DIRECTIONS: There are one passages in this test. The passage is accompanied by several questions. After reading the passage, choose the best answer to each question. You may refer to the passages as often as necessary.
PASSAGE
Home is where our individual memories are rooted and never disappear, the place where our inner being begins and ends, a haven for birth and death. Home is the place where we return when we need to adjust to new energies the world presses upon our daily lives. Home is comfort and uneasiness. Despite the age-old cliché of not being able to go home again, we carry home wherever we dwell. If we never leave our hometown to live elsewhere, which is true for a larger percentage of the American population, we create our territory of existence in the place where we were born—home. The character of that home is vastly different from the one created elsewhere by people who left their hometown ages ago. Home as territory— fortress or open house.
As a native of the Southwest, I know my home will always be the desert surrounding El Paso and the southern New Mexico area. I left in 1979 but have never been able to create a natural (5) sense of home in other cities where I have lived. The memory of the desert creates an invisible nest of roots that allows a native to wander far before finding a way back. The memory of the Rio Grande passing its vein of mud south is one I sleep with, then wake to see if the level of the current has gone down. The stark peaks of the Franklin Mountains dominate the city that grows in a horseshoe shape around them. El Paso spreads for miles into the desert east of the mountains. Housing developments tear high
into the Franklins themselves. The horseshoe is now bent and twisted, its boundaries of my childhood gone. I gaze up at the bare face of the Franklins and conclude that the crown of my home has eroded over the fortynine years of my life. Each time I come home, the mountains are closer to the ground.
Memories of wandering the desert alone as a boy and teaching myself about the rocks, the fossils stuck inside them, and the tarantulas scuttling across my dirt path pull me back home. Childhood memories that made me leave rise when I visit my home—the silent father, the grandmother who always wanted me by her side. The happy experiences—the climb up muddy arroyos after a desert rain, riding tiny paddleboats at the amusement park on the other side of town—have me wishing I could go back in time. (4) Home is the generator of longing. It is the yearning for a united family, happy Christmas days, innocent adventures with kids next door. It is also the place where the person we wanted to be when we grew up never appeared, because we became someone else. It was my divorced parents and my dreams of being successful in careers that never materialized, until I accomplished many things I never thought I would. Home created a different individual because El Paso educated my heart and mind, placing its limits upon me. Such limits often match the city limits of our hometown as we grow up, so we are forced to go live elsewhere. (6)
I visualize rattlesnakes, lizards, bats, turtles, scorpions, hawks, and coyotes. I recall the onion, chili, lettuce, and cotton fields of La Mesilla Valley. When I
think of home, these creatures and food sources are a major part of my memories. When I visit, I know where to go if I want to explore the natural world of the borderlands. This inner pull is similar to my rattlesnake dreams, drawing me to walk along the river where I mark the changing course of the Rio Grande and learn where the bridges of home span the muddy stretches. This magnetism helps me to identify where the adobe ruins stand in La Mesilla Valley, thirty years after I first found the row of migrant worker huts as a boy.
I do not believe in the loss of home. Our private sounds and memories tell us where home lies eternally. Navajo people believe sacred ground must be earned. You are not born into a family and automatically given a place in the world. You must earn it. As you pay for it, the joys and sorrows that grow on sacred ground are identified for you as the citizens of your places on earth (9). You can celebrate or mourn the area where you grew up, with its stage of autobiographical failures and triumphs, but you have earned them and can’t abandon them completely. The Navajos say it comes down to belief. The things you believe in are the factors that will protect or diminish your origins and your home.
I have been gone from the desert Southwest for twenty-five years, yet I continue to write about it. As the years go by, it is easier to acknowledge this landscape that “covers the past and hangs as the ember of thought / wisdom molded out of the falling world,” as I wrote in one of my poems.
QUESTIONS
1. The main purpose of the passage is for the author to describe his:
A. recollection of significant events from his childhood.
B. personal philosophy about what constitutes home.
C. theory that most people don’t understand the concept of home.
D. hometown and how it has remained mostly unchanged since 1979.
2. The author most strongly suggests that when he was a boy, the time he spent in the desert surrounding his hometown was primarily marked by:
F. fascination and fear.
G. celebration and mourning.
H. exploration and solitude.
J. innocence and recklessness.
3. The metaphor the author uses of the invisible nest of roots mainly helps emphasize the idea
that the author:
A. has resided in many locations far from the desert Southwest.
B. has conflicting memories about El Paso and the southern New Mexico area.
C. feels deeply and ceaselessly connected to the desert Southwest.
D. feels more drawn to the Franklin Mountains than to the desert that surrounds them.
4. The main point of (4) is that regarding the author’s feelings about home, he is:
F. glad he spent so much time in the desert as a child.
G. pulled by both difficult and pleasant memories.
H. upset about some of his family relationships.
J. surprised by the memories that surface when he visits.
5. The author uses the word natural mainly to convey the idea that what he is searching for in other cities is a sense of home that feels:
A. simple yet lively.
B. innocent yet provocative.
C. authentic and innate.
D. wild and unfettered.
6. The author states that the horseshoe of El Paso now looks bent and twisted mainly because:
F. environmental conditions are causing the peaks of the mountains to erode.
G. housing developments are progressing farther out into the desert and up into the mountains.
H. environmental conditions are causing people to move up into the mountains.
J. housing developments are obscuring the views of the surrounding areas from the mountain peaks.
7. In the passage, when the author reflects on the careers that never materialized, his reaction can best be characterized as one of:
A. bitterness; he feels his hometown prevented him from realizing his dreams.
B. pride; he had visualized himself as a writer for most of his life.
C. confusion; he’s still hoping his home can illuminate a career path for him.
D. acceptance; he has been successful in ways he hadn’t anticipated.
8. Which of the following is the best paraphrase for the statement the author makes in (6)?
F. We can find out who we really are by living in our hometown as adults.
G. Who we become is primarily shaped by the education we receive and experiences we have in our hometown.
H. Becoming who we long to be requires a substantial amount of self-reflection.
J. Opportunities to become who we long to be may not be available in our hometown, forcing us to find them elsewhere.
9. As it is used in (9), the phrase “the citizens of your places on earth” most nearly refers to one’s:
A. neighbors close to home.
B. personal experiences.
C. satisfying moments.
D. physical location.
10. The main purpose of the last paragraph is to demonstrate that the:
F. desert Southwest has contributed to a significant part of the author’s writing.
G. subjects of the author’s writing, like his location,
often change.
H. longer the author is away from the desert Southwest, the harder it is for him to write about it.
J. author plans to return to the desert Southwest someday despite having been away for so long.