Part 1

(The following passage is excerpted from a commencement speech delivered by then First Lady Barbara Bush at
Wellesley College in 1990.)

Now I know your first choice today was Alice Walker—guess how I know!—known for The Color Purple.1 Instead you
got me—known for the color of my hair!2 Alice Walker’s book has a special resonance here. At Wellesley, each class
is known by a special color. For four years the Class of ’90 has worn the color purple. Today you meet on Severance
Green to say goodbye to all of that, to begin a new and very personal journey, to search for your own true colors.

In the world that awaits you, beyond the shores of Lake Waban, no one can say what your true colors will be. But
this I do know: You have a first class education from a first class school. And so you need not, probably cannot, live a
“paint-by-numbers” life. Decisions are not irrevocable. Choices do come back. And as you set off from Wellesley, I
hope that many of you will consider making three very special choices.

The first is to believe in something larger than yourself, to get involved in some of the big ideas of our time. I chose
literacy because I honestly believe that if more people could read, write, and comprehend, we would be that much
closer to solving so many of the problems that plague our nation and our society.

And early on I made another choice which I hope you’ll make as well. Whether you are talking about education,
career, or service, you’re talking about life—and life really must have joy. It’s supposed to be fun!

One of the reasons I made the most important decision of my life, to marry George Bush,3 is because he made me
laugh. It’s true, sometimes we’ve laughed through our tears. But that shared laughter has been one of our strongest
bonds. Find the joy in life, because as Ferris Bueller4 said on his day off, “Life moves pretty fast; and ya don’t stop
and look around once in a while, ya gonna miss it!”

(I am not going to tell George ya clapped more for Ferris than ya clapped for George.)

The third choice that must not be missed is to cherish your human connections: your relationships with family and
friends. For several years, you’ve had impressed upon you the importance to your career of dedication and hard
work. And, of course, that’s true. But as important as your obligations as a doctor, a lawyer, a business leader will
be, you are a human being first. And those human connections—with spouses, with children, with friends—are the
most important investments you will ever make.

At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict, or not
closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend, or a parent.

We are in a transitional period right now, fascinating and exhilarating times, learning to adjust to changes and the
choices we, men and women, are facing. As an example, I remember what a friend said, on hearing her husband
complain to his buddies that he had to babysit. Quickly setting him straight, my friend told her husband that when
it’s your own kids, it’s not called babysitting.

Now, maybe we should adjust faster; maybe we should adjust slower. But whatever the era, whatever the times,
one thing will never change: fathers and mothers, if you have children, they must come first. You must read to your
children. And you must hug your children. And you must love your children. Your success as a family, our success as
a society, depends not on what happens in the White House, but on what happens inside your house.

Q1. In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with

 A. cautioning her audience against repeating past mistakes
B. enumerating the most pressing social issues facing women today
C. offering her audience advice for the future
D. garnering political support for her husband
E. identifying the most important skills for adapting in uncertain times

Q2. In the opening sentences of the passage (“Now I know . . . color of my hair!”), the author refers to Alice
Walker primarily to

A. impress her audience with the breadth of her literary knowledge

B. flaunt her access to privileged information about the planning of the commencement ceremony
C. congratulate her audience for inviting her instead of a lesser-known speaker
D. acknowledge the potentially embarrassing circumstances under which she is delivering her speech
E. suggest that she pays more attention to her personal appearance than do other celebrities

Q3. n the second paragraph, the author makes which of the following claims regarding the Class of 1990 ?

A. They will lead more balanced lives after leaving Wellesley.

B. They will lead successful lives because of the quality of their education.
C. They are unlikely to follow conventional paths in life.
D. They are unlikely to change their opinions.
E. They are unlikely to pursue careers in the visual arts.

Q4. In the fourth and fifth paragraphs, the author defends her decision to marry George Bush by elaborating on

A. the need to pursue a sense of personal bliss

B. the importance of prioritizing family over career
C. her willingness to overlook her husband’s dark humor
D. the similarities between her husband and a fictional character
E. her husband’s commitment to public service

Q5. In the second-to-last paragraph, the anecdote about the complaining husband serves primarily to

A. provide an example of how women should motivate their partners to take on more childcare responsibilities
 B. illustrate the author’s claim regarding the value of devoting oneself to one’s children
C. reinforce the author’s recommendation that women develop friendships outside the family
D. encourage her audience to choose partners who will support their ambitions
E. establish a contrast between the friend’s dedication to her family and her husband’s focus on his career

Q6. Which of the following best describes the author’s exigence in the passage?

A. The tension between the author’s worldview and the worldview developed by Alice Walker in The Color
Purple (paragraph 1, sentence 1)
B. The pressure on the author to “get involved in some of the big ideas of our time” (paragraph 3, sentence 1)
C. Growing indifference toward “the problems that plague our nation and our society” (paragraph 3, sentence
2)
D. The fact that the audience “clapped more for Ferris” than they did at the mention of President Bush
(paragraph 6, sentence 1)
E. The question of how to lead a meaningful life “in a transitional period” (paragraph 9, sentence 1)

Part 2

(The passage below is a draft.)

(1) Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places on Earth: people crowd into tiny living spaces, some with
only a bed, a hot plate, and a toilet. (2) The city is made up of more than 200 islands, and there is no more available
land to house its people. (3) To solve this land shortage problem, officials have proposed a radical solution: creating
a whole new island. (4) The East Lantau Metropolis would be built on land reclaimed from the sea and would house
1.1 million people.

(5) A different problem faces the people of Kiribati—a nation in the central Pacific Ocean made up of 33 islands
(most of which are less than twenty feet above sea level). (6) Because of rising sea levels, some inhabitants have
already had to abandon their homes. (7) New islands will have to be built to ensure a safe future for its citizens,
because science indicates that Kiribati will go underwater within the century.

(8) Artificial islands have been seen as solutions for a number of problems in recent decades. (9) The city of Dubai
has been constructing a luxurious palm-tree-shaped series of islands to house hotels. (10) Osaka, Japan, built an
island off its coast to relieve its overcrowded airport. (11) The Maldives, Malaysia, and Seoul have all built or have
plans to build artificial islands to expand their territory.
(12) So, is building artificial islands a good solution for modern-day challenges? (13) Not everyone thinks so. (14)
Constructing artificial islands destroys the coral reefs that nourish fisheries and protect the coastline from the
impact of waves; it also destabilizes precious coastal ecosystems. (15) Building on unstable dredged sediments also
endangers human inhabitants, especially in areas prone to earthquakes.

Q7. The writer is considering adding the following sentence after sentence 6.

These inhabitants should leave their homes because they have been destroyed or otherwise rendered uninhabitable
from flooding.

Should the writer add this sentence after sentence 6 ?

A. Yes, because it describes the writer’s exigence for writing the passage.
B. Yes, because it expresses the main claim of the paragraph.
C. Yes, because it defines a potentially unfamiliar term used in sentence 6.
D. No, because it fails to clarify the writer’s purpose in creating the text.
E. No, because it makes an ineffective claim that does not require a defense.

Q8. In sentence 7 (reproduced below), the writer wants to add the phrase “According to the country’s president,”
to the beginning of the sentence, adjusting capitalization as needed.

New islands will have to be built to ensure a safe future for its citizens, because science indicates that Kiribati will go
underwater within the century.

Should the writer make this addition?

A. Yes, because it acknowledges the source of the information conveyed in the sentence.
B. Yes, because it provides an additional perspective to set up a counterargument.
C. Yes, because it introduces a key figure in the development of the passage’s narrative.
D. No, because it introduces new evidence that requires an adjustment to the paragraph’s line of reasoning.
E. No, because it fails to consider the rhetorical situation set up in the first paragraph.
Q9. The writer wants to provide relevant support for the claim made in sentences 12 and 13. Which of the
following sentences, if added after sentence 13, would most effectively accomplish this goal?

A. According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s National Tidal Centre, there has been an average sea
level rise of 7.3 millimeters a year around low-lying islands like Kiribati in the past few decades.
B. A professor of biology at Old Dominion University, Kent Carpenter, notes that poaching of giant clams does
more damage to marine ecosystems than island building does.
C. Marine biologists contend that the urban sprawl spreading into the oceans inevitably causes havoc for
marine organisms and their habitats.
D. The government of South Korea expected to have 300,000 residents in the utopian smart city built on the
artificial island of Songdo.
E. Environmental scientists at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, have noted that those building
artificial islands can use techniques like silt curtains to help minimize the environmental impact of these
projects.

The end