Full-Length Practice Test 2: ACT English & Reading Study Guide

Chapter 15

Practice Test 2 · English

Fifty questions in thirty-five minutes.

Work the five passages in any order. Answer every question, since nothing is deducted for a wrong one, and mark any question that is postponed so it can be found again in the final minutes.

The answer key and the explanations begin after the section. Do not open them until all fifty questions are done.

Passage I

· The Ice House

An ice house is a hole in the ground with a roof on it, and the ones built behind English country houses between 1660 and 1860 were [1] among the most effective structures of their kind ever made. A well-built ice house held ice from January until the following autumn.

The principle is drainage. Ice does not melt evenly; it melts at the bottom, and meltwater lying against the remaining block accelerate [2] the loss. The floor of a good ice house is therefore a grating over a drain, and the drain is trapped so that warm air cannot come back up it. Consequently, [3] the walls are double, with an air gap, and the entrance passage turns a corner so that the door never faces the chamber directly.

Filling was a winter operation and a large one. Ice was cut from a lake or a flooded meadow, carted, and workers broke it into pieces [4] small enough to pack. Packed loose it would have melted; rammed hard it fused into a single mass with almost no surface area, which is what did it [5] through the summer.

The house at Petworth had an ice house of unusual depth. [6] Straw went between the ice and the wall, and more straw over the top, and the chamber was opened as seldom as the kitchen could manage. A butler who sent a boy down twice a day for a week could ruin a season’s work, and their [7] instructions on the point were strict.

Commercial ice from Norway reached England in quantity after 1850, and mechanical refrigeration followed. The ice houses were abandoned and left unused [8], and most were filled in when they became a danger to livestock. The ones that survive are usually the deepest, because they were the hardest to fill in [9]. [10]

Passage II

· The Drove Roads

Before the railways, cattle walked to market. A drove road is the route they walked, and in Britain the network ran from the Highlands and from Wales to the fairs outside London, a distance of four hundred miles in some cases [11].

The roads are still visible where they have not been built over, and they can be told from other old routes by their width. A drove road is broad, often forty yards across, because a herd grazed as it walked [12] and a narrow lane would have starved it. Verges were the point rather than an accident.

Droving was skilled and it was hard on the animals. A herd covered twelve miles a day, and it were [13] rested for a full day before market so that the weight lost on the road could be partly recovered. Cattle were shod for the journey with iron plates, two to each cloven hoof, that is a practice requiring a farrier at intervals along the route [14].

The drovers themselves were trusted with money and were licensed accordingly. A man could not be a drover without being [15] thirty years old, married, and a householder, conditions that were less about respectability than about having something to lose. Moreover, [16] many carried cash for landowners along the way, which made them an informal banking system.

The railways ended the trade within twenty years. Its [17] effect on the roads themselves was slower: a route that carries no traffic is not maintained, and a route that is not maintained becomes a footpath. The Ordnance Survey maps of the 1870s are the best record of the network, and they were drawn at the moment the trade was ending [18]. Of the several ways obsolete routes survive, conversion to footpaths is the ___ [19]. [20]

Passage III

· The Camera Obscura

A camera obscura is a dark room with a small hole in one wall. Light from outside passes through the hole and throw [21] an image of the world onto the opposite surface, upside down and reversed from left to right.

The seaside versions built in Britain between 1820 and 1900 improved on this in two ways. A lens replaced the bare hole, which made the image brighter, and a mirror mounted above the lens threw the picture downward onto a white table, so that a room of people could stand around it and see it at the same time [22].

What visitors remark on is not the sharpness. Its [23] the movement. A photograph of a harbour is a harbour stopped; the camera obscura shows the same harbour with the water moving, the gulls crossing, and a figure walking along the quay, all of it in colour and in silence, and this combination is unlike either film or photography [24].

The instrument had a serious use before it had a popular one. Surveyors traced coastlines from the table, artists used it for perspective, and it was employed by astronomers to watch the sun [25] without looking at it. By the time the seaside towns were building them, the scientific work had moved on and what remained was the spectacle.

Perhaps a dozen survive in working order in Britain. They are more fragile [26] than they look: a mirror silvered in 1890 will have degraded, and replacing it changes the image in ways that regular visitors notice immediately. However, [27] the operators keep the old glass as long as it can be kept. A dark room, a lens, and a mirror is all it takes. [28] What the instrument offers is a way of looking at an ordinary view that makes it strange again [29]. [30]

Passage IV

· The Withy Beds

A withy bed is a field of willow grown to be cut. The rods are harvested every winter, and a bed which is looked after in a proper and careful manner [31] will go on producing for fifty years or more.

Willow for basketry is not the tree most people picture. The varieties grown for rods are cut to the stool each year and never allowed to become trees at all, so the bed looks like a field of sticks for eight months of the year [32].

The rods are sorted by length as they are cut, and the sorting determine [33] what each bundle can be used for. Short rods go for small work, long ones for frames, and the crooked ones are set aside for the fire [34]. A cutter judges length against a marked post rather than measuring, this is a skill that takes a season to acquire [35].

Rods are then boiled or stripped depending on the finish wanted. Boiling for eight hours drives tannin from the bark into the wood and gives the buff colour of a traditional basket, while stripping the bark from unboiled rods leaves them white [36]. Even so, [37] both processes were once done in the same sheds by the same families.

The Somerset Levels held four thousand acres of withy beds in 1900 and hold about two hundred today, the decline [38] followed the arrival of cardboard packaging. Willow is also planted now for biomass and for riverbank stabilization. [39] A basket, unlike a carton, was expected to come back. [40]

Passage V

· The Parish Engine

Most English parishes owned a fire engine by 1800, and most of those engines was [41] useless. The reason was not the machinery. It was that nobody was responsible for it.

A parish engine was typically a hand-pumped tub on wheels, kept in the church porch or a shed beside it. It needed twenty men to work it, a supply of water within reach, and leather hose that had been kept supple [42]. Any one of the three could be missing on the night it was wanted, and usually was.

The insurance companies solved the problem before the parishes did, and they solved it for their own reasons. A company that had underwritten a warehouse had an interest in that warehouse not burning, therefore [43] it employed men, kept an engine, and marked the buildings it covered with a metal badge. The badge has been much misunderstood: a brigade would attend an unmarked fire, and nobody would pay for the work [44].

Municipal brigades came later and came slowly. [45] The Act that allowed a town to fund one from the rates was passed in 1865, and many towns waited a generation, because the insurance men were already turning out for nothing [46].

What the parish engine failed at was not pumping. Their [47] failure was one of arrangement: no wages, no drill, no one whose job it was. The engines themselves often survive in village churches, where they are displayed as curiosities. [48] A machine that works perfectly good [49] and is never practised with is a machine that does not work. [50]

Practice Test 2 · English Questions

Question 1

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. was
C. is
D. have been

Question 2

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. have accelerated
H. are accelerating
J. accelerates

Question 3

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. However,
C. For the same reason,
D. For example,

Question 4

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. and they broke it into pieces
H. and broken into pieces
J. and breaking it into pieces

Question 5

Which choice most precisely names what the fused mass did for the ice?

A. NO CHANGE
B. and this is what kept it
C. that is what preserved it
D. which is what preserved it

Question 6

The writer is considering deleting the underlined sentence. Should it be kept?

F. Deleted, because it names a house that plays no part in the account.
G. Kept, because it shows how deep an ice house could be.
H. Kept, because Petworth is the best surviving example in England.
J. Deleted, because the depth of ice houses is described elsewhere.

Question 7

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. its
C. his
D. there

Question 8

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. abandoned and no longer in use
H. left unused and abandoned as well
J. abandoned

Question 9

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. because; they were the hardest to fill in
C. because, they were the hardest to fill in
D. because they were the hardest to fill in, and

Question 10

Which choice most effectively concludes the essay by drawing on its central point?

F. ice houses were the most efficient stores ever built in Britain
G. Norwegian ice was cheaper than ice cut from English lakes
H. straw was the most important material used in packing ice
J. the buildings that survive are the ones that were hardest to remove

Question 11

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. a distance, of four hundred miles in some cases
C. a distance of four hundred miles, in some cases,
D. a distance of four hundred miles in some cases,

Question 12

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. often forty yards across because a herd grazed as it walked
H. often forty yards across, because a herd grazed as it walked,
J. often forty yards across because a herd grazed as it walked,

Question 13

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. was
C. are
D. have been

Question 14

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. and this is a practice requiring a farrier at intervals along the route
H. a practice requiring a farrier at intervals along the route
J. a practice, requiring a farrier, at intervals along the route

Question 15

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. to be
C. he was
D. having been

Question 16

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. However,
H. For example,
J. In practice,

Question 17

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. Their
C. It’s
D. There

Question 18

For the sake of logic, the underlined sentence should be placed

F. where it is now
G. after the sentence about walkers using the maps
H. at the beginning of the paragraph
J. at the end of the paragraph

Question 19

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. more common
B. most common
C. commoner
D. most commonest

Question 20

Which choice most effectively concludes the essay by drawing on its central point?

F. a road built for one purpose survives by being used for another
G. the railways destroyed the droving trade within twenty years
H. Ordnance Survey maps are the best record of the drove network
J. drovers were required to be married and to own property

Question 21

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. have thrown
C. are throwing
D. throws

Question 22

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. so that a room of people were able to see it all together at one time
H. so that a roomful of people could watch it together
J. so that people in the room could stand and could see it simultaneously

Question 23

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. Its’
C. Their is
D. It is

Question 24

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. and this is a combination that is unlike either film or photography
H. a combination unlike either film or photography
J. which is a combination that is unlike either film or photography

Question 25

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. and it was used by astronomers for watching the sun
C. and astronomers watched the sun through it
D. and watching the sun was done by astronomers

Question 26

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. They are the most fragile
H. They are more fragiler
J. They are fragile

Question 27

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. For that reason,
C. For example,
D. In addition,

Question 28

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. are
H. was
J. has been

Question 29

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. strange again for a second time
C. strange and unfamiliar again
D. once more strange again

Question 30

Which choice most effectively concludes the essay by drawing on its central point?

F. seaside camera obscuras were built mainly between 1820 and 1900
G. a lens produces a brighter image than a bare hole does
H. surveyors and astronomers no longer use the camera obscura
J. an instrument outlived its usefulness and kept its audience

Question 31

Which choice states the idea most concisely while preserving the original meaning?

A. NO CHANGE
B. kept properly
C. that is properly looked after
D. which has been properly maintained

Question 32

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. so, the bed looks like a field of sticks for eight months of the year
H. the bed therefore looks like a field of sticks for eight months of the year
J. so that the bed looks like a field of sticks for eight months of the year

Question 33

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. have determined
C. are determining
D. determines

Question 34

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. and the crooked ones go to the fire
H. and setting the crooked ones aside for the fire
J. and they set the crooked ones aside for the fire

Question 35

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. and this is a skill that takes a season to acquire
C. which is a skill taking a season to acquire
D. a skill that takes a season to acquire

Question 36

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. while the stripping of unboiled rods leaves them white
H. while unboiled rods are stripped of their bark and left white
J. while to strip unboiled rods leaves them white

Question 37

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. Therefore,
C. In fact,
D. For example,

Question 38

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. two hundred today the decline
H. two hundred today, and the decline,
J. two hundred today. The decline

Question 39

The writer is considering deleting the underlined sentence. Should it be kept?

A. Kept, because it shows that willow growing has a future.
B. Kept, because biomass explains why the beds declined.
C. Deleted, because it introduces uses of willow that the essay does not treat.
D. Deleted, because riverbank planting is described earlier.

Question 40

Which choice most effectively concludes the essay by drawing on its central point?

F. cardboard packaging is cheaper to produce than basketwork
G. a material survives only as long as the habit that used it
H. the Somerset Levels are the centre of English willow growing
J. boiled rods make a more durable basket than stripped rods

Question 41

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. is
C. has been
D. were

Question 42

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. twenty men to work it, water within reach, and hose that was kept supple by someone
H. twenty men working it, a supply of water within reach, and leather hose kept supple
J. twenty men to work it, water was needed within reach, and supple leather hose

Question 43

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. warehouse, so
C. warehouse; therefore
D. warehouse therefore

Question 44

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

F. NO CHANGE
G. so nobody would pay for the work
H. though nobody would pay for the work
J. nobody would pay for the work

Question 45

Which choice most effectively introduces the paragraph?

A. Fire insurance in England began in the years after 1666.
B. Municipal brigades came later and came slowly.
C. The badges themselves are now collected by enthusiasts.
D. Most towns had no brigade of their own before 1900.

Question 46

Which choice best maintains the tone of the essay?

F. NO CHANGE
G. turning out at no charge
H. pitching in gratis
J. doing it for nowt

Question 47

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. It’s
C. Its
D. Their’s

Question 48

The writer is considering deleting the underlined sentence. Should it be kept?

F. Kept, because it accounts for the machines a reader may have seen.
G. Deleted, because it turns from arrangement back to the engines themselves.
H. Kept, because it explains why the parish engines failed so often.
J. Deleted, because village churches are described earlier in the essay.

Question 49

Which choice makes the sentence most grammatically acceptable?

A. NO CHANGE
B. perfectly well
C. perfect
D. good

Question 50

Which choice most effectively concludes the essay by drawing on its central point?

F. equipment without organization is not a capability
G. parish engines were poorly built and rarely maintained
H. insurance companies were more efficient than parish councils
J. the 1865 Act came too late to save the parish system

Practice Test 2 · English Answers and Explanations

Answer key: 1. A 2. J 3. C 4. H 5. D 6. F 7. C 8. J 9. A 10. J 11. A 12. F 13. B 14. H 15. A 16. F 17. B 18. F 19. B 20. F 21. D 22. H 23. D 24. H 25. C 26. F 27. B 28. G 29. A 30. J 31. B 32. F 33. D 34. G 35. D 36. H 37. C 38. J 39. C 40. G 41. D 42. F 43. B 44. H 45. B 46. G 47. C 48. F 49. B 50. F

1. Key: A. The subject is the ice houses built in that period, which is plural, so the plural past verb agrees with it. B: Was is singular and does not agree with the plural subject of the sentence. C: Is is singular and present, which fits neither the subject nor the tense. D: Have been shifts the sentence into the perfect, which the date range does not support.

2. Key: J. The subject is meltwater, a single mass, so the singular present verb agrees with it in the clause. F: Accelerate is the plural form and does not agree with the singular subject meltwater. G: Have accelerated is plural and moves the clause into the perfect tense. H: Are accelerating is plural and progressive, which suits neither subject nor sense.

3. Key: C. The double walls answer the same problem the drain answers, so the transition points back to a shared reason. A: Consequently claims the double walls follow from the trapped drain alone. B: However sets the walls against the drainage, though both serve one purpose. D: For example promises an instance of the drain rather than a further measure.

4. Key: H. The first two items are past participles sharing one subject, so the third takes the same form. F: The third item adds a subject while the first two share the one before them. G: A clause with its own subject breaks the pattern the series has set. J: An -ing phrase does not match the past participles used beside it.

5. Key: D. The fused mass is what stopped the ice melting, and the verb naming that survival is the precise one. A: Did it names no action and leaves the reader to supply the meaning. B: And this is opens a second statement where a relative pronoun continues the first. C: That introduces a defining clause, though the comma marks this comment as additional.

6. Key: F. The paragraph explains how the chamber was packed and how it was kept shut, and a named house that is never mentioned again belongs to neither. G: Depth is treated later as the reason some survived rather than here. H: No claim about the best surviving example is made in the passage. J: Repetition is not the difficulty, since the depth here is new information.

7. Key: C. The instructions belong to the butler, who is one person, so the singular possessive pronoun is required. A: Their is plural and matches no plural noun anywhere in the sentence. B: Its refers to a thing rather than to the butler the sentence names. D: There marks a place and has no possessive use in this sentence.

8. Key: J. One word carries the meaning, and each alternative states the same condition a second time. F: Abandoned and left unused state the same condition twice over. G: No longer in use repeats what abandoned has already conveyed. H: Reversing the pair keeps the duplication while changing only the order.

9. Key: A. The clause explaining the survival attaches directly to what precedes it, so no punctuation belongs after because. B: A semicolon after because separates a conjunction from its own clause. C: A comma after because cuts the conjunction off from what it introduces. D: Adding and leaves the sentence with a conjunction and nothing following it.

10. Key: J. The essay ends on ice houses filled in for safety and the deepest ones remaining, which makes survival a matter of difficulty rather than of merit. F: The essay describes their efficiency without making it the closing point. G: No comparison of prices is offered anywhere in the essay. H: Straw appears among several measures rather than as the essay’s conclusion.

11. Key: A. The closing phrase completes the sentence without interruption, so no comma belongs inside it at any point. B: A comma after distance separates the noun from the phrase completing it. C: Commas around the final phrase break it away from the measure it limits. D: A trailing comma before the full stop serves no purpose in the sentence.

12. Key: F. The phrase giving the width is an aside closed by a comma, and the reason that follows completes the sentence without further marks. G: Removing the comma runs the appositive into the reason without a break. H: A comma after walked treats the reason as an aside that could be lifted out. J: The trailing comma separates the reason from the clause that completes it.

13. Key: B. The subject is a herd, which is treated as one unit, so the singular past verb agrees with it. A: Were is plural and does not agree with the singular subject herd. C: Are is plural and present, which matches neither the subject nor the tense. D: Have been is plural and shifts the sentence into the perfect tense.

14. Key: H. The phrase renames the shoeing described immediately before, so it attaches as an appositive rather than as a new statement. F: That is begins a new statement and leaves the sentence spliced at the comma. G: And this is starts a second statement where a phrase attaches cleanly. J: The added commas cut the phrase apart in the middle of itself.

15. Key: A. The preposition without governs the whole phrase, so the -ing form carries the three conditions that follow. B: An infinitive does not fit after the preposition without that governs the phrase. C: A clause with its own subject cannot follow the preposition without here. D: Having been places the conditions in the past, though they applied throughout.

16. Key: F. The cash carried for landowners is a further sign of the trust the licensing implies, so the transition adds. G: However sets the cash against the licensing, though it follows from it. H: For example promises an instance of the licensing conditions listed above. J: In practice contrasts rule with reality, though both sentences describe the rule.

17. Key: B. The effect belongs to the railways, which are plural, so the plural possessive pronoun is required. A: Its is singular and cannot stand for the railways named in the plural. C: A contraction of it is cannot stand where a possessive belongs. D: There indicates location rather than ownership of the effect described.

18. Key: F. The sentence introduces the maps that the next sentence says walkers now use, so it already stands where it belongs. G: After the walkers sentence the maps are named only once they have been used. H: At the head of the paragraph the maps precede the decline they record. J: Placed last the maps follow the walkers who are said to use them.

19. Key: B. The explicit set "several ways" requires a superlative comparison, since the sentence ranks conversion to footpaths against every other way, not just one alternative. A: The comparative needs a second, single term to compare against, but the sentence ranks this fate among several, not two. C: "Commoner" is a nonstandard comparative form and still only compares two. D: "Most commonest" double-marks the superlative, since "commonest" already is one.

20. Key: F. The essay traces roads made for cattle that carry walkers who do not know what they were, which is survival through a change of use. G: The collapse of the trade is the occasion rather than the essay’s point. H: The maps are one piece of evidence rather than the closing argument. J: The licensing conditions are a detail within the account of the trade.

21. Key: D. The subject is light, which is singular here, so the present-tense singular verb agrees with it. A: Throw is the plural form and does not agree with the singular subject light. B: Have thrown is plural and moves the sentence into the perfect tense. C: Are throwing is plural and progressive, which suits neither subject nor sense.

22. Key: H. One phrase carries the point about a group watching together, and the alternatives state it at greater length. F: Stand around it and see it at the same time says at length what one phrase says. G: This lengthens the clause again without adding anything to it. J: Repeating the auxiliary and adding simultaneously pads the clause further.

23. Key: D. The sentence needs a subject and a verb rather than a possessive, so the two words are written out in full. A: Its is the possessive form and cannot serve as the subject and verb. B: Its with an apostrophe after the s is not a word in written English. C: Their is plural and does not agree with the singular subject of the sentence.

24. Key: H. The phrase renames what has been described immediately before, so it attaches without a subject and verb of its own. F: And this combination is adds a clause where a phrase attaches cleanly. G: This lengthens the clause again without adding any meaning to it. J: The relative clause is longer than the appositive the sentence can take.

25. Key: C. The first two items name a group and an active verb, so the third takes the same construction. A: The third item turns passive while the first two use plain active verbs. B: The passive again departs from the pattern the first two items set. D: An -ing phrase in the passive matches neither of the earlier items.

26. Key: F. The instruments are set against how they appear, which is a comparison of two states, so the comparative form carries it. G: The superlative supposes a group, though the comparison is with appearance. H: More fragiler places a comparative word before a comparative ending. J: Dropping the comparison removes the contrast with how they look.

27. Key: B. Keeping the old glass follows from the change a new mirror makes, so the transition marks a consequence. A: However sets the old glass against the degradation, though it follows from it. C: For example promises an instance of the mirror degrading over time. D: In addition treats the old glass as a separate point rather than a consequence.

28. Key: G. Three things joined by and form a plural subject, so the plural present verb agrees with them. F: Is is singular and does not agree with the three things the sentence lists. H: Was is singular and past, which matches neither the subject nor the tense. J: Has been is singular and shifts the sentence into the perfect tense.

29. Key: A. Two words carry the effect, and each alternative repeats the idea of recurrence a second time. B: Again and for a second time state the repetition twice over. C: Strange and unfamiliar names one quality with two words. D: Once more and again double the same idea in four words.

30. Key: J. The essay follows the instrument from serious use to spectacle and closes on visitors still gathering, which is survival past purpose. F: The dates open the account rather than serving as its conclusion. G: The improvement is a technical detail within the wider description. H: The end of scientific use is one step rather than the essay’s point.

31. Key: B. In a proper and careful manner says with six words what one adverb carries, and the shorter form loses nothing. A: In a proper and careful manner is redundant, since proper and careful repeat one idea. C: That is properly looked after keeps a clause where a participle will serve. D: Which has been properly maintained adds a relative clause the sentence does not need.

32. Key: F. So is a coordinating conjunction, so a comma before it joins the two statements correctly. G: Putting a comma after so cuts the conjunction off from its clause. H: Therefore inside the clause leaves the two statements spliced at the comma. J: So that names a purpose, though the look of the bed is a result.

33. Key: D. The subject is the sorting, a single activity, so the singular present verb agrees with it here. A: Determine is the plural form and does not agree with the singular subject sorting. B: Have determined is plural and shifts the sentence into the perfect tense. C: Are determining is plural and progressive, which suits neither subject nor sense.

34. Key: G. The first two items drop the repeated verb go, so the third continues that pattern rather than switching to a passive. F: The third item takes a passive verb where the first two elide the plain one. H: An -ing phrase does not match the plain verbs used before it. J: A clause with its own subject departs from the compressed list.

35. Key: D. The phrase renames the judging described immediately before, so it attaches to the sentence as an appositive rather than a new statement. A: This is begins a new statement and leaves the sentence spliced at the comma. B: And this is opens a second statement where the sentence needs a phrase. C: The relative clause works but adds words the appositive does not need.

36. Key: H. The two halves describe parallel treatments, so both take a subject with a passive verb in the same form. F: The second half changes subject and construction where a match is wanted. G: A noun phrase replaces the clause that the first half uses. J: An infinitive does not match the finite clause it is set against.

37. Key: A. "Even so" signals a concession: despite producing two visibly different finishes, both processes shared the same physical space and workforce. B: "Therefore" wrongly implies the shared sheds are a logical consequence of the two processes existing. C: "In fact" implies the second sentence intensifies or restates the first, when it instead introduces a separate fact about labor and location. D: "For example" promises a specific instance of the boiling or the stripping, not a new fact about where the work happened.

38. Key: J. Both halves are complete statements, so a full stop separates them without any linking word being needed. F: A comma alone joins two statements that could each stand on their own. G: Dropping the mark lets the two statements run together with no pause. H: The extra comma separates the conjunction from the clause it introduces.

39. Key: C. The paragraph accounts for the collapse of the withy beds and closes on baskets being returned, and other uses of willow belong to neither. A: The essay concerns basketry rather than the prospects of willow generally. B: The decline is attributed to cardboard packaging rather than to biomass. D: Riverbank planting appears nowhere else, so repetition is not the trouble.

40. Key: G. The essay closes on a basket being expected to come back, which ties the loss of the beds to the disappearance of a practice. F: Relative cost is implied rather than argued anywhere in the essay. H: The Levels supply the figures rather than the point of the essay. J: No comparison of durability between the two finishes is offered.

41. Key: D. The subject is most of those engines, which is plural, so the plural past verb agrees with it. A: Was is singular and does not agree with the plural subject engines. B: Is is singular and present, which matches neither the subject nor the tense. C: Has been is singular and moves the sentence into the perfect tense.

42. Key: F. All three items name something the engine required, and each takes the same noun phrase form after the verb. G: Adding an agent to the third item breaks the pattern of the first two. H: The first item changes form while the others keep theirs. J: The second item becomes a clause and no longer matches the series.

43. Key: B. The second half states what followed from the company’s interest, so a comma with a conjunction joins them. A: Therefore after a comma leaves two complete statements spliced together. C: The semicolon is right, though therefore then requires a comma after it. D: Taking the punctuation out lets both statements run on unbroken.

44. Key: H. The clause concedes a limit on what attending achieved, so a concessive connector carries it. F: And treats the unpaid work as a further point rather than a concession. G: So claims the lack of payment followed from the brigade attending. J: Dropping the connector leaves the statements joined by a comma alone.

45. Key: B. The paragraph gives the date of the enabling Act and the generation towns waited, so an opening about lateness introduces it. A: The origin of insurance is not what the paragraph goes on to describe. C: Collecting belongs to the previous paragraph and to a different subject. D: This anticipates the conclusion of the paragraph rather than introducing it.

46. Key: G. Turning out for nothing can be read as turning out to no purpose. At no charge states the lack of payment the sentence means and cannot be read the other way. F: For nothing carries a second sense, to no purpose, that the sentence does not intend. H: Pitching in gratis mixes an informal verb with a formal Latin adverb. J: For nowt is dialect and sits far outside the register the essay keeps.

47. Key: C. The failure belongs to the parish engine, which is singular in this sentence, so the singular possessive is required. A: Their is plural where the subject of the sentence is singular. B: The contraction of it is cannot serve as a possessive form here. D: This is not a standard form of the possessive in written English.

48. Key: F. The paragraph diagnoses a failure of organization, and the sentence answers what became of the machines that failed. G: The engines are the subject throughout, so the sentence stays on topic. H: The failure is attributed to arrangement rather than to display. J: The porch appears earlier as storage rather than as a display.

49. Key: B. The word describes how the machine works, so an adverb rather than an adjective is required after the verb. A: Perfectly good modifies a noun, though the sentence needs an adverb after works. C: Perfect is an adjective and cannot describe the manner of working. D: Good is an adjective and cannot modify the verb it follows here.

50. Key: F. The essay opens on engines that were useless and closes on a machine never practised with, which locates the failure in arrangement. G: The essay states plainly that the machinery was not the problem. H: Efficiency is implied rather than argued as the essay’s conclusion. J: The Act is a date within the account rather than the closing point.

Practice Test 2 · Reading

Thirty-six questions in forty minutes.

Four passages, nine questions each, and about ten minutes for a passage and its set. Work them in any order and leave no answer blank.

The answer key and the explanations begin after the section. Do not open them until all thirty-six questions are done.

Passage I

· Literary Narrative

The last reel went on at twenty past nine. Marek had laced it an hour early, which was against every habit he had, and had then stood in the box with nothing to do for fifty minutes, which was against the rest of them.

The projectors were called Bess and Ada by everyone who had worked the box, and nobody now living knew why. They had been installed in 1954 and rebuilt twice. On Monday two men from a company in Slough would take them out through the fire door on a trolley, and a digital projector the size of a filing cabinet would go in, and the box would need one operator for four screens instead of one for each.

Marek was to be that operator. He had been offered the job in March and had accepted it in March, and he had told everyone that it was the same work, which it was not, and that he did not mind, which he did.

He checked the gate. He checked the tension. He looked through the port at the back of four hundred and six heads, and he thought, as he had thought at intervals for thirty-one years, that not one of them knew he was there, and that this was the whole of the job.

The box smelled of hot dust and of the oil they used on the intermittent, and Marek had stopped noticing either about a decade in. He noticed them now. He had read somewhere that smell is the sense that attaches itself to memory most firmly, and had thought at the time that this was the sort of thing people say, and he revised the opinion standing there.

His father had run a box in Katowice and had told him two things about the work. The first was that a projectionist is judged only by mistakes, since a reel change done properly is a reel change nobody sees. The second was that the machine will tell you what it needs if you stop talking and listen to it, which Marek had taken as sentiment at nineteen and had come to regard as a technical instruction.

The changeover came at twenty-six minutes past ten. He watched the cue dots in the top right corner, one, then the second seven seconds later, and he brought Ada up and took Bess down, and the join was clean, and the four hundred and six heads did not move.

He shut down in the ordinary order and swept the box, which did not need sweeping. The rewind bench had a burn in it from before his time. He put his hand flat on Bess for a moment, which he would have been embarrassed to be seen doing, and then he turned off the light and went down the stairs and out through the foyer, where the girl on the ice cream counter said goodnight to him by name.

A woman had complained the previous Tuesday about a scratch running down the left of the frame for eleven minutes. Marek had gone through the reel by hand and found it, a hairline in the emulsion that had come from the distributor, and had written to them, and had heard nothing. The digital projector would not scratch anything. He was aware that this counted as an argument against his own position and he had not found a way round it.

Bess and Ada would go to a collector in Norfolk who restored machines and ran them for private audiences, which Marek had been told as though it were a consolation. He had said that it was good news and had meant it, and had also understood that a machine run for an audience that has come to see the machine is doing something other than what it was built for.

Passage II

· Social Science

(Original paired practice passage; names and figures are constructed for test-preparation use.)

Passage G

Road maintenance in most cities is funded through a flat annual vehicle registration fee, and the arrangement has outlived its logic. A driver who covers three thousand miles a year and a driver who covers thirty thousand pay the identical fee, despite the second driver's vastly greater contribution to pavement wear, which increases sharply with vehicle weight and distance traveled, not with vehicle ownership itself.

A per-mile fee, tracked through an odometer check at annual inspection, would tie payment to actual road use. Cities that have piloted the approach report that heavy-mileage commuters pay more, occasional drivers pay less, and total fee revenue tracks more closely with the actual maintenance burden a given year's traffic has created. The fairness case is straightforward: a fee structure should charge people in proportion to the cost they impose, and a flat fee currently does not.

Critics raise a privacy concern, worrying that mileage tracking invites the government to monitor exactly where a car has been. This objection assumes a tracking method it does not require. An annual odometer reading records total distance only, the same single number an inspection sticker already involves, not routes, destinations, or times. The privacy objection describes a hypothetical GPS-based system, not the odometer-based one actually proposed.

A more serious concern is administrative cost. Odometer verification requires a functioning annual inspection program, and not every city has one. Where an inspection program already exists, adding a mileage reading is a marginal cost. Where one does not, building an inspection system solely to support a mileage fee would be a genuinely large upfront expense, one that could take years of fee revenue to recover.

Passage H

A flat annual registration fee has one advantage a per-mile fee cannot match: everyone knows exactly what they will pay, every year, without needing an inspection, an odometer reading, or a dispute process for a misread number. That predictability is not a small thing to give up, for the driver and for the city budget office that plans road spending a year in advance.

The fairness argument for per-mile fees is real but incomplete. Pavement wear does scale with weight and distance, but it does not scale only with them. A light commuter car making short trips on residential streets costs a city very little in maintenance regardless of its annual mileage; a heavy delivery truck making the same number of trips costs far more per mile. A fee that charges by distance alone, without accounting for vehicle weight, corrects one unfairness while leaving a second one in place.

There is also a practical equity concern a distance-based fee can worsen rather than solve. Lower-income drivers are more likely to live farther from work, in areas with fewer transit options, and to drive older, less efficient vehicles for necessity rather than choice. A fee that rises with mileage regardless of circumstance can fall hardest on drivers with the least ability to reduce their driving, even if they are not the ones doing the most damage to a given road.

None of this means a flat fee is fair either; a driver who never leaves the driveway currently pays exactly what a daily commuter pays, which has its own real unfairness. It means that fixing one unfairness with a fee based on distance alone risks introducing others, and that a fee incorporating both distance and vehicle weight, however more complex to administer, would target the actual cause of road wear more precisely than either a flat fee or a simple per-mile fee.

Passage III

· Humanities

(Original practice passage; names, institutions, and numerical details are constructed for test-preparation use.)

An index is the only part of a book written by someone reading it. The author wrote the text forward; the indexer comes to it afterward and works backward, and the difference shows in everything the index does well.

What an index is not is a list of words. A concordance is a list of words, and a computer has been able to make one since the 1960s. An index records what a book is about, which is a judgment, and judgments are what the machine cannot supply. A book may discuss inflation for twenty pages without using the word once, and an index that misses those pages has failed at the only thing it was for.

The craft has a literature of its own, most of it concerned with the double entry and the cross-reference. A reader who looks up housing and finds nothing has not necessarily been failed; a reader who looks up housing, finds nothing, and is not sent to accommodation has been. The indexer must therefore hold in mind not the vocabulary of the author but the vocabulary of a reader who has not read the book, which is a peculiar act of imagination and the hardest part of the work.

The best indexes carry a further quality that is difficult to name. An entry reading only housing tells a reader where to look; an entry that reads housing: as political question, 44 to 51; postwar building programmes, 88; and rural depopulation, 130 to 134 tells the reader what the book thinks about housing, and does it in a line. That is analysis, compressed to the width of a column, and it is done by someone whose name will not appear on the cover.

There is a long tradition of the hostile index, and it is more entertaining than instructive. The eighteenth century produced political indexes that summarized an opponent’s book into ridicule, and modern academic indexes occasionally carry an entry that settles a score. These are the exceptions that prove the rule of the form, which is self-effacement: an index that is noticed while it is being used has interrupted something.

The economics are poor and have been for a century. Publishers commonly ask the author to index the book, or to pay for it out of the advance, and an author is the worst possible indexer of her own book because she knows where everything is and cannot recover the ignorance a reader brings. The result is a great many indexes that record the author’s structure rather than the reader’s questions.

A last observation, offered without a remedy. The indexer is normally the only person who reads a book twice inside a month, once forward and once in fragments, and is therefore in a position to notice that a chapter contradicts an earlier one. Professional discussions of indexing note that indexers sometimes discover such contradictions late in production, when correction is difficult, the book being by then in proof and the author beyond reach of anything but a correction slip.

The professional bodies publish a recommended rate, and the recommended rate has risen more slowly than inflation for thirty years. Indexing trade guidance describes a market in which fees can be constrained by what authors or publishers are willing to pay rather than by the hours required, which is a different thing and produces a different index.

None of this is an argument that indexes are in decline, which I do not believe. It is an argument that the work is a distinct skill, that it is invisible when done well, and that invisibility has been mistaken for ease. A reader who has never thought about an index has probably been reading good ones.

Passage IV

· Natural Science

(Original practice passage; names, institutions, and numerical details are constructed for test-preparation use.)

A honeybee colony holds the temperature of its brood nest between thirty-four and thirty-six degrees, and it does this through an English winter and an Australian summer with equal success. The colony has no thermostat and no central control. What it has is a large number of bees, each responding to what it can detect where it happens to be standing.

Cooling is the easier half. Bees carry water into the hive and spread it in thin films over the comb, and other bees fan at the entrance and inside, driving air across the water so that evaporation removes heat. On a hot day a colony can move several litres of water in this way, and foragers switch from nectar to water without being told to, because returning water carriers are unloaded quickly and returning nectar carriers are not. The colony signals its need through how fast a load is taken.

Heating is stranger. A bee raises its own thorax temperature by contracting the flight muscles without moving the wings, which produces heat rather than motion, and a bee that has warmed itself in this way presses its thorax against the wax cap of a brood cell. Others enter empty cells among the brood and warm the surrounding walls from inside. A single bee can hold a cell above thirty-three degrees for as long as half an hour before it must feed again.

The regulation is achieved without any bee measuring the temperature of the nest as a whole. Individual bees have different thresholds, genetically determined, at which they begin to fan or to warm. A colony whose queen has mated with many drones therefore contains bees with a wide spread of thresholds, and such a colony responds gradually: a few bees begin fanning at a slight rise, more join as it continues. A colony with a narrow spread responds all together and then stops all together, and its brood nest oscillates.

The regulation can be watched directly. A thermal camera trained on an open hive shows bright patches moving across the comb as warming bees settle and then leave, and over an hour the pattern of patches drifts toward wherever the brood is coolest. No bee is directing the drift. Each warming bee is responding to the cell it happens to be standing on, and the pattern is what those individual responses add up to when there are enough of them.

This is one of the clearest cases in which genetic variety within a group produces a capability that no individual has. The comparison usually drawn is with a heating system that has many thermostats set slightly differently, which will hold a building steadier than one thermostat switching a boiler on and off.

A colony that has been chilled overnight offers the clearest demonstration. Warming begins in the centre of the brood and spreads outward, and the outermost cells are brought up last, which is the order that would follow from bees responding only to what they touch. No instruction is given and none would be obeyed if it were, since the bee that would have to hear it is standing on a cell four combs away.

The thresholds themselves have been measured directly by warming individual bees in a chamber and recording the temperature at which each begins to fan. Bees from a colony with one father cluster within a degree of each other. Bees from a colony with many fathers spread across four or five degrees, which is the spread the modelling requires.

The account has boundaries. Almost all of the work has been done on one species, and the threshold experiments require colonies bred for known paternity, which are not typical colonies. What has been established is that the spread of thresholds affects the stability of the nest temperature. Whether the spread is maintained by selection for that reason is a separate question and is not settled by these results.

Practice Test 2 · Reading Questions

Question 1

The passage most strongly suggests that Marek

A. has lost interest in the work he has done for years
B. expects the new projector to fail within a short time
C. has been dismissed and is working out his final notice
D. is unsettled by the change and unwilling to say so

Question 2

The details about when the projectors were installed serve mainly to

F. establish that the cinema has been poorly maintained
G. explain why the projectors were given their names
H. show that Marek prefers older equipment to new
J. convey how long the machines have been part of the building

Question 3

According to the passage, the new projector will require

A. two operators for each of the four screens
B. one operator for each of the four screens
C. one operator for four screens
D. four operators sharing a single projection box

Question 4

His father’s first remark and Marek’s thought at the port together suggest that

F. projectionists are blamed unfairly for problems with film
G. good work in the job is work that leaves no trace
H. audiences should be told more about how films are shown
J. his father regretted the career he had chosen

Question 5

As used in the passage, technical instruction most nearly means

A. a command that had to be obeyed
B. a lesson about how to treat other people
C. a warning about the dangers of the equipment
D. a piece of practical guidance

Question 6

The passage is best described as

F. a comparison of film projection with digital projection
G. an account of how a reel changeover is carried out
H. an hour of ordinary work in which a career is being closed
J. a series of recollections of the narrator’s father

Question 7

Marek’s putting his hand on the projector serves mainly to

A. show that he is checking the machine for a fault
B. indicate that the projector is still warm from use
C. suggest that he intends to buy the machine himself
D. mark the moment as one he wants to acknowledge privately

Question 8

The final detail about the ice cream counter most strongly suggests that

F. he is known in the building in a way he is not known in the auditorium
G. he has a close friendship with the girl at the counter
H. the cinema staff have organized a farewell for him
J. he is leaving the cinema for good that evening

Question 9

The passage is best described as an account of

A. a dispute between a projectionist and his employer
B. the technical differences between film and digital projection
C. a man deciding whether to accept a new position
D. a craft ending quietly in the course of an ordinary shift

Question 10

Which choice best describes Passage G's central claim?

A. All vehicle fees should be eliminated entirely.
B. A flat annual fee is administratively simpler than any alternative and should be preserved for that reason alone.
C. A per-mile fee would more fairly charge drivers in proportion to the road wear their driving actually causes.
D. Privacy concerns make any change to the current fee system too risky to attempt.

Question 11

According to Passage G, what is the specific flaw in the privacy objection to mileage fees?

A. The objection is entirely fabricated and no one has actually raised it.
B. The objection assumes a GPS-based tracking method, when the actual proposal only involves a single annual odometer reading.
C. Privacy concerns are never legitimate when weighed against fairness.
D. The objection applies equally well to the current flat-fee system.

Question 12

Which choice best describes Passage H's central claim?

A. A flat fee should be replaced entirely with a per-mile fee.
B. Neither a flat fee nor a distance-only fee accurately targets the true cause of road wear, which depends on both distance and vehicle weight.
C. Road maintenance should be funded entirely through general taxation instead of vehicle fees.
D. Privacy concerns make a per-mile fee impossible to implement.

Question 13

On which point would the authors of Passage G and Passage H most clearly agree?

A. A flat annual fee, as currently structured, does not accurately charge drivers for the road wear they cause.
B. Privacy concerns make any mileage-based fee unworkable.
C. Road maintenance costs are unrelated to vehicle weight.
D. Lower-income drivers should be exempted from all vehicle fees.

Question 14

How does Passage H's discussion of vehicle weight relate to Passage G's argument?

A. It directly contradicts Passage G's claim that pavement wear increases with distance.
B. It qualifies Passage G's fairness argument by identifying an additional factor, vehicle weight, that a distance-only fee would not account for.
C. It has no bearing on Passage G's argument at all.
D. It proves that Passage G's entire argument is based on a factual error.

Question 15

Based on Passage H, how would its author most likely respond to Passage G's claim that annual odometer checks address the privacy objection?

A. By arguing that any tracking of mileage at all, however minimal, is unacceptable
B. By agreeing that this specific approach avoids the GPS-based tracking privacy critics fear, while raising a separate concern about the fee's incompleteness
C. By claiming that privacy was never a real concern to begin with
D. By arguing that Passage G's proposal does not go far enough in addressing driver privacy

Question 16

Which choice best describes how Passage H's discussion of predictability functions within its overall argument?

A. It is the passage's central and most important claim.
B. It introduces one advantage of the current flat-fee system before the passage turns to a more developed fairness argument.
C. It directly refutes Passage G's fairness argument.
D. It is unrelated to the passage's discussion of fees.

Question 17

Suppose new data showed that lightweight electric vehicles cause measurably more road wear per mile than older, heavier gasoline vehicles due to battery weight distribution. How would this most likely affect Passage H's argument?

A. It would have no bearing on Passage H's argument.
B. It would complicate Passage H's assumption that vehicle weight alone reliably predicts road wear, since the relationship may depend on more specific factors than weight in isolation.
C. It would fully confirm Passage H's argument without complication.
D. It would prove that Passage G's per-mile-only proposal was correct all along.

Question 18

Based on both passages together, which conclusion is best supported?

A. Both authors agree completely on how road fees should be structured.
B. The passages together suggest that a fee accounting for both distance and vehicle weight would address more of the fairness concerns either author raises alone than either a flat fee or a distance-only fee would.
C. Road fees should be abolished because no fair structure is possible.
D. Privacy concerns make any change to the current system impossible.

Question 19

The central claim of the passage is that

A. indexing is a distinct skill that is invisible when it succeeds
B. indexes have declined in quality over the past century
C. computers will soon be able to produce usable indexes
D. authors should always be paid separately for indexing work

Question 20

The second paragraph serves mainly to

F. establish when computers first became able to list words
G. distinguish an index from something it is often confused with
H. argue that indexes should avoid technical vocabulary
J. show that inflation is a difficult subject to index

Question 21

The example of housing and accommodation most strongly suggests that

A. an index must anticipate words the book never uses
B. readers should be expected to know an author’s vocabulary
C. cross-references are more important than main entries
D. an index is easier to compile for a short book

Question 22

As used in the passage, self-effacement most nearly means

F. declining to accept payment for the work
G. removing the indexer’s name from the book
H. keeping itself out of the reader’s notice
J. avoiding any judgment about the book’s content

Question 23

The fifth paragraph serves mainly to

A. argue that hostile indexes should be more widely used
B. concede an entertaining exception before restating the rule
C. trace the history of indexing from the eighteenth century
D. criticize academics who settle scores in their indexes

Question 24

Which reason does the passage give for authors making poor indexers of their own books?

F. publishers ask authors to pay for indexing from the advance
G. indexes have been poorly paid for about a century
H. an author cannot recover the ignorance a reader brings
J. an index records what a book is about

Question 25

The author’s attitude toward indexing is best described as

A. frustration with readers who never consult an index
B. respect for a craft whose difficulty is generally unrecognized
C. pessimism about the survival of indexing as a trade
D. amusement at the eccentricities of professional indexers

Question 26

The passage as a whole is organized as

F. a chronological account of indexing since the eighteenth century
G. a definition, a distinction, the craft, an exception, the economics, and a conclusion
H. a comparison of indexes with other reference apparatus
J. an argument for reform followed by objections to it

Question 27

The final sentence most strongly suggests that

A. most readers are unaware that indexes exist at all
B. bad indexes are more memorable than good ones
C. the reader who notices nothing has been served best
D. readers should be taught how to use an index

Question 28

According to the passage, the temperature of the brood nest is held

F. between thirty-four and thirty-six degrees
G. between thirty and thirty-three degrees
H. at exactly thirty-five degrees throughout the year
J. at whatever temperature the outside air reaches

Question 29

According to the passage, foragers switch from nectar to water because

A. a scout bee signals the need by dancing at the entrance
B. the queen releases a chemical signal when the hive warms
C. fanning bees at the entrance call the foragers back
D. water carriers are unloaded more quickly than nectar carriers

Question 30

According to the passage, a bee generates heat by

F. pressing its thorax against the wax cap of a cell
G. contracting the flight muscles without moving the wings
H. entering an empty cell among the brood to shelter
J. feeding on honey stored close to the brood nest

Question 31

The passage most strongly suggests that

A. the colony behaves as though it were measuring what no bee measures
B. individual bees can detect the temperature of the whole nest
C. the queen determines when fanning and warming begin
D. colonies with one father respond faster than others

Question 32

The fourth paragraph serves mainly to

F. establish that queens mate with many drones
G. describe the genetic basis of the fanning response
H. explain why variety among individuals produces a steadier result
J. compare honeybees with other social insects

Question 33

As used in the passage, oscillates most nearly means

A. swings above and below the target
B. rises without interruption over a long period
C. stays within an unusually narrow band
D. falls whenever the outside air cools

Question 34

According to the passage, which claim has been established by the experiments?

F. the spread of thresholds is maintained by natural selection
G. the spread of thresholds affects the stability of nest temperature
H. colonies bred for known paternity behave like typical colonies
J. honeybees hold the same range in every climate studied

Question 35

The final paragraph serves mainly to

A. argue that the findings apply to all social insects
B. propose a further experiment on wild colonies
C. mark the boundary of what the experiments can support
D. question whether the threshold measurements were accurate

Question 36

The comparison with a heating system serves mainly to

F. make an unfamiliar mechanism easier to grasp
G. argue that hives should be fitted with thermostats
H. establish that buildings are heated less efficiently than hives
J. explain how a boiler responds to a single thermostat

Practice Test 2 · Reading Answers and Explanations

Answer key: 1. D 2. J 3. C 4. G 5. D 6. H 7. D 8. F 9. D 10. J 11. C 12. G 13. A 14. H 15. A 16. J 17. D 18. G 19. A 20. G 21. A 22. H 23. B 24. H 25. B 26. G 27. C 28. F 29. D 30. G 31. A 32. H 33. A 34. G 35. C 36. F

1. Key: D. He lays the reel an hour early against habit, tells everyone the work is the same when it is not, and says he does not mind when he does. A: He checks the gate and the tension with the care of long practice. B: No opinion about the reliability of the new machine is expressed. C: He has been offered and has accepted the operator’s job in March.

2. Key: J. The 1954 installation and the two rebuilds set the machines in the building for longer than Marek has worked there. F: The projectors have been rebuilt twice, which indicates upkeep rather than neglect. G: The passage states plainly that nobody living knows the reason. H: His preference is conveyed elsewhere and not through the installation date.

3. Key: C. The passage states that the box will need one operator for four screens instead of one for each. A: That arrangement is the opposite of what the new machine allows. B: That describes the old arrangement rather than the coming one. D: No such staffing arrangement is described anywhere in the passage.

4. Key: G. A reel change done properly is one nobody sees, and Marek thinks that not being noticed is the whole of the job. F: No unfairness in how mistakes are judged is claimed anywhere. H: No recommendation about informing the audience appears anywhere in the passage. J: His father passes on instruction rather than any regret about the work.

5. Key: D. What he took as sentiment at nineteen he came to read as a working instruction about listening to the machine. A: Nothing in the passage suggests his father issued orders about the work. B: The remark concerns the machine rather than any dealings with people. C: No danger from the machinery is raised anywhere in the passage.

6. Key: H. The passage runs from lacing the last reel to leaving through the foyer, and the ending of the work sits inside that routine. F: The digital machine is described briefly rather than compared throughout. G: The changeover occupies a single paragraph within a much longer evening. J: The father appears in one paragraph rather than organizing the passage.

7. Key: D. He puts his hand on Bess after the work is finished and notes that he would be embarrassed to be seen doing it. A: He has already shut down in the ordinary order before doing this. B: Warmth is not mentioned, and the gesture follows the shutdown. C: No purchase of the machine is contemplated anywhere in the passage.

8. Key: F. The audience of four hundred and six never knows he is there, and on the way out a colleague says goodnight by name. G: A goodnight given by name indicates familiarity rather than close friendship. H: No farewell of any kind is described in the passage. J: He is to operate the new projector, so he is not leaving.

9. Key: D. The last reel, the clean changeover, the swept box, and the hand on the machine make an ordinary evening carry the end of the work. A: No dispute with the employer occurs at any point in the passage. B: The differences are sketched rather than examined in any detail. C: He accepted the position in March, before the evening described.

10. Key: C. This is Passage G's explicitly stated central argument, developed across its opening paragraphs. A misstates the passage's position as eliminating fees rather than restructuring them. B states the opposite of Passage G's actual argument. D treats an objection Passage G raises and rebuts as if it were the passage's own conclusion.

11. Key: B. Passage G directly identifies this specific mismatch between what critics fear and what the odometer-based proposal actually involves. A overstates the passage's response into a denial the objection exists at all. C states a sweeping principle the passage never asserts. D misapplies an objection about tracking to a system that involves no per-driver tracking at all.

12. Key: B. This is Passage H's explicitly developed position, stated directly in its closing paragraph. A states the opposite of Passage H's actual argument. C introduces a funding mechanism the passage never proposes. D imports a concern from Passage G that Passage H does not raise at all.

13. Key: A. Both passages state this directly: Passage G opens with it, and Passage H explicitly concedes a flat fee "has its own real unfairness." B is a concern Passage H never raises. C directly contradicts Passage H's central argument. D is a policy neither passage proposes.

14. Key: B. Passage H does not deny that distance matters, which Passage G also claims; it adds a second factor Passage G's proposal does not incorporate, qualifying rather than contradicting the fairness claim. A misstates the relationship as direct contradiction. C denies a clear, substantive connection between the two passages' arguments. D overstates a qualification into a claim of factual error.

15. Key: B. Passage H never disputes Passage G's privacy point, and instead raises entirely separate concerns, weight, predictability, and equity, consistent with tacitly accepting Passage G's privacy response while objecting to the proposal on different grounds. A overstates a position Passage H does not take. C and D both invent a stance on privacy that Passage H's text never states.

16. Key: B. Predictability opens Passage H's argument but is not where the passage's main development or conclusion lands; the passage's more developed point is the weight-and-distance fairness argument that follows. A overstates a brief opening point into the passage's central claim. C misattributes a refutation to a point that does not engage Passage G's fairness argument directly. D denies a connection that clearly exists.

17. Key: B. This new information would complicate, not simply confirm, Passage H's weight-based fairness argument, since it suggests the wear relationship is more specific than weight alone predicts. A denies a clear, relevant connection. C ignores the genuine complication the new data introduces. D overstates the new data into a full vindication of Passage G's specific proposal, which the data does not establish.

18. Key: B. This synthesis accurately combines each passage's distinct contribution, distance in Passage G, weight in Passage H, into a conclusion neither passage states alone but that both together support. A overstates agreement the passages do not fully share. C and D each import a sweeping conclusion neither passage argues for.

19. Key: A. The essay separates judgment from word listing, describes the imagination required, and closes on invisibility being mistaken for ease. B: The author states plainly that no belief in decline is held here. C: A concordance is contrasted with an index rather than predicted to replace it. D: Payment is raised as a symptom rather than as the essay’s claim.

20. Key: G. The paragraph sets the concordance against the index and locates the difference in judgment about what a book is about. F: The date is given in passing rather than as the paragraph’s purpose. H: Vocabulary is discussed later in connection with the reader instead. J: Inflation supplies an example rather than a subject of its own.

21. Key: A. The reader who looks up housing and is not sent to accommodation has been failed, which requires the indexer to imagine unused words. B: The passage places the burden on the indexer rather than the reader. C: The two are treated together rather than ranked against each other. D: Length of the book is never discussed anywhere in the passage.

22. Key: H. The rule of the form is that an index noticed while being used has interrupted the reader, so the word describes staying unseen. F: Payment is discussed separately and not in connection with this word. G: Naming the indexer is not what the passage is describing here. J: Judgment is what the essay says an index must supply.

23. Key: B. The hostile index is offered as diverting and then used to state the rule of self-effacement it departs from. A: The paragraph calls such indexes more entertaining than they are instructive. C: The period supplies an example rather than a historical account. D: The entries are noted with amusement rather than being condemned.

24. Key: H. The author knows where everything is, which is exactly the knowledge that prevents imagining a reader who does not. F: That detail describes the economics rather than the reason for poor results. G: Pay establishes the conditions rather than the flaw in author indexing. J: That statement defines an index rather than explaining the failure.

25. Key: B. The essay calls the work a distinct skill, describes its peculiar imagination, and objects that invisibility has been taken for ease. A: Readers are described with sympathy rather than being blamed at all. C: The author states directly that no decline is believed in. D: The hostile index is one paragraph rather than the essay’s tone.

26. Key: G. The passage moves from what an index is, through what it is not, to the craft, the hostile exception, the pay, and the closing point. F: The period appears once, and the passage is organized by argument. H: Only the concordance is compared, and that comparison is brief. J: No reform is proposed and no objections are raised against one.

27. Key: C. A reader who has never thought about an index has probably been reading good ones, since a good index is not noticed. A: Awareness of indexes generally is not what the closing sentence claims. B: Memorability is not what the passage attributes to a poor index. D: No instruction to readers is proposed anywhere in the passage.

28. Key: F. The passage states that the brood nest is held between thirty-four and thirty-six degrees in all climates. G: Thirty-three is the figure a single warming bee can hold a cell above. H: The passage gives a range rather than a single fixed temperature. J: The colony holds its own range against the outside conditions instead.

29. Key: D. The colony signals its need through how fast a load is taken, so foragers switch when water is unloaded quickly. A: No dance of any kind is described in the passage. B: The queen plays no part in the cooling described here. C: Fanning drives air across the water rather than recalling any foragers.

30. Key: G. A bee raises its thorax temperature by contracting the flight muscles without moving the wings, producing heat rather than motion. F: That is what a warmed bee does afterward rather than how it warms. H: Entering a cell is how the heat is applied rather than generated. J: Feeding is needed after warming rather than being the mechanism.

31. Key: A. Regulation is achieved without any bee measuring the nest, since individual thresholds differ and responses accumulate. B: The passage states that no bee measures the nest as a whole. C: Thresholds are genetic and individual rather than set by the queen. D: The narrow-spread colony responds together and then swings back again.

32. Key: H. A wide spread of thresholds produces gradual response while a narrow spread produces oscillation, which is the paragraph’s point. F: Multiple mating is the condition rather than the point being made. G: The genetic basis is stated rather than explained in that paragraph. J: No other social insect is discussed anywhere in the passage.

33. Key: A. A colony that responds all together and then stops all together produces a nest temperature that moves back and forth. B: The word describes movement in both directions rather than a rise. C: Steadiness is the outcome that the wide spread produces instead. D: The behaviour described is internal rather than following outside air.

34. Key: G. The closing paragraph states that what has been established is the effect of threshold spread on stability. F: The passage names this as a separate question that is not settled. H: The passage states that such colonies are not typical ones. J: That claim opens the passage rather than resulting from the experiments.

35. Key: C. The final paragraph names the single species, the atypical colonies, and the separate question selection would raise. A: The passage restricts the work to a single species instead. B: No further experiment of any kind is proposed in the passage. D: The accuracy of the measurements is never called into doubt.

36. Key: F. The many-thermostat comparison is offered to convey why varied thresholds hold a temperature steadier than a single switch. G: No proposal about fitting equipment to any hive is made. H: Efficiency of buildings is not compared with that of colonies. J: The boiler serves the comparison rather than being the subject.

My acquired vocabulary

Fill this in with words you missed or hesitated on anywhere in this test, English or Reading, not only from Chapter 9 material. The sentence it appeared in matters more than the word alone; write enough of it to remember why the word tripped you up.

Word or phrase	Sentence it appeared in	What it meant here	What I confused it with

My error log for this test

Use this alongside the acquired-vocabulary table above. Fill in one row per missed question from this test, English or Reading. The full method for using this log is taught in Chapter 10.

Question / section	Choice I picked	Why it was actually wrong	Knowledge gap or execution error?	Rule or proof that resolves it