SAT Strategy Sessions: Critical Reading
Directions: Read the following passage and answer
the questions below.
Get the answers to these practice SAT critical reading
questions.
Directions: Select the lettered word or set of words that
best completes the sentence.
The following excerpt is from a speech delivered in 1873 by
Susan B. Anthony, a leader in the women's rights movement of the
19th century.
- Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight
under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the
last Presidential election, without having a lawful right to
vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in
thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead,
simply exercised my citizen's rights, guaranteed to me and all
United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the
power of any State to deny.
- The preamble of the Federal Constitution says:
- "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a
more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic
tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America."
- It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor
yet we, the male citizens; but we the whole people, who formed
the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of
liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and
the half of our posterity, but to the whole people — women as
well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of
their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are
denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by
this democratic republican government — the ballot.
- For any State to make sex a qualification that must ever
result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people
is a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the
blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their
female posterity. To them this government had no just powers
derived from the consent of the governed. To them this
government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an
odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; this oligarchy
of oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and
daughters of every household — which ordains all men
sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord and
rebellion into every home of the nation.
- Webster, Worcester and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a
person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office.
The one quesiton left to be settled now is: Are women persons?
And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the
hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are
citizens; and no State has a right to make any law, or to
enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or
immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the
constitutions and laws of the several States is today null and
void, precisely as is every one against Negroes.
Directions: Select the lettered word or set of words
that best completes the sentence.
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1. In the first paragraph, Anthony states that her action
in voting was
A. illegal, but morally justified
B. the result of her keen interest in national
politics
C. legal, if the Constitution is interpreted
correctly
D. an illustration of the need for a women's rights
movement
E. illegal, but worthy of leniency
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4. The word hardihood could best be replaced by
A. endurance
B. vitality
C. nerve
D. opportunity
E. stupidity
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2. By saying "we, the people... the whole people, who
formed the Union", Anthony means that
A. the founders of the nation conspired to deprive women
of their rights
B. some male citizens are still being denied basic
rights
C. the role of women in the founding of the nation is
generally ignored
D. society is endangered when women are deprived of basic
rights
E. all people deserve to enjoy the rights guaranteed by the
Constitution
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5. When Anthony warns that "no State...shall abridge their
privileges", she means that
A. women should be allowed to live a life of
privilege
B. women on trial cannot be forced to give up their
immunity
C. every state should repeal its outdated laws
D. governments may not deprive citizens of their
rights
E. the rights granted to women must be decided by the
people, not the state
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3. In the fifth paragraph, Anthony's argument rests mainly
on the strategy of convincing her audience that
A. any state that denies women the vote undermines its
status as a democracy
B. women deprived of the vote will eventually raise a
rebellion
C. the nation will remain an aristocracy if the status of
women does not change
D. women's rights issues should be debated in every
home
E. even an aristocracy cannot survive without the consent
of the governed
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