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The  main idea of this text is:

Mother to Son By Langston Hughes (1922)

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

Which line(s) of the poem best supports the theme of the poem?

Mother to Son By Langston Hughes (1922)

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

Which of the following describes the theme of this piece of poetry?

Young Enterprise Services

Young Enterprise Services (YES) is a program created to encourage entrepreneurship in 14- to 18-year-olds who have already shown a clear ability for starting businesses. The program, which began in 2002, has provided loans, grants, and counseling—in the form of workshops and individual meetings with entrepreneurs—to over 7500 young people. The future of YES, however, is now at risk.

One complaint is that the funds that YES distributes have disproportionately gone to young people from low-income families. Though no one has claimed that any of the recipients of YES funds have been undeserving, several families have brought lawsuits claiming that their funding requests were rejected because of the families’ high levels of income. 

Another challenge has been making sure that a young person, not his or her family, is receiving the funding. The rules state that the youth must create the business plan and that any profits above $1,000 be placed in a bank account. The rules say that the money can only be used for education, investment in the business, and little else. There have been cases of parents or even a neighbor using the money for their business.

On the other hand, YES has had some real success stories. A 14-year-old girl in Texas used the knowledge and funding she received through the program to connect with a distributor who now carries her line of custom-designed cell phone covers. Two brothers in Alaska have developed an online travel service for young people vacationing with their families. Both of these businesses are doing well and earning money. Unfortunately, these and other successes have received little media coverage. This is a shame, but one that can be fixed.'

What is the main idea of this text?

Ancient Paintings

Archaeologists working in two recently discovered limestone caves in Sarawak, Malaysia, have found a collection of 51 paintings estimated to be 6,000 to 12,000 years old. The images are unusual in their medium, manner of display, and subject matter. These are not merely wall or ceiling paintings. Stones—some as small as notebooks, some as large as doors—have been chipped and otherwise shaped to form rough canvases for painted individual works. 

Some of the pieces are stacked, while others are arranged upright in an overlapping pattern so that one can “flip through” the smaller pieces in the collection with relative ease. Hunters, warriors, and hunted animals, the typical cave art subjects, are mostly absent from these works. Instead, domestic scenes are represented, including food preparations, family meals, and recreational activities.

Though no tools have been found in the area, the lines’ fineness suggests the use of sophisticated animal-hair brushes. Gypsum, manganese, malachite, and other minerals were painstakingly ground and mixed with binding materials such as vegetable and animal oils to form the paints. One probable reason for the high level of artistry is that the paintings may have been produced in the open air, where the light was good, and then brought into the cave.

However, it is the purpose of the paintings that is the most curious. Most interestingly, it may be that the collection represents a sort of family tree. Many paintings appear to feature some of the same people, and it is tempting to think of these works as family portraits. Indeed, one figure, seen as a child with a mark on its forehead—the stone has been chipped away to represent the mark—is shown in other paintings as both a young person and an adult with the same mark.

What is the main idea of this text?

Ancient Paintings

Archaeologists working in two recently discovered limestone caves in Sarawak, Malaysia, have found a collection of 51 paintings estimated to be 6,000 to 12,000 years old. The images are unusual in their medium, manner of display, and subject matter. These are not merely wall or ceiling paintings. Stones—some as small as notebooks, some as large as doors—have been chipped and otherwise shaped to form rough canvases for painted individual works. 

Some of the pieces are stacked, while others are arranged upright in an overlapping pattern so that one can “flip through” the smaller pieces in the collection with relative ease. Hunters, warriors, and hunted animals, the typical cave art subjects, are mostly absent from these works. Instead, domestic scenes are represented, including food preparations, family meals, and recreational activities.

Though no tools have been found in the area, the lines’ fineness suggests the use of sophisticated animal-hair brushes. Gypsum, manganese, malachite, and other minerals were painstakingly ground and mixed with binding materials such as vegetable and animal oils to form the paints. One probable reason for the high level of artistry is that the paintings may have been produced in the open air, where the light was good, and then brought into the cave.

However, it is the purpose of the paintings that is the most curious. Most interestingly, it may be that the collection represents a sort of family tree. Many paintings appear to feature some of the same people, and it is tempting to think of these works as family portraits. Indeed, one figure, seen as a child with a mark on its forehead—the stone has been chipped away to represent the mark—is shown in other paintings as both a young person and an adult with the same mark.

Which answer choice would be the best summary of this story?

Passage 1: Rabbits, Stoats, and Kiwis: The Ecology of New Zealand (2016)

The island nation of New Zealand is unique. Many of its animals and plants are found nowhere else. The kiwi is one of the most famous of these animals. This small, flightless bird dwells on the ground. It has tiny wings with which it is unable to fly. Kiwis belong to the same biological family as ostriches and emus, but they are much smaller than their relatives. Kiwis have round bodies and long beaks, and their brown feathers are very long and thin. Because of this, at first glance, someone who has never seen a kiwi before might think it has fur! 

New Zealand is particularly fond of the kiwi. It is the country’s national bird. New Zealanders are even sometimes referred to as “kiwis.” Unfortunately, the kiwi is in danger due to changes humans made to New Zealand’s environment.

Hundreds of years ago, European colonists decided to bring rabbits from Europe to New Zealand. They wanted to hunt them for food and for sport. Unfortunately, their plan succeeded too well. In Europe, other animals in the food chain eat rabbits. This keeps their population in check. In New Zealand, though, no animals ate rabbits. So, their population grew to an enormous size. There were way too many rabbits! 

The colonists tried to fix the problem by bringing another animal to New Zealand. Since none of New Zealand’s animals ate rabbits, the colonists imported one from Europe that did: the stoat. Stoats are small, carnivorous mammals similar to weasels. They eat rabbits, as well as birds and their eggs. Bird scientists warned the colonists to reconsider their plan, but the plan went forward—to the kiwi’s detriment.

New Zealand’s islands historically lacked predatory mammals. Because of this, kiwis’ flightlessness never put them at a huge risk of being hunted and eaten. This was the case until the stoats were released. The stoats began to eat the kiwis and their eggs in huge numbers. The kiwis had no way of protecting themselves from the stoats. As a result, their population plummeted. 

To this day, stoats threaten the kiwi population in New Zealand. To protect native wildlife, residents have to tried to use various methods of trapping and hunting to limit the size of the stoat population. Certain areas have also been fenced in to keep stoats away from native birds like the kiwi.

To function, environments maintain a careful equilibrium between predators and prey. Altering this balance purposely or accidentally can have serious consequences.

Which of the following accurately quotes from the text and supports the inference that trying to keep stoats from getting to kiwis is at least a partially successful way of protecting kiwis? 

Based on the text, how did Mary's mom feel about Mary?

Why was Mary angry when she woke up? 

Adapted from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911)

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way also. She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib would be angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived. The young English governess who came to teach her to read and write disliked her so much that she gave up her place in three months, and when other governesses came to try to fill it they always went away in a shorter time than the first one. So if Mary had not chosen to really want to know how to read books she would never have learned her letters at all.

One frightfully hot morning, when she was about nine years old, she awakened feeling very cross, and she became crosser still when she saw that the servant who stood by her bedside was not her Ayah.

"Why did you come?" she said to the strange woman. "I will not let you stay. Send my Ayah to me."

The woman looked frightened, but she only stammered that the Ayah could not come and when Mary threw herself into a passion and beat and kicked her, she looked only more frightened and repeated that it was not possible for the Ayah to come to Missie Sahib.

There was something mysterious in the air that morning. Nothing was done in its regular order and several of the native servants seemed missing, while those whom Mary saw slunk or hurried about with ashy and scared faces. But no one would tell her anything and her Ayah did not come. She was actually left alone as the morning went on, and at last she wandered out into the garden and began to play by herself under a tree near the veranda. She pretended that she was making a flower-bed, and she stuck big scarlet hibiscus blossoms into little heaps of earth, all the time growing more and more angry and muttering to herself the things she would say and the names she would call Saidie when she returned.

"Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!" she said, because to call a native a pig is the worst insult of all.

She was grinding her teeth and saying this over and over again when she heard her mother come out on the veranda with some one. She was with a fair young man and they stood talking together in low strange voices. Mary knew the fair young man who looked like a boy. She had heard that he was a very young officer who had just come from England. The child stared at him, but she stared most at her mother. She always did this when she had a chance to see her, because the Mem Sahib—Mary used to call her that oftener than anything else—was such a tall, slim, pretty person and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk and she had a delicate little nose which seemed to be disdaining things, and she had large laughing eyes. All her clothes were thin and floating, and Mary said they were "full of lace." They looked fuller of lace than ever this morning, but her eyes were not laughing at all. They were large and scared and lifted imploringly to the fair boy officer's face.

According to the text, what is the worst insult of all?