AccelePrep for the ACT Test 2nd Edition Student Text

P OWER U P ! T HE E XCLUSIVE C AMBRIDGE S AMPLE E XAM • 281

In one of his most beautiful passages, Rousseau describes the awakening in him of the literary sense.  —†‡ϐ‹ƒ„Ž‡ –ƒ‹– ‘ˆ †‡ƒ–Š Šƒ†…Ž—‰ ƒŽ™ƒ›• about him, and now in early manhood he believed himself smitten by mortal disease. He asked himself how he might make as much as possible of the interval that remained; and he was not biased by anything in his previous life when he decided that it must be by intellectual excitement. We are all under sentence of death but with ƒ •‘”– ‘ˆ ‹†‡ϐ‹‹–‡ ”‡’”‹‡˜‡Ǣ ™‡ Šƒ˜‡ ƒ ‹–‡”˜ƒŽ and then our place knows us no more. Some spend this interval in listlessness, others in high passions, the wisest—at least among the “children of this world”—in art and song. Our one chance lies in expanding this interval—in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time. Great passions may give us this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which comes naturally to many of us. Only be sure it is passion—that it does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of this wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for art’s sake has most; for art comes to you professing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for the sake of those moments. 21. Which of the following best describes the overall •–”—…–—”‡ ‘ˆ –Š‡ ’ƒ••ƒ‰‡ǫ A. The author raises a question and then provides an answer. B. The author presents a theory, which he then proves. C. The author studies a widely held belief and then rejects it. Ǥ Š‡ ƒ—–Š‘” †‡ϐ‹‡• ƒ –‡” ƒ† –Š‡ provides examples. 22. In the passage, the author uses the word pulsations (line 66) to mean: F. children. G. lives. H. death. J. experiences.

PASSAGE III HUMANITIES: In this passage, the author expresses his opinion regarding the role of philosophy. The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human spirit is to rouse, to startle it into a life of constant and eager observation. Every moment, some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us—and for that moment only. Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself is the end. Only a counted number of pulses are given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see ‹ –Š‡ ƒŽŽ –Šƒ– ‹• –‘ „‡ •‡‡ ‹ –Š‡ „› –Š‡ ϐ‹‡•– •‡•‡•ǫ ‘™ •ŠƒŽŽ ™‡ ’ƒ•• ‘•– “—‹…Ž› ˆ”‘ ’‘‹– to point and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their ’—”‡•– ‡‡”‰›ǫ ‘ „—” ƒŽ™ƒ›• ™‹–Š –Š‹• Šƒ”†ǡ ‰‡Ž‹‡ ϐŽƒ‡ǡ to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and in the meantime, it is only the roughness of the eye that makes any two persons, things, or situations seem alike. While all melts under our feet, we may well catch at any exquisite passion, or any knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange colors, curious odors, or work of the artist’s hands or the faces of one’s friends. Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces of their ways is, on this short day of the frost and sun, to sleep before evening. With this sense of the splendor of our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch. What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions, never acquiescing in a facile orthodoxy. Philosophical theories or ideas, as points of view, instruments of criticism, may help us to gather what might otherwise pass unregarded by us. “Philosophy is the microscope of thought.” The theory or idea or •›•–‡ ™Š‹…Š ”‡“—‹”‡• ‘ˆ —• –Š‡ •ƒ…”‹ϐ‹…‡ ‘ˆ ƒ› ’ƒ”– of this experience, in consideration of some interest into which we cannot enter, or some abstract theory ™‡ Šƒ˜‡ ‘– ‹†‡–‹ϐ‹‡† ™‹–Š ‘—”•‡Ž˜‡•ǡ ‘” ‘ˆ ™Šƒ– ‹• only conventional, has no real claim upon us.

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