ACCUPLACER Next-Generation Reading © 2017 The College Board. 2
Sample Questions
(11) And now tonight, with twenty-four hours to
go, they had somehow managed to bring it o.
Directions for questions 1-18
(12) Giddy in the unfamiliar feel of make-up and
costumes on this rst warm evening of the year, they
had forgotten to be afraid: they had let the movement
of the play come and carry them and break like a
wave; and maybe it sounded corny (and what if it
did?) but they had all put their hearts into their work.
Read the passage(s) below and answer the question
based on what is stated or implied in the passage(s) and
in any introductory material that may be provided.
(13) Could anyone ever ask for more than that?
From Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road. ©1989 by Richard
Yates. Originally published in 1961.
1. e contrasts the narrator draws in sentences 1 and 2
between the Players’ homes and the houses in the
“landscape” and between the Players’ automobiles and
the “roads” are most likely meant to suggest that the
Players’ homes and automobiles are
A. old and neglected
B. modern and alien
C. small but expensive
D. grand but unappreciated
2. Based on the passage, which of the following most
accurately characterizes the claim that “there was plenty
of time to smooth the thing out” (sentence 8)?
A. A comforting falsehood that the Players know to be
untrue
B. An outright lie that the director persuades the
Players to accept
C. An optimistic conclusion reached by outside
observers watching an early rehearsal
D. A realistic appraisal oered by the director aer
careful analysis of the play’s shortcomings
3. e descriptive language in sentence 10 is mainly intended
to reinforce the passage’s depiction of the Players’
A. growing resentment of the director’s leadership
B. increasing reluctance to work as hard as they have
been
C. lingering doubts about their fellow cast members
D. persistent mood of despair regarding the play
4. e narrator most strongly suggests that which of the
following resulted in the transformation described in
the last paragraph?
A. e change in time of day during which rehearsals
were being held
B. e greater frequency with which rehearsals were
being scheduled
C. e shi in the director’s style from strict to more
forgiving
D. e break in routine occurring the day before the
rst performance
In this passage, an amateur theater group called the
Laurel Players is putting on its rst production.
(1) e Players, coming out of their various kitchen
doors and hesitating for a minute to button their
coats or pull on their gloves, would see a landscape
in which only a few very old, weathered houses
seemed to belong; it made their own homes look as
weightless and impermanent, as foolishly misplaced
as a great many bright new toys that had been
le outdoors overnight and rained on. (2) eir
automobiles didn’t look right either—unnecessarily
wide and gleaming in the colors of candy and ice
cream, seeming to wince at each splatter of mud,
they crawled apologetically down the broken roads
that led from all directions to the deep, level slab
of Route Twelve. (3) Once there the cars seemed
able to relax in an environment all their own, a
long bright valley of colored plastic and plate glass
and stainless steel—KING KONE, MOBILGAS,
SHOPORAMA, EAT—but eventually they had to
turn o, one by one, and make their way up the
winding country road that led to the central high
school; they had to pull up and stop in the quiet
parking lot outside the high-school auditorium.
(4) “Hi!” the Players would shyly call to one
another.
(5) “Hi! . . .” (6) “Hi! . . .” (7) And they’d go
reluctantly inside.
(8) Clumping their heavy galoshes around the
stage, blotting at their noses with Kleenex and
frowning at the unsteady print of their scripts,
they would disarm each other at last with peals of
forgiving laughter, and they would agree, over and
over, that there was plenty of time to smooth the
thing out. (9) But there wasn’t plenty of time, and
they all knew it, and a doubling and redoubling
of their rehearsal schedule seemed only to make
matters worse. (10) Long aer the time had come
for what the director called “really getting this
thing o the ground; really making it happen,”
it remained a static, shapeless, inhumanly heavy
weight; time and time again they read the promise
of failure in each other’s eyes, in the apologetic
nods and smiles of their parting and the spastic
haste with which they broke for their cars and
drove home to whatever older, less explicit
promises of failure might lie in wait for them there.