Which of the'following is an equation of the ellipse graphed below? (0.3) (_2,0) (2,0) (0,-3} . 60. If x and y are real numbers such that 4 < x < 12 and 2 < < 4, then the mini]num value for - is: END OF EST 2 STOP! DO NOT TURN THE PAGE UNTIL TOLD TO trf) so. DO NOT RETURN TO THE PREVIOUSTEST. 29, 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 Louise's bathing suit fading, as if at the end of their 45 season. PROSE FICTION: This passage 13 adapted from David Leavitt's novel EqualAffections (¢)1989 by Davld Leavitt)- As April grew: as her unspecified baby 'face took on the familiar features of his sister, the gaps between when the pictures were taken grew as well, until instead of every day. it was evcry six months, and then every . so year, at her birthday party. Then theTe were no dates. Then there weIe no more binders> just an old shoebox filled with snapshots. Very few pictures existed of Danny's own babyhood, and when he once asked his other why, she looked at him strangely and put heT 55 hand on her forehead. "Oh, Danny> she said, laughing a Ikttle, "I'in sorry., He hadn't, untiL tknat Illoent, thought of it Ls anything to apologize for. Nine mysterious and crucial years separ&ted April's birth from Danny's. This meant that when Danny was. nine, his.sister was eighteen and had lived twice as long in the world as he had. The diff¢rence 5 never seemed so vast, so insurmountable. as it did that magical year, for as they got older, nine years becajne less of a gulf and more of a bridge. Danny Lnet and befriended people older than April all the time now, as peers, a fact the nine-year-old baby brother in him still 10 couldn't help but. marvel at; when he was a child, she and her friendg had Seemed so imIiiutably older than be was. Now people April's age worked under hirn. April and his parents had been a family. long before he came aIong; they shared with each other elab- 15 orate and entrenched rituals, masses of comtllon. his- tory, so much that in his early childhood he was always having to ask questions: What is the house in this pic- ture? Our old house, wher¢ we lived in Boston. when April was borll. Who are these wonien bolding babies? 20 That is your grandmother, who you never knew, holding YOUI COUSlll Joanne. And that .is your aunt Eleanor, holding your cousin Markie. And that is your mommy_, holding your sister. He studied the photographs, memo- rizing the faces he would never'see in re life, because 25 tbe people they belonged to were dead or had aged beyond the point of recognktion. It was likc homework, like memorizing the parts of the body or the capitaLs. "But the pictures he paid closest attention to were the ones his paients had taken when April was a baby. 30 There wert hundreds of them-ten or twenty taken on a single day, sometimes, marked and dated and cap- tioned, as.if Louise and Nat had been under some SOTt of picture-taking enchantment, brought on by the mira- cle of first birth. '11/22152.. Molumy giving April her 35 bottle. '11123J52: Daddy puts April in hei .bath.' Danny didn't Imow this ellergetic young couple,. busily engaged in the rituals of baby care, and yet there were his father's ringed eyes and sharp nose on tbe face of that skinny boy" there was his mother's slightly 40 upturned lip, hEr blazing dark eyes. What surpriséd him most was a sequenc¢ of pictures taken on the beach. The color in these pictures had faded, and so the beach had a bleaEhed, white aspeet.. the bright flowers on When Danny was growing up, he had a red rnbber ball he liked to bounce. After school, in the afternoon, 60 he'd walk for hours, bouncing this baIl: spinning out in his head the plots of imaginary movies and teleiiision shows. and songs. She had told him that if he wrote a song good enough,, she'would sing it, But sornehow it was always 65 someone else's tune he caTne up with duriug those pre- dllsk hours he spent outdoors, .bouncin£, bollncing, When. he started college, that familiar, thunking beat was what Louise said she missed Jnost. she couldn't stand the silence. she told Danny,. and joked about 70 paying a neighborhood child to play handball against her garage. And later, when he was living in the East and went home for visits, he'd find the red ball waitiThg for hijn on his bed, and sorAetimes, when he had some- thing.to think through, he'd take it up.and bounce it, 75 though it was soft wtyere once it had bccn tight, and rid- dIed with tiny, unsealable holes, Louise, doing the dishes 9r ironing., felt a rare peacefulness corne over heI as she listened to'that familiar thumpillg of her son and his ball outside. 80 Danny remembered those h.ours bouncing the ball as ones of supreme contentrnent 'and security. He had a vision. sometiines, of Wall Street at rusb hour, ]nen in business suits, woDen in pastel-colored. tennis shoes. but not hurrying as usual toward the subway. instead, 85 they are just shuffling along, bouncing, and in the world there is a sound like thullder as a thousand balls hit the pavemcnt at once. fly again into the air, at once. ACT48C 30 GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE. l. The mood of this passage c&n best.be described as: mournful. contemplative. apprehensive.
