PSAT Reading Practice Question 267

Question: 267

Excerpts from The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, ©2003 by TKR Publications, LLC. Used by permission of Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved.
The kite-fighting tournament was an old winter 
tradition in Afghanistan. It started early in the 
morning on the day of the contest and didn't end until 
Line only the winning kite flew in the sky – I remember 
05one year the tournament outlasted daylight. People 
gathered on sidewalks and roofs to cheer for their kids. 
The streets filled with kite fighters, jerking and tugging 
on their lines, squinting up to the sky, trying to gain 
position to cut the opponent's line. Every kite fighter 
10had an assistant – in my case, Hassan – who held the 
spool and fed the line…
Over the years, I had seen a lot of guys run kites. 
But Hassan was by far the greatest kite runner I'd ever 
seen. It was downright eerie the way he always got to 
15the spot the kite would land before the kite did, as if he 
had some sort of inner compass.
I remember one overcast winter day, Hassan and 
I were running a kite. I was chasing him through 
neighborhoods, hopping gutters, weaving through 
20narrow streets. I was a year older than him, but Hassan 
ran faster than I did, and I was falling behind. "Hassan! 
Wait!" I yelled, my breathing hot and ragged.
He whirled around, motioned with his hand. "This 
way!" he called before dashing around another corner.
25I looked up, saw that the direction we were running 
was opposite to the one the kite was drifting.
"We're losing it! We're going the wrong way!" I 
cried out.
"Trust me!" I heard him call up ahead. I reached 
30the corner and saw Hassan bolting along, his head 
down, not even looking at the sky, sweat soaking 
through the back of his shirt. I tripped over a rock and 
fell – I wasn't just slower than Hassan but clumsier 
too; I'd always envied his natural athleticism. When 
35I staggered to my feet, I caught a glimpse of Hassan 
disappearing around another street corner. I hobbled 
after him, spikes of pain battering my scraped knees. 
I saw we had ended up on a rutted dirt road near 
Isteqlal Middle School. There was a field on one side 
40where lettuce grew in the summer, and a row of sour 
cherry trees on the other. I found Hassan sitting cross-
legged at the foot of one of the trees, eating from a 
fistful of dried mulberries.
"What are we doing here?" I panted, my stomach 
45roiling with nausea.
He smiled. "Sit with me, Amir agha."
I dropped next to him, lay on a thin patch of snow, 
wheezing. "You're wasting our time. It was going the 
other way, didn't you see?"
50Hassan popped a mulberry in his mouth. "It's 
coming," he said. I could hardly breathe and he didn't 
even sound tired. "How do you know?" I said.
"I know.".
"Here it comes," Hassan said, pointing to the sky.
55He rose to his feet and walked a few paces to his left. I 
looked up, saw the kite plummeting toward us. I heard 
footfalls, shouts, an approaching melee of kite runners. 
But they were wasting their time. Because Hassan 
stood with his arms wide open, smiling, waiting for the 
60kite. And may God – if He exists, that is – strike me 
blind if the kite didn't just drop into his outstretched 
arms.

As used in line 16, "inner compass" most strongly suggests that Hassan

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