PSAT PSAT-Reading 問題集

質問 1：
(1) On my nineteenth birthday, I began my trip to Mali, West Africa.
(2) Some 24 hours later I arrived in Bamako, the capital of Mali.
(3) The sun had set and the night was starless.
(4) One of the officials from the literacy program I was working was there to meet me.
(5) After the melee in the baggage claim, we proceeded to his car.
(6) Actually, it was a truck.
(7) I was soon to learn that most people in Mali that had automobiles actually had trucks or SUVs.
(8) Apparently, there not just a convenience but a necessity when you live on the edge of the Sahara.
(9) I threw my bags into the bed of the truck, and hopped in to the back of the cab.
(10) Riding to my welcome dinner, I stared out the windows of the truck and took in the city.
(11) It was truly a foreign land to me, and I knew that I was an alien there.
(12) "What am I doing here?" I thought.
(13) It is hard to believe but seven months later I returned to the same airport along the same road that I
had traveled on that first night in Bamako, and my perspective on the things that I saw had completely
changed.
(14) The landscape that had once seemed so desolate and lifeless now was the homeland of people that I
had come to love.
(15) When I looked back at the capital, Bamako, fast receding on the horizon, I did not see a city
foreboding and wild in its foreignness.
(16) I saw the city which held so many dear friends.
(17) I saw teadrinking sessions going late into the night.
(18) I saw the hospitality and open-heartedness of the people of Mali.
(19) The second time, everything looked completely different, and I knew that it was I who had changed
and not it.
Sentence 13 (reproduced below) would best be revised to which of the following choices? It is hard to
believe but seven months later I returned to the same airport along the same road that I had traveled on
that first night in Bamako, and my perspective on the things that I saw had completely changed.
A. It is hard to believe, but seven months later I returned to the same airport along the same road that I
had traveled on that first night in Bamako: my perspective on the things I saw had completely changed.
B. It is hard to believe, but seven months later I returned to the same airport along the same road that I
had traveled on that first night in Bamako, and my perspective on the things that I saw having completely
changed.
C. It is hard to believe but seven months later I returned to the same airport along the same road that I
had traveled on that first night in Bamako, and my perspective completely changed on the things I saw.
D. It is hard to believe, but seven months later, when I returned to the same airport along the same road
that I had traveled on that first night in Bamako, my perspective on the things I saw had completely
changed.
E. As it is now.
正解：D
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質問 2：
Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied that I saw, certain indications of method,
removed the peg which marked the spot where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches to the
westward of its former position. Taking, now, the tape measure from the nearest point of the trunk to the
peg, as before, and continuing the extension in a straight line to the distance of fifty feet, a spot was
indicated, removed, by several yards, from the point at which we had been digging.
Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in the former instance, was now described, and
we again set to work with the spades. I was dreadfully weary, but, scarcely understanding what had
occasioned the change in my thoughts, I felt no longer any great aversion from the labor imposed. I had
become most unaccountably interested--nay, even excited. Perhaps there was something, amid all the
extravagant demeanor of Legrand--some air of forethought, or of deliberation, which impressed me. I dug
eagerly, and now and then caught myself actually looking, with something that very much resembled
expectation, for the fancied treasure, the vision of which had demented my unfortunate companion. At a
period when such vagaries of thought most fully possessed me, and when we had been at work perhaps
an hour and a half, we were again interrupted by the violent howlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in the
first instance, had been, evidently, but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a bitter
and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's again attempting to muzzle him, he made furious resistance, and,
leaping into the hole, tore up the mould frantically with his claws. In a few seconds he had uncovered a
mass of human bones, forming two complete skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of metal, and
what appeared to be the dust of decayed woolen. One or two strokes of a spade upturned the blade of a
large Spanish knife, and, as we dug farther, three or four loose pieces of gold and silver coin came to
light.
At sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be restrained, but the countenance of his master wore an
air of extreme disappointment he urged us, however, to continue our exertions, and the words were hardly
uttered when I stumbled and fell forward, having caught the toe of my boot in a large ring of iron that lay
half buried in the loose earth. We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass ten minutes of more
intense excitement. During his interval we had fairly unearthed an oblong chest of wood, which, from its
perfect preservation and wonderful hardness, had plainly been subjected to some mineralizing
process--perhaps that of the Bi-chloride of Mercury. This box was three feet and a half long, three feet
broad, and two and a half feet deep. It was firmly secured by bands of wrought iron, riveted, and forming a
kind of open trelliswork over the whole. On each side of the chest, near the top, were three rings of
iron--six in all--by means of which a firm hold could be obtained by six persons. Our utmost united
endeavors served only to disturb the coffer very slightly in its bed. We at once saw the impossibility of
removing so great a weight. Luckily, the sole fastenings of the lid consisted of two sliding bolts. These we
drew back trembling and panting with anxiety. In an instant, a treasure of incalculable value lay gleaming
before us. As the rays of the lanterns fell within the pit, there flashed upwards a glow and a glare, from a
confused heap of gold and of jewels, that absolutely dazzled our eyes.
I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I gazed. Amazement was, of course, predominant.
Legrand appeared exhausted with excitement, and spoke very few words. Jupiter's countenance wore, for
some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is possible, in nature of things, for any negro's visage to assume.
He seemed stupefied thunderstricken. Presently he fell upon his knees in the pit, and, burying his naked
arms up to the elbows in gold, let them there remain, as if enjoying the luxury of a bath.
It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both master and valet to the expediency of removing the
treasure. It was growing late, and it behooved us to make exertion, that we might get every thing housed
before daylight. It was difficult to say what should be done, and much time was spent in deliberation--so
confused were the ideas of all. We, finally, lightened the box by removing two thirds of its contents, when
we were enabled, with some trouble, to raise it from the hole. The articles taken out were deposited
among the brambles, and the dog left to guard them, with strict orders from Jupiter neither, upon any
pretence, to stir from the spot, nor to open his mouth until our return.
Considering that an alternative meaning other than jumbled was used for the term "confused" (4th
paragraph) select the best rationale for the phenomenon of the treasure's confusion as related in (4th
paragraph).
A. The treasure didn't think anyone would be able to open the box.
B. The treasure was shocked to see people after so long.
C. The gold and jewels were in a state of disarray.
D. The dog having just uncovered the remains of the treasure's last owners was confusion.
E. The lamps casting a shadowy light would have caused distorted images.
正解：B
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質問 3：
In the year 1860, the reputation of Doctor Wybrow as a London physician reached its highest point. It was
re ported on good authority that he was in receipt of one of the largest incomes derived from the practice
of medicine in modern times.
One afternoon, towards the close of the London season, the doctor had just taken his luncheon after a
specially hard morning's work in his consulting-room, and with a formidable list of visits to patients at their
own houses to fill up the rest of his day--when the servant announced that a lady wished to speak to him.
"Who is she?" the Doctor asked. "A stranger?"
"Yes, sir."
"I see no strangers out of consulting-hours. Tell her what the hours are, and send her away." "I have told
her, sir."
"Well?"
"And she won't go."
"Won't go?" The doctor smiled as he repeated the words. He was a humorist in his way; and there was an
absurd side to the situation which rather amused him. "Has this obstinate lady given you her name?" he
inquired.
"No, sir. She refused to give any name--she said she wouldn't keep you five minutes, and the matter was
too important to wait till to-morrow. There she is in the consulting-room; and how to get her out again is
more than I know."
Doctor Wybrow considered for a moment. His knowledge of women (professionally speaking) rested on
the ripe experience of more than thirty years; he had met with them in all their varieties--especially the
variety which knows nothing of the value of time, and never hesitates at sheltering itself behind the
privileges of its sex. A glance at his watch informed him that he must soon begin his rounds among the
patients who were waiting for him at theirown houses. He decided forthwith on taking the only wise course
that was open under the circumstances. In other words, he decided on taking to flight.
"Is the carriage at the door?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Very well. Open the house-door for me without making any noise, and leave the lady in undisturbed
possession of the consulting-room. When she gets tired of waiting, you know what to tell her. If she asks
when I am expected to return, say that I dine at my club, and spend the evening at the theatre. Now then,
softly, Thomas! If your shoes creak, I am a lost man."
Why does the decision made by the physician strike the reader as unusual?
A. It is unusual that an unidentified patient would attend the consultation room and refuse to leave when
told the physician could not see them.
B. It seems incongruent that a physician whose job consists of listening to patients suggesting that the
only wise course is to run away.
C. It is unusual because we know that a woman would take her time and that, unless the physician were
to be considered rude, he would have to hear her complete story.
D. It is not normally the case that physicians find themselves in a position of helping one at the expense of
another.
E. Since the physician did not know the seriousness or the nature of the situation with the stranger, it
seems strange that he didn't at least find out.
正解：B
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質問 4：
The main purpose of this story is to appeal to the reader's interest in a subject which has been the theme
of some of the greatest writers, living and dead--but which has never been, and can never be, exhausted,
because it is a subject eternally interesting to all mankind. Here is one more book that depicts the struggle
of a human creature, under those opposing influences of Good and Evil, which we have all felt, which we
have all known. It has been my aim to make the character of "Magdalen," which personifies this struggle,
a pathetic character even in its perversity and its error; and I have tried hard to attain this result by the
least obtrusive and the least artificial of all means--by a resolute adherence throughout to the truth as it is
in Nature. This design was no easy one to accomplish; and it has been a great encouragement to me
(during the publication of my story in its periodical form) to know, on the authority of many readers, that
the object which I had proposed to myself, I might, in some degree, consider as an object achieved.
Round the central figure in the narrative other characters will be found grouped, in sharp
contrast--contrast, for the most part, in which I have endeavored to make the element of humor mainly
predominant. I have sought to impart this relief to the more serious passages in the book, not only
because I believe myself to be justified in doing so by the laws of Art--but because experience has taught
me (what the experience of my readers will doubtless confirm) that there is no such moral phenomenon
as unmixed tragedy to be found in the world around us. Look where we may, the dark threads and the
light cross each other perpetually in the texture of human life.
What selection best identifies the device utilized as a whole in the opening first paragraph?
A. rhetorical question
B. antagonist
C. epic
D. allegory
E. allusion
正解：E
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質問 5：
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 mentions areas outside the Los Amigos watershed
primarily in order to
A. emphasize that Los Amigos is the most pristine locale.
B. underscore the interrelatedness of the ecosystems.
C. praise the Peruvian government for its other conservationist undertakings.
D. imply that his future research will focus on these areas.
E. draw a comparison between work in those areas and work in the Los Amigos area.
正解：B
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質問 6：
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.
In context, the word "inveterate" in the last paragraph most closely means
A. positively unacceptable.
B. occurring over a prolonged period.
C. rude.
D. a particularly bad.
E. something only present in vertebrates.
正解：B
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質問 7：
Margaret Walker, who would become one of the most important twentieth century African-American poets,
was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1915. Her parents, a minister and a music teacher, encouraged her
to read poetry and philosophy even as a child. Walker completed her high school education at Gilbert
Academy in New Orleans and went on to attend New Orleans University for two years. It was then that the
important Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes recognized her talent and persuaded her to
continue her education in the North. She transferred to Northwestern University in Illinois, where she
received a degree in English in 1935. Her poem, "For My People," which would remain one of her most
important works, was also her first publication, appearing in Poetry magazine in 1937.
The passage cites Walker's interaction with Langston Hughes as
A. influential in her decision to study at Northwestern University.
B. important to her choice to study at New Orleans University.
C. instrumental in her early work being published.
D. a great encouragement for Walker's confidence as a poet.
E. not as important at the time it happened as it is now, due to Hughes' fame.
正解：A
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質問 8：
The __ manner in which the teacher candidate addressed the school board was a key factor in his
rejection; the school board members agreed that enthusiasm is an essential quality in a teacher.
A. superficial
B. solicitous
C. pretentious
D. combative
E. perfunctory
正解：E
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