SAT Section One : Critical Reading : SAT-Critical-Reading

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?

• A. hyperbole
• B. litotes
• C. metaphor
• D. mockery
• E. allusion

In 1953, Watson and Crick unlocked the structure of the DNA molecule and set into motion the modern
study of genetics. This advance allowed our study of life to go beyond the so-called wet and dirty realm of
biology, the complicated laboratory study of proteins, cells, organelles, ions, and lipids. The study of life
could now be performed with more abstract methods of analysis. By discovering the basic structure of
DNA, we had received our first glance into the information-based realm locked inside the genetic code.
The passage uses the phrase "wet and dirty" (line 5) to mean

• A. the study of the genetic code.
• B. information-based biological research.
• C. haphazard guessing about the genetic code.
• D. the work of Watson and Crick in discovering DNA.
• E. involved laboratory practices in studying basic biological entities

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.
The phrase "Sickly and sorrow-stricken" is an example of which literary device?

• A. assonance
• B. repetition
• C. parallelism
• D. alliteration
• E. intonation

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.
Which statement least describes the author's feelings about English critics?

• A. They are wont to hold others who express views in various forums to the same restrictions as literary
  authors.
• B. They think more of their artificial airs than of dealing with current social issues.
• C. They do not know how to deal with enlightened authors so they forbid the reading of them.
• D. They wish their country to remain sheltered and backward by restricting authors' freedoms.
• E. They are not educated enough to understand the social implications of these writings.

His ______ behavior toward her caused a considerable riff in the organization, partially because of the
size of the company and partially because he was a married man with children.

• A. mysterious
• B. periodic
• C. obsequious
• D. untoward
• E. snide