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Test Prep PSAT Exam Questions
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- Exam: Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test: Math, Reading
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Total Questions: 1265
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Updated On: Nov 11, 2024
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Question 1
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For the last hour I have been watching President Lincoln and General McClellan as they sat together in earnestconversation on the deck of a steamer closer to us. I am thankful, I am happy, that the President has come –has sprung across the dreadful intervening Washington, and come to see and hear and judge for his own wiseand noble self. While we were at dinner someone said, “Why, there’s the President!” and he proved to be justarriving on the Ariel, at the end of the wharf. I stationed myself at once to watch for the coming of McClellan.The President stood on deck with a glass, with which, after a time, he inspected our boat, waving hishandkerchief to us. My eyes and soul were in the direction of the general headquarters, over which the greatballoon was slowly descending How does the author feel toward Lincoln?
Answer: A
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Question 2
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Adapted from “Humming-Birds: As Illustrating the Luxuriance of Tropical Nature” in Tropical Nature, and Other
Essays by Alfred Russel Wallace (1878)
The food of hummingbirds has been a matter of much controversy. All the early writers down to Buffon believed
that they lived solely on the nectar of flowers, but since that time, every close observer of their habits maintains
that they feed largely, and in some cases wholly, on insects. Azara observed them on the La Plata in winter
taking insects out of the webs of spiders at a time and place where there were no flowers. Bullock, in Mexico,
declares that he saw them catch small butterflies, and that he found many kinds of insects in their stomachs.
Waterton made a similar statement. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of specimens have since been
dissected by collecting naturalists, and in almost every instance their stomachs have been found full of insects,
sometimes, but not generally, mixed with a proportion of honey. Many of them in fact may be seen catching
gnats and other small insects just like fly-catchers, sitting on a dead twig over water, darting off for a time in the
air, and then returning to the twig. Others come out just at dusk, and remain on the wing, now stationary, now
darting about with the greatest rapidity, imitating in a limited space the evolutions of the goatsuckers, and
evidently for the same end and purpose. Mr. Gosse also remarks, “All the hummingbirds have more or less the
habit, when in flight, of pausing in the air and throwing the body and tail into rapid and odd contortions. This is
most observable in the Polytmus, from the effect that such motions have on the long feathers of the tail. That
the object of these quick turns is the capture of insects, I am sure, having watched one thus engaged pretty
close to me.”
How does the quotation from Mr. Gosse relate to the evidence provided by other scientists earlier in the
passage?
Answer: A
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Adapted from “Humming-Birds: As Illustrating the Luxuriance of Tropical Nature” in Tropical Nature, and Other
Essays by Alfred Russel Wallace (1878)
The food of hummingbirds has been a matter of much controversy. All the early writers down to Buffon believed
that they lived solely on the nectar of flowers, but since that time, every close observer of their habits maintains
that they feed largely, and in some cases wholly, on insects. Azara observed them on the La Plata in winter
taking insects out of the webs of spiders at a time and place where there were no flowers. Bullock, in Mexico,
declares that he saw them catch small butterflies, and that he found many kinds of insects in their stomachs.
Waterton made a similar statement. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of specimens have since been
dissected by collecting naturalists, and in almost every instance their stomachs have been found full of insects,
sometimes, but not generally, mixed with a proportion of honey. Many of them in fact may be seen catching
gnats and other small insects just like fly-catchers, sitting on a dead twig over water, darting off for a time in the
air, and then returning to the twig. Others come out just at dusk, and remain on the wing, now stationary, now
darting about with the greatest rapidity, imitating in a limited space the evolutions of the goatsuckers, and
evidently for the same end and purpose. Mr. Gosse also remarks, “All the hummingbirds have more or less the
habit, when in flight, of pausing in the air and throwing the body and tail into rapid and odd contortions. This is
most observable in the Polytmus, from the effect that such motions have on the long feathers of the tail. That
the object of these quick turns is the capture of insects, I am sure, having watched one thus engaged pretty
close to me.”
How does the quotation from Mr. Gosse relate to the evidence provided by other scientists earlier in the
passage?
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Question 3
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A right triangle has two sides, 9 and x, and a hypotenuse of 15. What is x?
Answer: D
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A right triangle has two sides, 9 and x, and a hypotenuse of 15. What is x?
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Question 4
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7 1/2 – 5 3/8 =
Answer: C
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7 1/2 – 5 3/8 =
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Question 5
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(1) On my nineteenth birthday, I began my trip to Mali, West Africa. (2) Some 24 hours later I arrived in
Bamako, the capital of Mali. (3) The sun had set and the night was starless. (4) One of the officials from the
literacy program I was working was there to meet me. (5) After the melee in the baggage claim, we proceeded
to his car. (6) Actually, it was a truck. (7) I was soon to learn that most people in Mali that had automobiles
actually had trucks or SUVs. (8) Apparently, there not just a convenience but a necessity when you live on the
edge of the Sahara. (9) I threw my bags into the bed of the truck, and hopped in to the back of the cab. (10)
Riding to my welcome dinner, I stared out the windows of the truck and took in the city. (11) It was truly a
foreign land to me, and I knew that I was an alien there. (12) “What am I doing here?” I thought.
(13) It is hard to believe but seven months later I returned to the same airport along the same road that I had
traveled on that first night in Bamako, and my perspective on the things that I saw had completely changed.
(14) The landscape that had once seemed so desolate and lifeless now was the homeland of people that I had
come to love. (15) When I looked back at the capital, Bamako, fast receding on the horizon, I did not see a city
foreboding and wild in its foreignness. (16) I saw the city which held so many dear friends. (17) I saw tea
drinking sessions going late into the night.
(18) I saw the hospitality and open-heartedness of the people of Mali. (19) The second time, everything looked
completely different, and I knew that it was I who had changed and not it.
Which of the following is the best way to revise sentence 7 (reproduced below)?
I was soon to learn that most people in Mali that had automobiles actually had trucks or SUVs
Answer: B
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(1) On my nineteenth birthday, I began my trip to Mali, West Africa. (2) Some 24 hours later I arrived in
Bamako, the capital of Mali. (3) The sun had set and the night was starless. (4) One of the officials from the
literacy program I was working was there to meet me. (5) After the melee in the baggage claim, we proceeded
to his car. (6) Actually, it was a truck. (7) I was soon to learn that most people in Mali that had automobiles
actually had trucks or SUVs. (8) Apparently, there not just a convenience but a necessity when you live on the
edge of the Sahara. (9) I threw my bags into the bed of the truck, and hopped in to the back of the cab. (10)
Riding to my welcome dinner, I stared out the windows of the truck and took in the city. (11) It was truly a
foreign land to me, and I knew that I was an alien there. (12) “What am I doing here?” I thought.
(13) It is hard to believe but seven months later I returned to the same airport along the same road that I had
traveled on that first night in Bamako, and my perspective on the things that I saw had completely changed.
(14) The landscape that had once seemed so desolate and lifeless now was the homeland of people that I had
come to love. (15) When I looked back at the capital, Bamako, fast receding on the horizon, I did not see a city
foreboding and wild in its foreignness. (16) I saw the city which held so many dear friends. (17) I saw tea
drinking sessions going late into the night.
(18) I saw the hospitality and open-heartedness of the people of Mali. (19) The second time, everything looked
completely different, and I knew that it was I who had changed and not it.
Which of the following is the best way to revise sentence 7 (reproduced below)?
I was soon to learn that most people in Mali that had automobiles actually had trucks or SUVs