1. The dramatist was ------- over his
lack of funds and his inability to
sell any of his plays, and his
letters to his wife reflected his
unhappiness.
(A) despondent
(B) supercilious
(C) prudent
(D) encouraged
(E) fortified
2. Listening to good storybooks sharpen
children’s awareness and appreciation
for the sounds of spoken language.
(A) sharpen children’s awareness
(B) sharpens children’s awareness of
(C) are what sharpens the awareness of
children
(D) sharpens the awareness of children
(E) is to sharpen children’s awareness
3. Often inattentive when it comes to
schoolwork, Maya was
uncharacteristically ------- when she
wrote her personal essay; rather
than taking her typical -------
approach, she paid extremely close
attention to every last detail.
(A) thorough . . cautious
(B) painstaking . . precise
(C) inconsiderate . . thoughtful
(D) nonchalant . . efficient
(E) meticulous . . careless
4. Most of the world’s sharks, living
A B
in temperate and tropical regions,
though the Greenland shark lives
C
in the cold Arctic waters, and the
huge basking shark is at home in
the seas around Antarctica. No error
D E
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
5. To some scholars of medieval
Britain, the legendary King
Arthur is a genuine historical
figure, while to others he and
his Round Table are nothing
more than ------- of myth and
romance.
(A) harbingers
(B) trifles
(C) spoilers
(D) figments
(E) inventors
Editor's Notes
“Despondent” best corresponds to the dramatist’s unhappy emotional state.
Choice (B) is correct. It avoids the subject-verb agreement error of the original by using the singular verb “sharpens” to agree with the singular subject “Listening.”
To be “meticulous” is to pay extreme care in the consideration or treatment of details. In this context, “careless” means not showing care or attention. The sentence indicates that Maya is often inattentive in her schoolwork; in other words, she tends not to pay attention to her work, or typically is careless. It certainly would be uncharacteristic, then, for Maya to give extremely careful consideration to details when writing her essay — that is, it would be out of the ordinary for her to be so meticulous.
The error in this sentence occurs at (B), where an inappropriate verb form creates a sentence fragment. To fix this problem, the phrase “sharks, living” should be changed to “sharks live.”
The answer is D. Harbinger means forerunner or portent; trifle means little; The sentence focuses on the contrast between what two groups of scholars think about King Arthur. Some scholars think King Arthur is a real “historical figure”—a real person—while others think he is not. Those who think King Arthur and his Round Table are not real would probably call them “figments,” or things that are made up.
