Practice Test Answers

Read the excerpt relating to Reverend Mr. Wilson from Chapter 3 of The Scarlet Letter . He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons; and had no more right than one of those portraits would have, to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish. Which trait of Reverend Mr. Wilson does Hawthorne develop in this excerpt from the chapter?

In Chapter 3 of The Scarlet Letter , how does Hawthorne show that Master Dimmesdale is uncomfortable with the public aspect of his profession?

Read the excerpt from Poe’s "The Fall of the House of Usher." I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity -- an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn -- a pestilent and mystic vapor. Which observation can be made about the narrator?

Read the excerpt from Poe’s "The Fall of the House of Usher." I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in the unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down -- but with a shudder even more thrilling than before -- upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge. How does this excerpt provide information about the narrator of the story?

Read this excerpt from chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter . Standing on that miserable eminence, she saw again her native village , in Old England, and her paternal home; a decayed house of gray stone , with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half-obliterated shield of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility . What is the effect of the underlined words in this excerpt?

Read this excerpt from chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter using comprehension strategies. It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison-door to the market-place. Measured by the prisoner's experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length; for, haughty as her demeanour was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. What is the meaning of this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from Chapter 28 of Moby-Dick . He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus. Which best states the theme that is developed in this excerpt?

Which best explains the symbolism behind Ahab’s ivory leg, fashioned from the jaw of a whale in Chapter 28 of Moby-Dick ?

Read the excerpt from "The Adventure of the Mysterious Picture." The expression was that of agony—the agony of intense bodily pain; but a menace scowled upon the brow, and a few sprinklings of blood added to its ghastliness. Yet it was not all these characteristics—it was some horror of the mind, some inscrutable antipathy awakened by this picture, which harrowed up my feelings. What effect does the tone of the excerpt have on the reader?

Read the excerpt from "The Adventure of the Mysterious Picture." "[T]here is a secret about one of my rooms on which I feel disposed to try an experiment. So, gentlemen, none of you shall know who has the haunted chamber, until circumstances reveal it. I will not even know it myself, but will leave it to chance and the allotment of the housekeeper. At the same time, if it will be any satisfaction to you, I will observe, for the honor of my paternal mansion, that there’s scarcely a chamber in it but is well worthy of being haunted." What technique does Irving use to build suspense in the excerpt?