SAT Reading & Writing Practice Set - The Age of Innocence (Adapted)
When Newland Archer first saw Ellen Olenska across the Mingott box at the old opera house, he had
already arranged his life into a pattern that seemed both comfortable and honourable. He was newly
engaged to May Welland, whose innocence, grace, and unquestioned suitability had been admired by
all of Old New York; he prided himself on anticipating her thoughts, on guiding her gently toward the
“modern” ideas he believed himself to hold. Ellen’s return from Europe, trailing rumours of a
disreputable foreign husband and a contemplated divorce, disturbed that tidy picture, not only because
society whispered about her but because she seemed, in her careless dress and frank speech, to call
into question the rules that upheld the picture itself. Newland, as a junior partner in a respectable law
firm and a loyal member of his caste, found himself advising Ellen against suing for divorce on the very
grounds that shocked her: that the family’s reputation and the “order” of things mattered more than her
escape from an unhappy marriage. Yet he also walked with her in out-of-the-way streets and talked with
her of books and other cities, feeling, in her company, as if for the first time he were judging that order
from the outside instead of simply moving within it. (Wharton, 1920)
The more he tried to reassure himself by hastening his marriage to May, the more his life divided into
parallel tracks that refused to meet. In his Fifth Avenue house, with its flowers, planned dinners, and
perfectly proper bride, he played the part assigned to him by families whose very conversation seemed
designed to keep anything unexpected at bay. In Ellen’s little lodgings near Washington Square, where
the chairs were shabby but the air felt strangely open, he imagined a different existence—one in which
a man might admit his weariness with endless formal calls and small hypocrisies, and a woman might
be valued for experience rather than for never having seen anything. Ellen, however, was less willing
than he to treat their attraction as a private adventure detached from its consequences. When he urged
her to run away with him, or later simply to stay in New York so that they might “meet as often as we
can,” she reminded him that every stolen hour would be paid for by the pain of three people instead of
two. May, outwardly the embodiment of unknowing goodness, gave little sign that she guessed the
depth of her cousin’s hold on her fiancé; yet now and then a question, a glance, or a sudden firmness
in her manner suggested that her innocence included a quiet, practical awareness of what she meant
to protect. (Wharton, 1920)
The crisis came when the Mingott family turned again to Newland, asking him to use his influence to
persuade Ellen to return to her husband in Europe, thereby smoothing over the lingering scandal.
Newland, torn between his role as family counsellor and his desire not to lose Ellen, urged her instead
to resist that demand and remain in America on her own terms. Ellen, worn by years of gossip and
half-kindness, agreed to stay in New York only on the condition that their relation not be turned into an
open betrayal; she would see him sometimes, she said, but there must be no flight, no public breaking
of bonds. Newland promised what he could and then, almost at once, found that the promise did not
satisfy him. In Newport, in New York drawing rooms, and in brief escapes to outlying houses, he
oscillated between planning a decisive break with May and accepting one postponement after another.
At last, when Ellen’s grandmother suffered a stroke and Ellen came back to nurse her, their meetings
grew more charged and more constrained, until one evening Ellen suddenly announced that she had
decided to return to Europe after all. Newland, stunned, clung to the idea that he might still follow her,
telling himself that there must be one moment in which he could fling aside duty in favour of the life he
really wanted. (Wharton, 1920)
, That imagined moment arrived, and ended, on the same night. May, with perfect composure, gave a
farewell dinner for Ellen, filling the house with flowers and familiar faces so that nothing could be said
or done that was not covered by custom. Newland, who had spent the day rehearsing the words in
which he would tell his wife he was leaving her, found instead that she wished to speak to him. After
their guests had gone, May announced that she was expecting a child—and added, almost as an
afterthought, that she had told Ellen this news two weeks earlier, when it was still only a hope. The
remark fell between them as quietly as a piece of household information, yet it shut every door Newland
had been reaching for. He understood that Ellen’s decision to go had been made in the knowledge that
May claimed his future, and that following Ellen now would mean not only deserting his wife but openly
repudiating the role of dutiful husband and father that his world still regarded as the measure of a man.
Years later, after May’s early death, Newland travelled to Paris with his grown son Dallas, who had
arranged a visit to “poor cousin Ellen.” Sitting on a bench outside her apartment house, Newland
watched Dallas go up alone and chose not to follow, telling himself that the memory of the woman he
had once almost chosen was a kind of possession too delicate to submit to the light of an ordinary,
middle-aged afternoon. (Wharton, 1920)
(Adapted from the novel The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton)
QUESTIONS 1–8: MAIN IDEA, BIG PICTURE
1. The passage as a whole primarily emphasizes
A. how Newland Archer’s legal skill wins every case he argues in New York.
B. how Newland’s attraction to Ellen Olenska brings him to question the social code he
inhabits, yet he ultimately chooses a life shaped by that code rather than by his desire.
C. how May Welland abandons New York society for Europe.
D. how Mrs. Manson Mingott single-handedly reforms Old New York.
2. Across the four paragraphs, Newland is presented chiefly as a character who
A. never doubts that his marriage to May is perfect.
B. rejects all social expectations without hesitation.
C. oscillates between the wish to follow his feelings and the pull of duty, ending in a
compromise that feels both dignified and quietly costly.
D. cares only about money and status.
3. The first paragraph’s account of Newland’s initial encounters with Ellen mainly serves to
A. show that Ellen is universally admired in New York.
B. establish Ellen as a disruptive presence whose candid outlook makes Newland see his
settled life and “modern” opinions from a new, more critical vantage point.
C. prove that Newland intends to break his engagement at once.
D. suggest that Ellen is eager to return to her husband.
4. Taken together, the second and third paragraphs primarily highlight
A. how Ellen and Newland coordinate to deceive May about their relationship.
B. that Ellen refuses to consider the emotional consequences of any decision.
C. the tension between Newland’s fantasies of escape with Ellen and both Ellen’s insistence on
limiting harm and the family’s pressure to use her to repair its own reputation.
D. that May is completely oblivious to what is happening around her.
When Newland Archer first saw Ellen Olenska across the Mingott box at the old opera house, he had
already arranged his life into a pattern that seemed both comfortable and honourable. He was newly
engaged to May Welland, whose innocence, grace, and unquestioned suitability had been admired by
all of Old New York; he prided himself on anticipating her thoughts, on guiding her gently toward the
“modern” ideas he believed himself to hold. Ellen’s return from Europe, trailing rumours of a
disreputable foreign husband and a contemplated divorce, disturbed that tidy picture, not only because
society whispered about her but because she seemed, in her careless dress and frank speech, to call
into question the rules that upheld the picture itself. Newland, as a junior partner in a respectable law
firm and a loyal member of his caste, found himself advising Ellen against suing for divorce on the very
grounds that shocked her: that the family’s reputation and the “order” of things mattered more than her
escape from an unhappy marriage. Yet he also walked with her in out-of-the-way streets and talked with
her of books and other cities, feeling, in her company, as if for the first time he were judging that order
from the outside instead of simply moving within it. (Wharton, 1920)
The more he tried to reassure himself by hastening his marriage to May, the more his life divided into
parallel tracks that refused to meet. In his Fifth Avenue house, with its flowers, planned dinners, and
perfectly proper bride, he played the part assigned to him by families whose very conversation seemed
designed to keep anything unexpected at bay. In Ellen’s little lodgings near Washington Square, where
the chairs were shabby but the air felt strangely open, he imagined a different existence—one in which
a man might admit his weariness with endless formal calls and small hypocrisies, and a woman might
be valued for experience rather than for never having seen anything. Ellen, however, was less willing
than he to treat their attraction as a private adventure detached from its consequences. When he urged
her to run away with him, or later simply to stay in New York so that they might “meet as often as we
can,” she reminded him that every stolen hour would be paid for by the pain of three people instead of
two. May, outwardly the embodiment of unknowing goodness, gave little sign that she guessed the
depth of her cousin’s hold on her fiancé; yet now and then a question, a glance, or a sudden firmness
in her manner suggested that her innocence included a quiet, practical awareness of what she meant
to protect. (Wharton, 1920)
The crisis came when the Mingott family turned again to Newland, asking him to use his influence to
persuade Ellen to return to her husband in Europe, thereby smoothing over the lingering scandal.
Newland, torn between his role as family counsellor and his desire not to lose Ellen, urged her instead
to resist that demand and remain in America on her own terms. Ellen, worn by years of gossip and
half-kindness, agreed to stay in New York only on the condition that their relation not be turned into an
open betrayal; she would see him sometimes, she said, but there must be no flight, no public breaking
of bonds. Newland promised what he could and then, almost at once, found that the promise did not
satisfy him. In Newport, in New York drawing rooms, and in brief escapes to outlying houses, he
oscillated between planning a decisive break with May and accepting one postponement after another.
At last, when Ellen’s grandmother suffered a stroke and Ellen came back to nurse her, their meetings
grew more charged and more constrained, until one evening Ellen suddenly announced that she had
decided to return to Europe after all. Newland, stunned, clung to the idea that he might still follow her,
telling himself that there must be one moment in which he could fling aside duty in favour of the life he
really wanted. (Wharton, 1920)
, That imagined moment arrived, and ended, on the same night. May, with perfect composure, gave a
farewell dinner for Ellen, filling the house with flowers and familiar faces so that nothing could be said
or done that was not covered by custom. Newland, who had spent the day rehearsing the words in
which he would tell his wife he was leaving her, found instead that she wished to speak to him. After
their guests had gone, May announced that she was expecting a child—and added, almost as an
afterthought, that she had told Ellen this news two weeks earlier, when it was still only a hope. The
remark fell between them as quietly as a piece of household information, yet it shut every door Newland
had been reaching for. He understood that Ellen’s decision to go had been made in the knowledge that
May claimed his future, and that following Ellen now would mean not only deserting his wife but openly
repudiating the role of dutiful husband and father that his world still regarded as the measure of a man.
Years later, after May’s early death, Newland travelled to Paris with his grown son Dallas, who had
arranged a visit to “poor cousin Ellen.” Sitting on a bench outside her apartment house, Newland
watched Dallas go up alone and chose not to follow, telling himself that the memory of the woman he
had once almost chosen was a kind of possession too delicate to submit to the light of an ordinary,
middle-aged afternoon. (Wharton, 1920)
(Adapted from the novel The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton)
QUESTIONS 1–8: MAIN IDEA, BIG PICTURE
1. The passage as a whole primarily emphasizes
A. how Newland Archer’s legal skill wins every case he argues in New York.
B. how Newland’s attraction to Ellen Olenska brings him to question the social code he
inhabits, yet he ultimately chooses a life shaped by that code rather than by his desire.
C. how May Welland abandons New York society for Europe.
D. how Mrs. Manson Mingott single-handedly reforms Old New York.
2. Across the four paragraphs, Newland is presented chiefly as a character who
A. never doubts that his marriage to May is perfect.
B. rejects all social expectations without hesitation.
C. oscillates between the wish to follow his feelings and the pull of duty, ending in a
compromise that feels both dignified and quietly costly.
D. cares only about money and status.
3. The first paragraph’s account of Newland’s initial encounters with Ellen mainly serves to
A. show that Ellen is universally admired in New York.
B. establish Ellen as a disruptive presence whose candid outlook makes Newland see his
settled life and “modern” opinions from a new, more critical vantage point.
C. prove that Newland intends to break his engagement at once.
D. suggest that Ellen is eager to return to her husband.
4. Taken together, the second and third paragraphs primarily highlight
A. how Ellen and Newland coordinate to deceive May about their relationship.
B. that Ellen refuses to consider the emotional consequences of any decision.
C. the tension between Newland’s fantasies of escape with Ellen and both Ellen’s insistence on
limiting harm and the family’s pressure to use her to repair its own reputation.
D. that May is completely oblivious to what is happening around her.
