Questions: 1 (essay response)
Time: 25 minutes
What is measured? Your essay will be used by admission officers to assess your writing skills. The exercise is not scored by SSAT, but a copy of your essay is forwarded to each school you request as a score recipient.

Directions: Read the following topic carefully. Take a few minutes to think about the topic and organize your thoughts before you begin writing. Use the scratch paper and pen provided. Be sure that your handwriting is legible and that you stay within the lines and margins.

Sample Topic: It is better to be safe than sorry.
Assignment: Do you agree or disagree with the topic statement?
Support your position with one or two specific examples from personal experience, the experience of others, current events, history, or literature.

Each question is followed by five answer choices. After you have selected your answer, find the row on the answer sheet numbered the same as the question, and fill in the circle with the same letter as your answer. Each question has only one correct answer.

Questions: 40 (multiple-choice), based on 6-7 reading passages
Time: 40 minutes
What is measured? Your ability to read quickly and to understand what you read.

Directions: Read the passage carefully and then answer the questions (1-3) about it. For each question, decide on the basis of the passage which one of the choices best answers the question.

We had had a consuming desire to see a pony rider, but somehow or other all that passed us streaked by in the night, and so we heard only a whiz and a hail, and the swift phantom was gone.

But now the driver exclaims, "Here he comes!" Every neck is stretched and every eye strained.

Away across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears against the sky. Soon it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, sweeping nearer and nearer, and the flutter of hoofs comes faintly to the ear. Another instant a whoop and hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider's hand, but no reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces and go winging away like a belated fragment of a storm!

1. At the driver's call, the people became more

disappointed

eager

frightened

puzzled

hysterical

 

2. The people waiting to see the pony rider were most probably

at a hotel

on a grandstand

on a stagecoach

at a farm

in a theater

 

3. The land where the people were watching was

flat and treeless

hilly and rocky

desert-like

farmland

cut by deep crevasses

 

  
Questions: 50 (multiple-choice), in two sections
Time: 30 minutes per section (60 minutes total)
What is measured? Your knowledge of algebra and quantitative concepts.

Directions: Following each problem in this section, there are five suggested answers. Work each problem in your head or in the space provided (there will be space for scratchwork in your test booklet). Then look at the five suggested answers and decide which is best.

4. According to the graph, who owns the most CD's?

Bob Cheryl    Linda      Marion    Mike      

5. If 5 + 9 + __ = 6 + 8 + 1, then __ =

1     5     6     8     9

6. If 3/4 of a number is 48, then 1/4 of the same number is

12   16   24   144 192

7. What is the perimeter of an equilateral triangle if one side of the triangle has the same length as the side of a square with an area of 25?

30   20   15   10   5

Verbal
Questions: 60 (30 Synonym, 30 Analogy)
Time: 30 minutes
What is measured? The synonym questions test your vocabulary, and the analogy questions measure your ability to relate ideas to each other logically.

Directions: Each of the following questions (16-20) consists of one word followed by five words or phrases. You are to select the one word or phrase whose meaning is closest to the word in capital letters.

8.fling

rotate     hurl arouse   pound    defy

9. rountine

legal       directed unnecessary       usual      informative

10. prologue

pretense       extension      introduction

humorous play    nonessential part

11. manipulate

release  handle    stretch   make worse keep apart

12.adroit

clever     retentive cooperative   unhindered   arid

Directions: The following questions (21-25) ask you to find relationships between words. For each question, select the answer choice that best completes the meaning of the sentence.

13. Sapling is to tree as cub is to

moose   pine goat       cedar     bear

14. Frame is to building as

hair is to head      skull is to jaw       skeleton is to body

finger is to hand   bone is to marrow     

15. Meandering is to river as

winding is to road       wandering is to wave scudding is to cloud

chugging is to train     rolling is to ship