Praxis 5511 Practice Test
Question 1 of 5.
Which of the following was true of the abolitionist movement in the antebellum United States?
A. Many of the leading activists in favor of abolition were middle-class women
B. Abolitionism was supported by a majority of the population in the Northern states
C. The Republican Party advocated for abolishing slavery throughout the United States
D. Most African American abolitionists supported the colonization of freedmen
Explanation: Many leading abolitionists, such as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, were middle-class women who also tied their activism to women's rights.
Question 2 of 5.
A teacher is a person who is patient. A teacher is dedicated. A teacher helps others. Which of the following revisions to the sentence best demonstrates parallel structure?
A. A teacher is a person who is patient, dedicated, and helpful.
B. A teacher is patient, likes to be dedicated, and to help.
C. A teacher is a person who is patient, dedicated, and likes to help.
D. A teacher is patient, dedicated, and helps.
Explanation: Option A maintains parallel structure by using three adjectives (patient, dedicated, helpful) in a consistent form, describing the teacher uniformly.
Question 3 of 5.
Extract:The following excerpt is from the introduction to The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday. Once there was a lot of sound in my grandmother's house, a lot of coming and going, feasting and talk. The summers there were full of excitement and reunion. The Kiowas are a summer people; they abide the cold and keep to themselves, but when the season turns and the land becomes warm and vital they cannot hold still; an old love of going returns upon them.
The 'old love of going' mentioned in the last line of the passage most likely refers to the
A. Kiowas' fondness for traveling during the summer
B. Kiowas' fondness for spending summer in solitary contemplation
C. tendency of the Kiowas to leave their houses during the winter months
D. speaker's desire to go to his grandmother's house during the summer
Explanation: The passage describes the Kiowas' excitement and movement in summer, indicating their 'old love of going' refers to their tendency to travel during this season.
Question 4 of 5.
Which of the following sentences would be most likely to begin an essay intended to explain?
A. Even though mobile phones are seen as more convenient, there are many advantages to maintaining a landline.
B. It always calmed my nerves when my father sat on the back porch drinking tea from a flowered mug and humming 'Old Man River.'
C. Negative political ads should not be not used in campaigns because they fail to give the public any reliable evidence about candidates.
D. In order to train dogs to listen to your commands, you must set up a system that rewards their positive responses.
Explanation: Option D introduces a process (training dogs) with a clear intent to explain how to achieve a goal, fitting the purpose of an explanatory essay.
Question 5 of 5.
Extract:The following is an excerpt from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939), a novel depicting the plight of migrant workers during the Great Depression. In the passage, Tom Joad and his family have reached a government-sponsored tent camp where many migrant workers have settled. Tom is walking and surveying the camp in the early morning. The ground of the street had been swept and sprinkled. From the tents came the snores of sleeping people. The whole camp buzzed and snorted. Tom walked slowly. He neared Number Four Sanitary Unit and he looked at it curiously, an unpainted building, low and rough. Under a roof, but open at the sides, the rows of wash trays. He sawthe Joad truck standing near by, and went quietly toward it. The tarpaulin was pitched and the camp was quiet. As he drew near a figure moved from the shadow of the truck and came toward him. Ma said softly, "That you, Tom? "Yeah." "Sh!" she said. "They're all asleep. They was tar'd out." "You ought to be asleep too," Tom said.
Which of the following best describes a primary purpose of the imagery in the passage?
A. It suggests the hardship faced by the characters.
B. It highlights character traits through interactions with the environment.
C. It resolves a tension between old and new ways of life.
Explanation: The imagery of the rough, unpainted sanitary unit and the exhausted, sleeping camp suggests the harsh conditions and hardship faced by the migrant workers.