AP English Literature and Composition Practice Tests

Set 1 — Prose fiction: questions 1–12

The following is an excerpt from Katherine Mansfield’s short story “Miss Brill,” published in 1920. Miss Brill, an Englishwoman living in a French seaside town where she gives English lessons, spends every Sunday afternoon in the public gardens listening to the band. For today’s outing she has taken her beloved fur necklet out of its box.

Miss Brill

¹ Oh, how fascinating it was! How she enjoyed it! How she loved sitting here, watching it all! It was like a play. It was exactly like a play. Who could believe the sky at the back wasn’t painted? But it wasn’t till a little brown dog trotted on solemn and then slowly trotted off, like a little “theatre” dog, a little dog that had been drugged, that Miss Brill discovered what it was that made it so exciting. They were all on the stage. They weren’t only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting. Even she had a part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn’t been there; she was part of the performance after all. How strange she’d never thought of it like that before! And yet it explained why she made such a point of starting from home at just the same time each week—so as not to be late for the performance—and it also explained why she had quite a queer, shy feeling at telling her English pupils how she spent her Sunday afternoons. No wonder! Miss Brill nearly laughed out loud. She was on the stage. She thought of the old invalid gentleman to whom she read the newspaper four afternoons a week while he slept in the garden. She had got quite used to the frail head on the cotton pillow, the hollowed eyes, the open mouth and the high pinched nose. If he’d been dead she mightn’t have noticed for weeks; she wouldn’t have minded. But suddenly he knew he was having the paper read to him by an actress! “An actress!” The old head lifted; two points of light quivered in the old eyes. “An actress—are ye?” And Miss Brill smoothed the newspaper as though it were the manuscript of her part and said gently; “Yes, I have been an actress for a long time.”

² The band had been having a rest. Now they started again. And what they played was warm, sunny, yet there was just a faint chill—a something, what was it?—not sadness—no, not sadness—a something that made you want to sing. The tune lifted, lifted, the light shone; and it seemed to Miss Brill that in another moment all of them, all the whole company, would begin singing. The young ones, the laughing ones who were moving together, they would begin, and the men’s voices, very resolute and brave, would join them. And then she too, she too, and the others on the benches—they would come in with a kind of accompaniment—something low, that scarcely rose or fell, something so beautiful—moving.... And Miss Brill’s eyes filled with tears and she looked smiling at all the other members of the company. Yes, we understand, we understand, she thought—though what they understood she didn’t know.

³ Just at that moment a boy and girl came and sat down where the old couple had been. They were beautifully dressed; they were in love. The hero and heroine, of course, just arrived from his father’s yacht. And still soundlessly singing, still with that trembling smile, Miss Brill prepared to listen.

⁴ “No, not now,” said the girl. “Not here, I can’t.”

⁵ “But why? Because of that stupid old thing at the end there?” asked the boy. “Why does she come here at all—who wants her? Why doesn’t she keep her silly old mug at home?”

⁶ “It’s her fu-fur which is so funny,” giggled the girl. “It’s exactly like a fried whiting.”

⁷ “Ah, be off with you!” said the boy in an angry whisper. Then: “Tell me, ma petite chère—”

⁸ “No, not here,” said the girl. “Not yet.”

⁹ On her way home she usually bought a slice of honey-cake at the baker’s. It was her Sunday treat. Sometimes there was an almond in her slice, sometimes not. It made a great difference. If there was an almond it was like carrying home a tiny present—a surprise—something that might very well not have been there. She hurried on the almond Sundays and struck the match for the kettle in quite a dashing way.

¹⁰ But to-day she passed the baker’s by, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark room—her room like a cupboard—and sat down on the red eiderdown. She sat there for a long time. The box that the fur came out of was on the bed. She unclasped the necklet quickly; quickly, without looking, laid it inside. But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying.

1. The exclamations that open paragraph 1 (“Oh, how fascinating it was! How she enjoyed it! How she loved sitting here, watching it all!”) chiefly serve to (A) reveal the narrator’s open mockery of Miss Brill’s taste in public entertainment (B) convey Miss Brill’s delight through narration that closely follows her thoughts (C) suggest that Miss Brill is speaking aloud to the people seated near her (D) indicate that the band’s performance has improved since the previous week
2. The comparison of the scene in the gardens to “a play” (paragraph 1) primarily suggests that Miss Brill (A) regards the other visitors as insincere people who conceal their true feelings (B) has long wished to become a professional actress rather than a teacher (C) has recognized that her Sunday routine is a meaningless habit (D) imagines she belongs to a shared life from which she is actually separate
3. The narration’s remark that “If he’d been dead she mightn’t have noticed for weeks; she wouldn’t have minded” (paragraph 1) primarily reveals (A) a detachment in Miss Brill’s view of others that complicates the reader’s sympathy (B) the narrator’s disapproval of the old gentleman’s habit of sleeping through the reading (C) Miss Brill’s deep attachment to the gentleman to whom she reads (D) Miss Brill’s fear that the gentleman is more seriously ill than he appears
4. The exchange between Miss Brill and the old gentleman at the end of paragraph 1 is best understood as (A) a memory of a conversation that took place the previous Sunday in the gardens (B) a confession in which Miss Brill admits a secret she has hidden from her pupils (C) a scene Miss Brill imagines, revealing her longing to be seen as interesting (D) an episode that shows the old gentleman’s growing affection for Miss Brill
5. In paragraph 2, the halting phrase “not sadness—no, not sadness” suggests that Miss Brill (A) is resisting a melancholy feeling that nonetheless keeps returning (B) has finally overcome a grief that troubled her earlier in the day (C) is correcting another listener’s mistaken view of the band’s music (D) finds the band’s music too gloomy and slow for such a bright, sunny afternoon
6. The sentence “Yes, we understand, we understand, she thought—though what they understood she didn’t know” (paragraph 2) conveys the narrator’s (A) complete agreement with Miss Brill’s insight into the feelings of her fellow citizens (B) gentle irony toward a feeling of communion that has no definite content (C) harsh condemnation of Miss Brill’s refusal to face facts (D) confusion about the order of the events being narrated
7. In relation to paragraphs 1–2, paragraph 3 represents a shift from (A) a description of the gardens to a flashback about Miss Brill’s youth in England (B) Miss Brill’s criticism of other people to her admiration of them (C) the narrator’s commentary to the dialogue of Miss Brill herself (D) an exalted vision of unity to the arrival of characters who will shatter it
8. The young couple’s dialogue in paragraphs 4–8 characterizes the boy and the girl primarily as (A) shy and nervous, fearful of being overheard by the people around them (B) privately sympathetic to Miss Brill but too embarrassed to speak with her (C) careless and cruel, treating Miss Brill as an object of ridicule (D) openly hostile to each other and using Miss Brill as a pretext to quarrel
9. The remarks about Miss Brill in paragraphs 5–6 (“that stupid old thing,” “her silly old mug,” “exactly like a fried whiting”) chiefly serve to (A) confirm that Miss Brill is widely admired by the regular visitors to the gardens (B) offer an outside view of Miss Brill that contradicts her own sense of her place (C) show that Miss Brill has misheard a conversation about someone else (D) reveal that the narrator shares the couple’s low opinion of Miss Brill
10. The description of the honey-cake in paragraph 9 functions in the passage primarily to (A) establish a small ritual pleasure whose omission later signals the depth of her hurt (B) explain why Miss Brill can afford so few luxuries on her small teacher’s income (C) introduce the baker as a new character who will console Miss Brill in paragraph 10 (D) suggest that Miss Brill’s Sunday outings have usually ended in some disappointment
11. The description of Miss Brill’s lodging as “the little dark room—her room like a cupboard” (paragraph 10) contrasts most sharply with (A) the elegant yacht that Miss Brill imagines belongs to the boy’s father (B) the baker’s shop, which Miss Brill finds cramped and unwelcoming (C) the garden where the old gentleman sleeps while Miss Brill reads to him (D) the bright, crowded, theatrical world of the gardens presented earlier
12. The final sentence of the passage (“But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying”) is best interpreted as (A) evidence that Miss Brill can no longer distinguish dreams from waking life (B) a sign that Miss Brill has resolved never to return to the gardens (C) an indirect expression of grief that Miss Brill cannot openly acknowledge (D) a literal description of a sound coming from a neighboring room

Set 2 — Poetry: questions 13–22

The following poem by Thomas Hardy was first published in a magazine at the end of December 1900, the last month of the nineteenth century, and was collected in Poems of the Past and the Present in 1901.

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
⁵ The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings from broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
¹⁰ The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
¹⁵ And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice outburst among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
²⁰ Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

²⁵ So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
³⁰ His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

13. In context, “Winter’s dregs” (line 3) most nearly suggests (A) the last, spent remnants of the season (B) the violent beginning of a winter storm (C) the refreshing sharpness of cold air (D) the hidden promise of the coming spring
14. The simile in lines 5–6 (“The tangled bine-stems scored the sky / Like strings from broken lyres”) chiefly serves to (A) suggest that the landscape is being prepared for a celebration (B) emphasize the orderly and harmonious design of the natural world in winter (C) associate the barren landscape with music that can no longer be played (D) portray the thrush as a figure drawn from ancient poetry
15. Lines 9–12 characterize the setting primarily by (A) describing the landscape as a sleeping giant that will soon awaken (B) comparing the landscape to an ancient ruin admired by passing travelers from afar (C) depicting the landscape as a battlefield after a long war (D) presenting the land as the dying century’s corpse, with the sky as its tomb
16. The phrase “fervourless as I” (line 16) reveals that the speaker (A) feels superior to the people who have retreated indoors to their household fires (B) shares, and perhaps projects onto the world, the lifelessness he observes (C) has deliberately trained himself to feel no emotion (D) is recovering from a physical illness that has weakened him
17. Line 17 (“At once a voice outburst among”) marks a shift from (A) the speaker’s memories of past winters to his present surroundings (B) the speaker’s hope to his renewed despair (C) general desolation to the sudden intrusion of an unexpected song (D) a description of evening to a description of dawn
18. The descriptions “An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small” and “In blast-beruffled plume” (lines 21–22) primarily serve to (A) make the bird’s joyful song seem more surprising given its condition (B) suggest that the thrush, like the speaker, has become incapable of joy (C) indicate that the thrush is about to die in the storm (D) emphasize the beauty of the thrush’s appearance
19. By stating that the thrush “Had chosen thus to fling his soul / Upon the growing gloom” (lines 23–24), the speaker (A) suggests that the bird sings only out of blind, unthinking instinct (B) attributes to the bird a deliberate, even defiant, act of will (C) reveals that he has trained the bird to sing on command (D) implies that the bird is trying to escape from the storm
20. In lines 25–32, the speaker’s attitude toward the possibility of “Some blessed Hope” is best described as (A) confident, declaring that the thrush’s song proves the existence of divine providence (B) scornful, dismissing the song as meaningless animal noise (C) indifferent, treating the song as unworthy of reflection (D) tentative, allowing that such hope may exist while admitting he does not share it
21. Which of the following best describes the structure of the poem? (A) The first two stanzas establish a bleak scene, and the last two introduce an unexpected song and consider its meaning. (B) Each stanza presents a different season, moving steadily from winter through to summer. (C) The first stanza poses a question about the century that the final stanza answers directly. (D) The stanzas alternate between the speaker’s memories of the past and his present experience.
22. The poem as a whole is best understood as a (A) celebration of the renewal that spring brings to the countryside each year (B) meditation on the possibility of hope at what seems a moment of ending (C) lament for a particular bird that has died in the winter cold (D) satire of people who retreat from nature to their household fires

Set 3 — Prose fiction: questions 23–33

The following passage is excerpted from a short story by Claire Delaney, a fictional writer created for this 7ESL practice test. The story, written in 2024, is set in the 2010s.

Loose Hardware

¹ The summer I turned fifteen my father gave me a canvas apron with our name stitched across the chest, KESSLER & SON, though I was a daughter and the son in question had been my grandfather, dead eleven years. “It still fits,” my father said, meaning the name, not the apron, which hung to my knees like a flag on a windless day. The store sat between a vape shop and a vacant storefront whose windows had been soaped over so long that the soap itself had begun to look like a decision.

² My first job was the bolt aisle. Nobody warns you how many kinds of nothing there are. Hex bolts and carriage bolts, lag screws, machine screws, wood screws with their fine hungry threads, washers flat and split and fender, each in its own gray drawer with a label my grandfather had typed on a typewriter that no longer existed anywhere in the world except, apparently, in those labels. Customers would come in holding a single screw pinched between two fingers the way you might hold a tooth, and it was my job to find its match. My father could do it by sight. He would take the screw, turn it once in the light, and walk straight to a drawer without reading anything, like a man going home in the dark.

³ I did it with a thread gauge and a lot of apologizing.

⁴ “You’re slow,” said Mr. Abernathy, who came in every Tuesday for something he did not need. He was a retired shop teacher with forearms like cured hams and a habit of calling everything under five dollars “a little fella.” “Your granddad was fast. Your dad’s fast.” He watched me thumb through the quarter-twenty drawer. “Everybody’s fast now. The big place out on Route 9, they got a robot that tells you the aisle.”

⁵ “Does it find the screw?” I asked.

⁶ He considered this. “It finds the aisle.”

⁷ In July the air conditioner died, and my father propped the front door open with a bag of play sand. The store filled with the smell of hot sidewalk and the sound of traffic going somewhere else. Most afternoons it was just the two of us. He rekeyed locks at the back counter, the little brass pins laid out on a paper towel like a sentence he was deciding how to finish, and I swept the same aisles twice. Once I found him standing in front of the paint-chip display, not choosing anything, only looking, and when he saw me he said, “Somebody’s been putting the blues back with the greens,” and moved three cards an inch to the left.

⁸ I understood, the way you understand weather, that we were not doing well. I understood it from the way he answered the phone on the first ring, and from the new sign by the register that said WE CAN ORDER IT!, the exclamation point working harder than anyone in the building.

⁹ On the last Saturday of the summer a woman came in with a paper bag and turned it upside down on the counter. Out spilled a small metal avalanche: hinge pins, a doorknob spindle, two curtain-rod brackets, a fistful of screws in a dozen sizes. Her mother had died in the spring, she said, and she was trying to rehang the doors in the old house before it sold, and she didn’t know what any of it was. She said this apologetically, as if not knowing were a thing she had been caught at.

¹⁰ My father looked at the pile. Then he looked at me.

¹¹ It took me forty minutes. I sorted everything into the lids of coffee cans, matched each screw to its drawer, found a spindle that was close enough and then one that was right. I explained what a hinge pin does, which is mostly to be forgotten. When I rang her up it came to eleven dollars and forty cents, and she paid in exact change, counting it out into my palm, and then she stood there a moment longer, as though she had come in for something else and could not remember what.

¹² After she left my father did not say anything. He took the thread gauge out of my apron pocket, looked at it, and put it back. Then he went to the front door, lifted the bag of sand with a grunt, and let the door swing shut, and for a moment the store was quiet enough to hear the fluorescent lights, which had been humming all summer, I suppose, though I had never noticed.

23. The father’s remark “It still fits” (paragraph 1), as the narrator interprets it, suggests that he (A) is gently teasing the narrator about how large and loose the apron looks on her (B) regrets that he has no son of his own to carry on the family business after him (C) intends to rename the store in honor of the narrator (D) wants to believe the family name still holds true despite changed circumstances
24. Throughout the passage, the narrator’s perspective is best described as that of (A) a teenager recording events as they happen, without any later reflection (B) an older narrator viewing her younger self with fondness and gentle irony (C) an outside observer with no personal stake in the store (D) an adult who still resents having been made to work in the family store
25. The narrator’s remark “Nobody warns you how many kinds of nothing there are” (paragraph 2) conveys (A) bitterness toward her father for giving her such a pointless and tedious job (B) genuine despair about the meaninglessness of all work (C) wry amusement at the bewildering variety of small objects she must learn (D) technical curiosity about how different bolts are manufactured
26. The simile “like a man going home in the dark” (paragraph 2) chiefly emphasizes (A) the father’s instinctive familiarity with the store (B) the father’s fear of losing his way in the crowded aisles (C) the poor lighting in the back of the store (D) the father’s weariness at the end of a long day
27. Paragraph 3 consists of a single sentence. Its placement primarily serves to (A) introduce a new setting in which the narrator works alone (B) signal a jump forward in time to the end of the summer (C) reveal that the narrator will eventually surpass her father in skill and speed (D) contrast the narrator’s halting method with her father’s effortless skill
28. Mr. Abernathy’s reply “It finds the aisle” (paragraph 6) most strongly implies that (A) he prefers the chain store’s robot to the narrator’s assistance (B) the narrator’s question has confused and irritated him (C) the chain store’s robot offers speed but not the help the family store gives (D) the family store ought to install a similar robot in order to stay in business
29. The comparison of the lock pins to “a sentence he was deciding how to finish” (paragraph 7) suggests (A) the father’s deliberation over something, perhaps the store’s future, still unsettled (B) the father’s secret wish that he had become a writer instead of running a hardware store (C) the father’s frustration with a lock that he has been unable to repair (D) the narrator’s boredom with her father’s routine tasks
30. The father’s comment and action at the end of paragraph 7 most likely reveal (A) his anger at the narrator for carelessly disorganizing the paint-chip display (B) his tendency to express worry through small acts of order, not words (C) his indifference to the appearance of the store (D) his plan to repaint the store in blues and greens
31. In paragraph 8, the narrator’s observation that the exclamation point was “working harder than anyone in the building” conveys (A) admiration for the bold, eye-catching design of the new sign by the register (B) criticism of her father for not working hard enough (C) confusion about what the new sign by the register was meant to announce (D) an ironic sense that the sign’s cheerfulness masks the store’s struggles
32. Paragraphs 9–11 function in the passage primarily to (A) provide a flashback to the store as it was in the grandfather’s time (B) offer comic relief after a bitter argument between the father and his daughter (C) show the narrator finally putting her slowly acquired knowledge to real use (D) reveal the specific reason that the store is failing to attract customers
33. The father’s actions in paragraph 12—looking at the thread gauge and putting it back, then letting the door swing shut—most likely suggest (A) his quiet disapproval of how long the narrator took to help the grieving customer (B) his silent approval of the narrator’s work and a moment of shared understanding (C) his sudden decision to close the store permanently at the end of that afternoon (D) his irritation that the customer had insisted on paying in exact change

Set 4 — Poetry: questions 34–43

The following poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar was published in 1899.

Sympathy

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
⁵ When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
¹⁰ For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

¹⁵ I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
²⁰ But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

34. The images in lines 2–6 primarily serve to (A) describe the setting in which the speaker first saw the caged bird (B) suggest that the caged bird has long since forgotten what freedom was like (C) depict a natural freedom and beauty that lie beyond the caged bird’s reach (D) establish a mood of calm and contentment that the rest of the poem sustains
35. In context, the simile “like a stream of glass” (line 4) most directly emphasizes the river’s (A) clear, smooth, unobstructed movement (B) fragility and potential danger (C) coldness and complete, frozen stillness (D) artificial, manufactured appearance
36. The speaker’s repeated assertion “I know” (lines 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, and 21) chiefly suggests that (A) the speaker is an expert who has closely studied the behavior of caged birds for years (B) the speaker’s understanding of the bird comes from shared experience, not observation (C) the speaker is trying to convince himself of something he suspects is false (D) the speaker once kept a caged bird of his own and now deeply regrets it
37. The progression from “what the caged bird feels” (line 1) to “why the caged bird beats his wing” (line 8) to “why the caged bird sings” (line 15) reflects (A) a gradual change in the speaker’s attitude toward the bird from sympathy to indifference (B) a narrative in which the bird is finally set free (C) a shift from describing the bird to describing the speaker’s childhood (D) a movement from the bird’s longing, to its struggle, to the true meaning of its song
38. The phrase “a pain still throbs in the old, old scars” (line 12) suggests that (A) the bird has by now fully healed from all of the injuries it suffered earlier (B) the bird’s suffering is long-standing and renewed by each attempt to escape (C) the bird was wounded in the wild before it was captured and caged (D) the speaker deeply regrets having once injured the bird himself
39. Lines 10–11 (“For he must fly back to his perch and cling / When he fain would be on the bough a-swing”) portray the caged bird as (A) content with the safety and comfort that its familiar perch provides (B) unaware that any world at all exists beyond the bars of its cage (C) determined to take revenge on the person who first captured and caged it (D) torn between the confinement it must accept and the freedom it desires
40. Lines 18–20 revise a common assumption about the bird’s song by suggesting that (A) what sounds like joyful music is really an anguished plea for release (B) the bird sings only to attract other birds to the cage for company (C) the song is truly joyful because the bird has finally accepted its captivity (D) the bird’s song is too faint for anyone outside the cage to hear
41. In context, “fain” (line 11) most nearly means (A) feebly (B) falsely (C) gladly (D) rarely
42. The speaker’s interjections “alas!” (line 1) and “ah me” (line 15) primarily convey (A) a personal sorrow suggesting the speaker shares the bird’s condition (B) surprise at having only just discovered the bird and its cage (C) mild amusement at the bird’s restless, noisy behavior inside its small cage (D) impatience with people who waste their pity on a mere caged bird
43. The poem as a whole is best understood as (A) a literal plea for more humane treatment of songbirds kept in captivity by their owners (B) a nature poem celebrating the arrival of spring (C) a narrative about a bird that escapes and then returns (D) an extended metaphor in which the caged bird represents the speaker’s own confinement

Set 5 — Drama: questions 44–55

The following is an excerpt from Susan Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles, first performed in 1916. John Wright, a farmer, has been found strangled in his bed, and his wife, Minnie (born Minnie Foster), has been jailed on suspicion of killing him. While the sheriff and the county attorney search the farmhouse for evidence, Mrs. Hale, a neighbor, and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, gather a few things to take to Minnie. Earlier, the men laughed when the women wondered whether Minnie had planned to “quilt it or just knot it,” referring to a quilt she was making. The women have just found an empty birdcage with a broken door.

Trifles

¹ MRS HALE Not having children makes less work—but it makes a quiet house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs Peters?

² MRS PETERS Not to know him; I’ve seen him in town. They say he was a good man.

³ MRS HALE Yes—good; he didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him—(shivers) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone, (pauses, her eye falling on the cage) I should think she would ’a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it?

⁴ MRS PETERS I don’t know, unless it got sick and died.

⁵ (She reaches over and swings the broken door, swings it again, both women watch it.)

⁶ MRS HALE You weren’t raised round here, were you? (MRS PETERS shakes her head) You didn’t know—her?

⁷ MRS PETERS Not till they brought her yesterday.

⁸ MRS HALE She—come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself—real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery. How—she—did—change. (silence; then as if struck by a happy thought and relieved to get back to everyday things) Tell you what, Mrs Peters, why don’t you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind.

⁹ MRS PETERS Why, I think that’s a real nice idea, Mrs Hale. There couldn’t possibly be any objection to it, could there? Now, just what would I take? I wonder if her patches are in here—and her things.

¹⁰ (They look in the sewing basket.)

¹¹ MRS HALE Here’s some red. I expect this has got sewing things in it. (brings out a fancy box) What a pretty box. Looks like something somebody would give you. Maybe her scissors are in here. (Opens box. Suddenly puts her hand to her nose) Why—(MRS PETERS bends nearer, then turns her face away) There’s something wrapped up in this piece of silk.

¹² MRS PETERS Why, this isn’t her scissors.

¹³ MRS HALE (lifting the silk) Oh, Mrs Peters—it’s—

¹⁴ (MRS PETERS bends closer.)

¹⁵ MRS PETERS It’s the bird.

¹⁶ MRS HALE (jumping up) But, Mrs Peters—look at it! It’s neck! Look at its neck! It’s all—other side to.

¹⁷ MRS PETERS Somebody—wrung—its—neck.

¹⁸ (Their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension, of horror. Steps are heard outside. MRS HALE slips box under quilt pieces, and sinks into her chair. Enter SHERIFF and COUNTY ATTORNEY. MRS PETERS rises.)

¹⁹ COUNTY ATTORNEY (as one turning from serious things to little pleasantries) Well ladies, have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?

²⁰ MRS PETERS We think she was going to—knot it.

²¹ COUNTY ATTORNEY Well, that’s interesting, I’m sure. (seeing the birdcage) Has the bird flown?

²² MRS HALE (putting more quilt pieces over the box) We think the—cat got it.

²³ COUNTY ATTORNEY (preoccupied) Is there a cat?

²⁴ (MRS HALE glances in a quick covert way at MRS PETERS.)

²⁵ MRS PETERS Well, not now. They’re superstitious, you know. They leave.

²⁶ COUNTY ATTORNEY (to SHERIFF PETERS, continuing an interrupted conversation) No sign at all of anyone having come from the outside. Their own rope. Now let’s go up again and go over it piece by piece. (they start upstairs) It would have to have been someone who knew just the—

²⁷ (MRS PETERS sits down. The two women sit there not looking at one another, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding back. When they talk now it is in the manner of feeling their way over strange ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as if they can not help saying it.)

²⁸ MRS HALE She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty box.

²⁹ MRS PETERS (in a whisper) When I was a girl—my kitten—there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes—and before I could get there—(covers her face an instant) If they hadn’t held me back I would have—(catches herself, looks upstairs where steps are heard, falters weakly)—hurt him.

³⁰ MRS HALE (with a slow look around her) I wonder how it would seem never to have had any children around, (pause) No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird—a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too.

³¹ MRS PETERS (moving uneasily) We don’t know who killed the bird.

³² MRS HALE I knew John Wright.

³³ MRS PETERS It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope around his neck that choked the life out of him.

³⁴ MRS HALE His neck. Choked the life out of him.

³⁵ (Her hand goes out and rests on the bird-cage.)

³⁶ MRS PETERS (with rising voice) We don’t know who killed him. We don’t know.

³⁷ MRS HALE (her own feeling not interrupted) If there’d been years and years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful—still, after the bird was still.

³⁸ MRS PETERS (something within her speaking) I know what stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died—after he was two years old, and me with no other then—

44. In paragraph 3, Mrs. Hale’s description of John Wright primarily suggests that he was (A) generous in public but violent when he had been drinking (B) outwardly respectable but cold and harsh to live with (C) dishonest in business but kind to his wife at home (D) widely disliked in town because of his unpaid debts
45. The simile “Like a raw wind that gets to the bone” (paragraph 3) serves primarily to (A) describe the harsh winter climate of the region where the Wrights farmed (B) suggest that Wright suffered from a lingering illness (C) convey the chilling, penetrating effect of Wright’s manner on others (D) foreshadow a storm that will interrupt the investigation
46. Mrs. Hale’s observation that Minnie “was kind of like a bird herself—real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery” (paragraph 8) is significant chiefly because it (A) links Minnie to the bird, inviting the audience to connect their fates (B) shows that Mrs. Hale believes Minnie was far too weak to commit any crime (C) reveals that Minnie kept birds for company throughout her life (D) suggests that Mrs. Hale envied Minnie’s beauty when they were young
47. The stage direction in paragraph 8 (“as if struck by a happy thought and relieved to get back to everyday things”) indicates that Mrs. Hale (A) has forgotten why she came to the Wrights’ farmhouse in the first place (B) has concluded that Minnie is innocent (C) wants to impress Mrs. Peters with her generosity (D) retreats from a painful thought into practical domestic concerns
48. The discovery in paragraphs 11–17 builds tension chiefly through (A) a lengthy speech in which Mrs. Hale explains her suspicions about Minnie (B) a staged flashback that shows the audience what happened on the night of the murder (C) halting, broken-off statements that delay full recognition of what the box holds (D) a heated argument between the two women over whether they should open the box
49. The dashes in Mrs. Peters’s line “Somebody—wrung—its—neck” (paragraph 17) primarily suggest (A) her eagerness to report the discovery to the sheriff as soon as possible (B) her slow, horrified grasp of the violence the bird’s condition implies (C) her uncertainty about whether the bird is really dead (D) her physical exhaustion after a long day of work
50. Mrs. Peters’s reply “We think she was going to—knot it” (paragraph 20) is ironic primarily because (A) its harmless surface meaning hides the women’s new knowledge of how Wright died (B) Mrs. Peters has actually decided that Minnie meant to quilt it, not knot it (C) the County Attorney has already secretly found the dead bird hidden in the pretty box (D) Mrs. Peters has never done any quilting or sewing of her own at home
51. The County Attorney’s remarks in paragraphs 19–23 characterize him as (A) suspicious of the women and determined to search their belongings (B) sympathetic to Minnie and reluctant to pursue the case (C) confused by the evidence and ready to abandon the investigation (D) condescending toward the women and blind to what is in front of him
52. Mrs. Peters’s answer about the cat in paragraph 25 (“Well, not now. They’re superstitious, you know. They leave.”) most clearly shows her (A) revealing her own lifelong fear of cats to the County Attorney and the sheriff (B) backing up Mrs. Hale’s evasive answer instead of revealing their discovery (C) correcting Mrs. Hale’s mistaken account of what happened to the missing bird (D) trying to shift the men’s suspicion onto one of the Wrights’ neighbors
53. The stage direction in paragraph 27 marks a shift from (A) the women’s hurried concealment to their hesitant, private reckoning (B) the women’s open disagreement about Minnie to their shared contempt for her (C) a comic interlude to an open, angry confrontation between the women and the men (D) a present-tense scene to a staged flashback showing the crime as it happened
54. Mrs. Peters’s memories of her kitten (paragraph 29) and of her first baby (paragraph 38) chiefly serve to (A) explain why the sheriff chose his wife to accompany him to the Wrights’ farmhouse (B) show that she secretly blames herself for what happened in the house that night (C) show that her own experiences help her understand Minnie’s rage and loneliness (D) demonstrate that she, unlike Mrs. Hale, has never known any real hardship
55. Which of the following best describes the significance of the bird in the passage as a whole? (A) It proves to the men that an outsider entered the house on the night of the crime. (B) It shows that Minnie neglected her household duties before the crime. (C) It is a comic detail that relieves the tension of the investigation. (D) It stands for Minnie’s silenced spirit and supplies a motive only the women see.

Question 1 — Poetry Analysis

In Claude McKay’s poem “Flame-Heart,” published in 1922, the speaker, who has been away for ten years from the tropical place where he grew up, tries to recall the seasons and childhood pleasures of the place he left. Read the poem carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how McKay uses literary elements and techniques to convey the speaker’s complex experience of remembering a childhood home that is partly lost to him.

• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation.
• Select and use evidence to support your line of reasoning.
• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

Flame-Heart

So much have I forgotten in ten years,
So much in ten brief years! I have forgot
What time the purple apples come to juice,
And what month brings the shy forget-me-not.
⁵ I have forgot the special, startling season
Of the pimento’s flowering and fruiting;
What time of year the ground doves brown the fields
And fill the noonday with their curious fluting.
I have forgotten much, but still remember
¹⁰ The poinsettia’s red, blood-red in warm December.

I still recall the honey-fever grass,
But cannot recollect the high days when
We rooted them out of the ping-wing path
To stop the mad bees in the rabbit pen.
¹⁵ I often try to think in what sweet month
The languid painted ladies used to dapple
The yellow by-road mazing from the main,
Sweet with the golden threads of the rose-apple.
I have forgotten—strange—but quite remember
²⁰ The poinsettia’s red, blood-red in warm December.

What weeks, what months, what time of the mild year
We cheated school to have our fling at tops?
What days our wine-thrilled bodies pulsed with joy
Feasting upon blackberries in the copse?
²⁵ Oh some I know! I have embalmed the days,
Even the sacred moments when we played,
All innocent of passion, uncorrupt,
At noon and evening in the flame-heart’s shade.
We were so happy, happy, I remember,
³⁰ Beneath the poinsettia’s red in warm December.

Question 2 — Prose Fiction Analysis

The following excerpt is from The Weather Side, a 2019 novel by Clare Dunstan, a fictional writer created for this 7ESL practice test. In this passage, the narrator, a sixteen-year-old girl, helps her father, a commercial fisherman, scrape and repaint the family’s fishing boat before he sells it. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Dunstan uses literary elements and techniques to portray the complex character of the narrator’s father.

• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation.
• Select and use evidence to support your line of reasoning.
• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

from The Weather Side

¹ My father believed that a boat should leave you the way it came to you, which was clean. He said this on the first Saturday in April, standing in the boatyard with a scraper in one hand, as if it were a law of physics rather than something he had just made up. The Ruth Ellen sat on her cradle above us, her hull streaked with rust and green scum, her name half gone at the stern. A man from Portsmouth was coming in two weeks to look at her. “Nobody buys a boat that looks sorry for itself,” my father said, and handed me the scraper.

² So we scraped. We scraped for three weekends, down through the white, down through a layer of blue I had never seen, down to a gray primer that my father said was older than me. He worked the way he did everything, in silence broken by instructions. Not like that. Flatter. Let the tool do it. When I gouged the planking he did not yell; he only set his hand over mine and pushed, and the paint came away in one long curl, and then he took his hand back and put it in his pocket as though it had done something without asking him.

³ I was sixteen and I had opinions. I told him the Portsmouth man would repaint her anyway, that people who bought boats liked to make them their own. I told him it was stupid to spend forty dollars a gallon for somebody else. He listened to all of it, nodding, sanding the curve of the bow. “You’re probably right,” he said, and kept sanding.

⁴ He had fished her for twenty-two years. He had fished her through the bad seasons after the quotas, through the winter my mother moved to Albany, through the autumn he broke two fingers in the winch and taped them together and went out anyway. He never talked about any of it. What he talked about was the weather, and the Red Sox, and whether the Portsmouth man would try to knock him down on the price. “He’ll find something,” he said. “They always find something.” Then he went over the keel again with his palm, feeling for anything the man might find.

⁵ On the last Sunday we painted. The enamel went on thick and bright, and the smell of it filled my head until the whole yard seemed to float. My father cut in along the waterline with a brush no wider than his thumb, holding his breath on the long strokes. For a while the only sounds were the gulls and the small wet kiss of the brush. When he finished the port side, he stepped back, and I watched his face do something I did not have a name for then. It was the look of a man admiring a thing and saying goodbye to it in the same breath, and not wanting either one to show.

⁶ “She came up nice,” I said.

⁷ “She was always nice,” he said. “She just needed somebody to notice.”

⁸ The name was last. He had bought a stencil kit, but when I opened it he shook his head and took out a jar of black paint and the thin sable brush that used to live in the kitchen drawer, the one my mother had used for her birthday cards. He painted the letters freehand, one at a time, R and u and t and h, his tongue at the corner of his mouth like a boy’s. It took him most of an hour. When he got to Ellen his hand stopped above the hull for so long that I thought something was wrong with him.

⁹ “You want me to do it?” I asked.

¹⁰ “No,” he said. “I’ve got it.” And he did it, every letter, straighter than the stencil could have made them.

¹¹ Afterward we sat on overturned buckets and looked at her. The sun was low and the new white took the color of it, so that the whole hull glowed a pale orange, like something lit from inside. My father wiped the brush on a rag, over and over, long after it was clean.

¹² “He’ll probably change the name,” I said. I don’t know why I said it. I think I wanted him to be angry, so that one of us would be.

¹³ My father considered this. He folded the rag into a square and then into a smaller square. “That’s his right,” he said. “It’ll be his boat.” He stood, and his knees cracked, and he put a hand on the hull, flat, the way you would on the shoulder of someone taller than you. “But she’ll know,” he said, and went to get the truck.

Question 3 — Literary Argument

Many works of literature feature characters who are torn between what they owe their families and what they owe themselves. The expectations of parents, siblings, or a family’s traditions may pull against a character’s own desires, convictions, or sense of identity, and the choice the character makes—or refuses to make—can reveal a great deal about the values at stake in the work.

Either from your own reading or from the list below, choose a work of fiction in which a character must choose between loyalty to family and loyalty to self. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how the character’s choice contributes to an interpretation of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation.
• Provide evidence to support your line of reasoning.
• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

Suggested works: All My Sons, Americanah, Antigone, The Awakening, Beloved, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The Brothers Karamazov, Brown Girl, Brownstones, Ceremony, The Color Purple, Death of a Salesman, East of Eden, Everything I Never Told You, Fences, The Glass Menagerie, The God of Small Things, The Grapes of Wrath, Great Expectations, Hamlet, Homegoing, House Made of Dawn, Jane Eyre, The Joy Luck Club, King Lear, The Kite Runner, Little Fires Everywhere, Little Women, Long Day’s Journey into Night, The Mill on the Floss, The Namesake, Pachinko, The Poisonwood Bible, Pride and Prejudice, Purple Hibiscus, A Raisin in the Sun, The Remains of the Day, Romeo and Juliet, The Round House, Salvage the Bones, Song of Solomon, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Things Fall Apart, Washington Square.