Practice Exam Answers

Read the following excerpt from Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics . There is a tale, “The Ring of Gyges,” that Feldman sometimes tells his economist friends. It comes from Plato’s Republic . A student named Glaucon offered the story in response to a lesson by Socrates—who, like Adam Smith, argued that people are generally good even without enforcement. Glaucon, like Feldman’s economist friends, disagreed. He told of a shepherd named Gyges who stumbled upon a secret cavern with a corpse inside that wore a ring. When Gyges put on the ring, he found that it made him invisible. With no one able to monitor his behavior, Gyges proceeded to do woeful things—seduce the queen, murder the king, and so on. Glaucon’s story posed a moral question: could any man resist the temptation of evil if he knew his acts could not be witnessed? Glaucon seemed to think the answer was no. But Paul Feldman sides with Socrates and Adam Smith—for he knows the answer, at least 87 percent of the time, is yes. Feldman reaches the conclusion that most people are honest without receiving an incentive by

Which excerpt from part one of Trifles best develops the motives of the County Attorney?

Which accurately describes a contrast between Wiesel’s All Rivers Run to the Sea and Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, Maus ?

Read the excerpt from Brown v. Board of Education . Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment . Why does the Supreme Court conclude that the plaintiffs have been denied their rights?

Read this excerpt from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close . I knew I could never let Mom hear the messages, because protecting her is one of my most important raisons d’être , so what I did was I took Dad’s emergency money from on top of his dresser, and I went to the Radio Shack on Amsterdam. It was on a TV there that I saw that the first building had fallen. I bought the exact same phone and ran home and recorded our greeting from the first phone onto it. I wrapped up the old phone in the scarf that Grandma was never able to finish because of my privacy, and I put that in a grocery bag, and I put that in a box, and I put that in another box, and I put that under a bunch of stuff in my closet, like my jewelry workbench and albums of foreign currencies. Which word best describes the tone of this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from "Mother Tongue." Those tests were constructed around items like fill-in-the-blank sentence completion, such as “Even though Tom was ______, Mary thought he was _____.” And the correct answer always seemed to be the most bland combinations of thoughts, for example, “Even though Tom was foolish, Mary thought he was ridiculous.” Well, according to my mother, there were very few limitations as to what Tom could have been and what Mary might have thought of him. So I never did well on tests like that. Which information from the excerpt best supports the inference that achievement tests ignore imagination as an element of language ability?

Now, review the prompt for hints about the audience. Who will read your writing?

Read the excerpts from “Take the Tortillas Out of Your Poetry” and “Speaking Arabic.” My friend had concluded that if he took his language and culture out of his poetry, he stood a better chance of receiving a fellowship. He took out his native language, the poetic patois of our reality, the rich mixture of Spanish, English, pachuco and street talk which we know so well. In other words, he took the tortillas out of his poetry, which is to say he took the soul out of his poetry. At a neighborhood fair in Texas, somewhere between the German Oom-pah Sausage Stand and the Mexican Gorditas booth, I overheard a young man say to his friend, “I wish I had a heritage. Sometimes I feel—so lonely for one.” And the tall American trees were dangling their thick branches right down over his head. Which best states how the structures of both excerpts support ideas about cultural diversity?

Read the excerpt from part two of Trifles . COUNTY ATTORNEY: Oh, I guess they’re not very dangerous things the ladies have picked up. (Moves a few things about, disturbing the quilt pieces which cover the box. Steps back.) No, Mrs. Peters doesn’t need supervising. For that matter, a sheriff’s wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, Mrs. Peters? Which of the following most accurately describes this excerpt?

Which excerpt from The Great Gatsby best indicates that Nick is not fully content with his life?

Read the excerpt from Fast Food Nation . Up and down Academy Boulevard, along South Nevada, Circle Drive, and Woodman Road, teenagers like Elisa run the fast food restaurants of Colorado Springs. Fast food kitchens often seem like a scene from Bugsy Malone, a film in which all the actors are children pretending to be adults. No other industry in the United States has a workforce so dominated by adolescents. How does Schlosser effectively build his argument in this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Death by Black Hole.” If you stumbled upon a black hole and found yourself falling feet-first toward its center, then as you got closer, the black hole’s force of gravity would grow astronomically. Curiously, you would not feel this force at all because, like anything in free fall, you are weightless. What you do feel, however, is something far more sinister. While you fall, the black hole’s force of gravity at your two feet, they being closer to the black hole’s center, accelerates them faster than does the weaker force of gravity at your head. Read the excerpt from Billy Collins’s “Man Listening to Disc.” the only true point of view, is full of the hope that he, the hub of the cosmos with his hair blown sideways, will eventually make it all the way downtown. Which choice best describes the differing views Tyson and Collins present of humanity?

Read the lines from "Harlem." Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Read the lines from "The Weary Blues." He did a lazy sway . . . He did a lazy sway. Which best describes the relationship between these lines?

Read the excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. How does King support this claim?

What is the purpose of this presentation?

Read this excerpt from "Talking Robots." Of course, neural networks still have a long way to go before they can model the human brain. As physicist Heinz Pagels has said: “The difference between a real neuron and the model neurons . . . is like the difference between a human hand and a pair of pliers.” But the fact that a simple neural network can speak at all is remarkable, indicating that perhaps human abilities can be simulated by electronics. . . . Which is the most accurate summary of Kaku’s argument?

Read the excerpt from "In Response to Executive Order 9066". My best friend is a white girl named Denise— we look at boys together. She sat in front of me all through grade school because of our names: O’Connor, Ozawa. In the excerpt, Okita reveals significant details about

Read the passage from “Child of the Americas.” I speak English with passion: it’s the tongue of my consciousness, a flashing knife blade of crystal, my tool, my craft. How does the imagery create a visual of the speaker’s use of English?

Read this excerpt from Diane Di Prima’s poem "Buddhist New Year Song." I could see the planet from which we had come I could not remember (then) what our purpose was but remembered the name Mahakala, in the dawn in the dawn confronted Shiva, the cold light revealed the “mindborn” worlds How do the allusions exemplify Beat poetry?

Which is a feature of dialect?