SAT Section One : Critical Reading - SAT-Critical-Reading

Big earthquakes are naturally occurring events well outside the powers of humans to create or stop. An
earthquake is caused by a sudden slip on a fault. Stresses in the earth's outer layer push the side of the
fault together. The friction across the surface of the fault holds the rocks together so they do not slip
immediately when pushed sideways. Eventually enough stress builds up and the rocks slip suddenly,
releasing energy in waves that travel through the rock to cause the shaking that we feel during an
earthquake. Earthquakes typically originate several tens of miles below the surface of the earth. It takes
many years-- decades to centuries--to build up enough stress to make a large earthquake, and the fault
may be tens to hundreds of miles long. The scale and force necessary to produce earthquakes are well
beyond our daily lives. Likewise, people cannot prevent earthquakes from happening or stop them once
they've started--giant nuclear explosions at shallow depths, like those in some movies, won't actually stop
an earthquake.
The two most important variables affecting earthquake damage are the intensity of ground shaking cased
by the quake and the quality of the engineering of structures in the region. The level of shaking, in turn, is
controlled by the proximity of the earthquake source to the affected region and the types of rocks that
seismic waves pass through en route (particularly those at or near the ground surface). Generally, the
bigger and closer the earthquake, the stronger the shaking. But there have been large earthquakes with
very little damage either because they caused little shaking or because the buildings were built to
withstand that shaking. In other cases, moderate earthquakes have caused significant damage either
because the shaking was locally amplified or more likely because the structures were poorly engineered.
The word fault means?

• A. the place where two rock plates come together
• B. error
• C. responsibility
• D. criticize
• E. volcanic activity

This passage discusses the work of Abe Kobo, a Japanese novelist of the twentieth century.
Abe Kobo is one of the great writers of postwar Japan. His literature is richer, less predictable, and wider-
ranging than that of his famed contemporaries, Mishima Yukio and Nobel laureate Oe Kenzaburo. It is
infused with the passion and strangeness of his experiences in Manchuria, which was a Japanese colony
on mainland China before World War II.
Abe spent his childhood and much of his youth in Manchuria, and, as a result, the orbit of his work would
be far less controlled by the oppressive gravitational pull of the themes of furusato (hometown) and the
emperor than his contemporaries'.
Abe, like most of the sons of Japanese families living in Manchuria, did return to Japan for schooling. He
entered medical school in Tokyo in 1944--just in time to forge himself a medical certificate claiming ill
health; this allowed him to avoid fighting in the war that Japan was already losing and return to Manchuria.
When Japan lost the war, however, it also lost its Manchurian colony. The Japanese living there were
attacked by the Soviet Army and various guerrilla bands. They suddenly found themselves refugees,
desperate for food. Many unfit men were abandoned in the Manchurian desert. At this apocalyptic time,
Abe lost his father to cholera.
He returned to mainland Japan once more, where the young were turning to Marxism as a rejection of the
militarism of the war. After a brief, unsuccessful stint at medical school, he became part of a Marxist group
of avant-garde artists. His work at this time was passionate and outspoken on political matters, adopting
black humor as its mode of critique.
During this time, Abe worked in the genres of theater, music, and photography. Eventually, he
mimeographed fifty copies of his first "published" literary work, entitled Anonymous Poems, in 1947. It
was a politically charged set of poems dedicated to the memory of his father and friends who had died in
Manchuria. Shortly thereafter, he published his first novel, For a Signpost at the End of a Road, which
imagined another life for his best friend who had died in the Manchurian desert. Abe was also active in the
Communist Party, organizing literary groups for workingmen.
Unfortunately, most of this radical early work is unknown outside Japan and underappreciated even in
Japan. In early 1962, Abe was dismissed from the Japanese Liberalist Party. Four months later, he
published the work that would blind us to his earlier oeuvre, Woman in the Dunes. It was director
Teshigahara Hiroshi's film adaptation of Woman in the Dunes that brought Abe's work to the international
stage. The movie's fame has wrongly led readers to view the novel as Abe's masterpiece. It would be
more accurate to say that the novel simply marked a turning point in his career, when Abe turned away
from the experimental and heavily political work of his earlier career. Fortunately, he did not then turn to
furusato and the emperor after all, but rather began a somewhat more realistic exploration of his
continuing obsession with homelessness and alienation. Not completely a stranger to his earlier
commitment to Marxism, Abe turned his attention, beginning in the sixties, to the effects on the individual
of Japan's rapidly urbanizing, growth driven, increasingly corporate society.
The author uses the word "apocalyptic" to emphasize that

• A. postwar Manchuria experience dexhilarating change.
• B. Abe was deeply affected by the loss of his father.
• C. Manchuria suffered intensely as a result of the use of nuclear weapons in World War II.
• D. there was massive famine in Manchuria at the end of World War II.
• E. conditions in Manchuria after World War II were generally horrific.

This passage discusses the work of Abe Kobo, a Japanese novelist of the twentieth century.
Abe Kobo is one of the great writers of postwar Japan. His literature is richer, less predictable, and wider-
ranging than that of his famed contemporaries, Mishima Yukio and Nobel laureate Oe Kenzaburo. It is
infused with the passion and strangeness of his experiences in Manchuria, which was a Japanese colony
on mainland China before World War II.
Abe spent his childhood and much of his youth in Manchuria, and, as a result, the orbit of his work would
be far less controlled by the oppressive gravitational pull of the themes of furusato (hometown) and the
emperor than his contemporaries'.
Abe, like most of the sons of Japanese families living in Manchuria, did return to Japan for schooling. He
entered medical school in Tokyo in 1944--just in time to forge himself a medical certificate claiming ill
health; this allowed him to avoid fighting in the war that Japan was already losing and return to Manchuria.
When Japan lost the war, however, it also lost its Manchurian colony. The Japanese living there were
attacked by the Soviet Army and various guerrilla bands. They suddenly found themselves refugees,
desperate for food. Many unfit men were abandoned in the Manchurian desert. At this apocalyptic time,
Abe lost his father to cholera.
He returned to mainland Japan once more, where the young were turning to Marxism as a rejection of the
militarism of the war. After a brief, unsuccessful stint at medical school, he became part of a Marxist group
of avant-garde artists. His work at this time was passionate and outspoken on political matters, adopting
black humor as its mode of critique. During this time, Abe worked in the genres of theater, music, and
photography. Eventually, he mimeographed fifty copies of his first "published" literary work, entitled
Anonymous Poems, in 1947. It was a politically charged set of poems dedicated to the memory of his
father and friends who had died in Manchuria. Shortly thereafter, he published his first novel, For a
Signpost at the End of a Road, which imagined another life for his best friend who had died in the
Manchurian desert. Abe was also active in the Communist Party, organizing literary groups for
workingmen.
Unfortunately, most of this radical early work is unknown outside Japan and underappreciated even in
Japan. In early 1962, Abe was dismissed from the Japanese Liberalist Party. Four months later, he
published the work that would blind us to his earlier oeuvre, Woman in the Dunes. It was director
Teshigahara Hiroshi's film adaptation of Woman in the Dunes that brought Abe's work to the international
stage. The movie's fame has wrongly led readers to view the novel as Abe's masterpiece. It would be
more accurate to say that the novel simply marked a turning point in his career, when Abe turned away
from the experimental and heavily political work of his earlier career. Fortunately, he did not then turn to
furusato and the emperor after all, but rather began a somewhat more realistic exploration of his
continuing obsession with homelessness and alienation. Not completely a stranger to his earlier
commitment to Marxism, Abe turned his attention, beginning in the sixties, to the effects on the individual
of Japan's rapidly urbanizing, growth driven, increasingly corporate society.
The word "avant-garde" in this passage could best be replaced by

• A. novel.
• B. experimental.
• C. profound.
• D. dramatic.
• E. realistic.

The firm's books were out of balance; there was a (n) ______ between the amount of physical inventory
and the amount of calculated inventory.

• A. anachronism
• B. dissension
• C. enigma
• D. discredit
• E. discrepancy

Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied that I saw, certain indications of method,
removed the peg which marked the spot where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches to the
westward of its former position. Taking, now, the tape measure from the nearest point of the trunk to the
peg, as before, and continuing the extension in a straight line to the distance of fifty feet, a spot was
indicated, removed, by several yards, from the point at which we had been digging.
Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in the former instance, was now described, and
we again set to work with the spades. I was dreadfully weary, but, scarcely understanding what had
occasioned the change in my thoughts, I felt no longer any great aversion from the labor imposed. I had
become most unaccountably interested--nay, even excited. Perhaps there was something, amid all the
extravagant demeanor of Legrand-some air of forethought, or of deliberation, which impressed me. I dug
eagerly, and now and then caught myself actually looking, with something that very much resembled
expectation, for the fancied treasure, the vision of which had demented my unfortunate companion. At a
period when such vagaries of thought most fully possessed me, and when we had been at work perhaps
an hour and a half, we were again interrupted by the violent howlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in the
first instance, had been, evidently, but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a bitter
and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's again attempting to muzzle him, he made furious resistance, and,
leaping into the hole, tore up the mould frantically with his claws. In a few seconds he had uncovered a
mass of human bones, forming two complete skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of metal, and
what appeared to be the dust of decayed woolen. One or two strokes of a spade upturned the blade of a
large Spanish knife, and, as we dug farther, three or four loose pieces of gold and silver coin came to
light.
At sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be restrained, but the countenance of his master wore an
air of extreme disappointment he urged us, however, to continue our exertions, and the words were hardly
uttered when I stumbled and fell forward, having caught the toe of my boot in a large ring of iron that lay
half buried in the loose earth.
We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass ten minutes of more intense excitement. During his
interval we had fairly unearthed an oblong chest of wood, which, from its perfect preservation and
wonderful hardness, had plainly been subjected to some mineralizing process--perhaps that of the
Bi-chloride of Mercury. This box was three feet and a half long, three feet broad, and two and a half feet
deep. It was firmly secured by bands of wrought iron, riveted, and forming a kind of open trelliswork over
the whole. On each side of the chest, near the top, were three rings of iron--six in all--by means of which a
firm hold could be obtained by six persons. Our utmost united endeavors served only to disturb the coffer
very slightly in its bed. We at once saw the impossibility of removing so great a weight. Luckily, the sole
fastenings of the lid consisted of two sliding bolts. These we drew back trembling and panting with anxiety.
In an instant, a treasure of incalculable value lay gleaming before us. As the rays of the lanterns fell within
the pit, there flashed upwards a glow and a glare, from a confused heap of gold and of jewels, that
absolutely dazzled our eyes.
I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I gazed. Amazement was, of course, predominant.
Legrand appeared exhausted with excitement, and spoke very few words. Jupiter's countenance wore, for
some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is possible, in nature of things, for any negro's visage to assume.
He seemed stupefied thunder stricken. Presently he fell upon his knees in the pit, and, burying his naked
arms up to the elbows in gold, let them there remain, as if enjoying the luxury of a bath.
It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both master and valet to the expediency of removing the
treasure. It was growing late, and it behooved us to make exertion, that we might get every thing housed
before daylight. It was difficult to say what should be done, and much time was spent in deliberation--so
confused were the ideas of all. We, finally, lightened the box by removing two thirds of its contents, when
we were enabled, with some trouble, to raise it from the hole. The articles taken out were deposited
among the brambles, and the dog left to guard them, with strict orders from Jupiter neither, upon any
pretence, to stir from the spot, nor to open his mouth until our return.
In context, the word "mould" 2nd paragraph is best described as

• A. wooden container.
• B. carved woodwork. D. box.
• C. cast.
• D. broken soil.