PSAT PSAT-Reading Actual Free Exam Questions & Community Discussion

Twentieth-century Japan faced the question of how to __ the best of modern civilization without losing the
benefits of Japan's __ way of life.

The spring is fairly with us now. Outside my laboratory window the great chestnut-tree is all covered with
the big, glutinous, gummy buds, some of which have already begun to break into little green shuttlecocks.
As you walk down the lanes you are conscious of the rich, silent forces of nature working all around you.
The wet earth smells fruitful and luscious. Green shoots are peeping out everywhere. The twigs are stiff
with their sap; and the moist, heavy English air is laden with a faintly resinous perfume. Buds in the
hedges, lambs beneath them--everywhere the work of reproduction going forward!
I can see it without, and I can feel it within. We also have our spring when the little arterioles dilate, the
lymph flows in a brisker stream, the glands work harder, winnowing and straining. Every year nature
readjusts the whole machine. I can feel the ferment in my blood at this very moment, and as the cool
sunshine pours through my window I could dance about in it like a gnat. So I should, only that Charles
Sadler would rush upstairs to know what the matter was. Besides, I must remember that I am Professor
Gilroy. An old professor may afford to be natural, but when fortune has given one of the first chairs in the
university to a man of four-and-thirty he must try and act the part consistently.
What can be inferred by the narrator's choice of words, "gnat" 2nd paragraph to describe his dance?

In some of the poorest neighborhoods of New York City, community gardens are springing up as __ the
filth and desolation of their urban surroundings.

This passage discusses the work of Abe Kobo, a Japanese novelist of the twentieth century.
Abe Kobo is one of the great writers of postwar Japan. His literature is richer, less predictable, and
wider-ranging than that of his famed contemporaries, Mishima Yukio and Nobel laureate Oe Kenzaburo. It
is infused with the passion and strangeness of his experiences in Manchuria, which was a Japanese
colony on mainland China before World War II.
Abe spent his childhood and much of his youth in Manchuria, and, as a result, the orbit of his work would
be far less controlled by the oppressive gravitational pull of the themes of furusato (hometown) and the
emperor than his contemporaries'.
Abe, like most of the sons of Japanese families living in Manchuria, did return to Japan for schooling. He
entered medical school in Tokyo in 1944--just in time to forge himself a medical certificate claiming ill
health; this allowed him to avoid fighting in the war that Japan was already losing and return to Manchuria.
When Japan lost the war, however, it also lost its Manchurian colony. The Japanese living there were
attacked by the Soviet Army and various guerrilla bands. They suddenly found themselves refugees,
desperate for food. Many unfit men were abandoned in the Manchurian desert. At this apocalyptic time,
Abe lost his father to cholera.
He returned to mainland Japan once more, where the young were turning to Marxism as a rejection of the
militarism of the war. After a brief, unsuccessful stint at medical school, he became part of a Marxist group
of avant-garde artists. His work at this time was passionate and outspoken on political matters, adopting
black humor as its mode of critique.
During this time, Abe worked in the genres of theater, music, and photography. Eventually, he
mimeographed fifty copies of his first "published" literary work, entitled Anonymous Poems, in 1947. It
was a politically charged set of poems dedicated to the memory of his father and friends who had died in
Manchuria. Shortly thereafter, he published his first novel, For a Signpost at the End of a Road, which
imagined another life for his best friend who had died in the Manchurian desert. Abe was also active in the
Communist Party, organizing literary groups for workingmen.
Unfortunately, most of this radical early work is unknown outside Japan and underappreciated even in
Japan. In early 1962, Abe was dismissed from the Japanese Liberalist Party. Four months later, he
published the work that would blind us to his earlier oeuvre, Woman in the Dunes. It was director
Teshigahara Hiroshi's film adaptation of Woman in the Dunes that brought Abe's work to the international
stage. The movie's fame has wrongly led readers to view the novel as Abe's masterpiece. It would be
more accurate to say that the novel simply marked a turning point in his career, when Abe turned away
from the experimental and heavily political work of his earlier career. Fortunately, he did not then turn to
furusato and the emperor after all, but rather began a somewhat more realistic exploration of his
continuing obsession with homelessness and alienation. Not completely a stranger to his earlier
commitment to Marxism, Abe turned his attention, beginning in the sixties, to the effects on the individual
of Japan's rapidly urbanizing, growthdriven, increasingly corporate society.
The word "avant-garde" in this passage could best be replaced by

George Washington served as president of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and was then elected
President of the United States in 1789. This is from his first address to Congress. Such being the
impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it
would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to the Almighty Being,
who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can
supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the
people of the United States a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may
enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to
his charge. In tendering this homage to the great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself
that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than
either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs
of men, more than the people of the United States.
Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been
distinguished by some token of providential agency. And, in the important revolution just accomplished in
the system of their united government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct
communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most
governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude along with a humble
anticipation of the future blessings which the past seems to presage. These reflections, arising out of the
present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I
trust, in thinking that there are none, under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free
government can more auspiciously commence.
By the article establishing the executive department, it is made the duty of the President "to recommend
to your consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances,
under which I now meet you, will acquit me from entering into that subject farther than to refer you to the
great constitutional charter under which we are assembled; and which, in defining your powers,
designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those
circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a
recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the
patriotism, which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable
qualifications I behold the surest pledges, that as, on one side, no local prejudices or attachments, no
separate views or party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye, which ought to
watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests; so, on another, that the foundations of
our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the
preeminence of a free government be exemplified by all the attributes, which can win the affections of its
citizens, and command the respect of the world.
The word acquit (3rd line of last paragraph) is used to mean

Farmlands, wetlands, forests, and deserts that composed the American landscape in the early twentieth
century have frequently been transformed during the past thirty years into mushrooming metropolitan
areas as urbanization spreads across the country. Many metropolitan areas in the United States are
growing at extraordinary rates. "Urban growth is a vital issue that requires our careful attention from local
to global scales," said Barbara Ryan, USGS Associate Director of Geography. "It is not until we begin to
take a broad census of the land itself--tracking landscapes from a spatial perspective in a time scale of
decades--that we can grasp the scale of the changes that have already occurred and predict the impact of
changes to come."
On average, between 1984 and 2004, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Memphis,
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Orlando, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Raleigh-Durham, Reno-Sparks, Sacramento,
Seattle-Tacoma, and Tampa-St. Petersburg averaged 173 square miles of additional urban land over the
two decades, with Houston, Orlando, and Atlanta as the top three regions by area. The growth leaders by
percentage change were Las Vegas (193 percent), Orlando (157 percent), and Phoenix (103 percent).
You can infer from this article that

Farmlands, wetlands, forests, and deserts that composed the American landscape in the early twentieth
century have frequently been transformed during the past thirty years into mushrooming metropolitan
areas as urbanization spreads across the country. Many metropolitan areas in the United States are
growing at extraordinary rates. "Urban growth is a vital issue that requires our careful attention from local
to global scales," said Barbara Ryan, USGS Associate Director of Geography.
"It is not until we begin to take a broad census of the land itself--tracking landscapes from a spatial
perspective in a time scale of decades--that we can grasp the scale of the changes that have already
occurred and predict the impact of changes to come."
On average, between 1984 and 2004, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Memphis,
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Orlando, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Raleigh-Durham, Reno-Sparks, Sacramento,
Seattle-Tacoma, and Tampa-St. Petersburg averaged 173 square miles of additional urban land over the
two decades, with Houston, Orlando, and Atlanta as the top three regions by area. The growth leaders by
percentage change were Las Vegas (193 percent), Orlando (157 percent), and Phoenix (103 percent).
The tone of this passage is best described as

Mathew ascended three flights of stairs--passed half-way down a long arched gallery--and knocked at
another old-fashioned oak door. This time the signal was answered. A low, clear, sweet voice, inside the
room, inquired who was waiting without? In a few hasty words Mathew told his errand. Before he had
done speaking the door was quietly and quickly opened, and Sarah Leeson confronted him on the
threshold, with her candle in her hand.
Not tall, not handsome, not in her first youth--shy and irresolute in manner--simple in dress to the utmost
limits of plainness--the lady's-maid, in spite of all these disadvantages, was a woman whom it was
impossible to look at without a feeling of curiosity, if not of interest. Few men, at first sight of her, could
have resisted the desire to find out who she was; few would have been satisfied with receiving for answer,
She is Mrs. Treverton's maid; few would have refrained from the attempt to extract some secret
information for themselves from her face and manner; and none, not even the most patient and practiced
of observers, could have succeeded in discovering more than that she must have passed through the
ordeal of some great suffering at some former period of her life. Much in her manner, and more in her face,
said plainly and sadly: I am the wreck of something that you might once have liked to see; a wreck that
can never be repaired--that must drift on through life unnoticed, unguided, unpitied--drift till the fatal shore
is touched, and the waves of Time have swallowed up these broken relics of me forever.
This was the story that was told in Sarah Leeson's face--this, and no more. No two men interpreting that
story for themselves, would probably have agreed on the nature of the suffering which this woman had
undergone. It was hard to say, at the outset, whether the past pain that had set its ineffaceable mark on
her had been pain of the body or pain of the mind. But whatever the nature of the affliction she had
suffered, the traces it had left were deeply and strikingly visible in every part of her face.
Her cheeks had lost their roundness and their natural color; her lips, singularly flexible in movement and
delicate in form, had faded to an unhealthy paleness; her eyes, large and black and overshadowed by
unusually thick lashes, had contracted an anxious startled look, which never left them and which piteously
expressed the painful acuteness of her sensibility, the inherent timidity of her disposition. So far, the
marks which sorrow or sickness had set on her were the marks common to most victims of mental or
physical suffering. The one extraordinary personal deterioration which she had undergone consisted in
the unnatural change that had passed over the color of her hair.
It was as thick and soft, it grew as gracefully, as the hair of a young girl; but it was as gray as the hair of an
old woman. It seemed to contradict, in the most startling manner, every personal assertion of youth that
still existed in her face. With all its haggardness and paleness, no one could have looked at it and
supposed for a moment that it was the face of an elderly woman. Wan as they might be, there was not a
wrinkle in her cheeks. Her eyes, viewed apart from their prevailing expression of uneasiness and timidity,
still preserved that bright, clear moisture which is never seen in the eyes of the old. The skin about her
temples was as delicately smooth as the skin of a child. These and other physical signs which never
mislead, showed that she was still, as to years, in the very prime of her life.
Sickly and sorrow-stricken as she was, she looked, from the eyes downward, a woman who had barely
reached thirty years of age. From the eyes upward, the effect of her abundant gray hair, seen in
connection with her face, was not simply incongruous--it was absolutely startling; so startling as to make it
no paradox to say that she would have looked most natural, most like herself if her hair had been dyed. In
her case, Art would have seemed to be the truth, because Nature looked like falsehood. What shock had
stricken her hair, in the very maturity of its luxuriance, with the hue of an unnatural old age? Was it a
serious illness, or a dreadful grief that had turned her gray in the prime of her womanhood? That question
had often been agitated among her fellow-servants, who were all struck by the peculiarities of her
personal appearance, and rendered a little suspicious of her, as well, by an inveterate habit that she had
of talking to herself. Inquire as they might, however, their curiosity was always baffled. Nothing more
could be discovered than that Sarah Leeson was, in the common phrase, touchy on the subject of her
gray hair and her habit of talking to herself, and that Sarah Leeson's mistress had long since forbidden
every one, from her husband downward, to ruffle her maid's tranquility by inquisitive questions.
What does the author mean with the statement "In her case, Art would have seemed to be the truth,
because Nature looked like falsehood"?

Big earthquakes are naturally occurring events well outside the powers of humans to create or stop. An
earthquake is caused by a sudden slip on a fault. Stresses in the earth's outer layer push the side of the
fault together. The friction across the surface of the fault holds the rocks together so they do not slip
immediately when pushed sideways. Eventually enough stress builds up and the rocks slip suddenly,
releasing energy in waves that travel through the rock to cause the shaking that we feel during an
earthquake. Earthquakes typically originate several tens of miles below the surface of the earth. It takes
many years--decades to centuries--to build up enough stress to make a large earthquake, and the fault
may be tens to hundreds of miles long. The scale and force necessary to produce earthquakes are well
beyond our daily lives. Likewise, people cannot prevent earthquakes from happening or stop them once
they've started--giant nuclear explosions at shallow depths, like those in some movies, won't actually stop
an earthquake.
The two most important variables affecting earthquake damage are the intensity of ground shaking cased
by the quake and the quality of the engineering of structures in the region. The level of shaking, in turn, is
controlled by the proximity of the earthquake source to the affected region and the types of rocks that
seismic waves pass through en route (particularly those at or near the ground surface). Generally, the
bigger and closer the earthquake, the stronger the shaking. But there have been large earthquakes with
very little damage either because they caused little shaking or because the buildings were built to
withstand that shaking. In other cases, moderate earthquakes have caused significant damage either
because the shaking was locally amplified or more likely because the structures were poorly engineered.
The amount of shaking during an earthquake is determined by

He was a un-common small man, he really was. Certainly not so small as he was made out to be, but
where IS your Dwarf as is? He was a most uncommon small man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and
what he had inside that Ed, nobody ever knowed but himself: even supposin himself to have ever took
stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do.
The kindest little man as never growed! Spirited, but not proud. When he travelled with the Spotted Baby
though he knowed himself to be a nat'ral Dwarf, and knowed the Baby's spots to be put upon him artificial,
he nursed that Baby like a mother. You never heerd him give a ill-name to a Giant. He DID allow himself
to break out into strong language respectin the Fat Lady from Norfolk; but that was an affair of the 'art; and
when a man's 'art has been trifled with by a lady, and the preference giv to a Indian, he ain't master of his
actions. He was always in love, of course; every human nat'ral phenomenon is. And he was always in love
with a large woman; I never knowed the Dwarf as could be got to love a small one. Which helps to keep
'em the Curiosities they are.
One sing'ler idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have meant something, or it wouldn't have been
there. It was always his opinion that he was entitled to property. He never would put his name to anything.
He had been taught to write, by the young man without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a
writing master HE was, and taught scores in the line), but Chops would have starved to death, afore he'd
have gained a bit of bread by putting his hand to a paper. This is the more curious to bear in mind,
because HE had no property, nor hope of property, except his house and a sarser. When I say his house,
I mean the box, painted and got up outside like a reg'lar six-roomer, that he used to creep into, with a
diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the Public
believed to be the Drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean a Chaney sarser in which he
made a collection for himself at the end of every Entertainment. His cue for that, he took from me: "Ladies
and gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain."
When he said anything important, in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of words, and they
was generally the last thing he said to me at night afore he went to bed.
He had what I consider a fine mind--a poetic mind. His ideas respectin his property never come upon him
so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run
through him a little time, he would screech out, "Toby, I feel my property coming--grind away! I'm counting
my guineas by thousands, Toby--grind away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a jingling in
me, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the Bank of England!" Such is the influence of music on a poetic mind.
Not that he was partial to any other music but a barrel-organ; on the contrary, hated it.
He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public: which is a thing you may notice in many
phenomenons that get their living out of it. What riled him most in the nater of his occupation was, that it
kep him out of Society. He was continiwally saying, "Toby, my ambition is, to go into Society. The curse of
my position towards the Public is, that it keeps me hout of Society. This don't signify to a low beast of a
Indian; he an't formed for Society. This don't signify to a Spotted Baby; HE an't formed for Society. I am."
Which best depicts the type of writing represented by this excerpt?

The Amazonian wilderness harbors the greatest number of species on this planet and is an irreplaceable
resource for present and future generations. Amazonia is crucial for maintaining global climate and
genetic resources, and its forest and rivers provide vital sources of food, building materials,
pharmaceuticals, and water needed by wildlife and humanity. The Los Amigos watershed in the state of
Madre de Dios, southeastern Peru, is representative of the pristine lowland moist forest once found
throughout most of upper Amazonian South America. Threats to tropical forests occur in the form of
fishing, hunting, gold mining, timber extraction, impending road construction, and slash-and-burn
agriculture. The Los Amigos watershed, consisting of 1.6 million hectares (3.95 million acres), still offers
the increasingly scarce opportunity to study rainforest as it was before the disruptive encroachment of
modern human civilization. Because of its relatively pristine condition and the immediate need to justify it
as a conservation zone, this area deserves intensive, long-term projects aimed at botanical training,
ecotourism, biological inventory, and information synthesis. On July 24, 2001, the government of Peru
and the Amazon Conservation Association signed a contractual agreement creating the first long-term
permanently renewable conservation concession. To our knowledge this is the first such agreement to be
implemented in the world. The conservation concession protects 340,000 acres of old-growth Amazonian
forest in the Los Amigos watershed, which is located in southeastern Peru. This watershed protects the
eastern flank of Manu National Park and is part of the lowland forest corridor that links it to
Bahuaja-Sonene National Park. The Los Amigos conservation concession will serve as a mechanism for
the development of a regional center of excellence in natural forest management and biodiversity science.
Several major projects are being implemented at the Los Amigos Conservation Area. Louise Emmons is
initiating studies of mammal diversity and ecology in the Los Amigos area. Other projects involve studies
of the diversity of arthropods, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. Robin Foster has conducted botanical
studies at Los Amigos, resulting in the labeling of hundreds of plant species along two kilometers of trail in
upland and lowland forest. Michael Goulding is leading a fisheries and aquatic ecology program, which
aims to document the diversity of fish, their ecologies, and their habitats in the Los Amigos area and the
Madre de Dios watershed in general. With support from the Amazon Conservation Association, and in
collaboration with U.S. and Peruvian colleagues, the Botany of the Los Amigos project has been initiated.
At Los Amigos, we are attempting to develop a system of preservation, sustainability, and scientific
research; a marriage between various disciplines, from human ecology to economic botany, product
marketing to forest management. The complexity of the ecosystem will best be understood through a
multidisciplinary approach, and improved understanding of the complexity will lead to better management.
The future of these forests will depend on sustainable management and development of alternative
practices and products that do not require irreversible destruction. The botanical project will provide a
foundation of information that is essential to other programs at Los Amigos. By combining botanical
studies with fisheries and mammology, we will better understand plant/animal interactions. By providing
names, the botanical program will facilitate accurate communication about plants and the animals that
use them. Included in this scenario are humans, as we will dedicate time to people-plant interactions in
order to learn what plants are used by people in the Los Amigos area, and what plants could potentially
be used by people. To be informed, we must develop knowledge. To develop knowledge, we must collect,
organize, and disseminate information. In this sense, botanical information has conservation value.
Before we can use plant-based products from the forest, we must know what species are useful and we
must know their names. We must be able to identify them, to know where they occur in the forest, how
many of them exist, how they are pollinated and when they produce fruit (or other useful products). Aside
from understanding the species as they occur locally at Los Amigos, we must have information about their
overall distribution in tropical America in order to better understand and manage the distribution, variation,
and viability of their genetic diversity. This involves a more complete understanding of the species through
studies in the field and herbarium. The author's tone in the passage can best be described as

His proclivity for _____ had at one time made him a suspect in every open case of vandalism, but it also
made him mentally qualified for the specialized unit in the military whose job it was to reduce ______
munitions.

Friends of the theater have long decried the __ of the New York drama critics, whose reviews can
determine the fate of a play in a single night.

Also the Emperor became more and more excited with curiosity, and with great suspense one awaited the
hour, when according to mask-law, each masked guest must make himself known. This moment came,
but although all other unmasked; the secret knight still refused to allow his features to be seen, till at last
the Queen driven by curiosity, and vexed at the obstinate refusal; commanded him to open his Vizier. He
opened it, and none of the high ladies and knights knew him. But from the crowded spectators, two
officials advanced, who recognized the black dancer, and horror and terror spread in the saloon, as they
said who the supposed knight was. It was the executioner of Bergen. But glowing with rage, the King
commanded to seize the criminal and lead him to death, who had ventured to dance, with the queen; so
disgraced the Empress, and insulted the crown. The culpable threw himself at the Emperor, and said:
"Indeed I have heavily sinned against all noble guests assembled here, but most heavily against you my
sovereign and my queen. The Queen is insulted by my haughtiness equal to treason, but no punishment
even blood, will not be able to wash out the disgrace, which you have suffered by me. Therefore oh King!
allow me to propose a remedy, to efface the shame, and to render it as if not done. Draw your sword and
knight me, then I will throw down my gauntlet, to everyone who dares to speak disrespectfully of my king."
The phrase "and horror and terror spread in the saloon" (end of 1st paragraph)qualifies as what device?

Your knowledge of English Literature--to which I am indebted for the first faithful and intelligent translation
of my novels into the Italian language--has long since informed you, that there are certain important social
topics which are held to be forbidden to the English novelist (no matter how seriously and how delicately
he may treat them), by a narrow-minded minority of readers, and by the critics who flatter their prejudices.
You also know, having done me the honor to read my books; that I respect my art far too sincerely to
permit limits to be wantonly assigned to it, which are imposed in no other civilized country on the face of
the earth. When my work is undertaken with a pure purpose, I claim the same liberty which is accorded to
a writer in a newspaper, or to a clergyman in a pulpit; knowing, by pre-vious experience, that the increase
of readers and the lapse of time will assuredly do me justice, if I have only written well enough to deserve
it.
What is the overall mood of this passage?