SAT OwlQuestion bank / Central Ideas and Details
The following text is from a 1911 novel by Edith Marlowe. Hester has returned to the village where she grew up.
Hester walked the length of the high street twice before she admitted that she was looking for something that was no longer there. The baker's window still held its loaves, and the church clock still ran four minutes slow, as it always had. Yet the faces in the doorways were strangers' faces, and none of them turned at her step. She had kept the village in her mind like a pressed flower, and now she found that the living thing had gone on growing without her.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
Hester is relieved that the village has stayed exactly as she remembered it.
Hester realizes that the village has changed in ways her memory did not account for.
Hester is angry that the villagers deliberately refuse to greet her.
Hester decides to leave the village because she no longer recognizes the bakery.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
Hester notices a few unchanged details, but the key observations are that the faces are now strangers' faces and that the village "had gone on growing without her." The pressed-flower image shows that her memory froze the village while the real place kept changing. Choice B states this realization.
Choice A is tempting because the bakery and clock are unchanged, but the passage uses those details to contrast with the larger change Hester discovers.
Got it wrong? On SAT Owl, Owl looks at the answer you chose and explains the exact mistake, then gives you similar questions until it sticks. Get your predicted SAT score free.