SAT Reading and Writing Practice

Question 1

For years the town clock in Millford ran four minutes fast, and nobody with a train to catch seemed to mind. The error had a history. In 1952 the station master asked a jeweler to set the clock ahead so that passengers would reach the platform before the 6:10 departed. The jeweler did it once and then, out of habit, kept the offset at every winding.

When the railway dropped that evening train in 1981, the jeweler was gone and the offset remained. A high-school physics class measured it with a phone and a radio time signal, then published a short letter in the town paper. The select board voted to reset the clock. At the next town meeting an older resident objected that the fast clock had kept her on time for thirty years, and that a correct clock would only make her late.

Accepted Answer

how a small timing error outlived the reason for it

Question 2

For years the town clock in Millford ran four minutes fast, and nobody with a train to catch seemed to mind. The error had a history. In 1952 the station master asked a jeweler to set the clock ahead so that passengers would reach the platform before the 6:10 departed. The jeweler did it once and then, out of habit, kept the offset at every winding.

When the railway dropped that evening train in 1981, the jeweler was gone and the offset remained. A high-school physics class measured it with a phone and a radio time signal, then published a short letter in the town paper. The select board voted to reset the clock. At the next town meeting an older resident objected that the fast clock had kept her on time for thirty years, and that a correct clock would only make her late.

Accepted Answer

a difference from the correct time

Question 3

For years the town clock in Millford ran four minutes fast, and nobody with a train to catch seemed to mind. The error had a history. In 1952 the station master asked a jeweler to set the clock ahead so that passengers would reach the platform before the 6:10 departed. The jeweler did it once and then, out of habit, kept the offset at every winding.

When the railway dropped that evening train in 1981, the jeweler was gone and the offset remained. A high-school physics class measured it with a phone and a radio time signal, then published a short letter in the town paper. The select board voted to reset the clock. At the next town meeting an older resident objected that the fast clock had kept her on time for thirty years, and that a correct clock would only make her late.

Accepted Answer

“the station master asked a jeweler to set the clock ahead”

Question 4

For years the town clock in Millford ran four minutes fast, and nobody with a train to catch seemed to mind. The error had a history. In 1952 the station master asked a jeweler to set the clock ahead so that passengers would reach the platform before the 6:10 departed. The jeweler did it once and then, out of habit, kept the offset at every winding.

When the railway dropped that evening train in 1981, the jeweler was gone and the offset remained. A high-school physics class measured it with a phone and a radio time signal, then published a short letter in the town paper. The select board voted to reset the clock. At the next town meeting an older resident objected that the fast clock had kept her on time for thirty years, and that a correct clock would only make her late.

Accepted Answer

has organized her schedule around the fast clock

Question 5

For years the town clock in Millford ran four minutes fast, and nobody with a train to catch seemed to mind. The error had a history. In 1952 the station master asked a jeweler to set the clock ahead so that passengers would reach the platform before the 6:10 departed. The jeweler did it once and then, out of habit, kept the offset at every winding.

When the railway dropped that evening train in 1981, the jeweler was gone and the offset remained. A high-school physics class measured it with a phone and a radio time signal, then published a short letter in the town paper. The select board voted to reset the clock. At the next town meeting an older resident objected that the fast clock had kept her on time for thirty years, and that a correct clock would only make her late.

Accepted Answer

The students who measured the clock with a phone published their letter in the town paper.

Question 6

For years the town clock in Millford ran four minutes fast, and nobody with a train to catch seemed to mind. The error had a history. In 1952 the station master asked a jeweler to set the clock ahead so that passengers would reach the platform before the 6:10 departed. The jeweler did it once and then, out of habit, kept the offset at every winding.

When the railway dropped that evening train in 1981, the jeweler was gone and the offset remained. A high-school physics class measured it with a phone and a radio time signal, then published a short letter in the town paper. The select board voted to reset the clock. At the next town meeting an older resident objected that the fast clock had kept her on time for thirty years, and that a correct clock would only make her late.

Accepted Answer

; however,

SAT Reading and Writing Practice

Passage