CHAPTER 16 / PRACTICE TEST I 615
- In the first paragraph of Passage 1, Noah
Webster is mentioned as an example of
(A) a genius who was a poor speller
(B) one of the first spelling reformers
(C) a man devoted to proper spelling
(D) a famous playwright
(E) one who shares the author’s opinion - Serena regards phonetic spelling as a “per-
sonal stab” (line 24) at the author of Passage 1
because its proponents
(A) have a history of vindictiveness
(B) do not like hard work
(C) are well educated
(D) are wealthy
(E) want to eliminate the author’s excuse for
poor spelling - The success of “Serena’s plan” (line 74) de-
pends on the ability of people to
(A) change their habits of pronunciation
(B) spell correctly
(C) perfect their handwriting skills
(D) learn an entirely new alphabet
(E) change their writing habits - By saying that Serena’s plan is “more American”
(line 75), the author of Passage 1 implies that
Americans
(A) are good spellers
(B) regard writers with disdain
(C) are inclined to protest
(D) do not read enough
(E) can’t take a joke
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- In Passage 1, the author’s theory of spelling
reform differs from that of Serena in that the
author
(A) wants to alter the pronunciation of
words that Serena wants to ignore
(B) regards Shakespeare as a genius but
Serena does not
(C) wants to change the alphabet but
Serena does not
(D) seeks to simplify spelling, while
Serena does not
(E) understands how to alter American
habits but Serena does not - The author of Passage 1 claims to have fallen
in love with Serena because
(A) his spelling skills were weak
(B) they agreed on a plan for phonetic
spelling
(C) she helped him to understand
philosophy
(D) they shared a distaste for automobiles
(E) they were both writers - The “chaos” mentioned in line 110 refers to
(A) the difficulty of spelling words with
silent letters
(B) the challenge of getting scholars to agree
(C) the many ways of pronouncing ough
(D) the possibility of many sets of spelling
rules for different dialects
(E) the disagreement among linguists
regarding spelling reform