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

Section 81
Practice Test Ten 885
Directions: The passages below are followed by questions based on their content; questions following a pair of related
passages may also be based on the relationship between the paired passages. Answer the questions on the basis of
what is stated or implied in the passages and in any introductory material that may be provided.
Questions 7-19 are based on the following passages.
The fo llowing passages concern the novel Moby Dick by
American author Herman Melville (1819-1891), which
tells the story of the hunt by Captain Ahab fo r the whale
named Moby Dick. Passage 1 is adapted from a 1852
review from a literary magazine, and Passage 2 is by a
modern literary critic.
Passage I
In Moby Dick, Mr. Melville is evidently trying
to ascertain how far the public will consent to be
imposed upon. He is gauging, at once, our gull­
Line ibility and our patience. Having written one or
(5) two passable extravagancies, he has considered
himself privileged to produce as many more as he
pleases, increasingly exaggerated and increasingly
dull. In vanity, in caricature, in efforts at literary
innovation-generally as clumsy as they are inef-
(10) fectual-and in low attempts at humor, each one
of his volumes has been an advance among its
predecessors. Mr. Melville never writes naturally.
His sentiment is forced, his wit is forced, and his
enthusiasm is forced. And in his attempts to dis-
(15) play to the utmost extent his powers of "fine writing,"
he has succeeded, we think, beyond his most
optimistic expectations.
The work is an ill-compounded mixture of
romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a con-
(20) nected and collected story has obviously visited
and abandoned its writer again and again in the
course of composition. The style of his tale is
in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad)
English; and its conclusion is hastily, weakly, and
(25) obscurely written. The result is, at all events, a
strange book-neither so compelling as to be
entertaining, nor so instructively complete as
to take place among documents on the subject
of the Great Whale, his capabilities, his home,
(30) and his capture. Our author must be henceforth
numbered in the company of those writers who
occasionally tantalize us with indications of talent,
while they constantly summon us to endure
monstrosities, carelessness, and bad taste.
(35) The truth is, Mr. Melville has survived his reputation.
If he had been contented with writing one
or two books, he might have been famous, but his
vanity has destroyed all his chances for immortality,
or even of a good name with his own genera-
( 40) tion. For, in sober truth, Mr. Melville's vanity is
immeasurable. He will either be first among the
book-making tribe, or he will be nowhere. He will
center all attention upon himself, or he will abandon
the field of literature at once. From this mor-
( 45) bid self-esteem, coupled with a most unbounded
love of fame, spring all Mr. Melville's efforts, all
his rhetorical contortions, all his declamatory
abuse of society, all his inflated sentiment, and all
his insinuating licentiousness.
Passage 2
(50) Many readers have dismissed Herman Melville's
epic novel Moby Dick as "a treatise on whaling"
because it contains so many chapters that explore the
intricacies of the whaling trade in the mid-nineteenth
century. Such passages make no direct mention of
(55) the events that make up the novel's plot and instead
provide a wealth of factual information on topics
such as undersea plant life and the anatomy of
great whales. Such critics feel that alternating such
discursive material with the narrative detracts from
( 60) the compelling account of the hunt for Moby Dick,
the eponymous white whale. However, these critics
fail to realize that Melville is slyly, if paradoxically,
advancing the plot through these admittedly dry
passages of purely factual data.
(65) The whale Moby Dick is-unsurprisingly,
given the book's title-pivotal to the plot. The
story concentrates on the pursuit of the whale by
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