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PSAT: Critical Reading Question #5 |
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From a short story first published in 1891, "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.
A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, all reach the height of romantic felicity -- but that would be asking too much of fate!
Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.
Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?
John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.
John is a physician, and PERHAPS -- (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) -- PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well faster.
You see he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do?
If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression -- a slight hysterical tendency -- what is one to do?
My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing...
(John) said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. "Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear," said he, "and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time."
So we took the nursery at the top of the house.
It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.
The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it.
It is stripped off -- the paper -- in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life.
One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.
It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide --plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.
The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.
It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulfur tint in others.
No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.
Question:
What is the most likely reason the narrator says the nursery room appears "as if a boys' school had used it"?
Choices:
The correct answer is (B). The narrator says that, "The paint and paper . . . is stripped off -- the paper -- in great patches." This kind of destruction would require strength that only older children would have. In context, the other choices do not indicate anything about the age of the children who used to occupy the room.
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