Part 1 Vocabulary

Directions: Choose the answer that can best complete the sentence.

1. The senator’s chances of winning another term in office are ____, since she has consistently broken promises and let people down.

A. bare

B. far

C. remote

D. devoid

2. Now that the boy was earning his own living, he could ____ his father’s rules.

A. defy

B. deprive

C. deny

D. devise

3. While some Southern writers see the past as a heavy burden, others see it as a subject for ____ reflection.

A. gloomy

B. nostalgic

C. thoughtful

D. depressing

4. ____ with grief, she finally flung herself out of the window that night.

A. Burn

B. Consumed

C. Languishing

D. Exacerbated

5. Pick up something to read and look at it carefully, not frantically ____ through the pages.

A. flickering

B. surveying

C. omitting

D. flicking

6. Since establishing the children’s Defense Fund in 1973, Marian Wright Edelman has been an ____ advocate, steadfast and constant.

A. unswerving

B. unwitting

C. inhibiting

D. unwilling

7. The thought of Tom’s treatment of her when she was talking about her picnic came ____ back and filled her with shame.

A. bursting

B. rose

C. arose

D. raised

8. At dinner he was ____ silent and tried to leave as soon as he had eaten sufficient but before the table was cleared.

A. solely

B. utterly

C. actually

D. highly

9. The interiors of these stores had ____ floors, bare ceilings, glaring lights, gaudy signs, and merchandise piled everywhere.

A. crude

B. rude

C. alert

D. savage

10. After that, I started to ____ on that verse in relation to my argument with my colleague.

A. mediate

B. isolate

C. confederate

D. meditate

Part II Correctness and Effectiveness of Expression

Directions: Choose the answer that can replace the underlined part.

1. The pale white petals of the gardenia possess a scent of great sweetness and subtlety and the scent has intrigued many perfume-makers.

A. subtlety, that being the reason why the scent has

B. subtlety, a scent that has

C. subtlety, it has

D. subtlety, but the scent has

2. The politician is benefiting from behavioral research, there are new techniques for them to utilize and new broadcasting methods to experiment with.

A. research; there are new techniques for them

B. research, there are new techniques for him

C. research; he has new techniques

D. research; they have new techniques

3. The poet Oscar Wilde was known for his aphoristic wit and brilliant conversation, he wrote a number of memorable literary essays including The Critic as Artist.

A. Known for his aphoristic wit and brilliant conversation, the poet Oscar Wilde

B. The poet Oscar Wilde, known for his aphoristic wit and brilliant conversation; he

C. The poet Oscar Wilde was known for his aphoristic wit and brilliant conversation, however he

D. Oscar Wilde, the poet, known for his aphoristic wit and brilliant conversation, and he

4. Children are perfectly clear about the functions of advertisements; by the age of 12, only one in ten children have believed have believed advertisements say about the product.

A. will believe

B. believes

C. has believed

D. believe

5. Heather hurst’s paintings and architectural renderings of the pre-Columbian Americas not only recover records that were previously lost, but these are works of art in their own right.

A. not only recover records that had been previously lost, but these are works of art

B. do not recover only records that were previously lost, but these are works of art

C. not only recovers records that were previously lost, but they are works of art

D. not only recover previously lost records but also are works of art

Part III Reading Comprehension

Directions: Read the following two passages and choose the answer that can best answer the question.

Passage 1

The central tension in Keats’s poetry is the struggle to reconcile an idealized view of the world with a rational one. If we were to view Keats as a stereotypical “Romantic”, then it would be easy to claim that Keats comes down firmly on the side of the ideal. But keats’s true genius lies in his ability to avoid such a simple dichotomy and explore both the romantic nature of rationalism and rational nature of Romanticism.

Keats realized that to embrace the ideal was to lift humanity up into the perfection of the world of art and imagination. While this perspective is firmly in step with that of other Romantics, Keats alone divined the paradox of this view. The ideal, by its very definition, also connotes the inhuman. In our quest to attain the perfect Romantic experience, we must necessarily reject the very imperfections that make us human. Thus, according to Keats, the ideal possesses the same cold and remote qualities of rationalism that other Romantics so detested.

Similarly, Keats realized that only by retreating into our base human nature could we begin to appreciate the Romantic vision of perfection. Although Keats maintained that the beauty conjured by the mind far outstrips the beauty of the objective world, he allowed that our experience of the beauty of worldly forms is necessary to understand ideal beauty. Thus, one must be connected to the real world to achieve a Romantic understanding of the ideal.

Keats’s poetry attempted to address these ideological ambiguities by remaining in a state of suspension. Keats strove to place himself outside of his poetry. His greatest wish was to emulate Shakespeare, whom he viewed as creatively neutral. Keats yearned to portray both the ideal and the actual without prejudice, much like Shakespeare could effortlessly portray good and evil, moral and immoral, without personal bias. It is keats’s willingness to explore this intellectual, objective, and Indeed, rational realm, despite his ostensibly Romantic nature, that makes him a true genius.

Passage 2

Keats is often celebrated as the archetype of the Romantic, a soul who rejected the harsh reality of the world and perpetually dwelt in the exalted plane of ideals and imagination. But to hold that view of Keats is to ignore the facts and circumstances of his tragic life. Keats’s treasure troveof letters, sometimes regarded as the most significant collection of correspondence of any English poet, reveal a man of both worldly and lofty ambitions.

Keats was born in 1795, the son of a stable manager. His most notable achievements in school were neither of the literary nor the intellectual fashion. Instead, he was known as a fierce fighter, despite his small frame (Keats was just over five feet tall). Although he continued to read widely, his early aspiration was to become a surgeon. While working toward his surgical license Keats penned his first work, an imitation of Edmund Spenser. After this brief literary foray, Keats would gain his license and practice surgery for two full years before devoting his energies to poetry.

In 1817, Keats published his first book of poetry, Poems. Critical reception was generally favorable, but sales were poor. The poems themselves were rather unremarkable in terms of both style and content. There certainly was no inkling of the torrent of brilliant Romantic verse that would follow. At that time, Keats had decided that he would attempt to achieve the highest pinnacle of writing that he could, then devote the rest of his life to making an impact on the world- “to do the world some good, ” as he put it. While the young artist did not specify exactly how he would serve the world, it is clear that Keats viewed himself not as a detached dreamer, but as a functioning part of the world.

Shortly thereafter, Keats’s world slowly began to unravel. His mother succumbed to tuberculosis, as did his younger brother Tom. Keats became engaged to his sweetheart, Fanny Brawne, but the wedding was called off because Keats was too poor to marry. Poetry he produced during this time, far from celebrating beauty and perfection, shows a morbid fascination with death and decay. By the time Keats’s second volume of poetry was published in 1820, Keats was himself suffering from tuberculosis, the malady that had claimed the life of his mother and brother. Tragically, within a year he was dead.

Keats’s work followed the arc of his life. He was not a cloistered dreamer; he was a man of worldly ambitions whose plans were derailed by sickness and misfortune. Simply ascribing the term “Romantic” to the work of Keats ignores the profound personal impact of his life’s trials and travails.

1. In Paragraph 2, the underlined word “paradox” refers to ____.

A. the other worldly nature of ideal beauty

B. the difficulty of reconciling the ideal with real

C. Keats’s invention of an unusual poetic technique

D. Romanticism’s excessive concern with fashion

2. Paragraph 2 suggests that Keats is ____.

A. an intellectual

B. a savant

C. a follower

D. an outcast

3. It can be inferred from Paragraph 3 that Keats believed that ____.

A. it is necessary to experience reality in order to comprehend the ideal

B artists have an obligation to do work that benefits the world

C. good and evil should be presented equally and without prejudice

D perfect beauty is an ideal that can never be understood by humans

4. In the last paragraph, the comparison of Keats to Shakespeare serves primarily to ____.

A. demonstrate Keats’s complicated morality

B. show that Keats wanted to write plays

C. explain Keats's literary ambitions

D. provide historical context for Keats’s ideas

5. The passage suggests that Keats ____.

A. was comparable to Shakespeare in his ability to invent realistic characters

B. thought that the imperfections of humanity could be easily transcended

C. considered an understanding of the physical world important to his poetry

D.experienced great physical and emotional suffering near the end of his life

6. In Paragraph 2, the author of the passage suggests that Keats ____.

A. was as much concerned with the physical world as with imagination

B. was a materialist poet who did not care about issues of spirituality

C. would have become a professional athlete if not for his chronic illness

D. had little in common with other, more popular Romantic poets

7. In the last paragraph, the underlined word “cloistered” most nearly means ____.

A.religious

B. chronically ill

C. narrow-minded

D. detached from the world

8. The last sentence of the passage indicates that the author ____.

A. does not think that it is useful to group authors into historical periods

B. wants to convince readers that Keats’s early death was a great misfortune

C. considers Keats to be typical of a generation of Romantic authors

D. views the term “Romantic” as inadequate to describe Keats

9. The author of the passage owes the greatness of Keats’s late poetry to ____

A. his relationship with Fanny Brawne

B. the misfortunes of his early twenties

C. his experiences as a doctor

D. the way he dealt with contradiction

10. Which of the following best describes the tone of the passage?

A. Scornful and self-possessed.

B. Dramatic and irreverent.

C. Respectful and sympathetic.

D. Tragic and ambivalent.