The following is adapted from E.M. Forster’s A Room With a View, originally published in 1908

A few days after the engagement was announced Mrs. Honeychurch made Lucy and her Fiasco come to a little garden-party in the neighborhood, for naturally she wanted to show people that her daughter was marrying a presentable man. Cecil was more than presentable; he looked distinguished, and it was very pleasant to see his slim figure keeping step with Lucy, and his long, fair face responding when Lucy spoke to him. People congratulated Mrs. Honeychurch, which is, I believe, a social blunder, but it pleased her, and she introduced Cecil rather indiscriminately to some stuffy dowagers. At tea a misfortune took place: a cup of coffee was upset over Lucy’s figured silk, and though Lucy feigned indifference, her mother feigned nothing of the sort but dragged her indoors to have the frock treated by a sympathetic maid. They were gone some time, and Cecil was left with the dowagers. When they returned he was not as pleasant as he had been.

“Do you go to much of this sort of thing?” he asked when they were driving home.
“Oh, now and then,” said Lucy, who had rather enjoyed herself.
“Is it typical of country society?”
“I suppose so. Mother, would it be?”
“Plenty of society,” said Mrs. Honeychurch, who was trying to remember the hang of one of the dresses.

Seeing that her thoughts were elsewhere, Cecil bent towards Lucy and said:

“To me it seemed perfectly appalling, disastrous, portentous.”
“I am so sorry that you were stranded.”
“Not that, but the congratulations. It is so disgusting, the way an engagement is regarded as public property—a kind of waste place where every outsider may shoot his vulgar sentiment. All those old women smirking!”
“One has to go through it, I suppose. They won’t notice us so much next time.”
“But my point is that their whole attitude is wrong. An engagement—horrid word in the first place—is a private matter, and should be treated as such.”

Yet the smirking old women, however wrong individually, were racially correct. The spirit of the generations had smiled through them, rejoicing in the engagement of Cecil and Lucy because it promised the continuance of life on earth. To Cecil and Lucy it promised something quite different—personal love. Hence Cecil’s irritation and Lucy’s belief that his irritation was just.

“How tiresome!” she said.
“Couldn’t you have escaped to tennis?”
“I don’t play tennis—at least, not in public. The neighborhood is deprived of the romance of me being athletic. Such romance as I have is that of the Inglese Italianato.”
“Inglese Italianato?”
“E un diavolo incarnato! You know the proverb?”

She did not. Nor did it seem applicable to a young man who had spent a quiet winter in Rome with his mother. But Cecil, since his engagement, had taken to affect a cosmopolitan naughtiness which he was far from possessing.

“Well,” said he, “I cannot help it if they do disapprove of me. There are certain irremovable barriers between myself and them, and I must accept them.”
“We all have our limitations, I suppose,” said wise Lucy.
“Sometimes they are forced on us, though,” said Cecil, who saw from her remark that she did not quite understand his position.
“How?”
“It makes a difference doesn’t it, whether we fully fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?” She thought a moment, and agreed that it did make a difference.
“Difference?” cried Mrs. Honeychurch, suddenly alert. “I don’t see any difference. Fences are fences, especially when they are in the same place.”
“We were speaking of motives,” said Cecil, on whom the interruption jarred.
“My dear Cecil, look here.” She spread out her knees and perched her card-case on her lap.
“This is me. That’s Windy Corner. The rest of the pattern is the other people. Motives are all very well, but the fence comes here.”
“We weren’t talking of real fences,” said Lucy, laughing.
“Oh, I see, dear—poetry.”

1. As used in line "Not that, but the congratulations. It is so disgusting, the way an engagement is regarded as public property—a kind of waste place where every outsider may shoot his vulgar sentiment. All those old women smirking!", the word "sentiment" most nearly means
(A) opinion
(B) nostalgia
(C) emotion
(D) tenderness

2. It can be inferred from the passage that Mrs. Honeychurch
(A) likes Cecil.
(B) does not want to attend the engagement party.
(C) is an expert seamstress with a knack for dress-making.
(D) wants to present a respectable  image  to society.

3. Lucy’s response to Cecil that “We all have our limitations, I suppose,” primarily serves to
(A) show Lucy's worldly sophistication.
(B) express Lucy’s resignation to the narrowness of country society.
(C) show Lucy’s resentment of the differences between Cecil’s outlook and hers.
(D) indicate that Lucy agrees to Cecil’s opinions.

4. The passage most strongly suggests that Cecil found the engagement party “disastrous” because
(A) he thinks the other guests at the party are uninteresting.
(B) he was angered by the intrusion into his relationship with Lucy.
(C) he  prefers playing sports to other forms of social interaction.
(D) he prefers communication in Italian.

5. As used in "But Cecil, since his engagement, had taken to affect a cosmopolitan naughtiness which he was far from possessing.", the word “affect” most nearly means
(A) cause
(B) feign
(C) impact
(D) impress

6. Which situation is most similar to the one described in the 1st paragraph?
(A) A war hero came back to town
(B) A leader was cheered by his subordinates
(C) A show dog was paraded before a crowd
(D) A criminal was tried in a court of law

7. Cecil brings up fences, “It makes a difference doesn’t it, whether we fully fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?”, in order to
(A) highlight his feeling that he is different from others in the community.
(B) express his frustration at being excluded from others in the society.
(C) demand greater respect for his privacy.
(D) point out the separations among human beings.

8. The final part of the passage is comic because
(A) Lucy seemed to enjoy the exchange between Cecil and Mrs. Honeychurch.
(B) Cecil got impatient with Mrs. Honeychurch’s opinions.
(C) Lucy pretended not to understand his point.
(D) Mrs. Honeychurch did not seem interested in the conversation