Each year I am reminded of our blessings as I view the ______ of food abundant at our table.

• A. plethora
• B. mixture
• C. decadence
• D. gluttony
• E. bounty

Had Einstein not been such a ______ mathematician, many of our engineering Accomplishments may
have taken many years before even reaching the drawing board.

• A. qualified
• B. prosaic
• C. superb
• D. prodigious
• E. prophetic

Once the newspaper ______ their sources were flawed, they ______ the target of their article by
issuing a full retraction.

• A. realized. . .exonerated
• B. understood. . .haranged
• C. disproved. . .comforted
• D. suspected. . .blasted
• E. rejected. . .issued

Musical notes, like all sounds, are a result of the sound waves created by movement, like the rush of air
through a trumpet. Musical notes are very regular sound waves. The qualities of these waves --how much
they displace molecules, and how often they do so--give the note its particular sound. How much a sound
wave displaces molecules affects the volume of the note. How frequently a sound wave reaches your ear
determines whether the note is high or low pitched. When scientists describe how high or low a sound is,
they use a numerical measurement of its frequency, such as "440 vibrations per second," rather than the
letters musicians use.
In this passage, musical notes are used primarily to

• A. explain the connection between number and letter names for sounds
• B. illustrate the difference between human-produced and non human produced sound.
• C. demonstrate the difference between musical sound and all other sound.
• D. provide an example of sound properties common to all sound.
• E. convey the difference between musical pitch and frequency pitch.

But the Dust-Bin was going down then, and your father took but little, excepting from a liquid point of view.
Your mother's object in those visits was of a house-keeping character, and you was set on to whistle your
father out. Sometimes he came out, but generally not. Come or not come, however, all that part of his
existence which was unconnected with open Waitering was kept a close secret, and was acknowledged
by your mother to be a close secret, and you and your mother flitted about the court, close secrets both of
you, and would scarcely have confessed under torture that you know your father, or that your father had
any name than Dick (which wasn't his name, though he was never known by any other), or that he had
kith or kin or chick or child. Perhaps the attraction of this mystery, combined with your father's having a
damp compartment, to himself, behind a leaky cistern, at the Dust Bin, a sort of a cellar compartment, with
a sink in it, and a smell, and a plate-rack, and a bottle-rack, and three windows that didn't match each
other or anything else, and no daylight, caused your young mind to feel convinced that you must grow up
to be a Waiter too; but you did feel convinced of it, and so did all your brothers, down to your sister. Every
one of you felt convinced that you was born to the Waitering.
At this stage of your career, what was your feelings one day when your father came home to your mother
in open broad daylight, of itself an act of Madness on the part of a Waiter, and took to his bed (leastwise,
your mother and family's bed), with the statement that his eyes were devilled kidneys. Physicians being in
vain, your father expired, after repeating at intervals for a day and a night, when gleams of reason and old
business fitfully illuminated his being, "Two and two is five. And three is sixpence." Interred in the
parochial department of the neighbouring churchyard, and accompanied to the grave by as many Waiters
of long standing as could spare the morning time from their soiled glasses (namely, one), your bereaved
form was attired in a white neckankecher [sic], and you was took on from motives of benevolence at The
George and Gridiron, theatrical and supper. Here, supporting nature on what you found in the
plates(which was as it happened, and but too often thoughtlessly, immersed in mustard), and on what you
found in the glasses (which rarely went beyond driblets and lemon), by night you dropped asleep standing,
till you was cuffed awake, and by day was set to polishing every individual article in the coffee-room. Your
couch being sawdust; your counterpane being ashes of cigars. Here, frequently hiding a heavy heart
under the smart tie of your white neck ankecher (or correctly speaking lower down and more to the left),
you picked up the rudiments of knowledge from an extra, by the name of Bishops, and by calling
plate-washer, and gradually elevating your mind with chalk on the back of the corner-box partition, until
such time as you used the inkstand when it was out of hand, attained to manhood, and to be the Waiter
that you find yourself.
I could wish here to offer a few respectful words on behalf of the calling so long the calling of myself and
family, and the public interest in which is but too often very limited. We are not generally understood. No,
we are not. Allowance enough is not made for us. For, say that we ever show a little drooping listlessness
of spirits, or what might be termed indifference or apathy. Put it to yourself what would your own state of
mind be, if you was one of an enormous family every member of which except you was always greedy,
and in a hurry. Put it to yourself that you was regularly replete with animal food at the slack hours of one in
the day and again at nine p.m., and that the repleter [sic] you was, the more voracious all your
fellow-creatures came in. Put it to yourself that it was your business, when your digestion was well on, to
take a personal interest and sympathy in a hundred gentlemen fresh and fresh (say, for the sake of
argument, only a hundred), whose imaginations was given up to grease and fat and gravy and melted
butter, and abandoned to questioning you about cuts of this, and dishes of that, each of 'em going on as if
him and you and the bill of fare was alone in the world.
The discussion of visits to father's compartment in 1st paragraph suggests that

• A. suitable income made it possible to maintain two well-furnished homes.
• B. there was little romance between husband and wife.
• C. there was not the intention of hiding a familial relationship.
• D. the family bonds were strong.
• E. the family often met to perform routine tasks as a family.