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

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 thunder stricken. 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 gold and jewels were in a state of disarray.
• B. The treasure was shocked to see people after so long.
• C. The lamps casting a shadowy light would have caused distorted images.
• D. The dog having just uncovered the remains of the treasure's last owners was confusion.
• E. The treasure didn't think anyone would be able to open the box.

The problem with scoring well on too many SAT practice tests is the tendency toward .

• A. success
• B. complacency
• C. supremacy
• D. celerity
• E. burn-out

The following two passages deal with the political movements working for the woman's vote in America.
The first organized assertion of woman's rights in the United States was made at the Seneca Falls
convention in 1848. The convention, though, had little immediate impact because of the national issues
that would soon embroil the country. The contentious debates involving slavery and state's rights that
preceded the Civil War soon took center stage in national debates.
Thus woman's rights issues would have to wait until the war and its antecedent problems had been
addressed before they would be addressed. In 1869, two organizations were formed that would play
important roles in securing the woman's right to vote. The first was the American Woman's Suffrage
Association (AWSA). Leaving federal and constitutional issues aside, the AWSA focused their attention
on state-level politics. They also restricted their ambitions to securing the woman's vote and downplayed
discussion of women's full equality. Taking a different track, the National Woman's Suffrage Association
(NWSA), led by Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, believed that the only way to assure the long-
term security of the woman's vote was to ground it in the constitution. The NWSA challenged the
exclusion of woman from the Fifteenth Amendment, the amendment that extended the vote to
African-American men. Furthermore, the NWSA linked the fight for suffrage with other inequalities faced
by woman, such as marriage laws, which greatly disadvantaged women.
By the late 1880s the differences that separated the two organizations had receded in importance as the
women's movement had become a substantial and broad-based political force in the country. In 1890, the
two organizations joined forces under the title of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association
(NAWSA). The NAWSA would go on to play a vital role in the further fight to achieve the woman's vote.
In 1920, when Tennessee became the thirty-eighth state to approve the constitutional amendment
securing the woman's right to vote, woman's suffrage became enshrined in the constitution. But woman's
suffrage did not happen in one fell swoop. The success of the woman's suffrage movement was the story
of a number of partial victories that led to the explicit endorsement of the woman's right to vote in the
constitution.
As early as the 1870s and 1880s, women had begun to win the right to vote in local affairs such as
municipal elections, school board elections, or prohibition measures. These "partial suffrages"
demonstrated that women could in fact responsibly and reasonably participate in a representative
democracy (at least as voters). Once such successes were achieved and maintained over a period of
time, restricting the full voting rights of woman became more and more suspect. If women were helping
decide who was on the local school board, why should they not also have a voice in deciding who was
president of the country? Such questions became more difficult for non-suffragists to answer, and thus the
logic of restricting the woman's vote began to crumble
When is the earliest success of the woman's suffrage movement that the second passage points to?

• A. 1920
• B. 1870s
• C. 1848
• D. 1869
• E. 1880s

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, growth driven, increasingly corporate society.
The author refers to "the orbit" of Abe's work (2nd paragraph) to emphasize that

• A. Abe's travels were the primary themes in his work.
• B. Abe's work is so different from his contemporaries' that it is like another solar system.
• C. the emperor is often compared to a sun.
• D. conventional themes can limit an author's individuality.
• E. his work covers a wide range of themes.

The following two passages deal with the political movements working for the woman's vote in America.
The first organized assertion of woman's rights in the United States was made at the Seneca Falls
convention in 1848. The convention, though, had little immediate impact because of the national issues
that would soon embroil the country. The contentious debates involving slavery and state's rights that
preceded the Civil War soon took center stage in national debates.
Thus woman's rights issues would have to wait until the war and its antecedent problems had been
addressed before they would be addressed. In 1869, two organizations were formed that would play
important roles in securing the woman's right to vote. The first was the American Woman's Suffrage
Association (AWSA). Leaving federal and constitutional issues aside, the AWSA focused their attention
on state-level politics. They also restricted their ambitions to securing the woman's vote and downplayed
discussion of women's full equality. Taking a different track, the National Woman's Suffrage Association
(NWSA), led by Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, believed that the only way to assure the long-
term security of the woman's vote was to ground it in the constitution. The NWSA challenged the
exclusion of woman from the Fifteenth Amendment, the amendment that extended the vote to
African-American men. Furthermore, the NWSA linked the fight for suffrage with other inequalities faced
by woman, such as marriage laws, which greatly disadvantaged women.
By the late 1880s the differences that separated the two organizations had receded in importance as the
women's movement had become a substantial and broad-based political force in the country. In 1890, the
two organizations joined forces under the title of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association
(NAWSA). The NAWSA would go on to play a vital role in the further fight to achieve the woman's vote.
In 1920, when Tennessee became the thirty-eighth state to approve the constitutional amendment
securing the woman's right to vote, woman's suffrage became enshrined in the constitution. But woman's
suffrage did not happen in one fell swoop. The success of the woman's suffrage movement was the story
of a number of partial victories that led to the explicit endorsement of the woman's right to vote in the
constitution.
As early as the 1870s and 1880s, women had begun to win the right to vote in local affairs such as
municipal elections, school board elections, or prohibition measures. These "partial suffrages"
demonstrated that women could in fact responsibly and reasonably participate in a representative
democracy (at least as voters). Once such successes were achieved and maintained over a period of
time, restricting the full voting rights of woman became more and more suspect. If women were helping
decide who was on the local school board, why should they not also have a voice in deciding who was
president of the country? Such questions became more difficult for non-suffragists to answer, and thus the
logic of restricting the woman's vote began to crumble
What national event does the first passage cite as pushing woman's voting rights to the background of the
national consciousness?

• A. Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment
• B. Civil War
• C. Suffrage movement
• D. Prohibition
• E. World War I