CPAt Reading Skills Practice Questions

Read the following passage, and answer the questions that follow. Early Populism in the United States

In the years following the Civil War, the US heartland suffered from an overabundance of wheat and rice; these surpluses, coupled with the advances in transportation and communication, drove prices down. Farmers were forced into high debt which they could never repay, leading to deflation and a scarcity of currency. Since many farmers didn't own the land that they worked, the banks often had to foreclose when farmers were unable to pay their debts. Farmers blamed their problems on a number of different factors. They blamed the railroads, which usually gave discount rates to bigger shippers. They blamed the banks, who loaned money to the rich but were unforgiving of farmers' economic plight. They also blamed the tax system, claiming that it was easy for businesses to hide their assets, and impossible for farmers to do so. They also blamed the tariff, which discouraged other countries from buying US goods.

The Patrons of Husbandry (Grange) organization was founded in 1867 by Oliver Kelley to establish cooperatives, in which individuals bought goods directly from the whole-sale distributor. His group was also responsible for the Granger Laws, which attacked railroad and grain elevator interests. The Grange, however, had basically disappeared by 1875. The National Farmer's Alliance and Industrial Union pursued a number of different initiatives: more national banks; cooperatives; a federal storage system for non-perishable items; more currency; free coinage of silver; reduction of tariff; direct election of senators; 8-hour workday; government control of railroads and telegraphs; and one term for the president. This group's success led to the formation of the Populist Party in 1890. This party aimed to speak for the farmers, and included all of the farmer's unions as well as some labor unions, the Greenbackers, and the Prohibitionists. The party suffered from internal divisions from its inception.

1. Which of the following factors did NOT drive crop prices down after the Civil War?
A: increase in supply
B: advances in transportation
C: decrease in supply
D: advances in communication

2. What was the basic reason for the formation of the Populist Party?
A: the success of the Grange
B: the plight of farmers
C: the fairness of the tariff
D: the popularity of the gold standard

3. What is the name of the system in which individuals can buy things directly from the whole-sale distributor?
A: collectives
B: populists
C: cooperatives
D: conglomerates

4. Why did farmers blame the tariff for their problems?
A: the tariff made them sell their products to other countries
B: the tariff prevented other countries from buying American goods
C: they couldn't afford foreign products
D: they hated all taxes

5. Who founded the Grange organization?
A: Oscar King
B: John Tyler
C: James Kelley
D: Oliver Kelley

Read the following excerpt from a story, and answer the questions that follow.

Their home was a little hut on the edge of a little village-- a Flemish village a league from Antwerp, set amidst flat breadths of pasture and corn-lands, with long lines of poplars and of alders bending in the breeze on the edge of the great canal which ran through it. It had about a score of houses and homesteads, with shutters of bright green or sky-blue, and roofs rose-red or black and white, and walls white-washed until they shone in the sun like snow. In the centre of the village stood a windmill, placed on a little moss-grown slope: it was a landmark to all the level country round. It had once been painted scarlet, sails and all, but that had been in its infancy, half a century or more earlier, when it had ground wheat for the soldiers of Napoleon; and it was now a ruddy brown, tanned by wind and weather. It went oddly by fits and starts, as though rheumatic and stiff in the joints from age, but it served the whole neighborhood, which would have thought it almost as impious to carry grain elsewhere as to attend any other religious service than the mass that was performed at the altar of the little old gray church, with its conical steeple, which stood opposite to it, and whose single bell rang morning, noon, and night with that strange, subdued, hollow sadness which every bell that hangs in the Low Countries seems to gain as an integral part of its melody.

6. This passage probably comes from:
A: the beginning of a story.
B: a brochure for Antwerp
C: an editorial
D: the end of a long story

7. The purpose of this passage is:
A: interrogation
B: persuasion
C: exclamation
D: description

8. The description of the windmill as 'rheumatic and stiff in the joints from age' is an example of what literary device?
A: synecdoche
B: alliteration
C: personification
D: simile

9. Where does this passage take place?
A: Africa
B: United States C: Asia
D: Europe

10. Which word best describes the villagers' attitude to the mill?
A: loyal
B: annoyed
C: reverent
D: calm

Answer Key

1. C. A decrease in supply would probably raise the price of crops.

2. B. The Populist Party was formed to represent the interests of farmers and common citizens.

3. C. Cooperatives are meant to eliminate the extra costs of middle men.

4. B. The farmers were annoyed that the tariff closed off a market for their crops.

5. D. This information is contained in the first sentence of the second paragraph.

6. A. The passage is most likely introducing the location in which the story will take place.

7. D. The passage provides a thorough description of a small village.

8. C. Personification is the technique in which something non-human is described as if it were a human being.

9. D. The references to Antwerp, Napoleon, and the Low Countries indicate that this passage describes a village in Europe, most likely in Belgium.