SAT SAT-Critical-Reading Exam Questions : Section One : Critical Reading

(1) An incredible hot-air balloon exhibition happened on September 5, 1862.
(2) It was given by Glaisher and Coxwell, two Englishmen.
(3) There was no compressed oxygen for them to breathe in those days.
(4) They got so high that they couldn't use their limbs.
(5) Coxwell had to open the descending valve with his teeth.
(6) Before Glaisher passed out, he recorded an elevation of twenty- nine thousand feet.
(7) Many believe they got eight thousand feet higher before they began to descend, making their ascent
the highest in the nineteenth century.
(8) Now the largest balloon to go up in the nineteenth century was "The Giant."
(9) The balloon held 215,000 cubic feet of air and was 74 feet wide.
(10) It could carry four and a half tons of cargo.
(11) Its flight began in Paris, in 1853, with fifteen passengers.
(12) All of whom returned safely.
(13) The successful trip received a great deal of national and international press because many thought
the hot- air balloon would become a form of common transportation.
Which of the following is the best way to revise sentences 11 and 12? Its flight began in Paris, in 1853,
with fifteen passengers. All of whom returned safely.

• A. Replace the period at the end of sentence 11 with a comma.
• B. Delete the period at the end of sentence 11 and change "returned" to "returning
• C. Replace "whom" with "who."
• D. Make the second sentence read" Who all returned safely."
• E. Delete "of"

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 their own 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 not normally the case that physicians find themselves in a position of helping one at the expense of
  another.
• 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 that an unidentified patient would attend the consultation room and refuse to leave when
  told the physician could not see them.
• D. 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.
• E. 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.

The drill instructor at the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot was quick to correct the ______ recruit when he
was referred to as "dude."

• A. loquacious
• B. rascal
• C. imperious
• D. gregarious
• E. impudent

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

He was a un-common small man, he really was. Certainly not so small as he was made out to be, but
where IS your Dwarf as is? He was a most uncommon small man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and
what he had inside that Ed, nobody ever knowed but himself: even suppose in himself to have ever took
stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do.
The kindest little man as never growed! Spirited, but not proud. When he travelled with the Spotted Baby
though he knowed himself to be a nat'ral Dwarf, and knowed the Baby's spots to be put upon him artificial,
he nursed that Baby like a mother. You never heerd him give a ill-name to a Giant. He DID allow himself
to break out into strong language respect in the Fat Lady from Norfolk; but that was an affair of the 'art;
and when a man's 'art has been trifled with by a lady, and the preference giv to a Indian, he ain't master of
his actions.
He was always in love, of course; every human nat'ral phenomenon is. And he was always in love with a
large woman; I never knowed the Dwarf as could be got to love a small one. Which helps to keep 'em the
Curiosities they are.
One sing'ler idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have meant something, or it wouldn't have been
there. It was always his opinion that he was entitled to property. He never would put his name to anything.
He had been taught to write, by the young man without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a
writing master HE was, and taught scores in the line), but Chops would have starved to death, afore he'd
have gained a bit of bread by putting his hand to a paper. This is the more curious to bear in mind,
because HE had no property, nor hope of property, except his house and a sarser. When I say his house,
I mean the box, painted and got up outside like a reg'lar six-roomer, that he used to creep into, with a
diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the Public
believed to be the Drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean a Chaney sarser in which he
made a collection for himself at the end of every Entertainment. His cue for that, he took from me: "Ladies
and gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain."
When he said anything important, in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of words, and they
was generally the last thing he said to me at night afore he went to bed.
He had what I consider a fine mind--a poetic mind. His ideas respectin his property never come upon him
so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run
through him a little time, he would screech out, "Toby, I feel my property coming--grind away! I'm counting
my guineas by thousands, Toby--grind away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a jingling in
me, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the Bank of England!" Such is the influence of music on a poetic mind.
Not that he was partial to any other music but a barrel-organ; on the contrary, hated it.
He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public: which is a thing you may notice in many
phenomenons that get their living out of it. What riled him most in the nater of his occupation was, that it
kep him out of Society. He was continiwally saying, "Toby, my ambition is, to go into Society. The curse of
my position towards the Public is, that it keeps me hout of Society. This don't signify to a low beast of a
Indian; he an't formed for Society. This don't signify to a Spotted Baby; HE an't formed for Society. I am."
Which best depicts the type of writing represented by this excerpt?

• A. interrogatory
• B. persuasive
• C. informational
• D. argumentative
• E. expository