For each question, choose the alternative you consider best and fill in the corresponding oval on your answer document. Read the passage through once before you begin to answer the questions that accompany it. For many of the questions, you must read several sentences beyond the question to determine the answer. Be sure that you have read far enough ahead each time you choose an alternative.
Bessie Coleman: In Flight
[1]
young African-American woman at the controls and
jumped down to the ground. Bessie Coleman was on
[2]
It was a long journey from the American
Chicago to see what could be done to realize a dream.
Ever since she saw her first airplane when she was
a little girl, Coleman had known that someday, somehow,
she would fly.
[3]
Try as she might, however, Coleman could
not obtain flying lessons anywhere in the city. Then
with a flight school in France that was willing to
teach this determined young woman to fly.
[4]
designer. [2] Bessie Coleman took a quick course in
together with baling wire was daunting, but Coleman
[5]
On June 15, 1921, Bessie
A. NO CHANGEB. 1, 3, 2C. 2, 1, 3D. 3, 2, 1
Not only was she the first black woman to win her
pilot's wings, she was the first American woman to
hold this coveted license.
[6]
She was ready for a triumphant return to the
Her dream of becoming the world's first black woman pilot seemed as remote in Chicago as it had been in Oklahoma.
In order to accomplish this purpose, it would be most logical and appropriate to place this sentence after the:
1. The best answer is C, which concisely conveys the idea that the practice landing referred to was the last one in a series. In contrast, the other choices are redundant. Choice A belabors the point that "the final performance" was indeed the "last" performance (and confusingly suggests that there was more than one performance of a single landing). Choice B pointlessly repeats the notion of finality in the redundant phrase "finally ultimate" (and confusingly suggests that all the landings strove to be ultimate, but only the last landing succeeded). Choice D is simply redundant because the words last and final in the sentence are synonymous.
2. The best answer is F. It offers the only idiomatically acceptable wording. The verb phrase line up is often used to mean "align." Choices G and H are clearly wrong here. We would never hear someone say that "she lined off the nose of the . . . biplane on the runway's center mark" or that "she lined along the nose of the . . . biplane on the runway's center mark." Choice J, which proposes deleting the underlined portion, also sounds improbable: "She lined the nose of the . . . biplane on the runway's center mark." This sentence suggests that Bessie Coleman is doing something with the nose of the plane, but whatever it is, it doesn't make sense in terms of the rest of the information in the sentence.
3. The best answer is B. This sentence presents a series of three verb phrases—three things that Bessie Coleman did. The subject for all three of the verb phrases is the pronoun She at the beginning of the sentence. The third verb phrase in the series ("took off into history") has no subject, so it would be inconsistent and illogical to state the subject of the second verb phrase in the series, as Choices A and C propose. Choice D proposes that, rather than being the second in the series of verb phrases, this should be a subordinate adjective clause describing the preceding noun, but there's no logical support for saying, "the runway's center mark . . . gave the engine full throttle."
4. The best answer is H. It provides the relative pronoun and the punctuation that effectively relates this subordinate adjective clause to the main clause of this sentence. The main clause is as follows: "It was a long journey from the American Southwest to these French skies." The subordinate clause is describing or defining the American Southwest: "where she'd been born in 1893." Since this clause occurs in the middle of the main clause and is not essential or restrictive information, it must be set off from the main clause. Choices F and G fail to do so. Choice J does set the phrase off with commas but fails to provide a pronoun that would effectively relate this clause to the main clause.
5. The best answer is D. The most appropriate decision is to delete the information—presented in Choices A, B, and C in different phrasings—that Bessie Coleman was born about a century ago. This information is a mere digression in terms of the focus or development of this essay. It sidetracks the readers. Besides, it provides information that readers could easily infer on their own, since they are told in the previous sentence that Coleman was born in 1893.
6. The best answer is G. It is the only choice that doesn't propose irrelevant or redundant information. Choices F, H, and J all propose unnecessarily long-winded and wordy ways of saying that Coleman headed for Chicago after a year at Langston Industrial College. It is just not important for readers to know that a year at Langston consisted of two semesters of schooling.
7. The best answer is A. No punctuation is needed here between the noun ("Robert S. Abbott") and the prepositional phrase describing that noun ("of the Chicago Weekly Defender"). The use here of the colon (Choice B) or the semicolon (Choice D) is not called for. Choice C incorrectly proposes setting this prepositional phrase off from the main clause and introducing it with the relative pronoun that expresses possession (whose).
8. The best answer is J. It proposes the correct form of the adverb (there) and ensures that the main clause is a complete sentence. Choices F and G are both wrong because they propose using the contracted form of they are. Although they're sounds like there, it has a different meaning, which would not make sense in the context of this sentence. Choice H proposes the correct adverb but also proposes deleting "she had as," which would create a sentence fragment: "While there, one of her instructors Anthony Fokker, the famous aircraft designer."
9. The best answer is D. It logically presents this sentence as a series of three verb phrases, all in the simple past tense. Choices A, B, and C all incorrectly attempt to relate the second phrase in this series to the first phrase. There is no information in this essay nor any logic to support the idea that "Bessie Coleman took a quick course in French, to settle her affairs" (Choice C) or "took a quick course in French, as if to settle her affairs" (Choice B). Likewise, the sense of probability or expectation or futurity that might be expressed by "should she settle her affairs" has no logical support in the context of this essay.
10. The best answer is H. This question asks the test-taker to decide the best placement of the word daily in the sentence. This word has the flexibility to serve as either an adverb or an adjective. Here, the most logical and appropriate place for this word would be after the word flying. In this arrangement, the word daily serves as an adverb modifying the verb preceding it: "Coping with a foreign language and flying daily in capricious, unstable machines held together with baling wire was daunting, but Coleman persevered." None of the other proposed placements make sense in the context of this sentence: Choice F would have daily functioning as an adjective ("a daily foreign language"). Choice G would seem to have the word functioning as an adverb, but it's hard to tell what the adverb would be describing ("Coping with daily a foreign language"). Choice J would have daily functioning as an adverb defining an adjective ("in daily capricious, unstable machines").
11. The best answer is C. It is the only choice that places Sentence 2 as the first sentence in the paragraph. Sentence 2 should logically precede Sentences 1 and 3 because, while Sentences 1 and 3 describe Bessie Coleman's experiences in Europe, Sentence 2 tells readers that she sailed for Europe (and describes the things she did prior to making the trip). Choices A and D are wrong because they keep Sentence 2 in the second position, and Choice B is wrong because it puts Sentence 2 in the final position.
12. The best answer is G. It offers the correct punctuation decisions for this sentence. Choices F and H are incorrect because they propose putting a comma between the subject ("Bessie Coleman") and the predicate or verb phrase ("earned an international pilot's license"). Choice J is incorrect because it proposes putting a semicolon between the direct object noun ("an international pilot's license") and the subordinate clause defining that noun ("issued by the International Aeronautical Federation"). It might help to realize that, between the words license and issued, the words that were are not expressed but are understood or implied.
13. The best answer is C. This is a difficult question in a rather complex sentence. The clause beginning with proof serves as an appositive, a phrase that describes or defines a preceding noun. Appositives are set off from the main clause with commas and, in most cases, immediately follow the noun they are describing. Here, the appositive occurs at the end of the sentence but describes the subject at the beginning of the sentence (She). "She was ready for a triumphant return to the United States to barnstorm and lecture, proof that . . . one's dream can be attained." The punctuation decisions offered by Choices A and D would both produce an illogical phrasing because they propose that proof should serve as the direct object of the verb lecture ("She was ready . . . to barnstorm and lecture proof . . ."). Choice B is equally illogical because it proposes that proof could function as a verb ("She was ready . . . to barnstorm and lecture and proof that . . . one's dream can be attained.")
14. The best answer is J. It effectively coordinates the various elements of this noun clause, which is functioning as an appositive for the subject of the main clause of this sentence. The entire noun clause should read: "proof that if the will is strong enough, one's dream can be attained." You will see that within this noun clause, which is already serving a secondary role in terms of the main clause of the sentence, there is a main clause ("one's dream can be attained") and a subordinate clause related to that main clause by the conjunction if ("the will is strong enough"). Choice H is wrong because it proposes an adverb (strongly) where a predicate adjective is required. Choices F and G are both wrong because they coordinate these clauses in ways that don't make sense and that make clause fragments: "if the will is strong enough for one's dream can be attained" (Choice F) and "if the will is stronger than one's dream can be attained" (Choice G).
15. The best answer is B, which provides the intended comparison by placing the sentence in the most logical location. Choice B underlines or emphasizes the challenges Coleman faced by comparing her hopes and expectations with the reality she met in Chicago. On the contrary, Choice A spoils the logical sequence that Choice B establishes, because the end of the first sentence in Paragraph 2—"these French skies"—does not support the intended comparison. Choices C and D delay making the comparison until too late in the essay. In Choice C, the comparison is weakened because, by the end of Paragraph 3, Coleman is already on her way toward flight school. In Choice D, a comparison intended to "underline the challenges" no longer is pertinent, because Coleman has already met the challenges.
