1) D) In this passage, the narrator travels by train to and from the hometown she lived in as a child. During her train rides and her time in her hometown, she contemplates the way the world was and how it has changed, so D is the best answer. Although A is tempting, since the narrator is on the train for much of the passage, it is incorrect for two reasons. For one, the narrator is not on the train the entire time. More importantly, the narrator is not a “young adult.” She has clear memories from 25 years ago (lines 33-35), which indicates that she is likely at least 30-35 years old, and possibly older. Therefore, she would be better described simply as an adult, not a “young adult.”
2) H) Watch out for the “EXCEPT.” H is the correct answer because photographs are only mentioned once very briefly in line 53. F is incorrect because dreams are discussed in lines 14-15 and lines 64-67. G is incorrect because reunion scenes are discussed in lines 10-14 and lines 22-24. J is incorrect because the passage discusses the narrator’s train trip to her old town in lines 1-21 and her train trip from her old town in lines 62-76.
3) B) Watch out for the “EXCEPT.” Answer choices A and C are incorrect because they are both established in lines 7-8. Answer choice D is incorrect because it is established in lines 1-3. B is the correct answer because it is established in lines 18-21 that the narrator is not from Chicago, but instead from a small town outside of Detroit Lakes.
4) G) The narrator’s statement in lines 30-31 indicates that she does not consider the changes her hometown has undergone to be real progress. This same statement directly refutes answer choice F. H is incorrect because lines 51-60 describe how drastically the town has changed. J is tempting due to the discussion in lines 36-41, but it is ultimately incorrect. Although these lines appear to be a discussion of rebuilding the town the way it once was, they are actually just using the rebuilding of the town as a metaphor to describe their reminiscence of a bygone era.
5) B) Watch out for the “EXCEPT.” Answer choices A, C, and D are incorrect because they are described in lines 39-48 as the narrator reminisces about her hometown’s past. B is the correct answer because lines 51-53 indicate that the football field is now fenced in and that this is something new.
6) F) Lines 53-54 indicate that the tanning salon is rather new. Lines 54-55 indicate that H describes something that used to be part of the town but is no longer. Lines 57-60 indicate that G and J are also businesses that no longer exist.
7) C) The context of this statement, lines 76-84, indicates that the cosmonaut no longer has a country because his former country, the Soviet Union, has ceased to exist as a political entity while he was in space; therefore, C is the correct answer.
8) F) The person with whom the narrator converses at the station in lines 24-26 states that he or she beat the narrator’s father in cribbage while waiting, indicating that the narrator’s father was waiting too.
9) D) Although answer choices A, B, and D are all mentioned by the narrator when contemplating her hometown, the narrator makes it clear in lines 57-60 that the addition of casino gambling was the biggest change of all.
10) H) Lines 85-89 indicate that the news broadcast stated that his knees buckled because he had been unable to exercise while in space, so H is the correct answer. If you answered G or J, you likely misread the question, since these answer choices summarize the narrator’s own speculation as to why the cosmonaut’s knees buckled.
Passage II: Social Science11) C) The author argues that small rural craftsmen such as the luthiers profiled in the passage can make a difference. This argument is summarized in lines 25-32 and lines 78-84, among other places in the passage. Answer choice A is incorrect because, although shantytowns are mentioned in lines 10-13, the author does not discuss the need to move them. B is incorrect because the author clearly believes that good (rather than “the best”) wood is readily available and that there are plenty of common woods that make fine substitutes for woods typically considered “the best.” D is incorrect because it contradicts the main point of lines 68-73, which discuss the sale of Amazon guitars to people outside the Amazon.
12) F) The remainder of the paragraph, lines 35-53, discusses Gomes’s successful quest to find abundant and overlooked woods that serve as fine substitutes for the endangered woods typically used to build guitars, so it makes sense that the woods are certified as “environmentally sustainable.” G is incorrect because Gomes is one man who, on a small scale, is doing his part to make a difference by using sustainable wood to build guitars. H is incorrect because Gomes has successfully found sustainable substitutes for the endangered woods traditionally used to build guitars. J is incorrect because Gomes finds substitutes for traditional woods since many such woods are endangered.
13) C) This is essentially a tone question, and the author undoubtedly has a positive tone towards OELA. This positive tone is evident as early as the first paragraph, lines 1-5. Due to the positive tone, you can eliminate answer choices A and B after reading the first word. C is correct because the author is complimentary of the goals and methods of OELA. D is incorrect because the author does not discuss the duplication of OELA elsewhere.
14) G) Answer choice F is quite tempting, since this paragraph does discuss the population growth of urban areas of the Amazon. However, this growth is attributed in lines 10-11 to a migration to the cities from rural areas, not to an overall population increase. Furthermore, the paragraph does not discuss the population changes of the Amazon just for the sake of doing so; it discusses it in order to explain why projects such as Gomes’s are needed, as is shown in lines 16-18.
15) D) This paragraph discusses how Gomes has successfully found sustainable substitutes for the endangered woods traditionally used to build guitars. Part of the process by which Gomes identified these woods involved testing them in a laboratory, so D is the correct answer. A is incorrect because specific woodworking techniques are not discussed. B is incorrect because the paragraph does not explore the idea of science versus intuition. C is incorrect because it is in direct contradiction to the main point of the paragraph.
16) H) Watch out for the “EXCEPT.” F, G, and J are all discussed as challenges in lines 58-63. H is the correct answer because it is never stated in the passage; instead, the author argues that although many of the woods traditionally used for guitars are in danger of extinction (but not extinct yet), there are many other suitable woods that are abundant.
17) B) Lines 85-91 state that OELA students learn about environmental stewardship and pass this knowledge on when they return home, so B is the correct answer. These same lines indicate that A is incorrect, since many OELA students will go on to have other careers; the hope is that OELA inspires them to care about the environment, not simply about music. C is incorrect because it is never discussed. D is tempting because lines 89-91 discuss the fact that some OELA students will go into politics, but the passage never states that most of them will do so.
18) J) Lines 25-27 indicate that 20 million of the 30 million cubic meters of wood harvested from the Amazon each year are wasted.
19) A) Watch out for the “EXCEPT.” Lines 48-50 indicate that B, C, and D are all traditional woods, while A is a substitute that Gomes is using in place of traditional woods.
20) F) Lines 65-66 indicate that “adoption” involves paying a student’s tuition.
Passage III: Humanities21) C) The author, an academic philosopher, discusses the evolution of his mental interests from boyhood, describing the path that led him to a career as a philosopher, so C is the best answer. A is incorrect because such metaphysical questions (questions having to do with the nature of reality) are discussed only briefly in in lines 25-35 and lines 62-65. When these metaphysical questions are discussed, they are only brought up as they relate to the development of the author’s interests and career. B can be easily eliminated because the passage is not presented in chronological order, as the author routinely recollects different parts of his childhood in no particular order. D is incorrect because getting students to study philosophy is not mentioned in the passage despite the fact that Mr. Marsh, a teacher of the author’s, was the one who first sparked the author’s interest in the field.
22) J) Lines 36-43 indicate that before the author became interested in philosophy, he had been interested in drums. Lines 53-54 indicate that when he was even younger, he had been interested in chemistry, and before that, butterflies.
23) A) The last paragraph explains how the author’s interest in philosophy, scholarship, thinking, and writing steadily grew from the time he was introduced to these things by Mr. Marsh, so A is the best answer. Indeed, Mr. Marsh’s impact on the author was lasting, as it helped the author along the path that would eventually lead to his career as a philosopher.
24) J) Lines 23-26 indicate that the book cover, described in lines 17-23, is a picture representing the author as a young man pondering philosophical questions.
25) C) Lines 43-47 indicate that drumming was his focus for a time before his mental energy found its true passion, philosophy. A is incorrect because lines 47-49 indicate that philosophy replaced drumming as the outlet for his mental energy. B is incorrect because the author does not condemn his previous interest in drumming. D is incorrect because the author never claims to have “perfect[ed] his drumming technique.”
26) F) Lines 49-53 indicate that the author believes it is not easy to find an appropriate outlet for this energy, so F is the correct answer. G is incorrect because although the author mentions (in lines 44-47) that this energy can sometimes be destructive, he does not state that this is usually the outcome. H is incorrect because the word “inevitably” implies that such energy is always wasted, which the author does not claim. J is incorrect because this idea is never expressed in the passage.
27) C) These lines indicate the author’s belief that schools typically do not connect with the natural, passionate interests and energy that boys have. Because the author considers this inability of schools to connect “a great and unresolved problem,” he believes that schools should continue to try to find ways to solve the problem, so C is the correct answer.
28) J) To answer this question, it is helpful to know that “rudimentary” means “basic.” In lines 80-81, the author argues that with such tools “you can perform [a] miracle,” so J is the best answer.
29) A) Pay close attention to the language used in these lines. Words like “grey and listless” (line 19), “grim” (line 20), and “bleak and melancholy” (line 21) invoke feelings of “gloom.” The description of the man as “hunched up, immobile, coiled almost” (line 22) present an image of tension. The description of the man as “frozen in thought” presents the man as fascinated. If you answered C, you likely noticed that it was a picture of a man looking out across the ocean and based your answer on your own associations with the ocean rather than concentrating on the actual language used.
30) F) Watch out for the “NOT.” Lines 81-82 describe the transition in a manner consistent with answer choice H, lines 82-83 describe the transition in a manner consistent with answer choice J, and lines 83-84 describe the transition in a manner consistent with answer choice G. The transition is not described in a manner consistent with answer choice F; indeed, line 84 describes the transition as one that turns the thought into something “precious.”
Passage IV: Natural Science31) B) The first sentence of the passage introduces the first hint of doubt into the extent and the accuracy of the “universally accepted” (lines 1-2) knowledge about eels. The entire last paragraph further explains the source of this doubt; eels have never been observed reproducing anywhere, and living adult eels have never been seen in the Sargasso Sea, where eels are thought to reproduce. The uncertain nature of our knowledge of eels is summed up in lines 69-71. Answer choice D is tempting, since it is true based on the information in lines 48-53; however, this choice is a main idea of the fifth paragraph only and is too narrow to be a main idea of the entire passage.
32) H) Lines 78-82 indicate that the larvae Schmidt found in the Sargasso Sea were so small that they must have hatched nearby. Due to the lack of any more conclusive evidence, this discovery is the basis of the current belief that eels reproduce only in the Sargasso Sea.
33) D) This paragraph deals with the portion of eels’ lives that they spend in rivers, so D is the correct answer. If you answered A, you may have just read the first sentence of the paragraph and failed to consider the paragraph as a whole. If you answered B, you may have just read the last sentence of the paragraph and failed to consider the paragraph as a whole.
34) J) The answer to this question is stated clearly in lines 10-13.
35) B) The answer to this question is stated clearly in lines 13-14. Be careful, as the other locations are all mentioned in the passage but are not described as locations within the Sargasso Sea.
36) G) On vocabulary in context questions, you should go back to the context to figure out what the word means before reading any of the answer choices. Doing so will prevent you from being tempted by an answer choice that might sound good but does not accurately capture the meaning. Be careful, since these questions frequently feature uncommon secondary definitions of the word. Here, the word “popular” means famous, so G is the correct answer.
37) B) On vocabulary in context questions, you should go back to the context to figure out what the word means before reading any of the answer choices. Doing so will prevent you from being tempted by an answer choice that might sound good but does not accurately capture the meaning. Be careful, since these questions frequently feature uncommon secondary definitions of the word. Here, the word “read” means examine visually, so B is the correct answer.
38) F) The answer to this question is stated clearly in lines 59-61. Although G and H are also statements made in the fifth paragraph, they are not mentioned as reasons the eels undergo changes to their eyes.
39) A) The answer to this question is stated clearly in lines 61-66.
40) F) Lines 78-84 indicate that eel larvae so small had never been found anywhere other than the Sargasso Sea, indicating that the larvae must have hatched recently in the Sargasso Sea.
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