ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
SECTION I
Time—1 hour
Directions: This part consists of selections from prose works and questions on their content, form, and style. After reading each
passage, choose the best answer to each question and completely fill in the corresponding oval on the answer sheet.
Note: Pay particular attention to the requirement of questions that contain the words NOT, LEAST, or EXCEPT.
Questions 1-10. Read the following passage carefully before
you choose your answers.
(The following passage is from Jonathan Swift’s 1729 essay
“A Modest Proposal.”)
There only remains one hundred and twenty thousand
children of poor parents annually born. The question
therefore is, how this number shall be reared and provided
for, which, as I have already said, under the present situation
of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto
proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or
agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean in the country)
nor cultivate land: they can very seldom pick up a livelihood
by stealing, till they arrive at six years old, except where
they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the
rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however
be properly looked upon only as probationers, as I have been
informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan,
who protested to me that he never knew above one or two
instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom
so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.
I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl
before twelve years old is no salable commodity; and even
when they come to this age they will not yield above three
pounds, or three pounds and half-a-crown at most on the
exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents
or kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at
least four times that value.
I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts,
which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my
acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well
nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and
wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled;
and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee
or a ragout.
I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration
that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already
computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed,
whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more
than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason
is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a
circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore
one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the
remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered
in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through
the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck
plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump
and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an
entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone,
the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and
seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled
on the fourth day, especially in winter.
I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born
will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed,
increaseth to 28 pounds.
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore
very proper for landlords, who, as they have already
devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to
the children.
1. This text can best be described as
(A) scientific
(B) satirical
(C) forthright
(D) humanitarian
(E) sadistic
2. In the first, second, and fourth paragraphs the
author relies on dubious
(A) similes
(B) ad hominem arguments
(C) extended metaphors
(D) arguments from authority
(E) appeals to ignorance
Line
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Section I
GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE.
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Cracking the AP English Language & Composition Exam
