PSAT Practice - Command of Evidence (Updated)

The Rock and the Sea is an 1893 poem by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the poem, a rock is portrayed as intending to confront and restrain the sea: ______

Which quotation from "The Rock and the Sea" most effectively illustrates the claim?

• I am the Rock. Black midnight falls; / The terrible breakers rise like walls; / With curling lips and gleaming teeth / They plunge and tear at my bones beneath.

• I am the Sea. The earth I sway; / Granite to me is potter's clay; / Under the touch of my careless waves / It rises in turrets and sinks in caves.

• I am the Sea. I hold the land / As one holds an apple in his hand, / Hold it fast with sleepless eyes, / Watching the continents sink and rise.

• I am the Rock, presumptuous Sea! / I am set to encounter thee. / Angry and loud or gentle and still, / I am set here to limit thy power, and I will!

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.8

CCSS.RL.8.10

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.10

CCSS.RL.9-10.9

Read this snipped from the story "Soil and Clay" and choose which answer summarizes it best:

When they created the first maps, they labeled the vast river that flowed between the two halves of the known world the New Mississippi. She had been new to them when they gifted Her this name from their old home, but those folks and their reasons were long since passed. So were their children—the only generation to be born along Her shores before the Fog overtook them. Yet they had survived to take up the light, raise the Holds [the cities], and have families of their own. Within a few generations of time, no one remained with a living memory of the Before; it became a time reduced to stories and names inked out on parchment.

• The Fog is more important to people than the River because so much time has passed.

• So many generations have lived by The New Mississippi that no one remembers why it was named that anymore.

• The New Mississippi is a very important river that everyone learns the history of.

• People in this world are really bad at making maps.

Jan Gimsa, Robert Sleigh, and Ulrike Gimsa have hypothesized that the sail-like structure running down the back of the dinosaur Spinosaurus aegyptiacus improved it's chances of catching prey species who can making quick, evasive movements.

To evaluate their hypothesis, a second team of researchers constructed two battery-powered models of Spinosaurus, one with a sail and one without, and tested them in a water-filled tank.

Which of these findings would most strongly support Gimsa and colleagues' hypothesis?

• The model with a sail took significantly longer to travel a specified distance while submerged than the model without a sail

• The model with a sail displaced significantly more water while submerged than the model without a sail did.

• The model with a sail had significantly less battery power remaining after completing the tests than the model without a sail did.

• The model with a sail took significantly less time to complete a sharp turn while submerged than the model without a sail did.

Tags

CCSS.RI.8.1

CCSS.RI.8.8

CCSS.RL.11-12.1

CCSS.RL.8.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

"Mr. Cornelius Johnson, Office-Seeker" is a 1900 short story by Paul Laurence Dunbar. In the story, the narrator describes Mr. Cornelius Johnson's appearance as conveying his exaggerated sense of his importance.

Which quotation from "Mr. Cornelius Johnson, Office-Seeker" most effectively illustrates the claim?

• He carried himself always as if he were passing under his own triumphal arch.

• The grey Prince Albert was scrupulously buttoned about his form, and a shiny top hat replaced the felt of the afternoon.

• Mr. Cornelius Johnson always spoke in a large and important tone.

• It was a beautiful day in balmy May and the sun shone pleasantly on Mr. Cornelius Johnson's very spruce Prince Albert suit of grey as he alighted from the train in Washington.

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.1

CCSS.RI.11-12.1

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.8.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Héctor Tobar has built a multifaceted career as both a journalist and an author of short stories and novels. In an essay about Tobar's work, a student claims that Tobar blends his areas of expertise by applying journalism techniques to his creation of works of fiction.

Which quotation from a literary critic best supports the student's claim?

• For one novel, an imagined account of a real person's global travels, Tobar approached his subject like a reporter, interviewing people the man had met along the way and researching the man's own writings

• Tobar got his start as a volunteer for El Tecolote, a community newspaper in San Francisco, and wrote for newspapers for years before earning a degree in creative writing and starting to publish works of fiction.

• Many of Tobar's notable nonfiction articles are marked by the writer's use of techniques usually associated with fiction, such as complex narrative structures and the incorporation of symbolism.

• The protagonist of Tobar's third novel is a man who wants to be a novelist and keeps notes about interesting people he encounters so he can use them when developing characters for his stories.

Tags

CCSS.RI.8.1

CCSS.RI.8.8

CCSS.RL.11-12.1

CCSS.RL.8.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.1