Instructions: There are 2 passages in this activity.

Each passage is accompanied by several

questions. When time runs out, the researchers will be collecting the passages and you’ll be

given another set of paper for the test. Encircle the best answer to each question.

Once the supper table was cleared, the dishes washed, and the flowers in the garden

watered, my grandparents would set to work on the Novels for Your Reading Pleasure and

Entertainment series. They worked at the dining table, pulling the ceiling lamp down and

reading and editing the manuscripts, the page proofs, and the bound galleys. Sometimes they

did some writing as well: they insisted that each volume conclude with a brief didactic essay,

and when none was forthcoming, they supplied it themselves. They wrote about the

importance of toothbrushing, the battle against snoring, the principles of beekeeping, the

history of the postal system. They also wrote passages in the novels when they found them

awkward, unbelievable, or immodest or when they felt they could make a better point. The

publisher gave them a free hand.

When I was old enough to stay up after the blackbird bad finished its song, I was

allowed to sit with them. The light of the lamp just above the table, the dark of the room

surrounding it-- I loved it. I would read or learn a poem or write a letter to my mother or an

entry in my summer diary. Whenever I interrupted my grandparents to ask a question, I got a

friendly answer. I was afraid to ask too many: I could sense their concentration. The remarks

they exchanged were sparse, and my questions sounded garrulous. So I read, wrote, and

studied in silence. From time to time, I lifted my head cautiously, so as not to be noticed, and

observed them. Grandfather, his dark eyes now riveted on the book work before him, now

gazing out, lost into the distance, and Grandmother, who did everything with a light touch,
reading with a smile and masking corrections with a quick and easy hand. Yet the work must

have been much harder on her than on him: while he cared only for history books and had a

neutral, objective relationship to the novels they dealt with, she loved literature, fiction as

well as verse, and had a sure feeling for it; she must have suffered from having to spend so

much time on such banal texts.

I was not allowed to read them. If I grew curious when they talked about one or

another novel, I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to read it: there was a better

novel or a better novella on the subject by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer or Gottfried Keller or

another classic Swiss writer. Grandmother would then get up and bring me the better book.

When they gave me the extra copies of the bound galleys to take home as scrap paper,

they made a point of reminding me not to read them. They would not have given them to me

at all had paper not been so expensive at the time and my mother's income so low. Everything

I did not have to hand in to the teacher I wrote on the back of the bound galleys: Latin, Greek,

and English vocabulary words, first drafts of compositions, plot summaries, descriptions of

famous paintings, world capitals, rivers and mountains, important dates, and notes to

classmates a few desks away. I liked the thick pads of thick paper, and because I was a good

boy I refrained from reading the printed sides of the pages for 60 years.

During the first few summers my grandparents found the life I was leading with them

too isolated, and tried to bring me into contact with children my own age. They knew their

neighbors and by talking to a number of families arranged for me to be invited to birthday

parties, outings, and visits to the local swimming pool. Since it took a lot of doing and they
did it out of love, I did not dare resist, but I was always happy when the event was over and I

could return to them. Friendships might have grown out of these contacts had we seen one

another more often, but the Swiss children’s summer holidays began soon after I arrived, and

they would disperse, returning only shortly after my departure.

So I spent my summer holidays without playmates my own age; I spent them taking

the same walks to the lake and hikes through a ravine, around a pond, and up a hill with a

view of the lake and the Alps; I spent them going on the same excursions to the Rapperswill

fortress, Ufenau Island, the cathedral, the museums. These hikes and excursions were as

much a part of the summer as harvesting apples, berries, lettuce, and vegetables. hoeing beds,

weeding, snipping wilted flowers, trimming hedges, mowing grass, tending the compost

keeping the watering can filled, and doing the watering. Just as these operations recurred

naturally, so the recurrence of the other activities struck me as natural. The never-changing

evenings at the table under the lamp thus belonged to the natural rhythm of summer.
1. It can be most reasonably inferred from the passage that the narrator felt that the summers

with his grandparents were:

a) stiflingly quiet

b) frustratingly busy

c) highly energizing

d) enjoyable routine

2. It can most reasonably be inferred that the narrator’s grandparents, wherein they thought

they could make a better point, believed that the Novels for Your Reading Pleasure and

Entertainment series consisted of texts that:

a) were essential leisure reading for educated people

b) were mediocre in quality

c) should have been taught in classrooms

d) used sophisticated language

3. Details in the passage most strongly suggest that during the school year, the narrator lived

with:

a) his grandparents only

b) his mother but not his grandparents

c) his grandparents and mother in the same house

d) other students at a private boarding school

Reading Pleasure and Entertainment series as:

a) writing the novels and most of the essays

b) editing the novels and writing each of the essays

c) editing the novels and essays in addition to writing an occasional essay

d) reading the novels in order to write essays that analyzed them

5. The narrator speculates that while his grandmother worked with the Novels for Your

Reading Pleasure and Entertainment series, her feelings about the texts contrasted with:

a) her written comments on the galleys

b) her passion about working in the garden

c) the smile that she wore on her face

d) the comments about the series that she directed to the narrator’s grandfather

6. The narrator’s reaction to his grandparents’ arrangements for him to spend time with other

families can be best described as:

a) annoyance, because he disliked the neighbors’ children

b) relief, because he found the time with his grandparents to be isolating

c) happiness, because he struggled with making friends on his own

d) acceptance, because he felt he owed his grandparents for their efforts

7. “Sometimes they did some writing as well: they insisted that each volume conclude with a

brief didactic essay, and when none was forthcoming, they supplied it themselves.” As it is

used in line 10, the word forthcoming most nearly means:

a) provided

b) willing
 c) candid

d) likeable

8. Which of the following statements best captures how the narrator portrays his

grandparents’ attitudes toward literature?

a) His grandfather felt indifferent about literature, while his grandmother had an

emotional connection to it

b) His grandfather was passionate about reading literature, while his grandmother

preferred to edit and write it

c) Both of his grandparents believed that literature should be read in school under the

guidance of a teacher

d) Both of his grandparents wanted to write their own literature because they considered

most novels flawed

9. The main point of the third paragraph, wherein the narrator’s grandmother would bring

him another book when he grew curious about their novels, is that the narrator’s

grandmother:

a) Limited her own reading to classic books by Swiss authors

b) Insisted that the narrator read books other than the ones included in the Novels

for Your Reading Pleasure and Entertainment series

c) Turned toward books by Swiss authors as sources for her essays

d) Referenced as many Swiss authors as possible in her work on the Novels for Your

Reading Pleasure and Entertainment series

10. The narrator indicates that he read the texts on the bound galleys:

a) after his grandparents went to bed at night

b) whenever his grandparents asked him to help them edit

d) when he was years older