SAT Reading & Writing Practice Set - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Adapted)
When Huck Finn sat alone on the raft with the scrap of paper in his hand, the Mississippi River slid past
as quietly as if nothing in particular were happening. The king and the duke—two frauds Huck had
drifted with for a time—had sold Jim for forty dollars to a farmer named Phelps, and Huck had learned
that Jim was now locked in a shed, waiting to be sent back to Miss Watson in exchange for a reward.
Everything Huck had been taught in Sunday school and by the “sivilizing” women told him that helping
a runaway slave was stealing, and that people who stole other folks’ property went to everlasting fire.
Thinking of this, Huck wrote on the paper where Jim was and that Miss Watson could fetch him there,
and felt, for a moment, as if the words had set him back on the path to heaven. But when he tried to pray
over the letter, no words would come; each time he shut his eyes he saw Jim on the raft, calling him
“honey,” talking about buying his wife and children when he was free, and trusting Huck as the only
white person between him and the trader’s chain. (Twain, 1884)
Huck set the letter down and tried to recollect every bad thing he could about Jim—times when Jim had
been stubborn, or simple, or afraid—in hopes that anger would stiffen his resolve to send the paper.
Instead, the picture that kept coming was of Jim standing the night watch so Huck could sleep, or crying
over the thought of his little girl who would not answer him because she was deaf, or hiding Huck’s own
father’s corpse from him so the boy would not have to look upon it. Huck saw, too, how Jim had been
the one constant friend on the river when everyone else—the feuding families, the con men, the
even-tempered ladies who owned people—had used or hurt somebody for their own comfort. The more
Huck remembered, the less the old lessons about “property” and “duty” seemed to fit the man chained
in a shed at the Phelps farm. Holding the letter again, he trembled, feeling as if he stood between two
roads—one that the adults around him called salvation, and another that seemed to lead straight
against their rules but toward the only loyalty he could still respect. (Twain, 1884)
At last Huck read the words he had written one more time—telling Miss Watson where Jim was—and
then something in him shifted. He thought about Miss Watson, who had prayed over Huck and taught
him to spell his name, but who had also been ready to sell Jim down the river, away from his family, for
money. He thought about how, if he sent the letter, respectable folks would praise him and say he had
done his duty, and how Jim, who had called Huck his best friend in the world, would be dragged back in
irons and maybe beaten besides. “It was a close place,” he would remember later; he felt as if the devil
and the Sunday-school picture of heaven were both watching to see which way he would jump. Then
Huck said to himself that if helping Jim meant he would go to hell, he would just have to risk hell; he tore
up the letter and decided he would “steal Jim out of slavery” and “never think no more about it.” (Twain,
1884)
From that moment, the raft and the river were no longer simply a boy’s hiding-place from beatings and
respectable clothes; they became the space where Huck’s own notion of right and wrong drifted away
from what the shore said it was. Huck did not stop believing that the widow and Miss Watson were good
people in many ways—he still thought of their prayers and rules when his courage failed him—but he
could not bend his memory of Jim to fit their rule that a Black man was only property. The choice to help
Jim did not make Huck suddenly wise about every other kind of injustice—the reader is meant to notice
how his blind spots remain—but it did mark a point he would not go back from. The river would carry
them both into more trouble at the Phelps farm, and the whole ridiculous business of Tom Sawyer’s
“evasion” still lay ahead; yet Huck’s torn scrap of paper, lost somewhere in the currents, stood for a
, different sort of map, one he had drawn himself by trusting the feeling that a friend’s freedom weighed
more than a rule he could no longer respect. (Twain, 1884)
(Adapted from the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)
QUESTIONS 1–8: MAIN IDEA, BIG PICTURE
1. The passage as a whole primarily emphasizes
A. how Huck and Tom Sawyer design an elaborate escape plan at the Phelps farm.
B. how Huck’s decision about Jim forces him to choose between the moral code he has been
taught and the loyalty he feels to his friend.
C. how the Mississippi River functions as a route for steamboat commerce.
D. how the king and duke deceive small-town audiences with their schemes.
2. Across the four paragraphs, Huck’s torn letter functions mainly as
A. evidence that Huck has finally learned to obey the rules he was taught.
B. a symbol of Huck’s rejection of literacy and religion.
C. a physical object that marks the moment when Huck’s private conscience parts company
with the community’s definition of right.
D. a meaningless prop used only to move the plot along.
3. The first paragraph suggests that Huck initially writes the letter to Miss Watson chiefly because
A. he hopes she will free Jim and reward Huck financially.
B. he has been taught that returning a runaway enslaved person is the only way to avoid eternal
punishment.
C. Jim has demanded that Huck send word of his whereabouts.
D. he wishes to punish the king and duke.
4. Taken together, the first two paragraphs portray Huck as a character who
A. tries to harden his heart by recalling Jim’s flaws but finds that their shared history instead
strengthens his sympathy and sense of obligation.
B. believes that childhood adventures excuse him from making moral decisions.
C. thinks that everyone on the river has treated him with equal kindness.
D. never doubts that helping Jim is the right thing to do.
5. Which statement best captures a central theme developed in the passage?
A. Legal definitions of property always produce just outcomes.
B. Genuine moral insight may arise when personal experience challenges the lessons a child
has been taught.
C. Friendship has little influence on how people judge right and wrong.
D. Decisions about right and wrong are always easy once someone has prayed.
When Huck Finn sat alone on the raft with the scrap of paper in his hand, the Mississippi River slid past
as quietly as if nothing in particular were happening. The king and the duke—two frauds Huck had
drifted with for a time—had sold Jim for forty dollars to a farmer named Phelps, and Huck had learned
that Jim was now locked in a shed, waiting to be sent back to Miss Watson in exchange for a reward.
Everything Huck had been taught in Sunday school and by the “sivilizing” women told him that helping
a runaway slave was stealing, and that people who stole other folks’ property went to everlasting fire.
Thinking of this, Huck wrote on the paper where Jim was and that Miss Watson could fetch him there,
and felt, for a moment, as if the words had set him back on the path to heaven. But when he tried to pray
over the letter, no words would come; each time he shut his eyes he saw Jim on the raft, calling him
“honey,” talking about buying his wife and children when he was free, and trusting Huck as the only
white person between him and the trader’s chain. (Twain, 1884)
Huck set the letter down and tried to recollect every bad thing he could about Jim—times when Jim had
been stubborn, or simple, or afraid—in hopes that anger would stiffen his resolve to send the paper.
Instead, the picture that kept coming was of Jim standing the night watch so Huck could sleep, or crying
over the thought of his little girl who would not answer him because she was deaf, or hiding Huck’s own
father’s corpse from him so the boy would not have to look upon it. Huck saw, too, how Jim had been
the one constant friend on the river when everyone else—the feuding families, the con men, the
even-tempered ladies who owned people—had used or hurt somebody for their own comfort. The more
Huck remembered, the less the old lessons about “property” and “duty” seemed to fit the man chained
in a shed at the Phelps farm. Holding the letter again, he trembled, feeling as if he stood between two
roads—one that the adults around him called salvation, and another that seemed to lead straight
against their rules but toward the only loyalty he could still respect. (Twain, 1884)
At last Huck read the words he had written one more time—telling Miss Watson where Jim was—and
then something in him shifted. He thought about Miss Watson, who had prayed over Huck and taught
him to spell his name, but who had also been ready to sell Jim down the river, away from his family, for
money. He thought about how, if he sent the letter, respectable folks would praise him and say he had
done his duty, and how Jim, who had called Huck his best friend in the world, would be dragged back in
irons and maybe beaten besides. “It was a close place,” he would remember later; he felt as if the devil
and the Sunday-school picture of heaven were both watching to see which way he would jump. Then
Huck said to himself that if helping Jim meant he would go to hell, he would just have to risk hell; he tore
up the letter and decided he would “steal Jim out of slavery” and “never think no more about it.” (Twain,
1884)
From that moment, the raft and the river were no longer simply a boy’s hiding-place from beatings and
respectable clothes; they became the space where Huck’s own notion of right and wrong drifted away
from what the shore said it was. Huck did not stop believing that the widow and Miss Watson were good
people in many ways—he still thought of their prayers and rules when his courage failed him—but he
could not bend his memory of Jim to fit their rule that a Black man was only property. The choice to help
Jim did not make Huck suddenly wise about every other kind of injustice—the reader is meant to notice
how his blind spots remain—but it did mark a point he would not go back from. The river would carry
them both into more trouble at the Phelps farm, and the whole ridiculous business of Tom Sawyer’s
“evasion” still lay ahead; yet Huck’s torn scrap of paper, lost somewhere in the currents, stood for a
, different sort of map, one he had drawn himself by trusting the feeling that a friend’s freedom weighed
more than a rule he could no longer respect. (Twain, 1884)
(Adapted from the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)
QUESTIONS 1–8: MAIN IDEA, BIG PICTURE
1. The passage as a whole primarily emphasizes
A. how Huck and Tom Sawyer design an elaborate escape plan at the Phelps farm.
B. how Huck’s decision about Jim forces him to choose between the moral code he has been
taught and the loyalty he feels to his friend.
C. how the Mississippi River functions as a route for steamboat commerce.
D. how the king and duke deceive small-town audiences with their schemes.
2. Across the four paragraphs, Huck’s torn letter functions mainly as
A. evidence that Huck has finally learned to obey the rules he was taught.
B. a symbol of Huck’s rejection of literacy and religion.
C. a physical object that marks the moment when Huck’s private conscience parts company
with the community’s definition of right.
D. a meaningless prop used only to move the plot along.
3. The first paragraph suggests that Huck initially writes the letter to Miss Watson chiefly because
A. he hopes she will free Jim and reward Huck financially.
B. he has been taught that returning a runaway enslaved person is the only way to avoid eternal
punishment.
C. Jim has demanded that Huck send word of his whereabouts.
D. he wishes to punish the king and duke.
4. Taken together, the first two paragraphs portray Huck as a character who
A. tries to harden his heart by recalling Jim’s flaws but finds that their shared history instead
strengthens his sympathy and sense of obligation.
B. believes that childhood adventures excuse him from making moral decisions.
C. thinks that everyone on the river has treated him with equal kindness.
D. never doubts that helping Jim is the right thing to do.
5. Which statement best captures a central theme developed in the passage?
A. Legal definitions of property always produce just outcomes.
B. Genuine moral insight may arise when personal experience challenges the lessons a child
has been taught.
C. Friendship has little influence on how people judge right and wrong.
D. Decisions about right and wrong are always easy once someone has prayed.
