PSAT Critical Reading : Understanding Organization and Argument in Literary Fiction Passages

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for PSAT Critical Reading

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Example Questions

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Example Question #61 :Determining Context Dependent Meanings Of Words In Prose Fiction Passages

Adapted fromThe War of the Worldsby H. G. Wells (1898)

没有人会相信th的最后几年e nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

The planet Mars revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence.

Since Mars is older than our earth, it necessarily follows that it is not only more distant from time's beginning but nearer its end. The cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already gone far indeed with our neighbor. In its equatorial region, the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. Its air is much more attenuated than ours; its oceans have shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface. That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only 35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting cloud wisps of broad stretches of populous country and narrow, navy-crowded seas.

And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them.

And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon itself. The Tasmanians were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?

This passage is most likely taken from__________.

Possible Answers:

a work of historical non-fiction

a speculative article in a science magazine

a chapter in a science textbook about the solar system

a romance novel

a science fiction novel

Correct answer:

a science fiction novel

Explanation:

Answering this question may seem somewhat tricky, so let’s narrow down the answer choices that can be correct. We can eliminate “a romance novel” immediately because this passage does not concern love and romance at all; it talks about Mars, Earth, their formation, and the development of life on each. Two of the remaining answer choices (“a chapter in a science textbook about the solar system” and “a work of historical non-fiction”) deal with fact, but the passage claims that developed, sentient Martian life exists, so we know those can’t be the correct answers because no one has substantively proven that to be true. This leaves us with “a speculative article in a science magazine” and “a science fiction novel.” While these answer choices may seem rather similar, “a science fiction novel” is the best answer for previously stated reason: even a speculative article in a science magazine would need to adhere to known facts, and the passage discusses Martians as definitively existing, not as an object of speculation (e.g. “If Martians existed . . . “). So, “a science fiction novel” is the best answer.

Example Question #11 :Analyzing Sequence, Organization, And Structure In Literary Fiction Passages

Adapted fromPride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (1813)

Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride she afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley, and talked of Mrs. Darcy, may be guessed. I wish I could say, for the sake of her family, that the accomplishment of her earnest desire in the establishment of so many of her children produced so happy an effect as to make her a sensible, amiable, well-informed woman for the rest of her life; though perhaps it was lucky for her husband, who might not have relished domestic felicity in so unusual a form, that she still was occasionally nervous and invariably silly.

Mr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly; his affection for her drew him oftener from home than anything else could do. He delighted in going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected.

Mr. Bingley and Jane remained at Netherfield only a twelvemonth. So near a vicinity to her mother and Meryton relations was not desirable even to his easy temper, or her affectionate heart. The darling wish of his sisters was then gratified; he bought an estate in a neighboring county to Derbyshire, and Jane and Elizabeth, in addition to every other source of happiness, were within thirty miles of each other.

Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two elder sisters. In society so superior to what she had generally known, her improvement was great. She was not of so ungovernable a temper as Lydia; and, removed from the influence of Lydia's example, she became, by proper attention and management, less irritable, less ignorant, and less insipid. From the further disadvantage of Lydia's society she was of course carefully kept, and though Mrs. Wickham frequently invited her to come and stay with her, with the promise of balls and young men, her father would never consent to her going.

Mary was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was necessarily drawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet's being quite unable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but she could still moralize over every morning visit; and as she was no longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters' beauty and her own, it was suspected by her father that she submitted to the change without much reluctance.

Which of the following correctly states the sequence of events in this text?

Possible Answers:

基蒂花most of her time with Elizabeth and Jane; Elizabeth and Jane each get married; Jane and her husband move closer to Elizabeth; Mary spends most of her time at home with her mother.

伊丽莎白和简结婚;Jane and her husband move closer to Elizabeth; Mary spends most of her time at home with her mother; Kitty spends most of her time with Elizabeth and Jane.

伊丽莎白和简结婚;基蒂花most of her time with Elizabeth and Jane; Mary spends most of her time at home with her mother; Jane and her husband move closer to Elizabeth.

伊丽莎白和简结婚;Jane and her husband move closer to Elizabeth; Kitty spends most of her time with Elizabeth and Jane; Mary spends most of her time at home with her mother.

None of the other answers is correct.

Correct answer:

伊丽莎白和简结婚;Jane and her husband move closer to Elizabeth; Kitty spends most of her time with Elizabeth and Jane; Mary spends most of her time at home with her mother.

Explanation:

The correct sequence is "Elizabeth and Jane each get married; Jane and her husband move closer to Elizabeth; Kitty spends most of her time with Elizabeth and Jane; Mary spends most of her time at home with her mother"

Example Question #17 :Analyzing Sequence, Organization, And Structure In Literary Fiction Passages

Adapted fromThe Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Volume 16: Anna Karenina(1877; 1917 ed., trans. Garnett)

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him.

This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household were painfully conscious of it. The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new situation for her; the man-cook had walked off the day before just at dinner-time; the kitchen maid and the coachman had given warning.

三天争吵之后,王子斯捷潘阿卡迪evitch Oblonsky—Stiva, as he was called in the fashionable world—woke up at his usual hour, that is, at eight o clock in the morning, not in his wife's bedroom, but on the leather-covered sofa in his study. He turned over his stout, well-cared-for person on the springy sofa, as though he would sink into a long sleep again; he vigorously embraced the pillow on the other side and buried his face in it; but all at once he jumped up, sat up on the sofa, and opened his eyes.

“Yes, yes, how was it now?” he thought, going over his dream. “Alabin was giving a dinner at Darmstadt; no, not Darmstadt, but something American. Yes, but then, Darmstadt was in America. Yes, Alabin was giving a dinner on glass tables, and the tables sang,II mio tesoro—notII mio tesoro, though, but something better, and there were some sort of little decanters on the table, and they were women too,” he remembered.

Noticing a gleam of light peeping in beside one of the serge curtains, he cheerfully dropped his feet over the edge of the sofa, and felt about with them for his slippers, a present on his last birthday, worked for him by his wife on gold-colored morocco. And, as he had done every day for the last nine years, he stretched out his hand, without getting up, towards the place where his dressing-gown always hung in his bedroom. And thereupon he suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his wife’s room, but in his study, and why: the smile vanished from his face, he knitted his brows.

Most unpleasant of all was the first minute when, on coming, happy and good-humored, from the theatre, with a huge pear in his hand for his wife, he had not found his wife in the drawing-room, to his surprise had not found her in the study either, and saw her at last in her bedroom with the unlucky letter that revealed everything in her hand. She, his Dolly, forever fussing and worrying over household details, and limited in her ideas, as he considered, was sitting perfectly still with the letter in her hand, looking at him with an expression of horror, despair, and indignation.

“What’s this? This?” she asked, pointing to the letter.

And at this recollection, Stepan Arkadyevitch, as is so often the case, was not so much annoyed at the fact itself as at the way in which he had met his wife’s words.

There happened to him at that instant what does happen to people when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful. He did not succeed in adapting his face to the position in which he was placed towards his wife by the discovery of his fault. Instead of being hurt, denying, defending himself, begging forgiveness, instead of remaining indifferent even—anything would have been better than what he did do—his face utterly involuntarily (reflex spinal action, reflected Stepan Arkadyevitch, who was fond of physiology)—utterly involuntarily assumed its habitual, good-humored, and therefore idiotic smile.

This idiotic smile he could not forgive himself. Catching sight of that smile, Dolly shuddered as though at physical pain, broke out with her characteristic heat into a flood of cruel words, and rushed out of the room. Since then she had refused to see her husband.

“It’s that idiotic simile that’s to blame for it all,” thought Stepan Arkadyevitch.

In context of the entire passage, the first line serves to__________.

Possible Answers:

introduce the narrator as one of the characters in the story

introduce the Oblonskys’ situation as a unique one

explain why the author does not want to write about the Oblonskys

make a general statement that is not relevant at all to the story that follows

suggest that the Oblonskys’ exact problems are shared by many other families

Correct answer:

introduce the Oblonskys’ situation as a unique one

Explanation:

The first line, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” is a general statement that nonetheless relates to the specific story that the author starts to tell in the next paragraph. It does not “suggest that the Oblonskys’ exact problems are shared by many other families,” as the first line says that happy families are the ones that are all alike, and we can’t characterize the Oblonskys’ family as “happy” based on the events the passage relates. The author demonstrates no reluctance to writing about the Oblonskys, so we can’t say that the first line serves to “explain why the author does not want to write about the Oblonskys.” The first line doesn’t introduce the narrator or any characters, so we can’t say that it “introduce[s] the narrator as one of the characters in the story.” The line is related to the story that follows, making “make a general statement that is not relevant at all to the story that follows” an incorrect answer as well. The first line declares that unhappy families’ problems are unique, after which the author begins telling us about one specific unhappy family, the Oblonskys. From this, we can say that the first line serves to “introduce the Oblonskys’ situation as a unique one.”

Example Question #141 :Content Of Literary Fiction Passages

Adapted from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843).

TRUE! -- nervous -- very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but whywillyou say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses -- not destroyed -- not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing accute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily -- how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

很难说如何第一次输入的想法my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees -- very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

这是问题的关键。你喜欢我疯了。疯子know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded --with what caution --with what foresight --with what dissumlation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it --oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly --very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! --would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously --oh, so cautiously --cautiously (for the hinges creaked) --I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights --every night just at midnight --but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.

What is the last thing the narrator does every night when he goes into the old man's room?

Possible Answers:

He asks the old man how well he slept the night before.

他破除了灯笼这一线上杉达也t falls on the old man's eye.

He cautiously pokes his head in the door to watch the old man.

He opens the door a crack and waits to see if the old man wakes up.

Correct answer:

他破除了灯笼这一线上杉达也t falls on the old man's eye.

Explanation:

In the third paragraph, the narrator describes his nightly routine to determine whether he can finally kill the old man. First, he gently opens the door. He then puts a dark lantern inside and follows it with his head to watch the old man. Last, he opens the lantern so that one ray of light shines on the old man's eye. Since it is not open, he cannot commit the murder. He does not talk to the old man at night; he waits until the following morning and follows his normal daily routine.

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