All English Language Proficiency Test Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #6 : Rhetorical Purpose Of An Excerpt
1 "Camelot—Camelot," said I to myself. 2 "I don't seem to remember hearing of it before… Name of the asylum, likely."
3 It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream, and as lonesome as Sunday. 4 The air was full of the smell of flowers, and the buzzing of insects, and the twittering of birds, and there were no people, no wagons, there was no stir of life, nothing going on. 5 The road was mainly a winding path with hoof-prints in it, and now and then a faint trace of wheels on either side in the grass—wheels that apparently had a tire as broad as one's hand.
6 Presently a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old, with a cataract of golden hair streaming down over her shoulders, came along. … 7 The circus man paid no attention to her; didn't even seem to see her. 8 And she—she was no more startled at his fantastic make-up than if she was used to his like every day of her life. 9 She was going by as indifferently as she might have gone by a couple of cows; but when she happened to notice me, then there was a change! 10 Up went her hands, and she was turned to stone; her mouth dropped open, her eyes stared wide and timorously, she was the picture of astonished curiosity touched with fear. 11 And there she stood gazing, in a sort of stupefied fascination, till we turned a corner of the wood and were lost to her view. 12 That she should be startled at me instead of at the other man, was too many for me; I couldn't make head or tail of it.
In Sentence 6, what does “a fair slip of a girl” describe?
A morally insubstantial girl
A scrappy, rebellious girl
A slender, pretty girl
An intellectually inferior girl
A just, kind girl
A slender, pretty girl
If we read the other descriptions of this young girl, we see that she has pretty golden hair. “Fair” can mean just, but it can also mean blonde and pretty, and this is the meaning suggested by the context. A “slip” can be thought of as something small and slight.
Passage adapted from Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889)
Example Question #6 : Rhetorical Purpose Of An Excerpt
1 "Camelot—Camelot," said I to myself. 2 "I don't seem to remember hearing of it before… Name of the asylum, likely."
3 It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream, and as lonesome as Sunday. 4 The air was full of the smell of flowers, and the buzzing of insects, and the twittering of birds, and there were no people, no wagons, there was no stir of life, nothing going on. 5 The road was mainly a winding path with hoof-prints in it, and now and then a faint trace of wheels on either side in the grass—wheels that apparently had a tire as broad as one's hand.
6 Presently a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old, with a cataract of golden hair streaming down over her shoulders, came along. … 7 The circus man paid no attention to her; didn't even seem to see her. 8 And she—she was no more startled at his fantastic make-up than if she was used to his like every day of her life. 9 She was going by as indifferently as she might have gone by a couple of cows; but when she happened to notice me, then there was a change! 10 Up went her hands, and she was turned to stone; her mouth dropped open, her eyes stared wide and timorously, she was the picture of astonished curiosity touched with fear. 11 And there she stood gazing, in a sort of stupefied fascination, till we turned a corner of the wood and were lost to her view. 12 That she should be startled at me instead of at the other man, was too many for me; I couldn't make head or tail of it.
What emotion is conveyed by the line “was too many for me” (Sentence 12)?
Hostility
Exasperation
Gratitude
Animosity
Consternation
Consternation
The main character is expressing consternation and surprise. He is doing so in reaction to the fact that the young girl reacts with shock to him but not the far more outrageous circus man. This reading is supported by the rest of Sentence 12: “I couldn't make head or tail of it.”
Passage adapted from Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889)
Example Question #41 : Rhetorical Functions
1 "Camelot—Camelot," said I to myself. 2 "I don't seem to remember hearing of it before… Name of the asylum, likely."
3 It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream, and as lonesome as Sunday. 4 The air was full of the smell of flowers, and the buzzing of insects, and the twittering of birds, and there were no people, no wagons, there was no stir of life, nothing going on. 5 The road was mainly a winding path with hoof-prints in it, and now and then a faint trace of wheels on either side in the grass—wheels that apparently had a tire as broad as one's hand.
6 Presently a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old, with a cataract of golden hair streaming down over her shoulders, came along. … 7 The circus man paid no attention to her; didn't even seem to see her. 8 And she—she was no more startled at his fantastic make-up than if she was used to his like every day of her life. 9 She was going by as indifferently as she might have gone by a couple of cows; but when she happened to notice me, then there was a change! 10 Up went her hands, and she was turned to stone; her mouth dropped open, her eyes stared wide and timorously, she was the picture of astonished curiosity touched with fear. 11 And there she stood gazing, in a sort of stupefied fascination, till we turned a corner of the wood and were lost to her view. 12 That she should be startled at me instead of at the other man, was too many for me; I couldn't make head or tail of it.
What role does the “circus man” (Sentence 7) play in the passage?
He provides an antagonist for the main character
He foreshadows more strangeness
He confronts the readers’ own expectations
He subverts basic conventions of the genre
He acts as a foil for the young girl
He foreshadows more strangeness
The circus man is a further example of things being unsettling for the main character. We read in Sentence 8 that the young girl is “no more startled at his [the circus man’s] fantastic make-up than if she was used to his like every day of her life,” and yet the main character himself is obviously shocked by the main’s appearance. The circus man does not challenge or subvert his readers’ expectations, but he does challenge the main character’s.
Passage adapted from Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889)
Example Question #41 : Rhetorical Functions
1 All her life Miss Elizabeth Dwarris had been a sore trial to her relations. 2 A woman of means, she ruled tyrannously over a large number of impecunious cousins, using her bank-balance like the scorpions of Rehoboam to chastise them, and, like many another pious creature, for their soul’s good making all and sundry excessively miserable. 3 Nurtured in the evangelical ways current in her youth, she insisted that her connections should seek salvation according to her own lights; and, with harsh tongue and with bitter gibe, made it her constant business to persuade them of their extreme unworthiness. 4 She arranged lives as she thought fit, and ventured not only to order the costume and habits, but even the inner thought of those about her: the Last Judgment could have no terrors for any that had faced her searching examination. 5 She invited to stay with her in succession various poor ladies who presumed on a distant tie to call her Aunt Eliza, and they accepted her summons, more imperious than a royal command, with gratitude by no means unmixed with fear, bearing the servitude meekly as a cross which in the future would meet due testamentary reward.
What is the role of Sentence 1 in relation to the rest of the passage?
It offers an example of a broader phenomenon
It poses an implicit rhetorical question to the reader
It provides an argument for the rest of the passage to rebut
It addresses an error at the end of the passage
It presents a claim that the rest of the passage supports
It presents a claim that the rest of the passage supports
Sentence 1 describes bluntly the type of person who Miss Dwarris is. The rest of the passage is devoted to fleshing out that description, adding details to support the author’s assertions: she “had been a sore trial to her relations” all her life.
Passage adapted from W. Somerset Maugham’s The Merry-Go-Round (1904)
Example Question #42 : Rhetorical Functions
1 Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.
2 … According to the custom which has descended from age to age among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was confined in a private palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abyssinian royalty, till the order of succession should call him to the throne.
3 The place which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had destined for the residence of the Abyssinian princes was a spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on every side by mountains, of which the summits overhang the middle part. 4 The only passage by which it could be entered was a cavern that passed under a rock, [and the] outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth which opened into the valley was closed with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of ancient days, so massive that no man, without the help of engines, could open or shut them.
5 From the mountains on every side rivulets descended that filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed a lake in the middle, inhabited by fish of every species, and frequented by every fowl whom nature has taught to dip the wing in water. 6 This lake discharged its superfluities by a stream, which entered a dark cleft of the mountain on the northern side, and fell with dreadful noise from precipice to precipice till it was heard no more.
What is the primary purpose of this passage?
To introduce narrative unreliability
To characterize the protagonist
To foreshadow the protagonist’s adventures
To establish setting and backstory
To set the stage for an antagonist’s arrival
To establish setting and backstory
The passage is primarily concerned with describing Rasselas’ setting and background. We don’t learn anything about his personality, his taste, his actions, or other elements that would characterize him, and we also don’t get any foreshadowing of his future adventures. While an antagonist may appear later in the text, there’s nothing in this passage to indicate that that will happen. There is also nothing to indicate that the narrator of this passage is unreliable.
Passage adapted from Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas: Prince of Abyssinia (1759)
Example Question #111 : English Language Proficiency Test (Elpt)
1 Of the monstrous neglect of education in England, and the disregard of it by the State as a means of forming good or bad citizens, and miserable or happy men, private schools long afforded a notable example. 2 Although any man who had proved his unfitness for any other occupation in life, was free, without examination or qualification, to open a school anywhere; although preparation for the functions he undertook, was required in the surgeon who assisted to bring a boy into the world, or might one day assist, perhaps, to send him out of it; in the chemist, the attorney, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker; the whole round of crafts and trades, the schoolmaster excepted; and although schoolmasters, as a race, were the blockheads and impostors who might naturally be expected to spring from such a state of things, and to flourish in it; these Yorkshire schoolmasters were the lowest and most rotten round in the whole ladder. 3 Traders in the avarice, indifference, or imbecility of parents, and the helplessness of children; ignorant, sordid, brutal men, to whom few considerate persons would have entrusted the board and lodging of a horse or a dog; they formed the worthy cornerstone of a structure, which, for absurdity and a magnificent high-minded Laissez-Aller neglect, has rarely been exceeded in the world.
… 4 I cannot call to mind, now, how I came to hear about Yorkshire schools when I was a not very robust child, sitting in bye-places near Rochester Castle, with a head full of Partridge, Strap, Tom Pipes, and Sancho Panza; but I know that my first impressions of them were picked up at that time, and that they were somehow or other connected with a suppurated abscess that some boy had come home with, in consequence of his Yorkshire guide, philosopher, and friend, having ripped it open with an inky pen-knife.
What is the main point of Sentence 1?
Until the abolition of private schools, education was entirely neglected in England
Private schools are an excellent example of the terrible state of English education
Until the formation of private schools, education was entirely neglected in England
Depending on whether they attended a private or a public school, men were either happy or miserable
Private schools are an exception to the terrible state of English education
Private schools are an excellent example of the terrible state of English education
The convoluted syntax of Sentence 1 can make it difficult to find the meaning. In short, the sentence is saying that the State’s neglect of and disregard for the outcome of students was exemplified by private schools.
Passage adapted from Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby (1838).
Example Question #112 : English Language Proficiency Test (Elpt)
1 Of the monstrous neglect of education in England, and the disregard of it by the State as a means of forming good or bad citizens, and miserable or happy men, private schools long afforded a notable example. 2 Although any man who had proved his unfitness for any other occupation in life, was free, without examination or qualification, to open a school anywhere; although preparation for the functions he undertook, was required in the surgeon who assisted to bring a boy into the world, or might one day assist, perhaps, to send him out of it; in the chemist, the attorney, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker; the whole round of crafts and trades, the schoolmaster excepted; and although schoolmasters, as a race, were the blockheads and impostors who might naturally be expected to spring from such a state of things, and to flourish in it; these Yorkshire schoolmasters were the lowest and most rotten round in the whole ladder. 3 Traders in the avarice, indifference, or imbecility of parents, and the helplessness of children; ignorant, sordid, brutal men, to whom few considerate persons would have entrusted the board and lodging of a horse or a dog; they formed the worthy cornerstone of a structure, which, for absurdity and a magnificent high-minded Laissez-Aller neglect, has rarely been exceeded in the world.
… 4 I cannot call to mind, now, how I came to hear about Yorkshire schools when I was a not very robust child, sitting in bye-places near Rochester Castle, with a head full of Partridge, Strap, Tom Pipes, and Sancho Panza; but I know that my first impressions of them were picked up at that time, and that they were somehow or other connected with a suppurated abscess that some boy had come home with, in consequence of his Yorkshire guide, philosopher, and friend, having ripped it open with an inky pen-knife.
In Sentence 2, why does the author list various professions (“the chemist, the attorney, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker”)?
To show the wide variety of professions that require more qualifications than being a schoolteacher requires
To claim that schoolteachers were responsible for the poor preparation of many different professions
To argue that schoolteachers were only one of many poorly educated professionals
None of these
To demonstrate the wide variety of professions educated by schoolteachers
To show the wide variety of professions that require more qualifications than being a schoolteacher requires
Again, convoluted syntax makes the sentence difficult to parse. Simplifying the sentence gives us the following core idea: “preparation for the functions he undertook, was required in the surgeon…. in the chemist, the attorney, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker; the whole round of crafts and trades, the schoolmaster excepted.” In other words, the author is listing all the professions to show examples of professions that required advanced training (i.e. “preparations for the functions he undertook”).
Passage adapted from Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby (1838).
Example Question #1 : Use Of Evidence
Since its discovery and classification as the ninth planet in our solar system in 1930, Pluto has been the subject of much controversy in the scientific community. Its small size and extreme distance from Earth have made gathering specific data about its characteristics difficult, and no real consensus exists amongst astronomers about the information that is known about Pluto. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union created an official definition for the term "planet" which listed three criteria for classification:
- The object must be in orbit around the sun.
- The object must be massive enough to be rounded into a sphere by its own gravity.
- The object must have "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit.
Because Pluto is much smaller than the other objects in its orbit, it fails to meet the third condition and has since been known as a "dwarf planet". Some scientists have gone so far as to suggest that Pluto may actually be one of the many moons of its neighboring planet, Neptune.
When Pluto was first discovered in 1930, astronomers estimated that it may be as large as earth and thus were confident that it was, in fact, a planet. As our ability to gather information about outer space continues to improve through more powerful telescopes and space probes, scientists are now able to use the new, more accurate information they receive to accurately classify objects in space. While some still argue that Pluto meets the accepted criteria to be known as a planet, for the time being, conventional scientific thinking will hold that our solar system only has eight planets.
The writer provides the criteria established by the International Astronomical Union in order to _____________________.
prove that scientists now have enough data to accurately classify all objects in our solar system
explain the differences between planets and "dwarf planets"
provide a criteria that supports the argument that Pluto is not large enough to be classified as a planet
show the mistakes made by astronomers who classified Pluto as a planet in 1930
provide a criteria that supports the argument that Pluto is not large enough to be classified as a planet
The criteria established by the International Astronomical Union, and the subsequent finding that Pluto does not meet the third condition are the primary reasons for the writer to include this information in the passage.
Example Question #2 : Use Of Evidence
Passage adapted from "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" written and delivered by Frederick Jackson Turner during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
The American frontier is sharply distinguished from the European frontier a fortified boundary line running through dense populations. The most significant thing about the American frontier is, that it lies at the hither edge of free land. In the census reports it is treated as the margin of that settlement which has a density of two or more to the square mile. The term is an elastic one, and for our purposes does not need sharp definition. We shall consider the whole frontier belt, including the Indian country and the outer margin of the settled area of the census reports. This paper will make no attempt to treat the subject exhaustively; its aim is simply to call attention to the frontier as a fertile field for investigation, and to suggest some of the problems which arise in connection with it.
In the settlement of America we have to observe how European life entered the continent, and how America modified and developed that life and reacted on Europe. Our early history is the study of European germs developing in an American environment. Too exclusive attention has been paid by institutional students to the Germanic origins, too little to the American factors. The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization. The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel, and thought. It takes him from the railroad car and puts him in the birch canoe. It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin. It puts him in the log cabin of the Cherokee and Iroquois and runs an Indian palisade around him. Before long he has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick, he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion. In short, at the frontier the environment is at first too strong for the man. He must accept the conditions which it furnishes, or perish, and so he fits himself into the Indian clearings and follows the Indian trails. Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe, not simply the development of Germanic germs, any more than the first phenomenon was a case of reversion to the Germanic mark. The fact is, that here is a new product that is American. At first, the frontier was the Atlantic coast. It was the frontier of Europe in a very real sense. Moving westward, the frontier became more and more American. As successive terminal moraines result from successive glaciations, so each frontier leaves its traces behind it, and when it becomes a settled area the region still partakes of the frontier characteristics. Thus the advance of the frontier has meant a steady movement away from the influence of Europe, a steady growth of independence on American lines. And to study this advance, the men who grew up under these conditions, and the political, economic, and social results of it, is to study the really American part of our history. . .
Jackson gives examples of similarities between Native Americans and colonists primarily in order to ________________.
emphasize that the frontier changed European colonists
emphasize that Native Americans and European colonists had a lot in common
emphasize that Native Americans and European colonists had very few similarities
emphasize the practicality of many Native American customs
emphasize that the frontier changed European colonists
Just before Jackson lists the similarities between colonists and Native Americans, he says "The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization. The wilderness masters the colonist." Basically, he means that the frontier changes everyone, and it does it very quickly. The similarities between colonists and Native Americans that he later describes are examples of ways in which colonists were changed by the frontier.
Example Question #44 : Rhetorical Functions
1 With one of her relations only, Miss Dwarris found it needful to observe a certain restraint, for Miss Ley, perhaps the most distant of her cousins, was as plain-spoken as herself, and had, besides, a far keener wit whereby she could turn rash statements to the utter ridicule of the speaker. 2 Nor did Miss Dwarris precisely dislike this independent spirit; she looked upon her in fact with a certain degree of affection and not a little fear. 3 Miss Ley, seldom lacking a repartee, appeared really to enjoy the verbal contests, from which, by her greater urbanity, readiness, and knowledge, she usually emerged victorious: it confounded, but at the same time almost amused, the elder lady that a woman so much poorer than herself, with no smaller claims than others to the coveted inheritance, should venture not only to be facetious at her expense, but even to carry war into her very camp. 4 …No cherished opinion of Miss Dwarris was safe from satire—even her evangelicism was laughed at, and the rich old woman, unused to argument, was easily driven into self-contradiction; and then—for the victor took no pains to conceal her triumph—she grew pale and speechless with rage.
5 … Miss Ley, accustomed, when she went abroad in the winter, to let her little flat in Chelsea, had been obliged by unforeseen circumstances to return to England while her tenants were still in possession; and had asked Miss Dwarris whether she might stay with her in Old Queen Street. 6 The old tyrant, much as she hated her relations, hated still more to live alone; she needed some one on whom to vent her temper, and through the illness of a niece, due to spend March and April with her, had been forced to pass a month of solitude; she wrote back, in the peremptory fashion which, even with Miss Ley, she could not refrain from using, that she expected her on such and such a day by such and such a train. 7 It is not clear whether there was in the letter anything to excite in Miss Ley a contradictory spirit, or whether her engagements really prevented it; but, at all events, she answered that her plans made it more convenient to arrive on the day following and by a different train.
In which sentence does the author admit to ambiguity in a character’s motivations?
Sentence 6
Sentence 5
Sentence 3
Sentence 7
Sentence 4
Sentence 7
Don’t confuse ambiguity with ambivalence, which is a trait that Miss Dwarris exemplifies elsewhere in the passage. Sentence 7 acknowledges that the author doesn’t know (“it is not clear”) whether Miss Ley really can’t take the train that Miss Dwarris suggested or is simply being contrary.
Passage adapted from W. Somerset Maugham’s The Merry-Go-Round (1904)