12.Practice.Tests.for.the.SAT_2015-2016_1128p

12 Practice Tests for the SAT
Practice Test Eight Answers and Explanations
751
I
him ignore those irregularities. Cordiality would not make
someone ignore inconsistencies in accounting, and if the
manager ignored accounting rules, that wouldn't indicate
frankness. In fact, it would indicate the opposite.
5. D
Difficulty: High
The second blank must have something to do with the few
jokes, so humor is a good prediction. The word though
indicates contrast, so the first blank might be serious.
Choice (D) is a good match. In (A), cleverness and grim
both work fine by themselves, but they don't contrast with
one another, so they don't work. In (B), it seems unlikely
that the inauguration would be particularly exciting, but even
if it were, the word curiosity doesn't provide the contrast
that the sentence demands. In (C), humor is great for the
second blank, but mirthful doesn't give the contrast you
need. Similarly, in (E), sober works fine, but jokes wouldn't
provide gravity.
6. D
Difficulty: High
The aristocracy was actually frugal, so the first blank should
contrast with frugality. Choices (B) and (E) do not do this.
Luxury and excess are both good predictions, making (D) a
good match. Choices (A) and (C) are the opposite of what
you're looking for.
Questions 7-19
The author of Passage 1 believes that the writer experiences
his writing as an act of discovery that is not in his power to
control. When the writer finds the proper tone of voice for
his writing, he enters some sort of magical state in which
sentences mysteriously shape themselves right before
his eyes. After he is finished, he will feel that there is an
order to things, and that he himself is part of that order.
The author of Passage 2, on the other hand, approaches
his writing as if it were a job like any other. He ascribes
dangerous notions like that of the author of Passage
1 to the influence of the nineteenth-century Romantic
movement. Writing to him is hard labor with no guaranteed
reward Although being a good writer takes talent, it also
requires a lot of difficult learning and, for him at least, an
enormous amount of bruising self-questioning.
7. c
Difficulty: Low
The author of Passage 1 says that unless a writer is
writing mechanically, he experiences his writing as an act
of discovery. Mechanically is used here in the sense of
unimaginatively, (C). None of the other choices works in
the context of the sentence.
8. E
Difficulty: Low
Reading a few lines up from the reference to unlocking
the floodgates, you find the author asserting that creative
writing is not within the power of [the writer's] will to
summon forth or to resist. When he talks about how to
unlock the floodgates, then, he is suggesting that creative
writing is in part beyond the writer's conscious control, (E).
The author of Passage 1 never says that almost anyone can
be a writer, that writing derives its power from depicting
dramatic events, or that it requires a rigid sense of structure
and form. He does suggest that writing can be very difficult,
(B), but not until the end of the passage.
9. c
Difficulty: Medium
The author describes his vision of what happens when the
writer finds the right tone of voice for his writing: he sits
and watches as sentences and paragraphs mysteriously
form themselves, etc. What is being conveyed here is the
writer's sense of wonder at the seemingly magical process
of creation, (C). You probably could have picked out (C)
without going back to the passage simply by eliminating
the other choices. The author of Passage 1 never talks
about frustration at the unpredictability of writing or about
discovering an unsuspected talent. A writer is driven by a
dim vision and does not seem to need to plan a project.
Writing is hard labor to the author of Passage 2, not the
author of Passage 1 .
10. A
Difficulty: Medium
Look at the context in which dim appears. The author
is poetically describing what happens during creative
writing: . .. paragraphs begin to shape themselves into an
organically coherent pattern that corresponds only better,
much better to the dim vision which had driven him to his
desk in the first place. Cutting through the flowery language,