SAT Preparation Diagnostic Test

Read the following passage and answer the questions below.

The old Middle West is gone. However, it still lives in song and story. Give most children the choice of visiting Valley Forge or Dodge City…Dodge City wins. It is more glamorous in their imagination than Valley Forge.

The old Middle West developed a strong, compassionate people out of the hardships and suffering of the destructive blizzards of earlier generations—“northers” that swept over it with white clouds of blinding snow and ice—and southern winds that brought the black blizzards of dust storms.

The Middle West is realistic about the nation’s domestic and international affairs. It views both with intense interest and anxiety, for it knows that—although stubborn resistance to change can lead to catastrophe—change often does have unseen ramifications.

This caution is still present—especially on major political questions—in the modern Middle West and is its particular contribution to our national relationships.

I think the Middle West’s strength is in its cautious approach to the day of reckoning in our complex industrial structure and what should be put forward for its solution. The solution will take time, for slapdash approaches never work.

It took thirty years for our great country to recover from the upheaval of the Civil War. It took thirty years for our country to discard the Democratic policy that the way to settle economic troubles was with fiat money. It made inflation the prime issue in 1936. It still is.

Our era has seen some fifty years of war and international tension piled on top of World War I and enormous industrial development.

The new West is more worldly minded than the old Middle West was, and, in general, is a balance between the East Coast—with alignment toward Europe and the Atlantic countries—and the West Coast—with its interests in Asian affairs.

There is still a noticeable difference between the atmosphere in the Middle West and that of the Eastern states. It is more free and easy. There are not as many old families with local supremacy. The East’s “money power”—as the old Middle West called it—is now the “Establishment.”

The parallel factor is the desire on the part of many heads of families in the many lines of activity to change from the tensions and insecurity of life in the big cities to the pleasure and comfort that come from the security of living in smaller towns. In the Middle West, it has increasingly taken the form of people remaining in the smaller cities and giving them new life and intelligence. This has strengthened smaller communities and offset the flow of Middle Westerners to the big cities. There are, however, signs that cities in general are no longer content to be corrupt. There is a pragmatic awakening that can mean a new leadership—with a growing understanding of their problems and responsibilities. This newly awakened urban leadership, joining the Midwest and small city leadership in the quest for stability, may just possibly be the salvation of the big cities.

That is a reversal of the trend that started some years ago that seemed to threaten the stagnation of the Middle West by the tide of migration to the big metropolitan areas.

The Jews are almost the only people in America today—or, in the world for that matter—that, during Passover, recall to the memory of the present generation their tremendous racial achievements, their leadership, and their heroes of long ago.

On the other hand, the freedom of communications—the easy movement of the Americans around their great country—and the ease of changing occupations are remarkable in the United States. All contribute to the breaking down of ethnic and religious group prejudices.

Possibly one reason we have so much difficulty in resolving our problems of a complex society is that we have tended to lose not only a sense of national identity, but a sense of pride in and a strong feeling for the special qualities of our local area.

What Americans must find is a way to square their diversification, and the freedom upon which it is based, with the older sense of identity and stability. Perhaps the contemporary Middle West offers the answer in its freer acceptance of people as they are, and as they are capable of becoming—a surviving characteristic of mutual helpfulness, willingness to accept change—not for change’s sake, but on its merits.

About the Sea

The sea can appear to “glow” for a variety of reasons. 1 However, sometimes the meaning of glowing water is more ominous. 2 On the Pacific Coast of North America, it may mean that the sea is filled with a minute plant that contains a poison of strange and terrible 3 virulence, about four days after this minute plant comes to alter the coastal plankton, some of the fishes and shellfish in the vicinity become toxic. 4 This is because in the course of 5 their normal feeding habits, they have strained the poisonous plankton out of the water.

Choose the appropriate answer for each of the following questions.

Musings on Childhood

Human beings are shaped by their childhoods. Each of us has 6. unique and one of a kind experiences during our youth that fundamentally influence who we are. We internalize these experiences and 7. take them with us throughout our lives. A person who grows up in extreme poverty develops a very different outlook on life than a person 8 whom spends his or her childhood in the lap of luxury. Even if an 9 individuals situation changes, he or she will continue to 10 be effected to some degree.

Choose the appropriate answer for each of the following questions.