SAT? Practice Test #3
Reading Test
65 MINUTES, 52 QUESTIONS
Turn to Section 1 of your answer sheet to answer the questions in this section.
DIRECTIONS
Each passage or pair of passages below is followed by a number of questions. After reading each passage or pair, choose the best answer to each question based on what is stated or implied in the passage or passages and in any accompanying graphics (such as a table or graph).
Questions 1-10 are based on the following passage.
This passage is adapted from Saki, “The Schartz-Metterklume Method.” Originally published in 1911.
Lady Carlotta stepped out on to the platform of
the small wayside station and took a turn or two up
and down its uninteresting length, to kill time till the
Line train should be pleased to proceed on its way. Then,
5 in the roadway beyond, she saw a horse struggling
with a more than ample load, and a carter of the sort
that seems to bear a sullen hatred against the animal
that helps him to earn a living. Lady Carlotta
promptly betook her to the roadway, and put rather a
10 different complexion on the struggle. Certain of her
acquaintances were wont to give her plentiful
admonition as to the undesirability of interfering on
behalf of a distressed animal, such interference being
“none of her business.” Only once had she put the
15 doctrine of non-interference into practice, when one
of its most eloquent exponents had been besieged for
nearly three hours in a small and extremely
uncomfortable may-tree by an angry boar-pig, while
Lady Carlotta, on the other side of the fence, had
20 proceeded with the water-colour sketch she was
engaged on, and refused to interfere between the
boar and his prisoner. It is to be feared that she lost
the friendship of the ultimately rescued lady. On this
occasion she merely lost the train, which gave way to
25 the first sign of impatience it had shown throughout
the journey, and steamed off without her. She bore
the desertion with philosophical indifference; her
friends and relations were thoroughly well used to
the fact of her luggage arriving without her.
30 She wired a vague non-committal message to her
destination to say that she was coming on “by
another train.” Before she had time to think what her
next move might be she was confronted by an
imposingly attired lady, who seemed to be taking a
35 prolonged mental inventory of her clothes and looks.
“You must be Miss Hope, the governess I’ve come
to meet,” said the apparition, in a tone that admitted
of very little argument.
“Very well, if I must I must,” said Lady Carlotta to
40 herself with dangerous meekness.
“I am Mrs. Quabarl,” continued the lady; “and
where, pray, is your luggage?”
“It’s gone astray,” said the alleged governess,
falling in with the excellent rule of life that the absent
45 are always to blame; the luggage had, in point of fact,
behaved with perfect correctitude. “I’ve just
telegraphed about it,” she added, with a nearer
approach to truth.
“How provoking,” said Mrs. Quabarl; “these
50 railway companies are so careless. However, my
maid can lend you things for the night,” and she led
the way to her car.
During the drive to the Quabarl mansion?
Lady Carlotta was impressively introduced to the
55 nature of the charge that had been thrust upon her;
she learned that Claude and Wilfrid were delicate,
sensitive young people, that Irene had the artistic
temperament highly developed, and that Viola was
something or other else of a mould equally
60 common place among children of that class and type
in the twentieth century.?
“I wish them not only to be TAUGHT,” said Mrs.
Quabarl, “but INTERESTED in what they learn. In
their history lessons, for instance, you must try to
65 make them feel that they are being introduced tothe
life-stories of men and women who really lived, not
merely committing a mass of names and dates to
memory. French, of course, I shall expect you to talk
at meal-times several days in the week.”
70 “I shall talk French four days of the week and
Russian in the remaining three.”
“Russian? My dear Miss Hope, no one in the
house speaks or understands Russian.”
“That will not embarrass me in the least,” said
75 Lady Carlotta coldly.
Mrs. Quabarl, to use a colloquial expression, was
knocked off her perch. She was one of those
imperfectly self-assured individuals who are
magnificent and autocratic as long as they are not
80 seriously opposed. The least show of unexpected
resistance goes a long way towards rendering them
cowed and apologetic. When the new governess
failed to express wondering admiration of the large
newly-purchased and expensive car, and lightly
85 alluded to the superior advantages of one or two
makes which had just been put on the market, the
discomfiture of her patroness became almost abject.
Her feelings were those which might have animated a
general of ancient warfaring days, on beholding his
90 heaviest battle-elephant ignominiously driven off
the field by slingers and javelin throwers.
1. Which choice best summarizes the passage?
A) A woman weighs the positive and negative aspects of accepting a new job.
B) A woman does not correct a stranger who mistakes her for someone else.
C) A woman impersonates someone else to seek revenge on an acquaintance.
D) A woman takes an immediate dislike to her new employer.
2. In line 2, “turn” most nearly means
A) slight movement.?
B) change in rotation.?
C) short walk.
D) course correction.
3. The passage most clearly implies that other people regarded Lady Carlotta as
A) outspoken.
B) tactful.?
C) ambitious.
D) unfriendly.
4. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?
A) Lines 10-14 (“Certain . . . business”)
B) Lines 22-23 (“It is . . . lady”)?
C) Lines 23-26 (“On this . . . her”)
D) Lines 30-32 (“She . . . train”)
5. The description of how Lady Carlotta “put the doctrine of non-interference into practice” (lines 14-15) mainly serves to
A) foreshadow her capacity for deception. ?
B) illustrate the subtle cruelty in her nature. ?
C) provide a humorous insight into her character. ?
D) explain a surprising change in her behavior. ?
6. In line 55, “charge” most nearly means
A) responsibility. ?
B) attack. ?
C) fee. ?
D) expense. ?
7. The narrator indicates that Claude, Wilfrid, Irene, and Viola are
A) similar to many of their peers. ?
B) unusually creative and intelligent. ?
C) hostile to the idea of a governess. ?
D) more educated than others of their age. ?
8. The narrator implies that Mrs. Quabarl favors a form of education that emphasizes
A) traditional values. ?
B) active engagement. ?
C) artistic experimentation. ?
D) factual retention. ?
9. As presented in the passage, Mrs. Quabarl is best described as
A) superficially kind but actually selfish.?
B) outwardly imposing but easily defied.
C) socially successful but irrationally bitter.
D) naturally generous but frequently imprudent.
10. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?
A) Lines 49-50 (“How . . . careless”)
B) Lines 62-68 (“I wish . . . memory”)
C) Lines 70-73 (“I shall . . . Russian”)
D) Lines 77-82 (“She was . . . apologetic”)
Questions 11-20 are based on the following passage and supplementary material.
This passage is adapted from Taras Grescoe, Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile. ?2012 by Taras Grescoe.
Though there are 600 million cars on the planet,
and counting, there are also seven billion people,
which means that for the vast majority of us getting
around involves taking buses, ferryboats, commuter
5 trains, street cars, and subways. In other words,
traveling to work, school, or the market means being
a straphanger: somebody who, by choice or necessity,
relies on public transport, rather than a privately owned automobile.
10 Half the population of New York, Toronto, and
London do not own cars. Public transport is how
most of the people of Asia and Africa, the world’s
most populous continents, travel. Every day, subway
systems carry 155 million passengers, thirty-four
15 times the number carried by all the world’s airplanes,
and the global public transport market is now valued
at $428 billion annually. A century and a half after
the invention of the internal combustion engine,
private car ownership is still an anomaly.
20 And yet public transportation, in many minds, is
the opposite of glamour—a squalid last resort for
those with one too many impaired driving charges,
too poor to afford insurance, or too decrepit to get
behind the wheel of a car. In much of North
25 America, they are right: taking transit is a depressing
experience. Anybody who has waited far too long on
a street corner for the privilege of boarding a
lurching, overcrowded bus, or wrestled luggage onto
subways and shuttles to get to a big city airport,
30 knows that transit on this continent tends to be
underfunded, ill-maintained, and ill-planned. Given
the opportunity, who wouldn’t drive? Hopping in a
car almost always gets you to your destination more
quickly.
35 It doesn’t have to be like this. Done right, public
transport can be faster, more comfortable, and
cheaper than the private automobile. In Shanghai,
German-made magnetic levitation trains skim over
elevated tracks at 266 miles an hour, whisking people
40 to the airport at a third of the speed of sound. In
provincial French towns, electric-powered streetcars
run silently on rubber tires, sliding through narrow
streets along a single guide rail set into cobblestones.
From Spain to Sweden, Wi-Fi equipped high-speed
45 trains seamlessly connect with highly ramified metro
networks, allowing commuters to work on laptops as
they prepare for same-day meetings in once distant
capital cities. In Latin America, China, and India,
working people board fast-loading buses that move
50 like subway trains along dedicated busways, leaving
the sedans and SUVs of the rich mired in
dawn-to-dusk traffic jams. And some cities have
transformed their streets into cycle-path freeways,
making giant strides in public health and safety and
55 the sheer livability of their neighborhoods—in the
process turning the workaday bicycle into a viable
form of mass transit.
If you credit the demographers, this transit trend
has legs. The “Millenials,” who reached adulthood
60 around the turn of the century and now outnumber
baby boomers, tend to favor cities over suburbs, and
are far more willing than their parents to ride buses
and subways. Part of the reason is their ease with
iPads, MP3 players, Kindles, and smartphones: you
65 can get some serious texting done when you’re not
driving, and earbuds offer effective insulation from
all but the most extreme commuting annoyances.
Even though there are more teenagers in the country
than ever, only ten million have a driver’s license
70 (versus twelve milliona generation ago). Baby
boomers may have been raised in Leave It to Beaver
suburbs, but as they retire, a significant contingent is
favoring older cities and compact towns where they
have the option of walking and riding bikes. Seniors,
75 too, are more likely to use transit, and by2025, there
will be 64 million Americans over the age of
sixty-five. Already, dwellings in older neighborhoods
in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Denver, especially
those near light-rail or subway stations, are
80 commanding enormous price premiums over
suburban homes. The experience of European and
Asian cities shows that if you make buses, subways,
and trains convenient, comfortable, fast, and safe, a
surprisingly large percentage of citizens will opt to
85 ride rather than drive.
11. What function does the third paragraph (lines 20-34) serve in the passage as a whole?
A) It acknowledges that a practice favored by the author of the passage has some limitations.
B) It illustrates with detail the arguments made in the first two paragraphs of the passage.
C) It gives an overview of a problem that has not been sufficiently addressed by the experts mentioned in the passage.
D) It advocates for abandoning a practice for which the passage as a whole provides mostly favorable data.
12. Which choice does the author explicitly cite as?an advantage of automobile travel in North America?