Last Updated on March 1, 2025
CLT Verbal Reasoning Practice Test 4 – Historical/Founding Documents. Prepare for the Classic Learning Test CLT Verbal Reasoning Practice Test 4 on Historical/Founding Documents with timed questions, detailed answer explanations, and strategies to boost critical thinking and reading comprehension.
CLT Verbal Reasoning Practice Test 4
Historical/Founding Documents
Passage 1 is adapted from Cicero’s On Friendship, first published in the first century BC, and translated here by E. S. Shuckburgh.
Passage 2 is adapted from Thomas Jef erson’s “Letter to Mrs. Cosway”, composed in 1786, in which he describes to his recipient a conversation between his head and his heart on the merits of friendship.
Passage 1
Now, by “worthy of friendship” I mean those who have in themselves the qualities which attract affection. This sort of man is rare, and indeed all excellent things are rare. Nothing in the world is so hard to find as a thing entirely and completely perfect of its kind. But most people not only recognize nothing as good in our life unless it is profitable, but look upon friends as so much stock, caring most for those by whom they hope to make the most profit.
Accordingly, they never possess that most beautiful and most spontaneous friendship which must be sought solely for itself without any ulterior object. They fail also to learn from their own feelings the nature and the strength of friendship. For everyone loves himself, not for any reward which such love may bring, but because he is dear to himself independently of anything else. But unless this feeling is transferred to another, what a real friend is will never be revealed, for he is, as it were, a second self.
Passage 2
Head: Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another? Is there so little gall poured into our cup, that we must needs help to drink that of our neighbor? A friend dies, or leaves us: we feel as if a limb was cut off. He is sick: we must watch over him, and participate of his pains. His fortune is shipwrecked: ours must be laid under contribution. He loses a child, a parent, or a partner: we must mourn the loss as if it were our own.
Heart: When languishing then under disease, how grateful is the solace of our friends! How are we penetrated with their assiduities and attentions! How much are we supported by their encouragements and kind offices! When Heaven has taken from us some object of our love, how sweet is it to have a bosom whereon to recline our heads, and into which we may pour the torrent of our tears! Grief, with such a comfort, is almost a luxury! In a life where we are perpetually exposed to want and accident, yours is a wonderful proposition, to insulate ourselves, to retire from all aid, and to wrap ourselves in the mantle of self-sufficiency! For assuredly nobody will care for him, who cares for nobody. But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life: and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine.
These passages have been excerpted and adapted from their originals, including minor punctuation changes, spelling changes, and other modifications that have not substantially changed content or intent.
31. Passage 1 opens with which of the following?
A) A definition
B) A rhetorical question
C) An anecdote
D) A metaphor
32. The author of Passage 1 would likely agree with which of the following statements?
A) True friends are hard to come by since so many people are duplicitous in their dealings.
B) The vast majority of people treat their friends as an economic means to an end, seeking ways to steal others’ fortunes.
C) Most people do not achieve the deeper level of friendship that is valuable as an end in itself.
D) Friendship with one’s own spirit must be achieved before one can be a true friend to another individual.
33. Which lines in Passage 1 best support the answer to the previous question?
A) Paragraph 1, Sentence 4 (“But most . . . profit”)
B) Paragraph 2, Sentence 1 (“Accordingly . . . object”)
C) Paragraph 2, Sentence 3 (“For everyone . . . else”)
D) Paragraph 2, Sentence 4 (“But unless . . . self”)
34. Which of the following best represents the respective views of the Head and the Heart towards friendship, as told in Passage 2?
A) The Head lists the dangers of friendship, while the Heart lists the ways to earn a living through friendship.
B) The Head ruminates on the ways friendship affects an individual, while the Heart considers all of the ways that friendship affects society.
C) The Head considers the actions attached to friendship, while the Heart focuses on the emotions connected to friendship.
D) The Head focuses on the drawbacks of friendship, while the Heart focuses on the benefits of friendship.
35. In Passage 2, the Heart makes clear that people who care for nobody else
A) will not be cared for by anybody else.
B) will be loved in spite of their flaws.
C) will face more trials in life.
D) will be successful, but at the cost of friendship.
36. In the final sentence of Passage 2, Paragraph 2, the author of Passage 2 uses “shade” and “sunshine” to refer to which of the following?
A) Darkness and sunlight
B) Hard times and happy times
C) Rest and work
D) Evil and good
37. Both Passage 1 and Passage 2 deal with which of the following ideas?
A) The dangers of isolation from society
B) How friendship can destroy an individual
C) The ways in which relationships affect people
D) Why friendship is often illusory and elusive
38. Both Passage 1 and Passage 2 make reference to which of the following?
A) The misfortunes of others
B) The advantages of isolation
C) The solace of romantic attachments
D) The benefits of connection
39. The following analogy is based on Passage 1. individual : individual’s friend ::
A) good : profitable
B) self : second self
C) world : friendship
D) life : worth
40. The following analogy is based on Passage 2. Head : negative towards friendship :: Heart :
A) negative towards emotion
B) wary of friendship
C) positive towards friendship
D) positive towards the mind