ACT Past Papers with Answers

The passage's tone is best described as one of: admiration. irony.

One of the main ideas of the frfth paragraph (lines 51-66) is that: them. the Writer's Project interviews seem merely like raw matenal today. the Writer's Project stories frorn Harlem aEe fic- tiollal in the Strictest defmition of the word. fiction to emerge from the Wtiter's Project. many in the H￿I¢M Writer's Project went to great lengths to tell accurate. creative. and literary stoties.

According to the passage. which of the following is NOT a reason for the demisc of the Writer's Project? De]DOCEats. Harlem residents objected to having their personal stories exposed to the public. projects.

As it is used in line 2, the phrase social experiment most Dearly refers to: an endeavor to raise the morale and fortunes of unemployed Americans. plan to initiate a cultural revival across tbe United States. ll. the study of the impact of a massive black znigration. a temporary program supporting asP￿illg writers.

In the CODtext of the passage, the statement in lines 25-29 most nearly ll￿anS thai: a grollp of and women successfully promoted the art and literatllre of Harlern in the 1920s. .movement than is usually recognized. Rellaissance was primarily an intellectual movement. while a small group of artists generally receives credit for the revival in Harlem, in fact a much larger group of artists was involved.

The passage's author mentions Writer's Projcct writers utilizmg all of the following literary techniques in their WPA work EXCEPT: using realistic dialogue. setting scenes. illCOtp)rating flashbacks. employing extellded metaphors.

According to the passage. A Renaissance in Harlem contaÈns: a sampling of some of the best fiction written about Harlem in the 1930s. more than forty-five selections from both famous and relatively unknown writers. nearly fthy selections from previously obscure Wnter's Project writers. a handful of stories that had been dismissed by Harlem illtellectuals in the 1930s. Passage 111 HUMANITIES= This passagg is adapted from the arlicle "Sub- lime ArchiteGture: Sacred Interior.s Ag[0￿ by Holland Cotter (Q2002 by The New York TEmes Company). Thanks to VeTmeer and RembraDdt. art of the 17th- century Dlltch Golden Age is box-office magic. One re&son is obvious: both artists are charismatic stylists and humane thinkers. The sa￿e is true of Pieter 5 Saenredarn (1597-1665), their contemporary and, in the view of many conjjoisseurs. their equal, but who doesn't enjoy. theiT popular fame. While they painted people. he painted buildings: Ghurch iSLteriors in which the human figure was insignificant or absent. In facL 10 Saenredam is often referred to as an architectura] por- traitisL whose exacting eye for measurement, light and detai] gives his pictures thc accuracy of scientific pho- tographs. But are they really so true to life? Or are they. like photographs, a mix of fact, eTtor and wishful 15 illusion? His work routine was the same for cach church. FiTs¢ he made highly detailed on-the-spot sketches of a 55 bllllding, including close-ups of specific features. Later. in the studio, he converted these sthdies into more pol- ished drawings, adjustin perspective and scale. Still later-in sojne cases a quarter century later-he turned these drawings into paintiniys. Few buildings. at leagt before photography, were observed with more passiouatc care_ In his on-site drawings,. Saellredam seems intent on getting every last little thing down, with epic results. Whole architectural histories can be rcad in the structural particulars he 65 drew. civic bistories in tomb inscriptions he tran- scribed. histories of religion and fashion in the orna- ments he relldere(L 60 Pcrsona] and professional stories also come across. Through certain drawings, we can place the artist at a 70 particular church on a particular day, say June 30, 1636. An ink-wash shadow fixes the time: 8 &.rn. knother shadow to the left has a different angle: 9 a.m. So we see bim moving systematically across the page. Over. wcEks. we see him succeeding and failing. making bril- 75 liant decisions or botching a job. Some on-site draw- ings are awesomely exact" otheTS wildly misjudge spatial dimensions or cram SU￿tta1 arnouDts of data into a single image. Certain errors of judg]llent can be cor- rected later" others are disastroug. resulting in paintings 80 that are architectural fictions. Like Vern]eer. Saenrcdam was a perfectionist and his output was fairly small. He was also an outstanding draftsman and-this is not true of VernieeT-mauy of bis drawings survive. All directly related to the paint- 20 ings. they offer intimate insights into his art and life. About that life we know both a little and a lot. He ' was botll in Assendelft. After his fatheT died when he was 10. the family moved to Haarlem. wher6 Saentedam stayed for the rcst of his lifc. He studied art 25 bu( being frnancially independenL never had to make a living frorn IL At 30 he decided to devote himself to architectural subjects, or perspectives. as they were" called. Whell he died he was bllried in the Church of SL Bavo, which be had often painted. Saenredam's fascination with Dutch churches was real, intense enough to take him on occasional trips away from H&3rlem. The longest was to Utrecht, where he stayed from lune to October 1636. His long stay in Utrecht may have been forced by a plague outbreak thai 35 bit Haarlem soon after he left. In any evenL his time in Utrecht was the most fruitful of his careei, when he produced some of his greatest images and & visual record of his activities. But fiction is built into this art, just as it is into the portraits of Rembrandt and Vernieer. Reatity is de]iber- ately adjusted, edited, dramatize¢ simplified. A church interior cluttered with the unruly stuff of life-benches. 85 gravestorAes, watei-stained stones-is jotted down on paper, thell ref￿ed into a network of IIDCS and grids. finally into a painted s01iLL a container of light, golden- brown or dove gray= a utopian vision with one foot on eartb and one foot beyond.

The main Purpose of the passage is to: xplore the relationship between drawing and painting in Dutch art, using three seventeenth- century artists as case S￿dIeS. exan]ine the influence of r¢ligion on Dutch art, using one seventeentb-century artist as atL example. C discuss the life and work of a particular sevellteenth-￿ntury Dutch artisL rate the relative importance of the work of three seventeenth-centElry Dutch artists. Through his drawings we can trace his where- 40 abollts. We learn that be worked ill seven different churches, five of which still exist. A soaring Gothic catbedral, callcd the Dom, was leveled in 1674; his drawings and paintings are the only documentation of its original appearance. The smaller, older Mariakerk- 45 kerk is Dutch for churcb-was derelict when he visited and was pulled down in the 19th century. He spent six weeks there, more time than anywheT¢ else, and in his Jnany views of its interior and exterior, he captured its beautics and eccentricities. as if he were portraying a 50 fricnd, newly met but instantly beloved. It itLspired tjjree paintings of its exterior, which are amollg the gupreme masterpieces of Dutch art.

The passage characterizes Saenredam as all of the fol- . lowing EXCEPT". comfortable f￿anCiallY. artistically inferior.

Based QD the passage, how should the assertion that Saenredam "painted buildings" (line 8) be read? Literally: he decorated the interior walls of Dutch churches. paintings. out more than did the buiIdings. wortby subjects for art than people are.

The passage most strongly irnplies that Saenredam viewed Haarlem as: a place he was willing to leave only temporarily. far less agreeable than Assende]f¢ his birthplace. a city where he could study art until he could afford to move to UtrechL

It can reasonably be inferred from the last paragtaph that the author believes Saenredam's work seTves as: a reminder of the power of art to allow the viewer to transcend reality without igooring it. evidence that the Itttjitations of Saenredatn's sub- ject matter inhibitcd his artistic expressioll. pass those of Vernieer and Rembrandt. an indication that the Dutch Golden Age repre- sents the peak of sev¢llteenth-century art.

Through his comparison of Saenredam's work to pho- tography, the author Ieveals his belief that photography: is a more accurate representation of reality. ignores reality in ordeT to promote a specific artis- tic vision. requires a less exacting eye for measuremcnL

According to the passage. Saellredam's time in what location was "the most fruitfill of bis career"? Utrecht Assendelft

The statellLent in lines 63-67 most nearly means that: chuTch before attempting to paint it. cal documents than vibrant works of art. -H. the wealth of details in a Saenredam painting is less important thall the epic subject he took oll. reveal much about the history of a place.

In the passage, the significance of June 30. 1636. is that it is: . the day when Saenredarn began painting a Gothic cathedral called the Dom. Mariakerk. work call be traced usillg evidellce in his drawings. an unusual workday for sae[lreda￿, who stopped drawing at 9 Lm., much earlier than normal.

As it is used ill line 71. the word fires most nearly means: . estabtisbes. corrects. repairs. A< Passage IV Goats munch any seedlings that nwiage to sprout. Pigs rnt up the ground. damaging fragile root systems and 55 causing erosion in steep te￿aill. Vickie Caraway> botanist in Hawaii's DivLSLon of Foresty aud Wildlife. says that introduced weeds are a big problem too. They forni thick n￿ts over the soil in many are&s, preventing the palm seeds from germinating. NATURAL SCIENCE: This passage 15 adapted from the articlo Trlawwi's Native Palms" by Mlke Grudowski ( 2002 by Smith- sonian Institution). Field botanist Ken Wood works for the National Tropical Botanical Gatdell (NTBG). on Kauai. He spends a lot of time looking for rare palms. Today he hopes to pluck a few seeds from a fan palm of the genus 5 Pr£tchardia. a group that encotnpasses Hawati's only native palms. 60 Habitat destruction compounds the problems. Over the cent￿leS. much of Hawaii has beell burned, bull- dozed and built up with cane and pineapple fields, towns, condoJ]]iniums, botels. marin&s and golf courses. The lowland dry fores( where native palms once domi- 65 nated. has taken the hardest hit; more than 96 percent of it is gone. Unethical plant collectors Jnake things worse still. There are 27 species of Pritchordia. 23 of which are found in Hawaii. Eight are officially classified as endangered, but Wood is convinced others as well face 10 the threat of extinctioll. Not long ago, he took a census on Bast Maui of one of them, P. arecina. "There are only 500 left aDd there is no TegeneTation. Whell there's no regencration, you don't need statistics to show that the species will die off." As is the case with endangered plants and aDima]s in general, a disproportionate number of endangered palm species are found on i51ands. If they didn't consti- te such a varied family of plants, palms rnight bc in cyen worse shape. They grow in African streams and 20 9,0(Kl feet high in the Andes. They're foulld in swelter- ing mangrove Swamps in Southeast Asia and in blizzard-lashed highlands in the Himalayas. Some top ' out at six inches. and others tower upwards of 200 feet; ratLan paI￿S (which grow as Yines) call exceed 600 feet

Based on the pagsage as a whole, Ken Wood most likely hopes to collect seeds from a rare fan palm of the genus Pritchardia OiDes 1-6) so he'll be able to: continue to study the differences ill the seeds of various palm geneTa. plant the seeds in mangrove swamps in Asia where rare fan palms c￿￿entlY aren't growing. Florida. Today, just about any time a Pritchardia tries to reproduce, Hawaii's biological invaders go to work. Rats devoui fflost seeds before they can geilllinate.

In ternis of the passage as a whole. the thiid and fourth paragraphs (lines 15-37) mainly serve to: contrast the appearance of rattan palms with Pritchardia palms. explain why particularly small palms are more Iikely to survive today in Hawaii than they would have been millions of years ago. context for the discussion of Hawaiian palms. argue for the need to protect the native palrns of Africa and Southeast Asia as well as the native palms of Hawaii.

The passage suggests that compared to species of paI￿S that grow on islallds. palms that grow in tllain- land ecosystems are: More likely to be studied by NTBG. more useful as a food source.

Lines 19-25 primarily seive to illustrate the point made in the third paragTapb Oines 15-30) that collec- tively the plants of the palm family are: tolerant of cold clin￿teS. endangered. diverse.

It can reasonably be inferred from the passage that which of the following allIn￿lS introduccd to Hawaii has had the LEAST negative effect on Hawaii's native palms? Goat

As it is used in line 60. the word compounds most nearly means: settles. increases. mixes.

The Luain purpose of the eighth paragraph (lines 68-81) is to describe: a paltn tree. efforts by NTBG'S staff to preserve and restore PritchaTdia species. the physical characteristics of the P. viscosa grow- ing along a trail on the eastern side of Kauai. tional Pritchardia spe£ies.

As it is used in line 77. the word hedge most nearly means: obligation. exclusion.