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Question 1

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.
In context, the word "glutinous" most nearly means?

A. fertile.
B. sticky.
C. large.
D. hungry.
E. bloated.

Question 2

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 can the reader infer about the setting from the limited information in paragraph one?

A. The house is in the country.
B. It is a large, old house.
C. The house is located in a city.
D. It is a rather small house with ornate architecture.
E. It is a large house with up-to-date modifications.

Question 3

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

Question 4

In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured,
garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to
do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that
my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler about
him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me nearly to
death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that
was the design, it certainly succeeded. I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the barroom stove
of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and
bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance.
He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some
inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named Leonidas W.
Smiley--Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley--a young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time a
resident of Angel's Camp. I added that, if Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W.
Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him.
What is the significance of the information "he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of
winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance" in 2nd paragraph to the narrator?

A. Wheeler's unassuming nature allowed the narrator to let his guard down to Wheeler's garrulous side.
B. The narrator was hesitant about meeting someone unknown and his countenance settled his nerves.
C. Wheeler's winning gentleness calmed the narrator allowing an open discussion as to his business.
D. This allowed the narrator to be reassured due to Wheeler's "tranquil countenance."
E. This made the narrator feel reassured that his friend from the East was serious.

Question 5

Although little-known today in the United States, Clark Saunders (18591941) cast a large shadow in the
first several decades of the twentieth century, writing many widely read books on Native American,
Spanish, and Anglo folklore. He also wrote extensively on the different cultures of California, the Sierras,
and the Southwest. He was a major and influential contributor to Sunset Magazine in its early years. In his
day, Saunders was important for introducing much of the American public to a person-sized
understanding of the "Old West."
The passage presents Saunders as a(n)

A. widely read author in his own day.
B. influential contemporary western writer.
C. a specialist of Native American studies.
D. important historian of the West.
E. the first editor of Sunset Magazine.

Solutions: