ACT Past Papers with Answers

Thc main idea of the first paragraph is that: the author És not accustomed to getting up very early in the morning. early in the morning. risers, the local flower trade is busiest in early morning. ity, it is advisable to meet with people in the local flower trade early in the morning.

The inforniation bctwecn th¢ dashes in lines 23-25 most strongly suggests that flower markets generally tend to: merge if both markets are successful. operate in a competitive atmosphere. suffer when competing vendors appear.

Based on the author's discussion of the "exhausting journey" (line 45) experienccd by flowers sent to auc- tion, the author would most likely agree with the idea that these flowers: are surprisingly resilient. are picked past their prime. should be shipped by plane to remain fresh. 31 GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE. ACT-A09 Passage11 Any student of Washington's life might have pre- dicted that he would acknowledge his election in a short, self-effacing speech full of disclaimers. "While I 55 realize the arduous nature of the task which is conferred on me and feel my inability to perfonn it,, he replied to Thomson, "I wish there may not be reason for regret- ting the choice. All I can promise is only that which can be accomplished by an honest zeal., This sentiment of 60 modesty jibed so perfectly with Washington's private letters that it could not have been feigned: he wondered whether he was fit for the post, so unlike anything he had ever done. The hopes for republican government, he knew, rested in his hands. As comrnander in chief of 65 the Continental Arniy, he had been able to wrap himself in a self-protective silence, but the presidency would leave him with no place to hide and expose him to public censure as nothing before. Because the vote counting had been long delayed, 70 Washington, 57, felt the crush of upcoming public busi- ness and decided to set out promptly for New York on April 16, accompanied in his elegant carriage by Thomson and aide David Humphreys. His diary entry conveys a sense of foreboding: "About ten o'clock, I 75 bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity and, with a mind oppregsed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York . with the best disposi- tions to render service 10 my country in obedience to its 80 call, but wiih less hope of answering its expectations." Waving goodbye was Martha Washington, who wouldn't join him until mid-may. She watched her hus- band of 30 years depart with a mixture of bittersweet sensations, wondering "when or whether he will ever 85 come home again." She had long doubted the wlsdom of this final act in his public life. "I think it was much too late for him to go into public life again,, she told her nephew. "but it was not to bc avoided." SOCIAL SCIENCE: ThSs passage is adapted from the artlcle "The Reluctant President. by Ron Chernow ( 2011 by Ron Ch8rnow). On February 4, 1789, the 69 members of the Electoral College made George Washington the only president to be unani- mously elected. but Congres8 was unable to meet until April 10 mak8 the cholc8 official. The Congressional delay in certifying George Washington's election as president only allowed more time for his doubts to fester as he considered the her- culean task ahead. He savored his wait as a welcome 'reprieve,' he told his former comrade in arms and future Secretary of War Henry Knox, adding that his "movements to the chair of government will be accom- panied with feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.. His "peaceful 10 abode" at Mount Vernon. his fears that he lacked the requisite skills for the presidency, the "ocean of diffi- culties" facing the country-all gave him pause on the eve of his momentous trip to New York. In a letter to his friend Edward Rutledge, he clairned that, in accept- 15 ing the presidency, he had given up "all expectations of private happiness in this world." The day after Congress counted the electoral votes. declaring Washington the first president. it dis- patched Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress, to 20 bear the official announcement to Mount Vernon. The legislators had chosen a fine emissary. A well-rounded man, known for his work in astronomy and mathemat- ics. the Irish-born Thomson couldn't have relished the trying journey to Virginia, which was "much impeded 25 by tempestuous weather, bad roads, and the many large rivers I had to cross." Yet he rejoiced that the new presi- dent would be Washington, whom he venerated as someone singled out by Providence to be "the savior and father" of the country. Having known Thomson 30 since the Continental Congress, Washington esteemed him as a faithful public servant and exemplary patriot. Around noon on April 14, 1789, Washington flung open the door at Mount Vernon and greeted his visitor with a cordial embrac¢. Once in the privacy of the man- 35 sion, he and Thomson conducted a stiff verbal rninuet, each man reading from a prepared statement. Thomson began by declaring, "I arn honored with the commands of the Senate to wait upon your Excellcncy with the information of your being elected to the office of Presi- 40 dent of the United States of America" by a unanimous vote. He Tead aloud a letter from Senator John Langdon of New Hampshire, the president pro tempore. "Suffer me, sir, to indulge the hope that so auspicious a mark of public confidence will meet your approbation and be 45 considered as a sure pledge of the affection and support you are to expect from a free and enlightened people." There was something deferential, even slightly servile, in Langdon's tone, as if he feared that Washington might renege on his promise and refuse to take the job. 50 Thus was greatness once again thrust upon George Washington.

Based on the passage. the rnain way the US flower market differs from the European flower market is that: directly to customers. truck, rail, and plane. United States. there is no ¢entralized flower market in the United States.

Source question 8. Refer to the source image.

The author refers to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot therne parks mainly to: indicate that the Aalsmeer market is more crowded than the two theme parks combined. provide support for the idea that the Aalsmeer market is a lot of fun to attend. suggest that the Aalsmeer market employs as many people as the two theme parks do. market occupies.

One function in the passage of including information about Mount Vernon and Martha Washington is to create a contrast between George Washington's.. carefree. casual demeanor around his family and his stern aspect with advisors and aides. idyllic, established home life and the uncertainty of what was to come in his public life. restlessness at home and his calm, collected sense of industriousness as president. enjoyment of a private home life and his dislike of working without close advisors in government.

As it is used in line 35, the phrase "stiff verbal minuet" refers to the interaction between George Washington and Thomson as Washington; writes a letter to Langdon, the president pro tempore. excuses himself from Thomson so that he may say goodbye to his wife, Martha. is officially told that he has been elected president of the United States and accepts the position. in chief of the arniy and appoints a replacement.

According to the passage, the congressional delay in certifying George Washington's election allowed Washington time to: steep himself in his doubts and fears, causing them to grow. share with others his hopes for and confidence in the republican government. closely consider the herculean task ahead, which eased some of his worry. confer with his aides about the difficulties facing the country.

As it is used in line 43, the word mark most nearly means:

The passage most strongly implies that while Washington was commander in chief of the army. one way he had preserved his good reputation was by: writing letters. remaining silent.

The passage author makes clear Martha WashiThgton's view that her husband's return to public life was: an inevitable event for hirn. a subtle rej¢ction of his private life'with her. an inexcusable decision for him. a source of pride for her. ACT.A09 33 GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE. Passage 111 Passage B by Karen Rosenberg "Infinite Line," Sarah Sze's midcareer solo show at 45 Asia Society Museum. promised & new angle on Ms. Sze's mesmerizing, minutely detailed installations. And it delivers one, though the art-much of it made for the occasion-doesn't always rise to the challenge. The show makes the case that Ms. Sze, who is 50 Chinese-American, has been profoundly influenced by many forn]s of Asian art. It also emphasizes her draw- ings. which have rarely been exhibited, and encourages you to see her three-dimensional artworks as drawings in space. Implicitly, it de-emphasizes the prosaic nature of her art materials: the cotton swabs, toothpicks. bottle caps and other throwaway objects that she fashions. with gee-whiz structural ingenuity. into rambling land- scapes and galactic spirals. Over the years viewers 60 (myself included) have had a tendency to focus on all of this stuff-to see Ms. Sze's an as embodying a quintcs- sentially American consumerism. 'Infinite Line" presents a more nuanced. intellec- tual and worldly artist: one who talks about space like 65 an architect and vision like an ophthalmologist, who rhapsodizes about the shifting perspective in Chincse painting and makes her own Asian-inspired drawings on long scrolls of paper. But while Ms. Sze says some fascinating things in 70 a catalog interview. she's not at her best in these gal- leries. Nothing here is quite up to the level of h¢r solo at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery last year. which used cantilevered shelves laden with rocks. plants and office supplies to evoke a topsy-turvy green house or curiosity 75 cabinei. HUMANITIES: Passagé A is adapted from th8 artlcle "A Milllon Llttle Pieces. by Andrea K. SGott ( 2012 by Condé Nast Publi- cations). Passage B is adapted from the article 'Ev8rything in It8 Rlghl Place. by Karen Rosénberg (Q2011 by The New York Timés). Passage A by Andrea K. Scott The artist Sarah Sze stood in the foyer on the second floor of the Asia Society, on the Upper East Side, amid dozens of crates, plastic storage bins. plastic tubs, and plastic bags. It was a late aftcrnoon in D¢cern- 5 ber. and she and six assistants were completing the installation of eight new sculptures. The process was so labor-intensive that it had taken more than three weeks. 55 Sze arranges everyday objects into sculptural installations of astonishing intricacy. She joins things 10 manufactured to help build other things (ladders. levels. winches, extension cords) with hundreds of common- place items (cotton swabs, push-pins, birthday candles. aspirin tablets), creating elaborate compositions that extend from gallery walls, creep into.corners. and 15 surge toward ceilings. Duchamp paved the way for Sze's work when he made a sculpture by mounting a bicycl¢ wheel on a wooden stool, But her virtuosic creations are equally indebted to the explosive energy of Bernini's Baroque masterpiece "The Ecstasy of 20 St. Teresa." a rnarble statue that seems to ripple with movement. Sze's show was about th¢ relationships between landscape and architecture, and sculpture and line. She walked from th¢ foyer into the galleries, and stood by 25 floor-to-ceiling window that had been concealed by a wall for a decade-the museum. had uncovered it at her request. She began to confer with her studio manager, Mike Barnett. Sze was wondering about a branch that she had placed in the installation by the window, after 30 pruning it from her roof-top garden, in downtown Man- hattan. It rose from the floor like a sapling emerging from a crack in the sidewalk. Twilight had turned the window into a mirror, but in daylight the branch would compete with a view of Park Avenue median greenery, 35 traffic. and apartment buildings, "Th¢re's a nighttime view and a daytime view," she said to Barnett. "I want that to be a plus. not a minus. Is this getting lost?lY Barnett said. "I think it works." That's especially tru¢ of the works on paper, which are installed in a separate room and look physically and spiritually cut off from Ms. Sze's signature installa- tions. Most of them find her in doodle mode, drawing 80 clusters of architecture and tiny figur¢s that can b¢ expanded or contracted to suit any scale or purpose. Pure drawing, as a medium. does not seem to excite Ms. Sze. It lak¢s a hint of found objects, or a flir- tation with the third dimension, to bring out her imagi- 85 nation, as in the collagc "Guggenhcim as a Ruin," which envisions a crumbling, entropic version of that Tnuseum, or the pop-up drawing "Notepad," whos¢ laser-cut and folded pages form a series of cascading fire escapes. 40 There was a pause so long that it should have been awkward. Sze finally said, "Even if it's a loose end, that could be interesting. I like that it looks like a frag- ment-like it could just drift away." ACT-A09 34 GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE. Questions 21-25 ask about Passage A. Questions 26 and 27 ask about Passage B.

In Passage A, the first paragraph (lines 1-7) functions mainly to emphasize the: work to her assistants at the Asia Society. ingenuity and problem solving Sze used to create her eight sculptures at the Asia Society. amount of time and materials Sze needed to create her eight sculptures at the Asia Society. the second floor of the Asia Society.

As it is used in line 13, the word elaborate most nearly means: exact. overdone, complicated.

It can most reasonably be inferred from Passage A that the main reason Sze requested that the floor-to-ceiling window be uncovered is that she wanted the window to contribute to her exploration of the: relationship between landscape and architecture. influences of consumerism on cultural constructs. effects of urban sprawl on the environment.

In Passage A, the author most likely references Bernini's "The Ecstasy of St. Teresa" in order to cmphasize that Sze's installations appear: antiquated. symmetrical. ornate. ACT-A09 35 GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE. Passage IV live penguins, hot blood leaving the heart gets cooled 55 by the plexus before reaching the flipper tip, and cold blood returning from the flipper gets warmed before approaching the heart, NATURAL SCIENCE: This passage is adapted from the artlcle Yhe Strangest Bird. by R. Ewan Fordyce and Daniel T. Ksepka (Q2012 by Scientiflc Amerlcan). That the earliest penguins have turned up in New Zealand is probably no coincidence. Until humans arrived, less than 1.000 years ago. the islands there formed a ternperate seabird paradise on the margins of 5 the South Pacific and Southern oceans. The region was free of terrestrial predatory mammals and afforded space for breeding colonies, with abundant food in the surrounding seas. The identity of the grooves on the fossil flipper bones shed some surprising light on the origin of pen- 60 guin thermoregulation. One of the most amazing aspects of modern penguin biology is the birds, ability to tolerate extreme cold. One would logically assume that the plexus evolved as an adaptation to frigid envi- ronments. But fossils suggest otherwise. Penguins such 65 as the Delphinornis frorn Antarctica show that this fea- ture evolved at least 49 million years ago. The early Waimanu penguins from Zealandia show no hint of the trait at 58 million years ago, however. The plexus there- fore must have evolved in the intervening time, when 70 the earth was far.warmer than it is today. Back then, Antarctica lacked permanent ice sheets and instead offered a temperate forested environment; Zealandia was even toastier. Geologic evidence suggests that Ihe area would 10 have been equally conducive to the seabird way of life at the end of the Cretaceous. New Zealand today is the largest exposed area of a submerged mini continent known as Zealandia that broke off from the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana perhaps 85 million years 15 ago. Thus liberated, Zealandia drifted northeast into the Pacific, carrying plants and animals, including dino- saurs, to its resting spot about halfway between the South Pole and iropics. As Z¢alandia drifted, it cooled and sank. Shallow seas flooded the land. and a broad 20 continental shelf fornied around its perimeter. Despite its isolation from other landmasses, Zealandia did not emerge from the end-cretaceous extinction unscathed. Many of its marine and te￿eStrIal organisms perished in that die-off. Yet what was bad for those creatures was 25 good for penguins. With marine reptiles such as mosasaurs and plesiosaurs out of the picture, early p¢n- guins could swim the waters around Zealandia free of Competition or predation. What use did early penguins have for a heat- 75 conserving plexus in this greenhouse world? Although sea-surface temperatures were high. early penguins probably foraged in cool upwelling regions, which are rich in nutrients and thus support a bounty of prey, including fish and squid. But because heat is lost more 80 quickly in water than air, a warm-blooded animal such as the penguin risks going into hypothermia even in warm seas if the water is below core body temperature. Reducing heat loss through the flipper would have helped them conserve body heat on long foraging 85 swims in chilly waters. The humeral plexus may have also allowed pen- guins to survive the long open-water journeys by which thcy initially dispersed from Zealandia to oth¢r conti- nents. Only much later would modern penguins co-opt 90 this mechanism to invade the sea ice shelves that formed when the planet cooled. Having gotten their sea legs in Zealandia, pen- 30 guins soon expanded their domain dramatically, dis- persing across thousands of miles and into new climate zones. Fossils of Perudyptes devriesi from Peru show that penguins arrived close to the equator about 42 mil- lion years ago, settling in one of the hottest places on 35 earth during one of the hottest times in the planet's history. By 37 million years ago the birds had spread to almost every major landmass in the Southern Hemisphere. Yet why, after restricting themselves to Zealandia 40 for millions of years, did penguins suddenly start spreading across the Southern Hemisphere around 50 million years ago? Recently Daniel T. Ksepka dis- covered an important clue to this mystery: a long- overlooked feature on the surface of fossil flipper 45 bones. The humerus bears a series of grooves that are easy to miss among the markings associated with ten- dons and muscles.

As it is used in line 57, the wordfashions most nearly means: accommodates. initiatss. combines. wears.

Compared to Passage B, Passage A provides mor¢ information regarding how Sze: laces objects within a gallery space. eels about the artists Duchamp and Bernini. reacts to critical interpretations of her artwork. incorporates classical Chinese imagery into her sculptural installations.

The authors of Passage A and Passage B both praise Sze for her use of: organic material in her collages. natural light in her sculpture gardens.

One main purpose of the passage is to: analyze why New Zealand has long bcen an ideal environment for penguins. compare two leading theories about penguin habi- tats based on evidence from the fossil record. steadily declined since the late Cretaceous. better understanding of how penguins evolved. Those grooves form at the spot where a cluster of arteries and veins presses against the humerus. These 50 blood vessels make up a countercurrent heat exchanger called the humeral arterial plexus, which allows pen- guins to limit heat loss through the flippers and to maintain their core body temperature in cold water. In ACT-A09 36 GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE.

It can reasonably be inferred from the passage that the phrase "what was bad for those creatures" (line 24) refers to: a change in food sources for carly penguins. other animals. affected Zealandia's terrestrial mammals. seabirds, exposure to new climate zones.

In the pasgage, the authors conclude that the humeral arterial plexus mechanism emerged in penguins in con- junction with a need to: survive in new climates closer to the equator. adapt to a ternperate forested environment. swim long distances on warm ocean surfaces.

The passage indicates that penguins living in the Cretaceous faced predation and competition for food from: marine reptiles. other seabird species. squid.

As it is used in line 45, the word bears most nearly means: endures. exhibits. merits.

The passage most strongly suggests that the markings from the humeral plexus had likely gone unnoticed on fossils because: Modern penguin bones do not have Such marktngs. the markings are difficult to distinguish from others on the humerus. the markings easily deteriorate over time. penguin fossils. END OF TEST 3 STOP! DO NOT TURN THE PAGE UNTIL TOLD TO DO SO. DO NOT RETURN TO A PREVIOUS TEST. ACT.A09 37