Digital PSAT Reading and Writing Practice Question 191: Answer and Explanation

Question: 191

The following text is from John Muir's 1897 work The American Forests.

So far, our government has done nothing effective with its forests, though the best in the world, but is like a rich and foolish spendthrift who has inherited a magnificent estate in perfect order, and then has left his rich fields and meadows, forests and parks, to be sold and plundered and wasted at will, depending on their inexhaustible abundance. Now it is plain that the forests are not inexhaustible, and that quick measures must be taken if ruin is to be avoided.

Muir's tone in the passage is best described as

• A. urgent and earnest.
• B. arrogant and condescending.
• C. optimistic and cheerful.
• D. hopeless and depressed.

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

(A) The selection demonstrates Muir's tone of urgency, particularly by saying that it is "now" that action is needed and that "quick measures" must be implemented. He is neither arrogant nor cheerful. And while the current ignorance surrounding environmental conservation may make him depressed, his text is a call to action rather than a hopeless rant.