📘 SAT English Practice Test – Easy Questions
Reading and Writing (10 Questions)
Passage:
The industrial revolution transformed Europe, but it also left lasting consequences. Factories expanded rapidly, drawing workers from rural villages to crowded urban centers. While this economic shift created opportunities, it also produced polluted air, dangerous working conditions, and widening gaps between social classes. Reformers soon recognized the need for regulations to balance growth with human welfare.
Q1. The main purpose of the passage is to:
A) Explain how technology developed during the industrial revolution.
B) Describe both the benefits and challenges of industrial growth.
C) Argue that industrialization was entirely harmful.
D) Compare working conditions in Europe and America.
Answer
✅ Correct: B
Explanation: The passage highlights both “opportunities” and “polluted air/dangerous conditions,” so it balances pros and cons.
Q2. The word consequences in line 1 most nearly means:
A) punishments
B) results
C) accidents
D) disasters
Answer
✅ Correct: B
Explanation: “Consequences” here refers to “results,” not necessarily negative punishments.
Q3. Which inference is best supported by the passage?
A) Workers preferred rural life to city life.
B) Industrial growth always improves social equality.
C) Reformers wanted to improve workers’ conditions.
D) Economic progress cannot exist with human welfare.
Answer
✅ Correct: C
Explanation: The text explicitly states “reformers… recognized the need for regulations,” which shows support for workers.
Passage:
In the early 20th century, Marie Curie achieved groundbreaking work in radioactivity. Despite skepticism from male colleagues, she persevered, earning two Nobel Prizes in different scientific fields. Curie’s achievements demonstrated not only her brilliance but also challenged the limitations placed on women in science at the time.
Q4. The central claim of the passage is that Marie Curie:
A) Discovered the industrial revolution.
B) Faced challenges but made historic contributions.
C) Worked alone without recognition.
D) Won prizes only in literature.
Answer
✅ Correct: B
Explanation: Passage shows she faced skepticism but achieved major success.
Q5. Which evidence supports the claim that Curie challenged gender limitations?
A) She studied chemistry in Paris.
B) She persevered despite skepticism from male colleagues.
C) She earned money from her inventions.
D) She traveled widely for lectures.
Answer
✅ Correct: B
Explanation: Directly supports the idea that she overcame gender bias.
Q6. The tone of the passage is:
A) Neutral and detached
B) Admiring and respectful
C) Critical and negative
D) Humorous and casual
Answer
✅ Correct: B
Explanation: Words like “groundbreaking,” “brilliance,” and “achievements” show admiration.
Q7. What is most remarkable about Curie’s Nobel Prizes?
A) She received two in different fields.
B) She declined both awards.
C) She won them at a very young age.
D) She shared them only with her husband.
Answer
✅ Correct: A
Explanation: Passage says “two Nobel Prizes in different scientific fields.”
📘 SAT English Practice Test – Difficult Questions
Reading and Writing
Passage:
Philosopher Martha Nussbaum has argued that literature plays a crucial role in cultivating empathy. By inhabiting fictional characters’ perspectives, readers rehearse the act of imagining lives unlike their own. This process, she suggests, expands moral imagination in ways that abstract reasoning alone cannot achieve. Critics, however, counter that literature may just as easily reinforce stereotypes when readers interpret stories through their own biases.
Q1. Which choice best captures the tension described in the passage?
(A) Literature inherently teaches readers to become more empathetic, and critics dismiss this claim as irrelevant.
(B) Literature can expand moral imagination, but critics caution that it may also reinforce narrow perspectives when interpreted through existing prejudices.
(C) Readers who consume fiction regularly are always more empathetic than those who avoid it, proving Nussbaum’s theory correct.
(D) Literature neither encourages empathy nor limits it, since the act of reading is entirely separate from moral reasoning.
Answer
B – Literature builds empathy but may also reinforce bias.
Passage:
During the early 20th century, architects of the Bauhaus movement sought to merge functionality with aesthetic clarity. They rejected ornate decoration, emphasizing instead clean lines and practical design. This philosophy, which valued usefulness as much as beauty, influenced everything from furniture to urban planning and still shapes modern design today.
Q2. The central idea of the passage is that the Bauhaus movement:
(A) Focused on merging practicality with simplicity, leaving a long-lasting impact on design.
(B) Rejected modern architecture in favor of traditional decorative methods.
(C) Concentrated on urban planning but neglected furniture and smaller design elements.
(D) Valued complexity and ornamentation above functionality.
Answer
A – Bauhaus united beauty with functionality, shaping modern design.
Passage:
Although many assume that whales communicate primarily through songs, new research suggests a more complex picture. Some species employ rapid sequences of clicks that function less like melodies and more like a coded language. Researchers believe these sounds may carry detailed information about identity, location, or even emotional state, challenging simplistic comparisons between whale calls and human music.
Q3. Which statement best reflects the passage’s view of whale communication?
(A) Whale communication consists only of melodic songs, and research has confirmed this for all species without exception.
(B) Whale vocalizations, once thought of as simple songs, may in fact operate more like a sophisticated code capable of transmitting varied information.
(C) Whale calls remain mysterious, but it is certain they serve only navigational functions such as locating food or avoiding predators.
(D) Whale communication mirrors human music so closely that researchers no longer differentiate between the two.
Answer
B – Whale clicks act like coded language, not songs.
Passage:
The discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928 is often described as an accident, but this oversimplifies the event. While Fleming did notice the antibacterial effect of mold unintentionally, his scientific training enabled him to recognize its importance. Chance played a role, but skill and insight were equally vital to the discovery.
Q4. The author of the passage would most likely agree that Fleming’s discovery was:
(A) Entirely accidental, with little need for scientific training.
(B) A product of both chance and scientific expertise.
(C) An example of pure luck without lasting scientific value.
(D) Dependent only on the intentional pursuit of antibiotics.
Answer
B – Fleming’s insight and luck both led to penicillin.
Passage:
Some economists argue that the rapid rise of automation will inevitably lead to large-scale unemployment, as machines replace human labor in industries ranging from manufacturing to services. Others contend that while automation may displace certain jobs, it will simultaneously create new ones—often in fields that require skills machines cannot replicate. The debate reflects broader anxieties about whether technological progress guarantees prosperity or deepens inequality.
Q5. What central concern does the passage highlight?
(A) Automation’s rise will unquestionably eliminate jobs permanently, leaving workers with no meaningful alternatives in the future.
(B) The effects of automation remain contested: while some predict mass unemployment, others suggest it will generate different opportunities that reshape the workforce.
(C) Automation has already proven that prosperity is guaranteed whenever technology replaces human labor, ensuring social stability.
(D) Economists universally agree that automation will create more jobs than it destroys, ending the debate altogether.
Answer
B – Automation may destroy some jobs but create new ones.
Passage:
In recent years, climate scientists have noted that extreme weather events—such as floods, droughts, and hurricanes—are not only increasing in frequency but also in intensity. While skeptics argue that such events have always occurred naturally, data strongly suggest that rising global temperatures amplify these patterns, making them more destructive and harder to predict.
Q6. Which claim best reflects the passage’s main idea?
(A) Extreme weather events occur randomly and cannot be linked to human activity, despite attempts to connect them to global warming.
(B) Although some doubt remains, evidence indicates that climate change intensifies natural disasters, increasing their severity and unpredictability.
(C) Climate scientists have failed to show that extreme weather events differ from historical norms, leaving the issue unresolved.
(D) Skeptics are correct in assuming that natural forces alone explain all changes in weather patterns, regardless of rising temperatures.
Answer
B – Climate change intensifies natural disasters.
Passage:
Historians once viewed the fall of the Roman Empire as a sudden collapse, but newer interpretations suggest a slower transformation. Rather than disappearing overnight, Roman institutions gradually merged with emerging European kingdoms, shaping the foundations of medieval society.
Q7. The passage suggests that the fall of Rome was:
(A) Abrupt and total, leaving no lasting influence on Europe.
(B) A gradual process in which Roman culture influenced medieval institutions.
(C) A myth invented by historians rather than an actual historical event.
(D) Caused by external invasions that instantly destroyed Roman traditions.
Answer
B – Rome’s fall was gradual, blending into medieval Europe.
Passage:
When Jane Austen’s novels were first published, critics often dismissed them as trivial domestic tales. Yet today, scholars recognize the subtle irony and sharp social commentary within her portrayals of courtship, class, and marriage. Austen’s restrained style masks a pointed critique of the limitations placed on women in her society.
Q8. Which choice best summarizes the shift in perception of Austen’s work?
(A) Austen’s novels were always seen as profound critiques of society, but modern readers exaggerate their significance by focusing too much on gender issues.
(B) Once regarded as lightweight romances, Austen’s works are now understood as layered texts containing irony and social criticism, particularly of women’s roles.
(C) Austen was considered irrelevant in her time, and today her novels remain little more than entertainment without deeper meaning.
(D) Scholars continue to dismiss Austen’s novels as trivial, though some admit her restrained style has elegance.
Answer
B – Austen’s novels re-evaluated as subtle social critiques.
Passage:
The invention of the printing press in the 15th century dramatically accelerated the spread of ideas. For the first time, books could be produced quickly and relatively cheaply, making knowledge accessible beyond elite circles. This technological leap helped fuel movements such as the Renaissance and the Reformation.
Q9. The author suggests that the printing press:
(A) Restricted access to knowledge by making books more expensive.
(B) Was less significant than other technologies of the 15th century.
(C) Expanded access to information, enabling cultural and intellectual movements.
(D) Created elite knowledge networks that excluded most of society.
Answer
C – Printing press broadened access to ideas and fueled change.
Passage:
Recent studies in neuroscience suggest that human memory is far more malleable than previously assumed. Memories can be reshaped each time they are recalled, sometimes incorporating new details that were never part of the original event. This plasticity raises difficult questions for courts that rely heavily on eyewitness testimony, which may not always reflect objective truth.
Q10. Which statement best captures the passage’s implication about memory?
(A) Memory functions like a precise video recording, preserving exact details over time without alteration.
(B) Because memory is flexible and can incorporate false elements, eyewitness accounts may be less reliable than courts often assume.
(C) Memory is so unstable that individuals are incapable of recalling any accurate detail about past experiences.
(D) Courts should ignore scientific findings about memory and continue to treat eyewitness testimony as flawless evidence.
Answer
B – Memory reshapes events, making eyewitnesses unreliable.
Passage:
In the late 19th century, Impressionist painters were criticized for their loose brushwork and unconventional use of color. What appeared chaotic to their contemporaries is now celebrated for capturing the fleeting impressions of light and movement that more rigid techniques could not convey.
Q11. The passage implies that the shift in how Impressionist art was received demonstrates that:
(A) Artistic value is fixed and unchanging, regardless of public opinion.
(B) Critics were correct that Impressionist paintings lacked artistic merit.
(C) Public perception of art can evolve over time, transforming once-dismissed work into masterpieces.
(D) Impressionism was universally admired from the beginning.
Answer
C – Public taste changed, turning criticized art into masterpieces.
Passage:
While many assume that technological progress always improves human well-being, history complicates this belief. Industrialization increased productivity and wealth, but it also produced grueling labor conditions and environmental degradation. Similarly, modern digital technology fosters connectivity yet contributes to privacy concerns and social isolation. Progress, therefore, may solve old problems while simultaneously creating new ones.
Q12. Which answer choice best summarizes the passage’s perspective on technological progress?
(A) Technological change has always been beneficial, ensuring consistent improvements in both living conditions and social harmony.
(B) While often assumed to be purely positive, technological progress carries both advantages and drawbacks, often solving problems while introducing new ones.
(C) The dangers of technology always outweigh its benefits, making progress a false promise that worsens society.
(D) Because technology evolves unpredictably, it cannot be studied or judged in terms of human well-being.
Answer
B – Technology solves some issues but creates new problems.
Passage:
In the late 18th century, Mary Wollstonecraft challenged prevailing ideas about women’s education. At a time when most argued that women should be trained only to please men, Wollstonecraft insisted that women deserved the same rigorous intellectual development as men. Her argument was radical not simply because it demanded equality but because it claimed society itself would be stronger if women were treated as rational beings capable of independent thought.
Q13. Which best captures the central claim of the passage?
(A) Wollstonecraft argued that women should be educated to entertain and comfort men, since this reflected their natural purpose.
(B) Wollstonecraft believed women should receive equal intellectual training, and that such equality would ultimately benefit society as a whole.
(C) Wollstonecraft rejected education entirely, claiming that intellectual pursuits distracted women from their true roles.
(D) Wollstonecraft thought women should be given opportunities for political leadership but not education.
Answer
B – Wollstonecraft urged equal education for women and society’s good.
Passage:
In the late 18th century, Mary Wollstonecraft challenged prevailing ideas about women’s education. At a time when most argued that women should be trained only to please men, Wollstonecraft insisted that women deserved the same rigorous intellectual development as men. Her argument was radical not simply because it demanded equality but because it claimed society itself would be stronger if women were treated as rational beings capable of independent thought.
Q14. What makes Wollstonecraft’s argument especially radical for her time?
(A) It went beyond demanding personal benefits for women and emphasized society’s improvement through women’s education.
(B) It opposed men’s education altogether, proposing schools exclusively for women.
(C) It ignored questions of equality and focused only on household responsibilities.
(D) It sought to replace traditional education with religious training for both men and women. women from their true roles.
(D) Wollstonecraft thought women should be given opportunities for political leadership but not education.
Answer
A – Radical because it tied equality to societal improvement.
Passage:
The resurgence of interest in stoic philosophy during the 21st century may seem surprising, given its ancient origins. Yet its emphasis on resilience, self-control, and distinguishing between what we can and cannot control resonates strongly in a world defined by uncertainty. Advocates argue that the stoic mindset offers practical strategies for reducing anxiety and cultivating perspective, even in modern life.
Q15. The passage suggests that Stoicism has regained popularity primarily because:
(A) Its principles provide practical tools for navigating the anxieties of modern uncertainty.
(B) People have grown tired of modern philosophy and prefer ancient traditions.
(C) It teaches people to predict the future accurately and avoid mistakes.
(D) Its focus on religious devotion aligns with contemporary spiritual movements.
Answer
A – Stoicism offers modern tools for resilience.
Passage:
The resurgence of interest in stoic philosophy during the 21st century may seem surprising, given its ancient origins. Yet its emphasis on resilience, self-control, and distinguishing between what we can and cannot control resonates strongly in a world defined by uncertainty. Advocates argue that the stoic mindset offers practical strategies for reducing anxiety and cultivating perspective, even in modern life.
Q16. The author’s tone toward Stoicism can best be described as:
(A) Neutral and factual, presenting it as a historical curiosity with no present relevance.
(B) Dismissive, implying Stoicism cannot apply to modern times.
(C) Respectful, highlighting its continued usefulness in addressing present-day challenges.
(D) Skeptical, suggesting it has little real influence despite claims of popularity.
Answer
C – Author respects Stoicism’s continued relevance.
Passage:
The debate over space exploration often centers on whether resources should be directed toward solving problems on Earth or pursuing discoveries beyond it. Critics argue that billions spent on rockets could instead address poverty, climate change, and healthcare. Supporters respond that investment in space research produces technological innovations—such as satellite communication and medical imaging—that directly benefit humanity. Moreover, they contend, exploring space fulfills a uniquely human drive to seek knowledge and expand frontiers.
Q17. Which statement best summarizes the two sides of the debate described in the passage?
(A) Opponents believe space funding diverts resources from urgent problems on Earth, while supporters argue it yields technological benefits and satisfies humanity’s curiosity.
(B) Critics and supporters agree that space exploration should receive unlimited funding since it directly solves issues of poverty and climate change.
(C) Both sides reject the idea that space research produces meaningful technological innovation, though they differ on whether exploration is valuable in itself.
(D) While critics emphasize the benefits of technological innovation, supporters argue that addressing poverty and climate change is more urgent.
Answer
A – Debate: critics see waste; supporters see innovation and curiosity.
Passage:
The debate over space exploration often centers on whether resources should be directed toward solving problems on Earth or pursuing discoveries beyond it. Critics argue that billions spent on rockets could instead address poverty, climate change, and healthcare. Supporters respond that investment in space research produces technological innovations—such as satellite communication and medical imaging—that directly benefit humanity. Moreover, they contend, exploring space fulfills a uniquely human drive to seek knowledge and expand frontiers.
Q18. Which claim would the author most likely support?
(A) Space exploration is unnecessary because it consumes resources better spent on Earth’s immediate challenges.
(B) Though costly, space exploration contributes to technological progress and satisfies an essential human desire for discovery, making it worth supporting.
(C) Both sides of the debate exaggerate: neither poverty nor technology are significantly affected by space research.
(D) The benefits of space exploration are purely symbolic, with no practical advantages for humanity.
Answer
B – Author supports exploration as beneficial despite cost.
Passage:
The debate over artificial intelligence (AI) has expanded beyond technology and economics to include questions of ethics and governance. Proponents argue that AI has the potential to revolutionize medicine, transportation, and education. Critics, however, warn that if left unchecked, AI could deepen inequality, automate jobs at an unprecedented scale, and make decisions without accountability. Thus, the discussion about AI is not simply about innovation, but about ensuring that progress aligns with human values.
Q19. The main purpose of the passage is to:
A) Explain how AI functions in various industries.
B) Compare the views of both AI supporters and critics.
C) Argue that AI should never be used in society.
D) Suggest that AI has had no measurable effect.
Answer
✅ Correct: B
Explanation: The passage presents both “proponents” and “critics,” showing balance.
Passage:
In 1854, Henry David Thoreau delivered a lecture later published as “Slavery in Massachusetts.” While best known for his nature writing, Thoreau’s fierce opposition to slavery reflected his belief that conscience must outweigh compliance with unjust laws. To Thoreau, morality was not dictated by governments but by individual responsibility. His stance, radical at the time, continues to influence debates about civil disobedience and the role of the individual in resisting injustice.
Q20. The central idea of the passage is that Thoreau:
A) Focused exclusively on writing about nature.
B) Believed moral duty can override government laws.
C) Encouraged absolute obedience to authority.
D) Was uninterested in political debates.
Answer
✅ Correct: B
Explanation: Passage says he believed “conscience must outweigh compliance with unjust laws.”
Passage:
When historians interpret the decline of civilizations, they often seek a single, dramatic cause — invasion, famine, or natural disaster. Yet recent scholarship suggests that collapse more often results from subtle interconnections: economic overreach, environmental strain, and the erosion of public trust reinforcing one another over decades. Such complexity resists the simplicity of one-cause explanations, reminding us that societies, like ecosystems, fail not through one blow but through the slow unraveling of many threads.
Q21. Which best expresses the main argument of the passage?
(A) Civilizations usually collapse due to one sudden and catastrophic event that historians can clearly identify.
(B) Attempts to explain collapse are futile since history is too chaotic to reveal meaningful patterns.
(C) Environmental strain is the only significant cause of collapse, while social and political factors are largely secondary.
(D) The fall of civilizations cannot be traced to a single cause but to multiple, interrelated factors that gradually weaken society.
Answer
✅ Correct: (D) – Civilizations decline through complex, interconnected pressures rather than one event.
Passage:
Modern psychology has increasingly blurred the line between “reason” and “emotion.” Whereas earlier thinkers viewed feelings as irrational impulses to be suppressed by logic, contemporary researchers argue that emotion is not the enemy of reason but one of its essential foundations. Emotions, they propose, help assign value to choices, guiding rational decision-making. Without emotional input, the human mind may calculate perfectly but care about nothing—a state as paralyzing as pure chaos.
Q22. What is the passage’s central claim about the relationship between reason and emotion?
(A) Emotion is fundamentally opposed to logic and must be controlled for rational thought to function properly.
(B) Reason and emotion operate independently, and decision-making improves when emotion is entirely removed.
(C) Emotion is integral to reason, shaping the values and motivations that make rational decisions meaningful.
(D) Rational thinking is superior to emotion, which distorts judgment and leads to error.
Answer
✅ Correct: (C) – Emotion gives meaning and motivation to rational thought, making true reasoning possible.
📘 SAT English Practice Test – IVY-Level Questions
Reading and Writing
Passage:
He maintained that irony is not merely a rhetorical device but the fundamental mode of modern consciousness. Under conditions of rapid social change, certainty becomes a liability; only that which can gesture at its own contingency survives critique. The ironic mind therefore preserves itself by perpetual hesitation — not indecision so much as a habit of deflecting absolutes. In art and politics this habit produces both subtlety and sclerosis: nuance that refuses dogma but also an unwillingness to commit.
Q1. The passage most strongly implies that the modern preference for irony can lead to —
A) decisive moral action rooted in freshly articulated principles.
B) an ethical paralysis resulting from perpetual self-suspicion.
C) a reinvigoration of dogmatic social institutions.
D) an unalloyed liberation from outdated certainties.
Answer
✅ Correct: B
The passage links “habit of deflecting absolutes” with “unwillingness to commit,” implying paralysis rather than decisive action or liberation.
Passage:
The archivist argued that documents are not inert repositories but actors within a politics of memory. When officials select, redact, or withhold, they enact forgetting as force. Preservation is therefore never neutral: it advances narratives and marginalizes others. The ethical work of archives, then, is not simply accumulation but adjudication — to reveal omissions and to contest the very criteria by which some records become canonical.
Q2.Which claim about archives does the author endorse?
A) Archives function primarily as technical instruments for safekeeping objects.
B) The sole duty of archivists is to accept all donations without curation.
C) Archival choices actively shape collective memory and power relations.
D) Historical truth is fully recoverable by comprehensive archiving.
Answer
✅ Correct: C
The passage emphasizes selection/redaction as political acts that “advance narratives,”.
Passage:
Aesthetic judgment, the essayist contended, is contingent upon an ecology of attention. One can no more evaluate a painting in the midst of distraction than one can assess a policy without grasping its institutional context. Discerning taste, therefore, presupposes conditions—time, instruction, freedom from coercion—that are themselves political goods. To cultivate taste is to advocate for the public infrastructures that allow quiet and reflection.
Q3. The author’s argument depends most directly on which assumption?
A) That aesthetic judgment is purely subjective and cannot be taught.
B) That the conditions enabling careful attention are distributed unequally.
C) That taste is an innate capacity unrelated to social life.
D) That public policy has no influence on private aesthetic experience.
Answer
✅ Correct: (B) – The claim ties cultivation of taste to “public infrastructures,” so it assumes unequal distribution of conditions for attention.
Passage:
The scientist’s formulation was elegant and frugal: complexity need not be produced by complex rules. From simple iterative procedures emerge patterns whose richness deceives the eye into presuming design. The danger, critics warned, is anthropomorphizing such phenomena—imputing intention where mere combinatorial law suffices. Yet to reduce wonder to inevitability is itself a metaphysical stance.
Q4.What tension does the passage highlight?
A) Between synthetic chemistry and biological determinism.
B) Between mathematical rigor and literary imagination.
C) Between experimental practice and theoretical speculation in laboratory science.
D) Between appreciating emergent complexity and resisting teleological explanations.
Answer
✅ Correct: (D) – The passage balances “emergent patterns” vs. “imputing intention,” i.e., emergent complexity vs. teleology.
Passage:
The rhetorician observed that persuasive speech often depends less on the truth of propositions than on the construction of plausible trajectories—narratives that make a conclusion feel inevitable. Audiences accept because they can imagine the sequence; they assent to probability that reads like fate. This explains why policy debates pivot on framing and temporal sequencing rather than isolated facts.
Q5. According to the passage, what best explains why framing matters in public debate?
A) Audiences evaluate only empirical data and ignore narrative shape.
B) The sequencing of claims creates a felt inevitability that encourages assent.
C) Rhetoric is irrelevant once statistical evidence is presented.
D) Temporal narratives obscure policy details but never affect persuasion.
Answer
✅ Correct: (B) – The passage claims audiences accept when a sequence makes conclusions feel “inevitable,”.
Passage:
The novelist’s technique was to render simultaneity as fragmentation: multiple voices, overlapping epochs, and discordant registers. Far from confusion, the effect simulated the human mind’s capacity to inhabit several histories at once. Critics who demanded a single moral arc accused him of relativism; his defense was that moral coherence can exist as tension rather than synthesis.
Q6. Which inference about the novelist is best supported?
A) He used fragmentation to reflect complex moral experience without resolving it.
B) He believed synthesis into a single moral was necessary for truth.
C) He aimed to create easily digestible narratives for popular audiences.
D) He favored chronological clarity over psychological verisimilitude.
Answer
✅ Correct: (A) – The passage explicitly equates fragmentation with simulating minds inhabiting several histories and defends tension over synthesis.
Passage:
Economists praising market efficiency often omit the temporal asymmetries of capital: benefits are immediate and concentrated, while costs—environmental degradation, social ruin—accrue slowly and diffuse. Such mismatched temporality distorts incentives; short horizons privilege profit now over prudence later. Addressing this requires institutional mechanisms that reweight future harms into present calculations.
Q7. The author’s proposed remedy most directly addresses which problem?
A) The impossibility of calculating future probabilities.
B) The moral failings of individual consumers unrelated to institutions.
C) The inherent unpredictability of market prices.
D) The unequal timing of costs and benefits that biases decision-making.
Answer
✅ Correct: (D) – The passage describes “temporal asymmetries” and calls for mechanisms to reweight future harms, i.e., timing mismatch.
Passage:
The cultural critic argued that nostalgia is not a return to the past but a rehearsal of it for present use. When communities invoke a golden age, they are not retrieving historical states but inventing them to justify contemporary norms. Hence nostalgia is a political resource—sometimes emancipatory, sometimes reactionary—depending on who controls the script.
Q8. What does the passage suggest about the political character of nostalgia?
A) Nostalgia is always reactionary and undermines progressive change.
B) Nostalgia retrieves accurate historical memories for civic instruction.
C) Nostalgia functions instrumentally and its effect depends on who deploys it.
D) Nostalgia is purely personal and lacks public consequences.
Answer
✅ Correct: (C) – The passage calls nostalgia a “political resource… emancipatory, sometimes reactionary—depending on who controls the script,”.
Passage:
In debates about technology, proponents invoke empowerment while opponents warn of alienation. Both positions miss the mediating role of institutions that shape how tools are used. A new platform can democratize voice in one civic structure and entrench oligarchy in another. Thus technologies are potent only insofar as the scaffolding of norms, rules, and incentives channels their effects.
Q9. Which claim most accurately captures the passage’s thesis?
A) Technologies have fixed social outcomes determined solely by their technical design.
B) Public opinion about technology determines its material capabilities.
C) Moral evaluation of technology is impossible because outcomes are random.
D) Institutional context mediates whether technology empowers or alienates.
Answer
✅ Correct: (D) – The passage states technology’s effects depend on “scaffolding of norms, rules, and incentives,” i.e., institutional mediation
Passage:
The historian noted that causation in long-term processes is rarely singular; instead, it is a choreography of interacting tendencies. To attribute the Renaissance to a single invention or patron is to flatten a plural history of trade, migration, climate, and institutional innovation. Explanatory parsimony becomes distortion when complexity is essential to the phenomenon.
Q10. The passage argues that explanatory parsimony is problematic because it —
A) risks misrepresenting phenomena that arise from many interacting factors.
B) provides clarity by isolating single causes for complex events.
C) is the only scientifically acceptable method for historical explanation.
D) always yields better predictive models than complex analyses.
Answer
✅ Correct: (A) – The passage warns parsimony “flattens” plural histories, so it risks misrepresentation.
Passage:
The essayist insisted that language is both tool and trap: it structures thought while simultaneously hardening certain categories into seeming natural facts. Once a social phenomenon is lexicalized, it acquires inertia. Changing language can therefore be an insurgent act, but it can also be cosmetic: a new term without altered practices leaves structures intact.
Q11. Which conclusion follows from the passage?
A) Coining new words is sufficient to transform social relations.
B) Once lexicalized, social phenomena can never change.
C) Vocabulary has no effect on political or social arrangements.
D) Language reform must be paired with changes in practice to be transformative.
Answer
✅ Correct: (D) – The passage distinguishes insurgent language change from cosmetic renaming; thus practice change is necessary.
Passage:
The philosopher maintained that skepticism is a discipline, not a destination. Skeptical inquiry suspends assent to enable better judgment, but if it becomes an end it degenerates into cynicism. The task, then, is to calibrate doubt so that it refines conviction rather than extinguishing it.
Q12. What does the author recommend about the role of skepticism?
A) It should be abandoned in favor of firm beliefs.
B) It is identical to cynicism and therefore undesirable.
C) It proves all knowledge impossible and thus mandates silence.
D) It should function instrumentally to improve justified convictions.
Answer
✅ Correct: (D) – Skepticism should “refine conviction rather than extinguishing it,” so B best captures the instrumental role.
Passage:
The dramaturge argued that stagecraft teaches a peculiar moral: roles create but do not exhaust identity. Actors embody characters for ethical inquiry; their detachment allows the audience to judge without collapsing into didacticism. Yet the risk is that role-playing in public life becomes theatricality—performance without reflection—where accountability dissolves into spectacle.
Q13. The passage implies which potential danger of political performative acts?
A) They always lead to meaningful institutional reform.
B) They are fundamentally indistinguishable from private reflection.
C) They enhance civic literacy by inviting critical judgment.
D) They can substitute appearance for responsibility, reducing accountability.
Answer
✅ Correct: (D) – The author warns role-playing can become “theatricality… performance without reflection” that undermines accountability.
Passage:
The critic of urban policy emphasized density as an ambiguous value: it can foster exchange, culture, and efficiency, but it can also concentrate vulnerability and degrade commons. Policy that fetishizes numbers—units per acre—without attention to governance and care reproduces the very pathologies it claims to solve. Density divorced from institutions is a hollow metric.
Q14. Which best states the critic’s central warning?
A) Increasing density will inevitably solve housing inequity.
B) Quantitative emphasis on density is insufficient without governance and care.
C) Urban planners should ignore metrics entirely in favor of aesthetics.
D) Commons are naturally resilient to increases in density.
Answer
✅ Correct: (B) – The critic cautions that density as a metric is hollow unless paired with governance and care.
Passage:
The poet proposed that silence is not merely absence of sound but an act that rearranges attention. Silence can concentrate, expose, or even weaponize absence; it can allow for the emergence of previously submerged voices or serve to exclude them. Its ethical valence depends on intention and context, not on any intrinsic purity.
Q15. Which best captures the passage’s view of silence?
A) Silence is always a noble and pure state that reveals truth.
B) Silence is irrelevant to ethical considerations because it lacks agency.
C) Silence has ambiguous moral effects contingent on who uses it and why.
D) Silence invariably suppresses marginalized voices and should be avoided.
Answer
✅ Correct: (C) –The passage enumerates multiple possible functions of silence and concludes its valence depends on intention and context.