PSAT Writing and Language Practice Test 4: The Nobel Prize and the School of…

Questions 1-11 refer to the following information.

The Nobel Prize and the School of…

The Nobel Prize has been awarded in a variety of categories since 1901. There aren't many 1 exceptions on the list. As one would expect, the early prizes were given mostly to Americans and 2 people who hailed from Europe, but the committee has since become more international. The winners of the prizes have aged alongside increasing life expectancy. In the early days, the average winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics was in 3 their early 50s. Nowadays it's fairly surprising to see a winner in any category who is younger than 60.

4 The winners in most categories come from the elite research institutions in the United States and abroad: Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Cambridge, Columbia, and Berkeley. Not, however, the winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. These winners share an average age (64) and geographical diversity with those in other 5 categories, though they have not attended the same schools—not by a long shot. Eugene O'Neill, one of the first American laureates, did spend one year at Princeton, but he did not finish, completing the "education" that would inspire his great works while working as a seaman and an active member of the Marine Transport Workers Union. The most 6 recent prize went to Toni Morrison earned her undergraduate degree at Howard University in Washington, D.C

[1] This trend should remind us that creativity can strike anywhere, and one of the Nobel committee's great merits is that that 7 they have been willing to identify great talent outside of the typical places. [2] Work in economics, medicine, or the sciences 8 requires a vibrant, collaborative atmosphere, with the best minds in the field working together toward solutions. [3] The elite universities of the world provide just such an atmosphere. [4] Literary labor requires the mind and circumstances of a great writer, plus a healthy dose of imagination and courage. [5] While the other fields celebrate great 9 accomplishments, discoveries, and new findings, the Nobel Prize in Literature celebrates great individual minds, those that contain all there is to know and more. [6] Work in literature, however, needs no such place. 10

These trends show that great thinkers and scholars do not live only at the big research universities. Anyone with an open mind can do great things, 11 and it's not unreasonable to expect that you'd find the most open minds at the best schools. The trends among Nobel laureates in literature teach us much the same lesson that literature itself does. There is an endless supply of wonder in our infinitely diverse world, and those with the willingness to see it will always be rewarded.