Free ACT Test Exam Braindumps (page: 98)

The following passage is followed by questions based on its content. Think about what is implied or stated in each paragraph and then answer the questions.

(1) For perhaps the tenth time since the clock struck two, Sylvia crosses to the front-facing window of her apartment, pulls back the blue curtain, and looks down at the street. People hurry along the sidewalk; although she watches for several long moments, she sees no one enter her building.

(2) She walks back to the center of the high-ceilinged living room, where she stands frowning and twisting a silver bracelet around and around on her wrist. She is an attractive young woman, although perhaps too thin and with a look that is faintly ascetic; her face is narrow and delicate, her fine, light-brown hair caught back by a tortoiseshell comb. She is restless now, because she is being kept waiting. It is nearly two-thirty ­ a woman named Lola Parrish was to come at two o'clock to look at the apartment.

(3) She considers leaving a note and going out. The woman is late, and besides, Sylvia is certain that Lola Parrish will not be a suitable person with whom to share the apartment. On the phone she had sounded too old, for one thing ­ her voice oddly flat and as deep as a man's. However, the moment for saying the apartment was no longer available slipped past, and Sylvia found herself agreeing to the two o'clock appointment. If she leaves now, as she has a perfect right to do, she can avoid the awkwardness of turning the woman away.

(4) Looking past the blue curtain, however, she sees the sky is not clear but veiled by a white haze, and the air is oppressively still. She knows that the haze, the stillness, and the heat are conditions that often precede a summer thunderstorm ­ one of the abrupt, swiftly descending electrical storms that have terrified her since she was a child. If a storm comes, she wants to be at home in her own place.

(5) She walks back to the center of the room, aware now that the idea of sharing the apartment has actually begun to repel her. Still, she knows she will have to become accustomed to the notion, because her savings are nearly gone and the small trust fund left by her father, exhausted. She has a low-paying job, and, while she has considered seeking another (perhaps something connected with music ­ in her childhood she had played the flute and people had said she was gifted), she has found herself dragged down by a strange inertia.

(6) Besides, although her job pays poorly, it suits her. She is a typist in a natural history museum, with an office on the top floor and a window onto the nearby aviary. The man for whom she works, a curator who is rarely in, allows Sylvia to have the office to herself. The aviary consists of three enormous, white rooms, each with a high, vaulted ceiling. The birds themselves, so beautifully mounted they seem alive, are displayed in elaborate dioramas. Behind glass, they perch in trees with leaves of sculpted metal, appearing to soar through painted forests, above painted rivers and marshes. Everything is rendered in exquisite detail. Glancing at the birds and up through the skylight at the limitless outdoors keeps her mild claustrophobia at bay.

According to the passage, Sylvia waited for Lola instead of going out and leaving her a note because:

The following passage is followed by questions based on its content. Think about what is implied or stated in each paragraph and then answer the questions.

(1) For perhaps the tenth time since the clock struck two, Sylvia crosses to the front-facing window of her apartment, pulls back the blue curtain, and looks down at the street. People hurry along the sidewalk; although she watches for several long moments, she sees no one enter her building.

(2) She walks back to the center of the high-ceilinged living room, where she stands frowning and twisting a silver bracelet around and around on her wrist. She is an attractive young woman, although perhaps too thin and with a look that is faintly ascetic; her face is narrow and delicate, her fine, light-brown hair caught back by a tortoiseshell comb. She is restless now, because she is being kept waiting. It is nearly two-thirty ­ a woman named Lola Parrish was to come at two o'clock to look at the apartment.

(3) She considers leaving a note and going out. The woman is late, and besides, Sylvia is certain that Lola Parrish will not be a suitable person with whom to share the apartment. On the phone she had sounded too old, for one thing ­ her voice oddly flat and as deep as a man's. However, the moment for saying the apartment was no longer available slipped past, and Sylvia found herself agreeing to the two o'clock appointment. If she leaves now, as she has a perfect right to do, she can avoid the awkwardness of turning the woman away.

(4) Looking past the blue curtain, however, she sees the sky is not clear but veiled by a white haze, and the air is oppressively still. She knows that the haze, the stillness, and the heat are conditions that often precede a summer thunderstorm ­ one of the abrupt, swiftly descending electrical storms that have terrified her since she was a child. If a storm comes, she wants to be at home in her own place.

(5) She walks back to the center of the room, aware now that the idea of sharing the apartment has actually begun to repel her. Still, she knows she will have to become accustomed to the notion, because her savings are nearly gone and the small trust fund left by her father, exhausted. She has a low-paying job, and, while she has considered seeking another (perhaps something connected with music ­ in her childhood she had played the flute and people had said she was gifted), she has found herself dragged down by a strange inertia.

(6) Besides, although her job pays poorly, it suits her. She is a typist in a natural history museum, with an office on the top floor and a window onto the nearby aviary. The man for whom she works, a curator who is rarely in, allows Sylvia to have the office to herself. The aviary consists of three enormous, white rooms, each with a high, vaulted ceiling. The birds themselves, so beautifully mounted they seem alive, are displayed in elaborate dioramas. Behind glass, they perch in trees with leaves of sculpted metal, appearing to soar through painted forests, above painted rivers and marshes. Everything is rendered in exquisite detail. Glancing at the birds and up through the skylight at the limitless outdoors keeps her mild claustrophobia at bay.

What can be inferred about Sylvia's dominant emotion in paragraph 3?

The following passage is followed by questions based on its content. Think about what is implied or stated in each paragraph and then answer the questions.

(1) For perhaps the tenth time since the clock struck two, Sylvia crosses to the front-facing window of her apartment, pulls back the blue curtain, and looks down at the street. People hurry along the sidewalk; although she watches for several long moments, she sees no one enter her building.

(2) She walks back to the center of the high-ceilinged living room, where she stands frowning and twisting a silver bracelet around and around on her wrist. She is an attractive young woman, although perhaps too thin and with a look that is faintly ascetic; her face is narrow and delicate, her fine, light-brown hair caught back by a tortoiseshell comb. She is restless now, because she is being kept waiting. It is nearly two-thirty ­ a woman named Lola Parrish was to come at two o'clock to look at the apartment.

(3) She considers leaving a note and going out. The woman is late, and besides, Sylvia is certain that Lola Parrish will not be a suitable person with whom to share the apartment. On the phone she had sounded too old, for one thing ­ her voice oddly flat and as deep as a man's. However, the moment for saying the apartment was no longer available slipped past, and Sylvia found herself agreeing to the two o'clock appointment. If she leaves now, as she has a perfect right to do, she can avoid the awkwardness of turning the woman away.

(4) Looking past the blue curtain, however, she sees the sky is not clear but veiled by a white haze, and the air is oppressively still. She knows that the haze, the stillness, and the heat are conditions that often precede a summer thunderstorm ­ one of the abrupt, swiftly descending electrical storms that have terrified her since she was a child. If a storm comes, she wants to be at home in her own place.

(5) She walks back to the center of the room, aware now that the idea of sharing the apartment has actually begun to repel her. Still, she knows she will have to become accustomed to the notion, because her savings are nearly gone and the small trust fund left by her father, exhausted. She has a low-paying job, and, while she has considered seeking another (perhaps something connected with music ­ in her childhood she had played the flute and people had said she was gifted), she has found herself dragged down by a strange inertia.

(6) Besides, although her job pays poorly, it suits her. She is a typist in a natural history museum, with an office on the top floor and a window onto the nearby aviary. The man for whom she works, a curator who is rarely in, allows Sylvia to have the office to herself. The aviary consists of three enormous, white rooms, each with a high, vaulted ceiling. The birds themselves, so beautifully mounted they seem alive, are displayed in elaborate dioramas. Behind glass, they perch in trees with leaves of sculpted metal, appearing to soar through painted forests, above painted rivers and marshes. Everything is rendered in exquisite detail. Glancing at the birds and up through the skylight at the limitless outdoors keeps her mild claustrophobia at bay.

The statement that "the air is oppressively still" in paragraph 4 reflects the viewpoint of:

(1) The Cause of the Great War of the Rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery.

For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that "A state half slave and half free cannot exist." All must become slave or all free, or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.

(2) Slavery was an institution that required unusual guarantees for its security wherever it existed; and in a country like ours where the larger portion of it was free territory inhabited by an intelligent and well-to-do population, the people would naturally have but little sympathy with demands upon them for its protection. Hence the people of the South were dependent upon keeping control of the general government to secure the perpetuation of their favorite restitution. They were enabled to maintain this control long after the States where slavery existed had ceased to have the controlling power, through the assistance they received from odd men here and there throughout the Northern States. They saw their power waning, and this led them to encroach upon the prerogatives and independence of the Northern States by enacting such laws as the Fugitive Slave Law. By this law every Northern man was obliged, when properly summoned, to turn out and help apprehend the runaway slave of a Southern man. Northern marshals became slave-catchers, and Northern courts had to contribute to the support and protection of the institution.

(3) This was a degradation which the North would not permit any longer than until they could get the power to expunge such laws from the statute books. Prior to the time of these encroachments the great majority of the people of the North had no particular quarrel with slavery, so long as they were not forced to have it themselves. But they were not willing to play the role of police for the South in the protection of this particular institution.

(4) In the early days of the country, before we had railroads, telegraphs and steamboats ­ in a word, rapid transit of any sort ­ the States were each almost a separate nationality. At that time the subject of slavery caused but little or no disturbance to the public mind. But the country grew, rapid transit was established, and trade and commerce between the States got to be so much greater than before, that the power of the National government became more felt and recognized and, therefore, had to be enlisted in the cause of this institution.

(5) It is probably well that we had the war when we did. We are better off now than we would have been without it, and have made more rapid progress than we otherwise should have made. The civilized nations of Europe have been stimulated into unusual activity, so that commerce, trade, travel, and thorough acquaintance among people of different nationalities, has become common; whereas, before, it was but the few who had ever had the privilege of going beyond the limits of their own country or who knew anything about other people. Then, too, our republican institutions were regarded as experiments up to the breaking out of the rebellion, and monarchical Europe generally believed that our republic was a rope of sand that would part the moment the slightest strain was brought upon it. Now it has shown itself capable of dealing with one of the greatest wars that was ever made, and our people have proven themselves to be the most formidable in war of any nationality.

(6) But this war was a fearful lesson, and should teach us the necessity of avoiding wars in the future. The conduct of some of the European states during our troubles shows the lack of conscience of communities where the responsibility does not come upon a single individual. Seeing a nation that extended from ocean to ocean, embracing the better part of a continent, growing as we were growing in population, wealth and intelligence, the European nations thought it would be well to give us a check. We might, possibly, after a while, threaten their peace, or, at least, the perpetuity of their institutions. Hence, England was constantly finding fault with the administration at Washington because we were not able to keep up an effective blockade. She also joined, at first, with France and Spain in setting up an Austrian prince upon the throne in Mexico, totally disregarding any rights or claims that Mexico had of being treated as an independent power. It is true they trumped up grievances as a pretext, but they were only pretexts which can always be found when wanted.

According to the passage, which of the following statements is/are true?

I). The North was always against slavery.
II). The North was indifferent toward slavery as long as they were not forced to support it.
III). The North always supported slavery.