about cause and effect
. In the end ,like history , such fiction appears to , and occasionally does ,
decode the environment; appears to and occasionally does set the record
straight . Setting the record straight ought to matter . Detective fiction , in
its high seriousness , is a bit like a religion ,in pursuit of truths best left
examined at a distance . As with all fine literature , history , philosophy ,
as with the written word wherever employed creatively , it can lead us
to laughter in our frustration , to joy in our experience , and to tolerance
for our complexities .It begins as Hawthorne so often does , and as the best of
historians do , with a personal word , diffident , apparently modest , in
search of the subject by asking . What is the question ? It ends , as
historians who have completed their journey often do , with an authoritative
tone , the complex explained the mystery revealed .
4 .
The underlined word “curious” in line 1 means ?
(A) inquisitive
(B) unusual (C) sensitive (D) prying (E) salutary
5 .
The opening paragraph of Passage 1 suggests that the author would consider True
Confessions and movie magazines to be
(A) sources
of factual data about society
(B) worthwhile
contemporary periodicals
(C) standard
forms of escapist literature
(D)
the typical literary fare of professionals
(E) less
addictive than detective fiction
6 .
The author of Passage 1 asserts that readers of detective fiction can most
accurately be described as
(A) believers
in the creed of art for art’s sake
(B) people
bent on satisfying an unconscious thirst for blood
(C) dreamers
unable to face the monotony of everyday reality
(D) persons
seeking momentary release from a vague sense of guilt
(E) idealists
drawn to the comforts of organized religion
7 .
The underlined word “translate” in Passage 1 , paragraph 2 means
(A) decipher
(B) move (C) explain (D) convey (E) convert
8 .
Which best describes what the author is doing in citing the example of Kafka’s The
Trial in Passage 1 , paragraph three ?
(A) Dramatizing
the plot of a typical detective story
(B) Analyzing
its distinctive qualities as a work of art
(C) refuting
a common opinion about readers of detective fiction
(D) Demonstrating
the genius of the outside investigator
(E) Discrediting
a theory about Kafka’s narrative
9 .
In Passage 1 , the author’s attitude toward detective fiction can best be
described as one of
(A) fastidious
distaste
(B) open
skepticism
(C) profound
veneration
(D) aloof
indifference
(E) genuine
appreciation
10 .
In context , “use up our intellectual shoe leather” suggests that readers of
mysteries
(A) suffer
in the course of arriving at the truth
(B) are
attempting to escape from overly strenuous intellectual pursuits
(C) work
hard mentally , much as detectives do physically
(D) have
only a limited supply of time to devote to detective fiction
(E) grow
hardened to crime in the course of their reading
11 .
In Passage 2 , in paragraph one , the
author finds the prospect of additional work
(A) burdensome
(B) unexpected (C) unfounded (D) delightful (E) deceptive
12 .
Passage 2 suggests that Marlowe and Archer are most likely
(A) murder
victims
(B) fictional
detectives
(C) prominent
novelists
(D)
literary scholars
(E) rival
theorists
13 .
As used in the last paragraph the underlined word “employed” most nearly means
(A) hired
(B) used (C) commissioned (D) remunerated
(E) labored
14 .
According to the last four lines in Passage 2 the detective story starts by
(A) setting
the record straight
(B) simplifying
the difficulties of the case
(C) humanizing
the investigating detective
(D)
introducing the characters under suspicion
(E) defining
the problem to be solved
15 .
Both passages are primarily concerned with the question of
(A) whether
detective stories gratify a taste for violence
(B) why
people enjoy reading detective fiction
(C) how
detectives arrive at their conclusions
(D) why
some people resist the appeal of escapist literature
(E) whether
detective stories can be considered works of art
16 .
The author of Passage 1would most likely react to the characterization of
detective fiction presented in the last paragraph in Passage 2 by pointing out
that
(A) reading
detective fiction is an escape , not a highly serious pursuit
(B) other
analyses have shown the deficiencies of this characterization
(C)
this characterization reflects the author’s lack of taste
(D) this
characterization is neither original nor objective
(E) the
realities of the publishing trade justify this characterization
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