SAT OwlQuestion bank / Text Structure and Purpose
The following text is from a 1915 poem by Ellis Marsh.
The river does not hurry, yet it reaches
The distant sea in time;
It wears the hardest stone to rounded pebble
With nothing but its long and steady line.
So let me, too, not rush at what I'm after,
But keep my course, and trust the slow design.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
The speaker describes a quality of a river and then applies that quality to the speaker's own life.
The speaker contrasts a fast river with a slow one and then chooses between them.
The speaker recalls a journey to the sea and then expresses regret about it.
The speaker praises a stone's hardness and then questions the river's power.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A
The first four lines describe the river's patience: it moves slowly yet reaches the sea and wears down stone. The last two lines, beginning "So let me, too," apply that patience to the speaker's own goals. Choice A describes this shift.
Choice D reverses the poem's attitude; the stone's hardness shows how powerful the river's steady motion is.
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