ACT Exam Question No 6

Question No 6:

For perhaps the tenth time since the clock struck two, Sylvia crosses to the front-facing window of her apartment, pulls back the blue curtain, and looks down at the street. People hurry along the sidewalk; although she watches for several long moments, she sees no one enter her building.

She walks back to the center of the high-ceilinged living room, where she stands frowning and twisting a silver bracelet around and around on her wrist. She is an attractive young woman, although perhaps too thin and with a look that is faintly ascetic; her face is narrow and delicate, her fine, light-brown hair caught back by a tortoiseshell comb. She is restless now, because she is being kept waiting. It is nearly two-thirty—a woman named Lola Parrish was to come at two o’clock to look at the apartment.

She considers leaving a note and going out. The woman is late, and besides, Sylvia is certain that Lola Parrish will not be a suitable person with whom to share the apartment. On
the phone she had sounded too old, for one thing—her voice oddly flat and as deep as a man’s. However, the moment for saying the apartment was no longer available slipped
past, and Sylvia found herself agreeing to the two o’clock appointment. If she leaves now, as she has a perfect right to do, she can avoid the awkwardness of turning the woman
away.

Looking past the blue curtain, however, she sees the sky is not clear but veiled by a white haze, and the air is oppressively still. She knows that the haze, the stillness, and the heat
are conditions that often precede a summer thunderstorm—one of the abrupt, swiftly descending electrical storms that have terrified her since she was a child. If a storm comes,
she wants to be at home in her own place. She walks back to the center of the room, aware now that the idea of sharing the apartment has actually begun to repel her.

Still, she knows she will have to become accustomed to the notion, because her savings are nearly gone and the small trust fund left by her father, exhausted. She has a low-paying job, and, while she has considered seeking another (perhaps something connected with music—in her childhood she had played the flute and people had said she was gifted), she has found herself dragged down by a strange inertia. Besides, although her job pays poorly, it suits her.

She is a typist in a natural history museum, with an office on the top floor and a window onto the nearby aviary. The man for whom she works, a curator who is rarely in, allows Sylvia to have the office to herself. The aviary consists of three enormous, white rooms, each with a high, vaulted ceiling. The birds themselves, so beautifully mounted they seem alive, are displayed in elaborate dioramas. Behind glass, they perch in trees with leaves of sculpted metal, appearing to soar through painted forests, above painted rivers and marshes. Everything is rendered in exquisite detail. Glancing at the birds and up through the skylight at the limitless outdoors keeps her mild claustrophobia at bay.

According to the passage, Sylvia waited for Lola instead of going out and leaving her a note because:

A. Sylvia could not afford the rent on her own.
B. Sylvia thought it would rain.
C. She knows Lola will not be a suitable roommate.
D. She thought it would be rude.

Answer: B