Reading Practice Test 1

1. Read the text and answer the question. The Dark Forest Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness - a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.
But there was life, abroad in the land and defiant. Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapor that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged along behind. The sled was without runners. It was made of stout birch-bark, and its full surface rested on the snow. The front end of the sled was turned up, like a scroll, in order to force down and under the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave before it. On the sled, securely lashed, was a long and narrow oblong box. There were other things on the sled, blankets, an axe, and a coffee-pot and frying-pan; but prominent, occupying most of the space, was the long and narrow oblong box.
In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over, a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the Wild to like movement. Life is an offence to it, for life is movement; and the Wild aims always to destroy movement. It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does the Wild harry and crush into submission man - man who is the most restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that all movement must in the end come to the cessation of movement.
But at front and rear, unawed and indomitable, toiled the two men who were not yet dead. Their bodies were covered with fur and soft-tanned leather. Eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with the crystals from their frozen breath that their faces were not discernible. This gave them the seeming of ghostly masques, undertakers in a spectral world at the funeral of some ghost. But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.

The author paints the other two men as a picture of survival and shows they're healthy, strong, and will make it.

2. DIRECTIONS: Identify the structure of each passage. Penguins evolved to live both on ice and in the sea. Consequently, they are accomplished swimmers, and they can propel themselves out of the water as far as 7 feet into the air and up onto ice if they need to escape a predator.

3. DIRECTIONS: Read each passage and identify how the information is being organized.The butterfly has an interesting life cycle. It is hatched from an egg as a caterpillar. The caterpillar, called a larva, does nothing but eat until its pupa stage, when it seals itself up into a cocoon and goes through a transformation. It emerges from the cocoon as a butterfly, which is its adult stage. The adult butterfly lays eggs of its own and eventually dies.

 

4. Teachers should limit the amount of homework students are assigned each night. Students must complete multiple homework assignments from multiple classes each night, which can result in hours of homework to complete.                , students have extracurricular activities and other obligations when the school day ends.

Which transition best connects the two pieces of supporting evidence?

5. DIRECTIONS: Read each passage and identify how the information is being organized.It is better to eat a variety of fresh fruit than it is to drink fruit juice from a bottle. Fresh fruit contains fiber, which makes your body absorb sugar more slowly so that it is easier to digest your food. Fruit juices, on the other hand, are not only a concentrated source of natural sugars, but many store‐bought juices contain a lot of added sugar, too.

 

6. Teen pregnancy prevention programs have had a positive impact on teen pregnancy rates across the United States.                   that in 1990, one in every 100 teenage females experienced a teenage pregnancy. Since the increase of teen pregnancy prevention programs in the late 1990s, that number has dropped to one in every 300 teenage females.

Which transition best connects the evidence to the claim it supports?

7. Choose the main idea sentence in the paragraph below.Many years ago, my dad went to a Beatles concert and only paid $5.25 for a single ticket! These days, it's expensive to purchase tickets to see your favorite bands. You'd have to pay at least $40 in most cases just to get into the nosebleed seats. And the floor? Forget it! $300 at least! I guess my dad had it good back then.

8. 0

Read the following short biography below and identify the main idea.If the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is turn on a light, you can thank Thomas Edison. This inventor - who was born in Ohio but spent much of his time working in New Jersey - is famous for a variety of inventions, including the light bulb. But that's not all he contributed. Thomas Edison was known for inventing the phonograph, which was a machine that is able to record sound and play it back. It was the first of its kind back then! He also invented not just the light bulb, but the switches that we use to turn the lights on and off. Another one of his most famous inventions is the motion picture camera, which was used to make movies. These were groundbreaking inventions in his day!

What is the main idea of this biography?

9. DIRECTIONS: Read each passage and identify how the information is being organized.It is possible to change how you feel about certain foods. If you want to learn to like a food that is good for you, take the following steps. First, imagine all the good things that it is doing in your body. It is making your organs healthy. It is giving you energy. It is making your muscles grow. Next, think about something that you want to be able to do. If you are an athlete, imagine scoring the winning point. If you are an artist or a poet, imagine having the concentration to do the work you want to do. Finally, keep these positive thoughts in mind the next time you try the unfamiliar food. You may not love it at first, but as you continue to tell yourself that eating this food is going to help you be what you want to be, the food will start to taste better to you.

10. Read the following text and answer the following question.Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature. There is a metal that is solid until you hold it. Your body temperature causes it to melt in your hand.

What is the Author's Purpose?