PSAT Reading Practice Test 28: Big Picture and Inference Questions

Questions 1-8 refer to the following information.

"The Boardwalk at Rehoboth Beach," written in 2012.

When I was younger, much younger—almost in another life—I spent every other summer
at Rehoboth Beach. The day of departure had something of the quiet, methodical frenzy that I
suspect surrounds the evacuation en masse of infantry. All morning we marched in and out of
the house, hauling tin coolers and huge, blue Samsonite suitcases, piling them like bulwarks
05in the driveway; while my Father—his body half-buried in the back of a County Squire station
wagon—hollered out his orders for what should be loaded next. Being second to youngest,
my place was invariably in the last row of the wagon, walled in on all three sides by the inevi
table impedimenta of annual beachgoers—rope sandals, snorkels, the bright, polychrome
canopies of sun umbrellas—all of it still somehow shedding fine, gray streams of sand with
10every nudge. While pressing my nose to the glass for a farewell glimpse of our vacated home,
my Mother put the car in gear, and I smacked my forehead on the window as it lurched for
ward. Between the bobbing heads of five siblings I could see my Father's blue Chevy Bel Air,
bearing my three older brothers and whatever luggage refused to fit into the meticulously
overloaded wagon, leading us, like a harbinger, six hundred miles east to the Atlantic Ocean.
15The beach itself at Rehoboth was neither exceptional nor squalid. It was entirely ordinary,
of middling breadth, and middling color, made up of more sand than mud, and of more jag
ged shells and bottle caps than one typically prefers. In early and late summer the water was
really too cold to stay in longer than half an hour or so, and in hue it remained a murky green
all year. But Rehoboth Beach was special, perhaps even magical because it was, in its entire
20length, rimmed by a magnificent boardwalk. At Rehoboth Beach, save for breakfast and sup
per, my siblings and I were autonomous, and from the age of about eight onward I spent
hours wandering alone among the lush, interminable spectacles and seminude crowds of the boardwalk.
Being both pale and somewhat plain, the people were, I suppose, predominately rust belt
Midwesterners like myself, there at the shore to terminate their brief annual vacations. But
25they seemed so different, so transformed in manner and appearance by the proximity of the
sea, that I often imagined the beach populated by denizens of an exotic, epicurean culture,
and when I stepped upon the boardwalk, I saw myself entering one the strange and majestic
bazaars so tantalizingly pervasive of my serial adventure novels. I snaked between vendors of
blown glass, odd, multifarious souvenirs constructed of driftwood and jetsam, and heaps of
30beachwear proclaimed by the hand-painted signs that accompanied them as the latest fash
ion on the French Riviera. Running my palm along a rack of wooden popguns, I imagined
myself a soldier of the Foreign Legion, on leave in Lisbon, Yalta or Algiers. In the distance I
could see the pier; indomitable, bisecting the boardwalk at a right angle and jutting far out
over the water.
35The vendor appraised my interest, "We have some very nice beads here as well—genuine
sea glass."
No, thank you, I answered, and pressed onward. Overhead, between the fluttering, var
iegated canopies, I saw no fewer than two dozen kites hanging in the sky, and everywhere the
smells of the ocean comingled with those of chilidogs, cola, and Dolle's saltwater taffy.
40Around sunset, with the breeze still sweeping in from the Atlantic, it turned a little chilly;
women pulled lace and cotton dresses over their bikinis, and the men strode back from the
shore wearing blue and white blazers above their sandy, dampened swimming trunks. I shiv
ered and crossed my arms. The children on the boardwalk were becoming scarce, and I more
conspicuously unattended. But this was by far my favorite time at Rehoboth. As more orange
45rays of sunlight fell behind the houses to the west and were extinguished, the boardwalk
grew more vibrant, more fantastic. All around bulbs of blue, red, orange and green incandes
cent light flashed to life. Voices became more boisterous as people sought to speak over the
sprightly marching tunes that blasted from the horns of carnival rides, which always seemed
much louder in the evening air. I had walked quite far, I realized—the ferris wheel was far
50behind me; I could see it writing huge, luminous O's in the darkening distance. Childless
couples were leaving the restaurants, some of them staggering a little as they opened the door
onto the boardwalk. In the dim alcoves there grew a vague but thrilling sense of danger.
I wanted to walk out to the very edge of the pier; it was only another several hundred yards,
I thought. I wanted to stand there, and look for far off lights on the ocean where ships were
55traversing the deep, dark water. I felt a large hand grasp my bare shoulder.
Lost, missy? Need someone to call your folks?
No. I know my way around, I shuddered. Slowly, begrudgingly, I turned away from the
place where the pier issued from the shore, and started back along the boardwalk. One day
my body would learn contentment, steeling it against the ill-defined threats of wanderlust.
60But my mind would remain an endless boardwalk, from which I might ascend any one of the
infinite ocean piers, and go anywhere, anywhere at all.