SAT Reading & Writing Practice Set - The Turn of the Screw (Adapted)
When the young governess first accepted her position at Bly, she had thought mainly of pleasing the
handsome uncle who engaged her and of proving herself equal to the “great loneliness” of an English
country house. The children, Miles and Flora, seemed at first to make the experiment easy: they were
beautiful, charming, and, as Mrs. Grose the housekeeper assured her, “angelic” in every way. If their
uncle’s condition—that she must manage everything herself and never trouble him with complaints—
sometimes weighed on her mind at night, it also gave her a sense of special importance, as if she had
been trusted with a delicate mission. That feeling hardened into something more anxious after she saw,
one evening, a strange man standing on a tower of the house, staring down with a fixed, intent look that
seemed to fall not on the bricks but on her. When Mrs. Grose, hearing the governess’s description,
identified the figure as Peter Quint, the former valet who had died months before, the governess
concluded that her responsibility for the children included defending them against visitations that were
not, in any ordinary sense, alive. (James, 1898)
The pattern, once begun, seemed to repeat itself with a terrible logic. The governess saw Quint again at
a window, peering in as if searching for someone he had expected to find, and later she encountered,
by the lake where Flora played, the figure of a woman dressed in black, her head bowed in misery. Mrs.
Grose’s whispers filled in the outline: the woman was Miss Jessel, the previous governess, who had
“gone off” in disgrace after an intimacy with Quint and had died soon afterward. To the new governess,
this history did not remain buried; she became convinced that Quint and Miss Jessel had returned to
claim Miles and Flora, and that the children, far from being ignorant of the apparitions, were secretly
communing with them. Yet whenever she tried to surprise them into admitting what they saw, the
children’s faces showed only innocence or a kind of bright, guarded composure that made her feel, by
turns, foolish and more certain than ever. Mrs. Grose, who never saw the figures herself, wavered
between doubt and belief, but the governess, feeling both isolated and exalted in her role, held to the
idea that she alone could see the danger and therefore must stand between it and her charges. (James,
1898)
The crisis with Flora came on a day when Miles, at the governess’s suggestion, was playing the piano
indoors. Drawn by a sudden suspicion, she left him at the instrument and went in search of his sister,
only to find that the little girl had slipped away to the far side of the lake. There, among the reeds, the
governess saw again the dark figure she identified as Miss Jessel, and she pointed it out, insisting that
Flora must at last acknowledge the presence she had so long pretended not to see. Flora, however,
stared only at the governess, accused her of cruelty, and demanded that Mrs. Grose take her away from
such “horrid” talk. To Mrs. Grose, who arrived in time to witness the child’s hysteria but not the
apparition, the scene looked less like a rescue than like a breakdown of the governess’s influence. At
the governess’s urging, Mrs. Grose agreed to remove Flora to her uncle, leaving the governess alone at
Bly with Miles and with the sense that the “enemy” now concentrated itself on the remaining child.
Whether she had protected Flora from corruption or merely terrified her, the governess did not allow
herself to ask too closely; she told herself instead that the field of battle had narrowed, and that she
and Miles were now face to face with whatever haunted the house. (James, 1898)
The last night with Miles began in a stillness that seemed to her full of design. She drew him to the
dining-room, away from the windows, and questioned him about the trouble at school that had led to
his mysterious dismissal—the letter that had sent him back to Bly without explanation. Miles admitted
at last that he had “said things” to other boys that the masters judged unfit, though he claimed not to
, remember exactly what words had so offended them. As he spoke, the governess felt the air thicken
with a presence she believed she knew; looking toward the window, she saw Quint’s face pressed there,
pale and watchful. She placed herself between Miles and the ghost, demanding that the boy name what
he saw. Miles cried out “Peter Quint, you devil!” and gasped, as if something had been wrenched away
from him. The governess, exulting that she had “saved” him at last, held him tightly, only to find a
moment later that his small body had gone still in her arms. The tale, as she later set it down, ends
there, with no voice but hers to say whether she had wrested a soul from evil or, in fighting shadows only
she could see, had helped hurry a frightened child to his death. (James, 1898)
(Adapted from the novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James)
QUESTIONS 1–8: MAIN IDEA, BIG PICTURE
1. The passage as a whole primarily emphasizes
A. how the governess easily distinguishes between imagination and reality at Bly.
B. how the governess’s sense of solitary responsibility for Miles and Flora leads her into a
struggle with apparitions—or fears—that culminates in Miles’s death and leaves the events
open to more than one interpretation.
C. how Mrs. Grose cleverly exposes the governess as a fraud.
D. how the uncle returns to Bly and restores peace to the household.
2. Across the four paragraphs, the governess is presented chiefly as a character who
A. calmly accepts that she may not understand the children.
B. values her position more than the children’s safety.
C. feels both exalted and isolated in her belief that invisible dangers threaten her charges, and
acts with a fervor that may be either heroic or tragically misguided.
D. refuses to speak of anything supernatural.
3. The first paragraph’s description of the governess’s early days at Bly mainly serves to
A. show that the children are disobedient from the beginning.
B. establish her initial mixture of romantic ambition and anxiety, and the way the first sighting
of Quint turns her sense of a “delicate mission” into a battle against unseen forces.
C. prove that Mrs. Grose does not like her.
D. suggest that the uncle plans to return at any moment.
4. Taken together, the second and third paragraphs primarily highlight
A. the clear evidence that the ghosts are visible to everyone at Bly.
B. the contrast between the governess’s conviction that the children are secretly in league with
the ghosts and the outward signs—Flora’s hysteria, Mrs. Grose’s doubts—that make her
appear unstable to others.
C. that Flora openly admits to seeing Miss Jessel.
D. that Miles and Flora are eager to leave Bly from the start.
When the young governess first accepted her position at Bly, she had thought mainly of pleasing the
handsome uncle who engaged her and of proving herself equal to the “great loneliness” of an English
country house. The children, Miles and Flora, seemed at first to make the experiment easy: they were
beautiful, charming, and, as Mrs. Grose the housekeeper assured her, “angelic” in every way. If their
uncle’s condition—that she must manage everything herself and never trouble him with complaints—
sometimes weighed on her mind at night, it also gave her a sense of special importance, as if she had
been trusted with a delicate mission. That feeling hardened into something more anxious after she saw,
one evening, a strange man standing on a tower of the house, staring down with a fixed, intent look that
seemed to fall not on the bricks but on her. When Mrs. Grose, hearing the governess’s description,
identified the figure as Peter Quint, the former valet who had died months before, the governess
concluded that her responsibility for the children included defending them against visitations that were
not, in any ordinary sense, alive. (James, 1898)
The pattern, once begun, seemed to repeat itself with a terrible logic. The governess saw Quint again at
a window, peering in as if searching for someone he had expected to find, and later she encountered,
by the lake where Flora played, the figure of a woman dressed in black, her head bowed in misery. Mrs.
Grose’s whispers filled in the outline: the woman was Miss Jessel, the previous governess, who had
“gone off” in disgrace after an intimacy with Quint and had died soon afterward. To the new governess,
this history did not remain buried; she became convinced that Quint and Miss Jessel had returned to
claim Miles and Flora, and that the children, far from being ignorant of the apparitions, were secretly
communing with them. Yet whenever she tried to surprise them into admitting what they saw, the
children’s faces showed only innocence or a kind of bright, guarded composure that made her feel, by
turns, foolish and more certain than ever. Mrs. Grose, who never saw the figures herself, wavered
between doubt and belief, but the governess, feeling both isolated and exalted in her role, held to the
idea that she alone could see the danger and therefore must stand between it and her charges. (James,
1898)
The crisis with Flora came on a day when Miles, at the governess’s suggestion, was playing the piano
indoors. Drawn by a sudden suspicion, she left him at the instrument and went in search of his sister,
only to find that the little girl had slipped away to the far side of the lake. There, among the reeds, the
governess saw again the dark figure she identified as Miss Jessel, and she pointed it out, insisting that
Flora must at last acknowledge the presence she had so long pretended not to see. Flora, however,
stared only at the governess, accused her of cruelty, and demanded that Mrs. Grose take her away from
such “horrid” talk. To Mrs. Grose, who arrived in time to witness the child’s hysteria but not the
apparition, the scene looked less like a rescue than like a breakdown of the governess’s influence. At
the governess’s urging, Mrs. Grose agreed to remove Flora to her uncle, leaving the governess alone at
Bly with Miles and with the sense that the “enemy” now concentrated itself on the remaining child.
Whether she had protected Flora from corruption or merely terrified her, the governess did not allow
herself to ask too closely; she told herself instead that the field of battle had narrowed, and that she
and Miles were now face to face with whatever haunted the house. (James, 1898)
The last night with Miles began in a stillness that seemed to her full of design. She drew him to the
dining-room, away from the windows, and questioned him about the trouble at school that had led to
his mysterious dismissal—the letter that had sent him back to Bly without explanation. Miles admitted
at last that he had “said things” to other boys that the masters judged unfit, though he claimed not to
, remember exactly what words had so offended them. As he spoke, the governess felt the air thicken
with a presence she believed she knew; looking toward the window, she saw Quint’s face pressed there,
pale and watchful. She placed herself between Miles and the ghost, demanding that the boy name what
he saw. Miles cried out “Peter Quint, you devil!” and gasped, as if something had been wrenched away
from him. The governess, exulting that she had “saved” him at last, held him tightly, only to find a
moment later that his small body had gone still in her arms. The tale, as she later set it down, ends
there, with no voice but hers to say whether she had wrested a soul from evil or, in fighting shadows only
she could see, had helped hurry a frightened child to his death. (James, 1898)
(Adapted from the novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James)
QUESTIONS 1–8: MAIN IDEA, BIG PICTURE
1. The passage as a whole primarily emphasizes
A. how the governess easily distinguishes between imagination and reality at Bly.
B. how the governess’s sense of solitary responsibility for Miles and Flora leads her into a
struggle with apparitions—or fears—that culminates in Miles’s death and leaves the events
open to more than one interpretation.
C. how Mrs. Grose cleverly exposes the governess as a fraud.
D. how the uncle returns to Bly and restores peace to the household.
2. Across the four paragraphs, the governess is presented chiefly as a character who
A. calmly accepts that she may not understand the children.
B. values her position more than the children’s safety.
C. feels both exalted and isolated in her belief that invisible dangers threaten her charges, and
acts with a fervor that may be either heroic or tragically misguided.
D. refuses to speak of anything supernatural.
3. The first paragraph’s description of the governess’s early days at Bly mainly serves to
A. show that the children are disobedient from the beginning.
B. establish her initial mixture of romantic ambition and anxiety, and the way the first sighting
of Quint turns her sense of a “delicate mission” into a battle against unseen forces.
C. prove that Mrs. Grose does not like her.
D. suggest that the uncle plans to return at any moment.
4. Taken together, the second and third paragraphs primarily highlight
A. the clear evidence that the ghosts are visible to everyone at Bly.
B. the contrast between the governess’s conviction that the children are secretly in league with
the ghosts and the outward signs—Flora’s hysteria, Mrs. Grose’s doubts—that make her
appear unstable to others.
C. that Flora openly admits to seeing Miss Jessel.
D. that Miles and Flora are eager to leave Bly from the start.
