The village of Vestmannaeyjar, in the far northern country of Iceland, is as bright and clean and up-to-date
as any American or Canadian suburb. It is located on the island of Heimaey, just off the mainland. One
January night in 1973, however, householders were shocked from their sleep. In some backyards red-hot
liquid was spurting from the ground.
Flaming "skyrockets" shot up and over the houses. The island's volcano, Helgafell, silent for seven
thousand years, was violently erupting! Luckily, the island's fishing fleet was in port, and within twenty-four
hours almost everyone was ferried to the mainland. But then the agony of the island began in earnest. As
in a nightmare, fountains of burning lava spurted three hundred feet high. Black, baseball-size cinders
rained down. An evilsmelling, eye-burning, throat-searing cloud of smoke and gas erupted into the air,
and a river of lava flowed down the mountain. The constant shriek of escaping steam was punctuated by
ear-splitting explosions. As time went on, the once pleasant village of Vestmannaeyjar took on a weird
aspect. Its street lamps still burning against the long Arctic night, the town lay under a thick blanket of
cinders. All that could be seen above the ten-foot black drifts were the tips of street signs. Some houses
had collapsed under the weight of cinders; others had burst into flames as the heat ignited their oil storage
tanks. Lighting the whole lurid scene, fire continued to shoot from the mouth of the looming volcano. The
eruption continued for six months. Scientists and reporters arrived from around the world to observe the
awesome natural event. But the town did not die that easily. In July, when the eruption ceased, the people
of Heimaey Island returned to assess the chances of rebuilding their homes and lives. They found tons of
ash covering the ground. The Icelanders are a tough people, however, accustomed to the strange and
violent nature of their Arctic land. They dug out their homes. They even used the cinders to build new
roads and airport runways. Now the new homes of Heimaey are warmed from water pipes heated by
molten lava.
The village is located on the island of-

• A. Heimma
• B. Vestmannaeyjar
• C. Heimaey
• D. Helgafell
• E. Hebrides

MACERATION : LIQUID

• A. erosion : weather
• B. sublimation : gas
• C. evaporation : humidity
• D. decision : distraction
• E. trail : path

The biography depicts the well known actress as _______ but ruthless, _______ the popular notion that
she attained stardom through a series of guileful maneuvers.

• A. ambitious . . contravening
• B. vindictive . . verifying
• C. scheming . . fostering
• D. talented . . undermining
• E. intelligent . . corroborating

The Trojan War is one of the most famous wars in history. It is well known for the tenyear duration, for the
heroism of a number of legendary characters, and for the Trojan horse. What may not be familiar,
however, is the story of how the war began. According to Greek myth, the strife between the Trojans and
the Greeks started at the wedding of Peleus, King of Thessaly, and Thetis, a sea nymph. All of the gods
and goddesses had been invited to the wedding celebration in Troy except Eris, goddesses of discord.
She had been omitted from the guest list because her presence always embroiled mortals and immortals
alike in conflict. To take revenge on those who had slighted her, Eris decided to cause a skirmish. Into the
middle of the banquet hall, she threw a golden apple marked "for the most beautiful." All of the goddesses
began to haggle over who should possess it.
The gods and goddesses reached a stalemate when the choice was narrowed to Hera, Athena, and
Aphrodite. Someone was needed to settle the controversy by picking a winner. The job eventually fell to
Paris, son of King Priam of Troy, who was said to be a good judge of beauty. Paris did not have an easy
job. Each goddess, eager to win the golden apple, tried aggressively to bribe him. "I'll grant you vast
kingdoms to rule, "promised HerA. "Vast kingdoms are nothing in comparison with my gift," contradicted
AthenA. "Choose me and I'll see that you win victory and fame in war." Aphrodite outdid her adversaries,
however. She won the golden apple by offering Helen, Zeus' daughter and the most beautiful mortal, to
Paris. Paris, anxious to claim Helen, set off for Sparta in
Greece. Although Paris learned that Helen was married, he accepted the hospitality of her husband, King
Menelasu of Sparta, anyway. Therefore, Menelaus was outraged for a number of reasons when Paris
departed, taking Helen and much of the king's wealth back to Troy. Menelaus collected his loyal forces
and set sail for Troy to begin the war to reclaim Helen.
Each goddess tried ___to bribe Paris.

• A. effectively
• B. answer not stated
• C. carefully
• D. secretly
• E. boldly

Victorian poetess Christina Rossetti's potent sensual imagery compelled Edmond Gosse, perhaps the
most influential literary critic in late Victorian England, to observe that she "does not shrink from strong
delineation of the pleasures of life even when denouncing them." In the face of Rossetti's virtual
canonization by critics at the end of the nineteenth century, however, Virginia Woolf ignores her apparent
conservatism, instead seeing in her curiosity value and a model of artistic purity and integrity for women
writers. In 1930, the centenary of Rossetti's birth,Woolf identified her as "one of Shakespeare's more
recent sisters" whose life had been reclusively Victorian but whose achievement as an artist was enduring.
Woolf remembers Rossetti for her four volumes of explosively original poems loaded with vivid images
and dense emotional energy. "A Birthday," for instance, is no typical Victorian poem and is certainly unlike
predictable works of the era's best known women poets. Rossetti's most famous poem, "Goblin Market,"
bridges the space between simplistic fairy tale and complex adult allegory-at once Christian,
psychological, and profeminist. Like many of Rossetti's works, it is extraordinarily original and unorthodox
in form. Its subject matter is radical and therefore risky for a Victorian poetess because it implies
castigation of an economic (and even marital) marketplace dominated by men, whose motives are, at best,
suspect. Its Christian allusions are obvious but grounded in opulent images whose lushness borders on
the erotic. From Rossetti's work emerge not only emotional force, artistic polish, frequently ironic
playfulness, and intellectual vigor but also an intriguing, enigmatic quality. "Winter: My Secret," for
example, combines these traits along with a very high (and un-Victorian) level of poetic selfconsciousness.
"How does one reconcile the aesthetic sensuality of Rossetti's poetry with her repressed, ascetic
lifestyle?" Woolf wondered. That Rossetti did indeed withhold a "secret" both from those intimate with her
and from posterity is Lona Packer's thesis in her 1963 biography of Rossetti. Packer's claim that
Rossetti's was a secret of the heart has since been disproved through the discovery of hundreds of letters
by Rossetti, which reinforce the conventional image of her as pious, scrupulously abstinent, and
semi-reclusive. Yet the passions expressed in her love poems do expose the "secret" at the heart of both
Rossetti's life and art: a willingness to forego worldly pleasures in favor of an aestheticized Christian
version of transcendent fulfillment in heaven. Her sonnet "The World," therefore, becomes pivotal in
understanding Rossetti's literary project as a whole-her rhymes for children, fairy tale narratives, love
poems, and devotional commentaries. The world, for Rossetti, is a fallen place. Her work is pervasively
designed to force upon readers this inescapable Christian truth. The beauty of her poetry must be seen
therefore as an artistic strategy, a means toward a moral end.
It can be inferred from the passage that Rossetti's "The World"

• A. reflects Rossetti's shift away from her earlier feminist viewpoint
• B. was Rossetti's last major work
• C. was Rossetti's longest work
• D. is the most helpful expression of Rossetti's motives
• E. combines several genres of poetry in a single work