SAT Reading & Writing Practice Set – The Joy Luck Club (Adapted)
The mahjong tiles sounded different with her hands on them. June noticed this as she arranged her tiles
on the wooden rack, the smooth rectangles clicking softly in a rhythm that still felt borrowed. Her
mother’s seat at the Joy Luck table had always seemed slightly elevated, though the chairs were all the
same, the cushion a little more worn, the view of the doorway exact. Now that seat was hers, the red
cushion flattened under her weight, the other aunties’ eyes resting on her a fraction of a second longer
than felt comfortable.
The apartment smelled of soy sauce and orange peel, of the steamed whole fish they had already eaten
and the almond cookies waiting on the sideboard. On the wall behind An-mei, a framed calendar
showed a Chinese landscape in colors that looked too bright for the San Francisco evening outside. The
aunties talked in English and Cantonese and Mandarin, their voices rising and falling over one another
like waves. June caught enough words to follow the gossip about stocks and grandchildren, but when
they slipped into the older stories, the ones that began with “In China…,” she felt herself drifting toward
the small, embarrassed quiet that tended to wrap itself around her in this room.
Her mother, Suyuan, had started the Joy Luck Club twice—once in Kweilin, during the war, and once
again in this city, at another table with different tiles. June had grown up knowing that Joy Luck meant
food and laughter and loud voices, that it was something her mother had carried across an ocean
without packing it in any suitcase. But tonight, sitting in the seat that still seemed shaped to Suyuan’s
absence, June mostly felt the weight of what she did not know: the details of those nights in Kweilin, the
exact road where her mother had left her twin baby daughters, the reasons for the secrets folded into
phrases like “later” and “too sad.”
“Why you play so slow, Jing-mei?” Lindo asked, snapping a tile down with practiced force. “Your mother
always play like she already see her winning hand before we even begin.” The other women laughed.
June smiled, unsure whether this was praise or complaint. She had never liked her Chinese name; to
her college friends she was June, plain and easy. Here, though, the syllables of “Jing-mei” laid a different
grid over her, one that made her feel like a girl again, standing at the edge of adult conversations she
was not meant to understand.
They played through the four winds, coins and crumpled bills moving across the table, the aunties
complaining about bad tiles and bad daughters in the same breath. Waverly’s name came up, of
course—Waverly with her perfect child and her American husband and her talent for making success
sound accidental. June remembered, sharply and for no reason, the crab dinner years ago when her
mother had pushed the best crab onto June’s plate and taken a broken one for herself, later calling June
generous in a tone that made generosity feel like both compliment and assignment.
When the last hand was played, the money was gathered, the tiles stacked back into their cardboard
box. June started to rise, ready to wash dishes, to slide back into helpful daughter roles that involved
more action and less talking. But An-mei reached across the table and touched her wrist. “Sit, Jing-mei,”
she said. “We have something to tell you.” The room seemed to contract around the circle of chairs;
even the calendar on the wall looked suddenly like a window rather than a picture.
Ying-ying cleared her throat. “Your mother,” she began, “she never stop looking.” June frowned. They
had spoken about Suyuan all evening in the comfortable past tense of stories, about her mahjong luck
and her impatience with American tea bags. “Looking for what?” June asked. The aunties exchanged a
, glance that traveled around the table like a tile being passed. “For your sisters,” Lindo said finally. “Your
mother’s twin daughters. In China.”
June had seen the black-and-white photograph in the bottom of her mother’s jewelry box: a woman in
a padded coat standing on a dirt road, two babies in her arms, the edges of the picture curled with age.
She knew, in the way children know things half-told, that there had been a war and a road too crowded
and a choice her mother never stopped regretting. But the photograph had always felt like a ghost story,
something that existed on paper and in her mother’s sighs, not in the present tense. “You mean
they’re…” June began, and could not finish the sentence.
An-mei nodded. “Alive,” she said. “They found them. Red Cross, relatives, so many years your mother
write letters, send pictures. Before she die, she get word they are found, but not where.” She slid an
envelope across the table toward June. Inside was a check, thick paper stamped with the bank’s name
and a number that made June blink. “We put together,” Lindo said. “So you go to China. You tell them
your mother’s story. You tell them she never stop thinking of them. You be her, one last time.”
June looked at the check, at the smudged lines of her own name, Jing-mei Woo, written neatly in Lindo’s
careful hand. She thought of her rusty Mandarin, the way she stumbled over tones when ordering in
Chinatown, how her mother would switch to English halfway through sentences when June’s face went
blank. “But I don’t know how to tell it,” June said. “Not in the right words. Not in Chinese.” She imagined
standing in front of two strangers with her mother’s face and delivering news of Suyuan’s death in
phrases that sounded like a child’s homework.
The aunties shook their heads almost at once, a chorus of disagreement. “Story is not in the language,”
Ying-ying said. “It is in the heart.” “You already know enough,” An-mei added. “You know how she laugh,
how she get angry, how she hold chopsticks, how she choose the worst crab for herself. You show them
that. They will know your mother.” June looked at their faces, the lines carved by years and crossings,
and felt something like a tide turning inside her—a slow recognition that this journey was not only about
her mother’s past but also about a part of herself she had kept at arm’s length.
(Adapted from the novel The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan)
The mahjong tiles sounded different with her hands on them. June noticed this as she arranged her tiles
on the wooden rack, the smooth rectangles clicking softly in a rhythm that still felt borrowed. Her
mother’s seat at the Joy Luck table had always seemed slightly elevated, though the chairs were all the
same, the cushion a little more worn, the view of the doorway exact. Now that seat was hers, the red
cushion flattened under her weight, the other aunties’ eyes resting on her a fraction of a second longer
than felt comfortable.
The apartment smelled of soy sauce and orange peel, of the steamed whole fish they had already eaten
and the almond cookies waiting on the sideboard. On the wall behind An-mei, a framed calendar
showed a Chinese landscape in colors that looked too bright for the San Francisco evening outside. The
aunties talked in English and Cantonese and Mandarin, their voices rising and falling over one another
like waves. June caught enough words to follow the gossip about stocks and grandchildren, but when
they slipped into the older stories, the ones that began with “In China…,” she felt herself drifting toward
the small, embarrassed quiet that tended to wrap itself around her in this room.
Her mother, Suyuan, had started the Joy Luck Club twice—once in Kweilin, during the war, and once
again in this city, at another table with different tiles. June had grown up knowing that Joy Luck meant
food and laughter and loud voices, that it was something her mother had carried across an ocean
without packing it in any suitcase. But tonight, sitting in the seat that still seemed shaped to Suyuan’s
absence, June mostly felt the weight of what she did not know: the details of those nights in Kweilin, the
exact road where her mother had left her twin baby daughters, the reasons for the secrets folded into
phrases like “later” and “too sad.”
“Why you play so slow, Jing-mei?” Lindo asked, snapping a tile down with practiced force. “Your mother
always play like she already see her winning hand before we even begin.” The other women laughed.
June smiled, unsure whether this was praise or complaint. She had never liked her Chinese name; to
her college friends she was June, plain and easy. Here, though, the syllables of “Jing-mei” laid a different
grid over her, one that made her feel like a girl again, standing at the edge of adult conversations she
was not meant to understand.
They played through the four winds, coins and crumpled bills moving across the table, the aunties
complaining about bad tiles and bad daughters in the same breath. Waverly’s name came up, of
course—Waverly with her perfect child and her American husband and her talent for making success
sound accidental. June remembered, sharply and for no reason, the crab dinner years ago when her
mother had pushed the best crab onto June’s plate and taken a broken one for herself, later calling June
generous in a tone that made generosity feel like both compliment and assignment.
When the last hand was played, the money was gathered, the tiles stacked back into their cardboard
box. June started to rise, ready to wash dishes, to slide back into helpful daughter roles that involved
more action and less talking. But An-mei reached across the table and touched her wrist. “Sit, Jing-mei,”
she said. “We have something to tell you.” The room seemed to contract around the circle of chairs;
even the calendar on the wall looked suddenly like a window rather than a picture.
Ying-ying cleared her throat. “Your mother,” she began, “she never stop looking.” June frowned. They
had spoken about Suyuan all evening in the comfortable past tense of stories, about her mahjong luck
and her impatience with American tea bags. “Looking for what?” June asked. The aunties exchanged a
, glance that traveled around the table like a tile being passed. “For your sisters,” Lindo said finally. “Your
mother’s twin daughters. In China.”
June had seen the black-and-white photograph in the bottom of her mother’s jewelry box: a woman in
a padded coat standing on a dirt road, two babies in her arms, the edges of the picture curled with age.
She knew, in the way children know things half-told, that there had been a war and a road too crowded
and a choice her mother never stopped regretting. But the photograph had always felt like a ghost story,
something that existed on paper and in her mother’s sighs, not in the present tense. “You mean
they’re…” June began, and could not finish the sentence.
An-mei nodded. “Alive,” she said. “They found them. Red Cross, relatives, so many years your mother
write letters, send pictures. Before she die, she get word they are found, but not where.” She slid an
envelope across the table toward June. Inside was a check, thick paper stamped with the bank’s name
and a number that made June blink. “We put together,” Lindo said. “So you go to China. You tell them
your mother’s story. You tell them she never stop thinking of them. You be her, one last time.”
June looked at the check, at the smudged lines of her own name, Jing-mei Woo, written neatly in Lindo’s
careful hand. She thought of her rusty Mandarin, the way she stumbled over tones when ordering in
Chinatown, how her mother would switch to English halfway through sentences when June’s face went
blank. “But I don’t know how to tell it,” June said. “Not in the right words. Not in Chinese.” She imagined
standing in front of two strangers with her mother’s face and delivering news of Suyuan’s death in
phrases that sounded like a child’s homework.
The aunties shook their heads almost at once, a chorus of disagreement. “Story is not in the language,”
Ying-ying said. “It is in the heart.” “You already know enough,” An-mei added. “You know how she laugh,
how she get angry, how she hold chopsticks, how she choose the worst crab for herself. You show them
that. They will know your mother.” June looked at their faces, the lines carved by years and crossings,
and felt something like a tide turning inside her—a slow recognition that this journey was not only about
her mother’s past but also about a part of herself she had kept at arm’s length.
(Adapted from the novel The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan)
