DIRECTIONS: There are one passages in this test. The passage is accompanied by several questions. After reading the passage, choose the best answer to each question. You may refer to the passages as often as necessary.
PASSAGE
I often dream about the restaurant where I first met Tian. Late at night, the memory flickers up before me, dim and silent, never changing. I see the simple neon sign that reads “Vermilion Palace.” The drifting snow blows up against the scarlet double doors. I see myself walking toward those doors—a slight, brown girl with hair like an inkbrush, tilted eyes, and a wary mouth.
For my first few months in New York City, I could not stay warm. I wore a heavy coat and wound myself in woolen scarves, but the chill went deep beneath my skin, and the winter wind found every crevice as I walked to the restaurant on numb feet, past the subway stop, the university, and the music school, my gaze fixed on the icy pavement to keep myself from falling. I could not taste my food or feel the softness of my narrow bed. I had been in the city for two months before I even noticed the music school. And then one evening I heard a student practicing. Walking past a basement window, I caught the thread of a violin melody, high and sweet. The sound rose up through a crack in the window and between the safety bars (A); it shimmered through me, a wave of color, blooming past the gray tenements and toward the narrow sky. I drew one cold, sweet breath of air and truly understood that I had arrived in America.
A few days later, I saw Tian. He might have been to the restaurant a dozen times before, but I do not remember seeing him until after the music. I noticed him on a stormy evening near the end of winter. I was standing at the window, watching the falling snow make bright flecks in the headlamps of the taxicabs, when a man appeared in the doorway, carrying a violin case.
“One person,” he said, in confident English. At that time, in 1967, many new Chinese had come to live on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Most of them turned up at the restaurant, sooner or later. But not many spoke English with such ease. He wore a brown felt hat, and his overcoat seemed cut to fit his shoulders; most of the other men seemed content to wear whatever would make do.
“Come with me,” I replied, in Mandarin.
I seated him and poured his tea, looking down at the swirl of leaves in the water. I felt the heat of the steam in my face, the warm steel handle in my hands; I watched the tea leaves drift and slide against the blue and white cup. He thanked me in Chinese. His dark eyes followed me. For the first time, I felt warm.
Before I left Taiwan, my mother had said, “Beware a man whose cheekbones are too high or low. Watch out for one who smiles too much.” Her warnings implied that I had a choice; that these things lay under my control. But when I was a child she had often talked about the Chinese myth that every man and every woman was joined at birth to their mate by an invisible, enchanted thread. With this story, she said that there could be no controlling fate.
The man ordered beef noodle soup and drank it quickly. He had placed his violin case in the opposite chair, upright and facing him. Then he glanced at his watch. He flung down a dollar, seized his coat and violin, and walked out the door. I looked twice to make sure it was true: he had forgotten his hat on the chair.
To this day I don’t know why I kept Tian’s hat. Perhaps his solitude gave me strength. I looked around to make sure no one watched me. Then I slipped over to his table and picked up the hat, brought it back behind my counter. He had printed his name inside: Tian Sung.
Late that night, the man reappeared in the doorway. I still remember his bare, wet head and sodden trench coat, creased with snow. He walked over and stood before me.
“You might have something of mine,” he said, in Mandarin this time.
“I don’t think so.”
“Would you please take a look?”
I bent and looked under the counter. There was the hat, where I had put it. I knelt and took it into my hands. Seconds passed.
I could not give him the hat. My hands grew cold; I could not breathe. (B) I looked at him. The storm had streaked his hair into his eyes—surely the blackest eyes of any man I’d ever met, the eyelashes laid flat with melting snow. They held an expression of deep and painful privacy. And at that moment I believed I knew what would come to be. When I returned the hat, I would exchange it for the man who wore it. (C) My senses opened; I grew large. I believed I heard, in the howling wind, a voice of admonition, but in the end I listened to the plunge and whistle of my blood. I put the hat into his beautiful, long-fingered hands.
QUESTIONS
1. The passage is best described as telling the story of:
A. two people who meet in a restaurant, but who, because of an odd twist of fate, will never meet again.
B. a person who loses his hat in a restaurant and of the restaurant worker who searches hard for it and then returns it.
C. a meeting in a restaurant that leads to something very close to love at first sight for one of the two people.
D. a hat that is misplaced and of the love that emerges in a man when he meets the woman who recovers the hat for him.
2. Which of the following phrases best describes how the concepts of coldness and warmth are used in the passage?
F. In a literal way to describe the narrator’s physical discomfort in the United States
G. In a literal way to illustrate the need for the layers of clothing worn by Tian and the narrator
H. In both a metaphorical and an ironic way to suggest that the narrator eventually came to enjoy the cold weather she had at first disliked
J. In both a literal way to describe the narrator’s physical state and a metaphorical way to suggest her emotional state
3. In describing the first time she remembers seeing Tian at the restaurant, the narrator most nearly implies that for him, the visit was:
A. enjoyable.
B. complicated.
C. hurried.
D. entertaining.
4. The wave of color the narrator describes in (A) refers to:
F. snow reflecting against buildings in Manhattan.
G. the sound of a violin from the music school.
H. the exterior of the tenements she is walking past.
J. the sky above the Manhattan street she is walking on.
5. Upon first meeting Tian, the narrator most nearly judges him to be:
A. arrogant.
B. ordinary.
C. contented.
D. confident.
6. All of the following aspects of Tian make a strong impression on the narrator EXCEPT his:
F. smile.
G. eyes.
H. hands.
J. eyelashes.
7. The narrator states that her dreams about the Vermilion Palace are:
A. colorful and noisy.
B. almost surreal to her.
C. warm and comforting.
D. the same every time.
8. Which of the following best captures the literal meaning of the phrase caught the thread?
F. Could almost hear the sound
G. Understood the unusual tone
H. Recognized the faint sound
J. Witnessed the powerful feeling
9. It can reasonably be inferred from (B) (ending with the word breathe) that at that moment, the narrator felt:
A. analytical.
B. anxious.
C. annoyed.
D. assertive.
10. What does the narrator most likely mean by her statement in (C)?
F. Giving back the hat means that she will never see Tian again.
G. Giving back the hat is the right thing to do because it belongs to Tian.
H. Giving back the hat is symbolic of becoming an American.
J. Giving back the hat means that Tian will become a part of her life.
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