All SSAT Upper Level Reading Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #74 : Drawing Inferences From Prose Fiction Passages
Adapted from A Room With a View by E.M. Forster (1908)
"The Signora had no business to do it," said Miss Bartlett, "no business at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead of which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way apart. Oh, Lucy!"
"And a Cockney, besides!" said Lucy, who had been further saddened by the Signora's unexpected accent. "It might be London." She looked at the two rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at the row of white bottles of water and red bottles of wine that ran between the English people; at the portraits of the late Queen and the late Poet Laureate that hung behind the English people, heavily framed; at the notice of the English church (Rev. Cuthbert Eager, M. A. Oxon.), that was the only other decoration of the wall. "Charlotte, don't you feel, too, that we might be in London? I can hardly believe that all kinds of other things are just outside. I suppose it is one's being so tired."
"This meat has surely been used for soup," said Miss Bartlett, laying down her fork.
"I want so to see the Arno. The rooms the Signora promised us in her letter would have looked over the Arno. The Signora had no business to do it at all. Oh, it is a shame!"
"Any nook does for me," Miss Bartlett continued, "but it does seem hard that you shouldn't have a view."
Lucy felt that she had been selfish. "Charlotte, you mustn't spoil me; of course, you must look over the Arno, too. I meant that. The first vacant room in the front—" "You must have it," said Miss Bartlett, part of whose traveling expenses were paid by Lucy's mother—a piece of generosity to which she made many a tactful allusion.
"No, no. You must have it."
"I insist on it. Your mother would never forgive me, Lucy."
"She would never forgive me."
The ladies' voices grew animated, and—if the sad truth be owned—a little peevish. They were tired, and under the guise of unselfishness they wrangled. Some of their neighbors interchanged glances, and one of them—one of the ill-bred people whom one does meet abroad—leant forward over the table and actually intruded into their argument. He said:
"I have a view, I have a view."
Miss Bartlett was startled. Generally at a pension people looked them over for a day or two before speaking, and often did not find out that they would "do" till they had gone. She knew that the intruder was ill-bred, even before she glanced at him. He was an old man, of heavy build, with a fair, shaven face and large eyes. There was something childish in those eyes, though it was not the childishness of senility. What exactly it was Miss Bartlett did not stop to consider, for her glance passed on to his clothes. These did not attract her. He was probably trying to become acquainted with them before they got into the swim. So she assumed a dazed expression when he spoke to her, and then said: "A view? Oh, a view! How delightful a view is!”
Which of the following can we infer from the passage?
Lucy and Miss Bartlett are attending a wedding in a foreign country.
Lucy is a novelist.
Lucy and Miss Bartlett are sisters.
Lucy and Miss Bartlett are currently visiting London.
Lucy and Miss Bartlett have been to London.
Lucy and Miss Bartlett have been to London.
In the second paragraph, Lucy recognizes the Signora's accent as a Cockney one and comments, "It might be London." After observing the English details of and people in the room, she adds, ""Charlotte, don't you feel, too, that we might be in London?" In order to compare their current surroundings with London, both Lucy and Miss Bartlett would have had to have visited London before, so this is the correct answer. None of the other answers can be supported by the passage: since "Lucy's mother" paid for part of Miss Bartlett's traveling expenses, we can assume that the two women are not sisters, or Lucy's mother would also be Miss Bartlett's mother. We can infer that the women are not currently visiting London because Lucy compares the pension to London. No mention is made of Lucy's being a novelist or of the two women attending a wedding.
Example Question #102 : Understanding The Content Of Literary Fiction Passages
Adapted from A Room With a View by E.M. Forster (1908)
"The Signora had no business to do it," said Miss Bartlett, "no business at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead of which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way apart. Oh, Lucy!"
"And a Cockney, besides!" said Lucy, who had been further saddened by the Signora's unexpected accent. "It might be London." She looked at the two rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at the row of white bottles of water and red bottles of wine that ran between the English people; at the portraits of the late Queen and the late Poet Laureate that hung behind the English people, heavily framed; at the notice of the English church (Rev. Cuthbert Eager, M. A. Oxon.), that was the only other decoration of the wall. "Charlotte, don't you feel, too, that we might be in London? I can hardly believe that all kinds of other things are just outside. I suppose it is one's being so tired."
"This meat has surely been used for soup," said Miss Bartlett, laying down her fork.
"I want so to see the Arno. The rooms the Signora promised us in her letter would have looked over the Arno. The Signora had no business to do it at all. Oh, it is a shame!"
"Any nook does for me," Miss Bartlett continued, "but it does seem hard that you shouldn't have a view."
Lucy felt that she had been selfish. "Charlotte, you mustn't spoil me; of course, you must look over the Arno, too. I meant that. The first vacant room in the front—" "You must have it," said Miss Bartlett, part of whose traveling expenses were paid by Lucy's mother—a piece of generosity to which she made many a tactful allusion.
"No, no. You must have it."
"I insist on it. Your mother would never forgive me, Lucy."
"She would never forgive me."
The ladies' voices grew animated, and—if the sad truth be owned—a little peevish. They were tired, and under the guise of unselfishness they wrangled. Some of their neighbors interchanged glances, and one of them—one of the ill-bred people whom one does meet abroad—leant forward over the table and actually intruded into their argument. He said:
"I have a view, I have a view."
Miss Bartlett was startled. Generally at a pension people looked them over for a day or two before speaking, and often did not find out that they would "do" till they had gone. She knew that the intruder was ill-bred, even before she glanced at him. He was an old man, of heavy build, with a fair, shaven face and large eyes. There was something childish in those eyes, though it was not the childishness of senility. What exactly it was Miss Bartlett did not stop to consider, for her glance passed on to his clothes. These did not attract her. He was probably trying to become acquainted with them before they got into the swim. So she assumed a dazed expression when he spoke to her, and then said: "A view? Oh, a view! How delightful a view is!”
Which is the most logical reason for the man to state “I have a view, I have a view” at the end of the passage?
He wants to provide evidence that certain rooms in the pension do actually have a view.
He wants to support Miss Bartlett in her argument with Lucy.
He is about to suggest that the young women try to find better rooms at another pension.
He is about to suggest that the young women trade rooms with him.
He wants to support Lucy in her argument with Miss Bartlett.
He is about to suggest that the young women trade rooms with him.
Lucy and Miss Bartlett's argument concerns which of them will take the first room with a view to free up, so the man's comment doesn't support either one in this argument. Lucy and Miss Bartlett never doubt that certain of the pension's rooms do have views, so it doesn't make sense that the man would say "I have a view" in order "to provide evidence that certain rooms in the pension do actually have a view." There is no connection between the man stating he has a view and him suggesting that the women find rooms at another pension. However, there is a logical connection between him telling them he has a view and offering to switch rooms with them, so this is the correct answer.
Example Question #41 : Extrapolating From The Text In Literary Fiction Passages
Adapted from “The Tell-Tale Heart” in The Pioneer by Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded—with what caution—with what foresight—with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it—oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly—very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! Would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously—oh, so cautiously—cautiously (for the hinges creaked)—I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight—but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work, for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.
Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers—of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me, for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back—but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers) and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.
I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out—“Who's there?"
Based on what the narrator states in the third paragraph, we can infer that the narrator __________.
will not kill the old man while his “evil eye” is closed
wants to wake the old man up at precisely midnight
lost count of how many days he looked in on the old man
suspects that the old man knows the narrator is watching him at night
at one point reconsidered his decision to kill the old man
will not kill the old man while his “evil eye” is closed
In the third paragraph, the narrator details his process of sneaking into the old man’s room and watching him around midnight for seven nights. While the logic of the narrator’s actions don’t make much sense—you may wonder why he does this at all—we can still pick up on patterns that belie the narrator’s methods. Toward the end of the paragraph, the narrator states, “I undid [the latch on the lantern] just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight—but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work, for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.” From this statement, we can tell that the narrator will not kill the old man while his “evil eye” is closed. None of the other answers are supported by the passage; the narrator clearly knows how many days he looked in on the old man, as he tells us in the above quotation that he has looked in on the old man for seven days. Nowhere in the passage does the narrator reconsider his decision to kill the old man, or think that the old man knows that the narrator is watching him at night. While the narrator does end up waking up the old man, this happens later in the passage, on the eighth night related, and the narrator doesn’t do this on purpose.
Example Question #41 : Inferences And Predictions In Literary Fiction Passages
Adapted from "The Study of Poetry" in Essays in Criticism: Second Series by Matthew Arnold (1888)
"The future of poetry is immense because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, humanity, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it. But for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry."
Let me be permitted to quote these words of my own as uttering the thought which should, in my opinion, go with us and govern us in all our study of poetry. We should conceive of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies, than those which in general men have assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete, and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry. Science, I say, will appear incomplete without it. For finely and truly does Wordsworth call poetry “the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science,” and what is a countenance without its expression? Again, Wordsworth finely and truly calls poetry “the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge”; our religion, parading evidences such as those on which the popular mind relies now; our philosophy, pluming itself on its reasonings about causation and finite and infinite being; what are they but the shadows and dreams and false shows of knowledge?
It can be inferred that the clause underlined in the first paragraph, "But for poetry, the idea is everything," most nearly means __________.
ideas build upon one another in the study of poetry
ideas reflect society and constitute poems
ideas are derived from poetry
ideas are to poetry what fact is to religion
ideas create the beauty in poetry
ideas are to poetry what fact is to religion
To best understand this line, you need to consider it in the context in which appears—that is, you need to pay attention to the lines surrounding it. The fact that it starts with "But" and instantiates a comaprison is a clue that context is particularly important here. Consider the line alongside the lines that come immediately before and after it:
"'Our religion has materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it. But for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact.'"
The contrast Arnold is drawing here contrasts religion's association with "the fact" with poetry's association with "the idea"—for poetry, Arnold argues, "the idea is the fact," or in other words, ideas are held the same central place in poetry that fact holds in religion. Thus, the correct answer choice is "ideas are to poetry what fact is to religion." This is the only answer choice that correctly reflects the comparison that the author is drawing.
Example Question #42 : Inferences And Predictions In Literary Fiction Passages
Adapted from "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" by William Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge (1800 ed.)
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
The underlined line "I had no human fears" __________.
demonstrates that the speaker is overwhelmed by the emotions he feels as a result of losing his loved one
demonstrates that the speaker realizes that his loved one has passed away
demonstrates the courage of the speaker regarding death
illustrates that the speaker is not human
helps establish that the speaker is in a dream
helps establish that the speaker is in a dream
In the first two lines of the poem, the speaker is in a dreamlike state. Thus, this line is used to establish the fact that the speaker has no humanly fears due to being in a slumber.
Example Question #43 : Inferences And Predictions In Literary Fiction Passages
Adapted from "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" by William Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge (1800 ed.)
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
The phrase "the touch of earthly years" can also be described as __________.
the nostalgia the narrator feels
the visual beauty of nature
a state in which people live, age, and eventually pass away
the ability of time to heal the narrator's heartbreak
the idea that everyone should seize the moment and live life to the fullest
a state in which people live, age, and eventually pass away
In this case, many of the answer choices extend too far beyond the scope of this line. In this particular line, Wordsworth is merely describing the state of living.
Example Question #43 : Making Inferences In Literary Fiction Passages
Adapted from "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" by William Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge (1800 ed.)
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
The last two lines of the poem suggest __________.
that the girl may yet be alive
the girl's burial
the girl's love of nature
the narrator's love of nature
that the girl was the narrator's daughter
the girl's burial
In the poem's second stanza, Wordsworth describes how the girl has no motion of her own ("No motion has she now, no force"), but is "Rolled round in earth's diurnal course" with inanimate natural objects. This suggests that the girl is part of the earth at this point of the poem, and given that the poem strongly suggests the girl has died, it is reasonable to assume that in the poem's last two lines, the narrator is implying that she has been buried.
Example Question #44 : Inferences And Predictions In Literary Fiction Passages
Adapted from "The Study of Poetry" in Essays in Criticism: Second Series by Matthew Arnold (1888)
"The future of poetry is immense because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, humanity, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it. But for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry."
Let me be permitted to quote these words of my own as uttering the thought which should, in my opinion, go with us and govern us in all our study of poetry. We should conceive of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies, than those which in general men have assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete, and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry. Science, I say, will appear incomplete without it. For finely and truly does Wordsworth call poetry “the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science,” and what is a countenance without its expression? Again, Wordsworth finely and truly calls poetry “the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge”; our religion, parading evidences such as those on which the popular mind relies now; our philosophy, pluming itself on its reasonings about causation and finite and infinite being; what are they but the shadows and dreams and false shows of knowledge?
It can be inferred that Matthew Arnold views religion as __________.
overly reliant on evidence that the average person cannot understand
overly reliant on ideas as opposed to facts
having benefited from its association with poetry
being grounded in the natural world
something that has nothing whatsoever in common with poetry
having benefited from its association with poetry
The author does not argue that religion is "overly reliant on ideas as opposed to facts." We can see evidence of this in a quotation from the first paragraph, "Our religion has materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it." In addition, he does not think that religion is "overly reliant on evidence that the average person cannot understand," as near the end of the second paragraph, he describes religion as "parading evidences such as those on which the popular mind relies now." Nothing in the passage suggests that Arnold views religion as "being grounded in the natural world." Furthermore, the author does not view religion as "something that has nothing whatsoever in common with poetry." We can see this from the closing line of the first paragraph, "The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry." This leaves us with one remaining answer choice, the correct one: the author sees religion as "having benefited from its association with poetry." We can see this from the previously quoted line that concludes the first paragraph.
Example Question #152 : Literary Fiction
Passage adapted from White Fang by Jack London (1906)
Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean toward each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness -- a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.
But there was life, abroad in the land and defiant. Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapor that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged along behind. The sled was without runners. It was made of stout birch-bark, and its full surface rested on the snow. The front end of the sled was turned up, like a scroll, in order to force down and under the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave before it. On the sled, securely lashed, was a long and narrow oblong box. There were other things on the sled -- blankets, an axe, and a coffee-pot and frying-pan; but prominent, occupying most of the space, was the long and narrow oblong box.
In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over, -- a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the Wild to like movement. Life is an offence to it, for life is movement; and the Wild aims always to destroy movement. It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea; it drives the sap out of the trees till they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does the Wild harry and crush into submission man -- man, who is the most restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that all movement must in the end come to the cessation of movement.
It can be inferred from the text that the sled ____________.
was carrying the dead body of the third man
was being pushed by the two men because the dogs were ill
was carrying medical supplies to a remote destination
was carrying a large supply of gold from the remote mines of the North
had been damaged in a crash
was carrying the dead body of the third man
The oblong box mentioned contains a man whose "toil was over" and who "would never move nor struggle again. Thus, we can infer that the box is a coffin.
Example Question #51 : Inferences And Predictions In Literary Fiction Passages
Passage adapted from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861)
I was half afraid. However, the only thing to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told from within to enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in a pretty large room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it. It was a dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture, though much of it was forms and uses then quite unknown to me. But prominent in it was a draped table with a gilded looking-glass, and that I made out at first sight to be a fine lady’s dressing-table. Whether I should have made out this object so soon, if there had been no fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an armchair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see. She was dressed in rich materials--satins, and lace and silks -- all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on -- the other was on the table near her hand -- her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a Prayer-book, all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass. It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though I saw more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But, I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to skin and bone. Once I had been taken to see some ghastly waxwork at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh churches to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress, that had been dug out of a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeletons in the ashes of a rich dress, that had been dug out of a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if I could.
In can be reasonably inferred from the passage that _________________.
the lady was bitter because she had never married
the lady had been responsible for her husband's death
the lady had been left by her fiancé prior to their wedding
the lady is wearing a dress that once belonged to someone else
the lady was not in good mental health
the lady was not in good mental health
An old woman wearing a bridal dress is possibly a sign of some type of mental health issue. There is no evidence to suggest that she had ever been married, nor what may have happened to her husband if she had indeed been married.
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