What is the mmtmum degree possible for the polynomial function whose graph is shown in the standard (x,y) coordinate plane below? J, 3 DO YOUR FIGURING HERE. ENDOFTEST2 STOP! DO NOT TURN THE PAGE UNTIL TOLD TO DO SO. DO NOT RETURN TO THE PREVIOUS TEST. ACT·71H 29 www.actmi.net 3 3 READING TEST 35 Minutes-40 Questions DIRECTIONS: There are four passages in this test. Each passage is followed by several questions. After reading a passage, choose the best answer to each question and fill in the corresponding oval on your answer document. You may refer to the passages as often as necessary. Passage I PROSE FICTION: This passage is adapted from the novel Tropic of Orange: A Novel by Karen Tei Yamashita (©1997 by Karen Tei Yamashita). Thi~ passage u~es elements of a literary genre called magic realism to descnbe a mysterious thin line that is simultaneously real and imaginary. The tree was a sorry one, and so was the orange. Rafaela knew it was an orange that should not have been. It was much too early. Everyone said the weather was changing. The rains came sooner this year. The tree 5 had been fooled, and little pimples of budding flowers began to burst through its branches. And then came a sudden period of dry weather; the flowers withered away, except for this one. Perhaps it had been the industrious~es~ of the African bees, their furry feet 10 dusted heavtly m yellow pollen, that had quickly mated the flower to its future, producing this aberrant orange-not to be picked, not expected, and probably not very sweet. But from the very beginning Rafaela somehow felt 15 this. particular ora~ge was special. Perhaps it was her desue ~o see a thmg out of season struggle despite everythmg and become whole. As time went on, she found herself watching the orange, wandering out to the tree every day even in the rain, feeling great content- 20 ment in the transition of its small growing globe, first from green and then to its slow golden burnish. But there was something else. Just where its tiny bud had broken through the tree's branch Rafaela noticed ~ line---:-finer than the thread of a spiderweb- 25 pulled with delicate tautness. It was most visible in the dewy mornings as the sun rose from the east; at other ~imes, it was barely visible. But she had always sensed Its presence. If she could not reach out and touch it she sens~d its peculiar, very supple strength. Rafaela knew 30 that It ran across the property. In fact, she sensed that it continued far~her in both directions, east and west, east across the highway and west toward the ocean and beyond. In the days when the orange was a blossom of soft 35 petals, its fragrance surprised her. She had passed beneath the orange several times, drawn to its sweet scent before she had discovered it. The perfume could ACT-71H 30 only be emanating from that curious flower. She came often then to secure the whiff that tingled her deep 40 memory. It was then that she noticed the line. And when the baby orange appeared, it seemed to grasp that line as its parent, if a line could be a parent. As expected, the orange did not grow to be very big or seem very succulent, but it did begin to hang rather 45 heavily. And when the salty wind blew west from the sea rocking it back and forth like a small cradle the curious line-now running through the gro,~. .ring orange- rocked back and forth with it like a lullaby. Rafaela and her son Sol walked hand in hand past 50 the orange tree, careful not to disturb the lizards and beetles waiting breathlessly beneath scattered leaves and brush. For three days now, it had not rained. And yet any cool surface bled the air's moisture. Rafaela felt this wetness; it gathered in tiny molecules over her 55 skin. It was a little before noon, and the sun was partic- ularly bright and oppressive that day. If Rafaela had bothered to look at the calendar, she would have noticed that it was Monday, June 22. She might have also noticed the lunar signs in the corner of the calendar 60 and the small print that said summer solstice. She glanced briefly at the orange with some satis- faction and hurried toward the house. "Come on Sol. It's much too hot out here today." His little quick steps pattered behind, dancing around the young trees, and 65 then ran forward. She followed Sol who seemed to be following a ~ath of his own, but upon closer inspection, he was tracmg the path of a very thin but distinct shadow stretched in a perfectly straight line along the dirt and sand. There were no telephone cables or elec- 70 tric lines above, nothing to cast such a shadow and yet it was clearly there. Rafaela glanced back to~ard the orange tree a.nd the single orange, suddenly aware of the only possible and yet entirely impossible thing that could ~b~truct the intensity of the sun's light at this 75 hour, shcmg the heavy atmosphere with cruel precision. Indeed the sun was a great ball of fire directly above the orange tree. It seemed even to point at the tree, at the strange line, at the orange itself. Rafaela ran after Sol into the cool shadows of the 80 house. There was a sudden gust of tepid wind, and from the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the line's razor shadow dip away, south. Rafaela felt a dizzy nausea. She did not realize that the orange had fallen GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE. www.actmi.net 3 irresistibly from a height of two meters, rolling in dusty 85 turbulence down a small slope, under the barbed-wire fence, and just beyond the frontiers of the property to a neutral place between ownership and the highway.
