AP Eng Practice 1

Which of the following sentences best represents the author's main point in the passage?

• "Franklin has a particular resonance in twenty-first century America." (Paragraph 1).

• "We would admire both his earnestness and his self-aware irony." (Paragraph 1)

• "Some who see the reflection of Franklin in the world today fret about a shallowness of soul and spiritual complacency that seem to permeate a culture of materialism." (Paragraph 2)

• "They regard Franklin as an exemplar of the personal character and civic virtue that are too often missing in modern America." (Paragraph 2)

• "Both sides too often confuse him with the striving pilgrim he portrayed in his autobiography." (Paragraph 3)

The first paragraph characterizes people in the contemporary United States primarily as

• charitable yet exacting

• zealous yet deceitful

• self-effacing yet proud

• genial yet self-interested

• mean-spirited yet honest

The final paragraph functions as

• a repetition of the views previously established

• a diatribe against those who devalue Franklin

• an authorial judgment about a preceding discussion

• a critique of Franklin's autobiography

• a controversial conclusion to a contentious debate

The misunderstanding discussed in Paragraph 3 is that many who study Franklin

• ascribe greater geniality to Franklin than his actions support

• confuse Franklin's public statements with his private beliefs

• believe that Franklin had a fundamental faith that in fact he lacked

• do not study the public Franklin enough to understand him thoroughly

• rely too much on government records in their analysis of Franklin

"They" in Paragraph 2 of the passage refers to people who

• disagree that Franklin's life exemplifies commercial values

• want to reevaluate the importance of Franklin's writings

• believe that Franklin's legacy is not appreciated sufficiently

• have reservations about Franklin's values

• want others to be as inspired by Franklin as they have been

The rhetorical purpose of Paragraph 1 ("And we ... values") is to

• assert that the contemporary view of Franklin distorts his accomplishments

• suggest that Franklin did not balance his pursuits particularly well

• encourage the reader to analyze present-day leaders in the light of Franklin

• make Franklin seem more morally upright than he may actually have been

• prompt the reader to feel kinship with Franklin on the basis of the challenges he faced

This passage is most probably excerpted from

• an article about Franklin in a business journal

• a work of cultural criticism attacking Franklin for the decay of traditional values

• a book about Franklin's scientific research

• a biography of Franklin intended for a general audience

• a newspaper account of historians' conflicting views of Franklin