TEAS Reading Practice Test Related

This excerpt is from an analysis of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

Wilde's play, "The Importance of Being Earnest", is a satire that targets the absurdities and trivialities of the British aristocracy. The play's subtitle, 'A Trivial Comedy for Serious People,' aptly summarizes Wilde's intentions. Through clever dialogue, puns, and a healthy dose of irony, Wilde exposes the superficiality and hypocrisy of the upper classes.

The characters in the play, such as Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, lead double lives, reflecting the dual nature of their social standing. The use of 'Bunburying,' a term coined by Wilde, illustrates the lengths to which these characters go to escape their social obligations and lead a life of deceit. The play also pokes fun at the institution of marriage, which is depicted as a social contract rather than a romantic union.

For example, Lady Bracknell's interrogation of Jack regarding his suitability as a husband for her daughter Gwendolen reveals the transactional nature of marriage in the society Wilde is critiquing. Wilde's portrayal of the aristocracy is not merely critical, but also humorous, making The Importance of Being Earnest one of his most beloved and enduring works.

Why is The Importance of Being Earnest considered one of Wilde's most enduring works?

• A. Because it offers a deep and serious critique of society.
• B. Because it humorously exposes the flaws of the upper class.
• C. Because it captures the essence of Wilde's witty and satirical style.
• D. Because it reflects Wilde's deep personal struggles with society.

This excerpt is from The Life-Story of Insects by Geo H. Carpenter.

Insects as a whole are preeminently creatures of the land and the air. This is shown not only by the possession of wings by a vast majority of the class, but by the mode of breathing to which reference has already been made, a system of branching air-tubes carrying atmospheric air with its combustion-supporting oxygen to all the insect's tissues. The air gains access to these tubes through a number of paired air-holes or spiracles, arranged segmentally in series.

It is of great interest to find that, nevertheless, a number of insects spend much of their time under water. This is true of not a few in the perfect winged state, as for example aquatic beetles and water-bugs ('boatmen' and 'scorpions') which have some way of protecting their spiracles when submerged, and, possessing usually the power of flight, can pass on occasion from pond or stream to upper air. But it is advisable in connection with our present subject to dwell especially on some insects that remain continually under water till they are ready to undergo their final molt and attain the winged state, which they pass entirely in the air.

The preparatory instars of such insects are aquatic; the adult instar is aerial. All may-flies, dragon-flies, and caddis-flies, many beetles and two-winged flies, and a few moths thus divide their life-story between the water and the air. For the present we confine attention to the Stoneflies, the May-flies, and the Dragon-flies, three well-known orders of insects respectively called by systematists the Plecopteran, the Ephemeroptera, and the Odonata.

In the case of many insects that have aquatic larvae, the latter are provided with some arrangement for enabling them to reach atmospheric air through the surface-film of the water. But the larva of a stone-fly, a dragon-fly, or a may-fly is adapted more completely than these for aquatic life; it can, by means of gills of some kind, breathe the air dissolved in water.

Which of the statements reflect information that one could reasonably infer based on the author's tone?

• A. The author's tone is persuasive and aims to call the audience to action.
• B. The author's tone is passionate due to excitement over the subject and personal narrative.
• C. The author's tone is informative and exhibits interest in the subject of the study.
• D. The author's tone is somber, depicting some anger at the state of insect larvae.

This excerpt is an adaptation of Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World".

My gentleness and good behavior had gained so far on the emperor and his court, and indeed upon the army and people in general, that I began to conceive hopes of getting my liberty in a short time. I took all possible methods to cultivate this favorable disposition. The natives came, by degrees, to be less apprehensive of any danger from me. I would sometimes lie down, and let five or six of them dance on my hand; and at last the boys and girls would venture to come and play at hide-and-seek in my hair.

I had now made good progress in understanding and speaking the language. The emperor had a mind one day to entertain me with several of the country shows, wherein they exceed all nations I have known, both for dexterity and magnificence. I was diverted with none so much as that of the rope-dancers, performed upon a slender white thread, extended about two feet, and twelve inches from the ground, Upon which I shall desire liberty, with the reader's patience, to enlarge a little.

This diversion is only practiced by those persons who are candidates for great employments, and high favor at court. They are trained in this art from their youth, and are not always of noble birth, or liberal education. When a great office is vacant, either by death or disgrace (which often happens,) five or six of those candidates petition the emperor to entertain his majesty and the court with a dance on the rope; and whoever jumps the highest, without falling, succeeds in the office.

Very often the chief ministers themselves are commanded to show their skill, and to convince the emperor that they have not lost their faculty. FlyNap, the treasurer, is allowed to cut a caper on the straight rope, at least an inch higher than any other lord in the whole empire. I have seen him do the somersault several times together, upon a trencher fixed on a rope which is no thicker than a common packthread in England. My friend Reldresal, principal secretary for private affairs, is, in my opinion, if I am not partial, the second after the treasurer; the rest of the great officers are much upon a par.

When students study character development, setting, and plot, what are they studying?

• A. Word analysis
• B. Points of view
• C. Literary analysis of fictional texts
• D. Fluency

This excerpt is an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

"Did you ever come across a prot of his one Hyde?" He asked. "Hyde?" repeated Lanyon. "No. Never heard of him. Since my time." That was the amount of information that the lawyer carried back with him to the great, dark bed on which he tossed to and from until the small hours of the morning began to grow large. It was a night of little ease to his toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness and besieged by questions. Six o'clock struck on the bells of the church that was so conveniently near to Mr. Utterson's dwelling, and still he was digging at the problem.

Hitherto it had touched him on the intellectual side alone; but now his imagination also was engaged, or rather enslaved; and as he lay and tossed in the gross darkness of the night in the curtained room, Mr. Enfield's tale went by before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. He would be aware of the great field of lamps in a nocturnal city; then of the figure of a man walking swiftly; then of a child running from the doctor's; and then these met, and that human Juggernaut trod the child down and passed on regardless of her screams. Or else he would see a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep, dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and then the door of that room would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked apart, the sleeper recalled, and, lo! There would stand by his side a figure to whom power was given, and even at that dead hour he must rise and do its bidding.

The figure in these two phases haunted the lawyer all night; and if at any time he dozed over, it was but to see it glide more stealthily through sleeping houses, or move the more swiftly, and still the more smoothly, even to dizziness, through wider labyrinths of lamp lighted city, and at every street corner crush a child and leave her screaming. And still the figure had no face by which he might know it; even in his dreams it had no face, or one that baffled him and melted before his eyes; and thus there it was that there sprung up and grew apace in the lawyer's mind a singularly strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity to behold the features of the real Mr. Hyde.

If he could but once set eyes on him, he thought the mystery would lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, as was the habit of mysterious things when well examined. He might see a reason for his friend's strange preference or bondage, and even for the startling clauses of the will. And at least it would be a face worth seeing: the face of a man who was without bowels of mercy: a face which had but to show itself to raise up, in the mind of the unimpressionable Enfield, a spirit of enduring hatred.

What can one reasonably conclude from the final comment of this passage? 'If he be Mr. Hyde,' he had thought, 'I should be Mr. Seek.'

• A. The speaker is considering changing names.
• B. The speaker is experiencing a determination to find Hyde.
• C. The speaker has mistakenly been looking for the wrong person.
• D. The speaker intends to continue to look for Hyde.

This excerpt is from The Life-Story of Insects by Geo H. Carpenter.

Insects as a whole are preeminently creatures of the land and the air. This is shown not only by the possession of wings by a vast majority of the class, but by the mode of breathing to which reference has already been made, a system of branching air-tubes carrying atmospheric air with its combustion-supporting oxygen to all the insect's tissues. The air gains access to these tubes through a number of paired air-holes or spiracles, arranged segmentally in series.

It is of great interest to find that, nevertheless, a number of insects spend much of their time under water. This is true of not a few in the perfect winged state, as for example aquatic beetles and water-bugs ('boatmen' and 'scorpions') which have some way of protecting their spiracles when submerged, and, possessing usually the power of flight, can pass on occasion from pond or stream to upper air. But it is advisable in connection with our present subject to dwell especially on some insects that remain continually under water till they are ready to undergo their final molt and attain the winged state, which they pass entirely in the air.

The preparatory instars of such insects are aquatic; the adult instar is aerial. All may-flies, dragon-flies, and caddis-flies, many beetles and two-winged flies, and a few moths thus divide their life-story between the water and the air. For the present we confine attention to the Stoneflies, the May-flies, and the Dragon-flies, three well-known orders of insects respectively called by systematists the Plecopteran, the Ephemeroptera, and the Odonata.

In the case of many insects that have aquatic larvae, the latter are provided with some arrangement for enabling them to reach atmospheric air through the surface-film of the water. But the larva of a stone-fly, a dragon-fly, or a may-fly is adapted more completely than these for aquatic life; it can, by means of gills of some kind, breathe the air dissolved in water.

What is the purpose of the first paragraph in relation to the second paragraph?

• A. The first paragraph serves as a cause and the second paragraph serves as an effect.
• B. The first paragraph serves as a contrast to the second.
• C. The first paragraph is a description for the argument in the second paragraph.
• D. The first and second paragraphs are merely presented in a sequence.