The Jungle

Which statement best expresses the central message of the excerpt from The Jungle?

A) The workers and the general public are all victims of the methods of the meat industry.

B) The meat industry has come up with many ways to make unpalatable meat taste good.

C) The workers and the general public are ignorant of the devious plans of the meat industry.

D) The meat industry must find creative solutions to stay competitive in the marketplace.

A

Read the sentence from paragraph 2 of the excerpt from The Jungle.

All this ingenious mixture was ground up and flavored with spices to make it taste like something.

The word ingenious comes from the Latin word ingeniōsus, meaning “natural disposition of cleverness”; ingeniōsus contains the root gen-, meaning “birth” or “kind.” Based on this information, which other word uses the same root as ingenious?

A) Gender

B) Oxygen

C) Pathogen

D) Urgent

A

Read this sentence from paragraph 4 of the excerpt from The Jungle.

There were the wool pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle men; for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with their bare hands, till the acid had eaten their fingers off.

The main purpose of this sentence is to —

A) make a comparison between pickle men and wool pluckers

B) highlight how horrible the work conditions were for wool pluckers

C) describe the job process for those looking for work as wool pluckers

D) explain why people wanted to be pickle men rather than wool pluckers

B

What is the most likely reason the author chose to fictionalize the information in The Jungle?

A) To soften the gruesome aspects of the stories

B) To argue that fiction is greater than truth

C) To appeal to a broader audience

D) To discredit the meat industry

C

Read these sentences about the excerpt from The Jungle.

There was a stockyard. Jurgis worked there. His coworkers told stories. They described horrific working conditions.

Which revision correctly uses a prepositional phrase to most effectively combine the sentences?

A) Jurgis, working at a stockyard, heard stories about horrific working conditions from his coworkers.

B) At a stockyard, Jurgis worked and his coworkers told stories about horrific working conditions.

C) There was a stockyard Jurgis worked at, and horrific working conditions were described by his coworkers.

D) Jurgis worked at a stockyard, and his coworkers told stories about the horrific working conditions there.

D