Question 55 Answer and Explanation _ACT 1996 Form ST1 English Section

Passage IV

My Most Memorable Meal

[1]

Recently I came across a series of magazine articles which various people described their most memorable eating experiences. Out of all those people who were interviewed many of those people raved about the perfect seven-course meal they had once been served in a grand and expensive restaurant. Some reminisced about romantic picnics. Meals made memorable by the diner's companions; rather than by the food consumed. (52)

[2]

While reading these entertaining memoirs, I was myself moved to rummage through old memories in search of remarkable meals. My first meal at the college dormitory came to mind, (the name of it was Goodhue) but it was hardly memorable for its excellence. I considered the string of Thanksgiving dinners I've enjoyed, but, and perhaps by design, no one of them stand out as unusual. (55)

[3]

Then I remembered the night I tasted the Sri Lankan holiday dish called lampries. Served in a rough cottage in the Sri Lankan jungle, with lizards climbing the whitewashed walls and the innkeeper's dog leaping affectionately into my lap, the meal was certainly not remarkable for its formal elegance. It was, however, the more complex, elaborate, and delicious concoction I've ever eaten.

[4]

It took the innkeeper and the cook all day to prepare the spicy rice and four fiery curries that compose lampries. They began grinding the spices while we guests were having breakfast, and it wasn't until late afternoon that the innkeeper began cooking the curries.Then the cook layered them onto huge, green banana leaves, which she bundled up and tied into packets for the final baking.

[5]

All four rooms of the cottage were filled with the rich curry aromas of cinnamon, saffron, and mystery. The innkeeper brought out cold drinks and split a fresh pineapple. With two strokes of her machete, we took our places, and with great ceremony the cook brought in the lampries—one fat packet for each of us. Inside was a mixture so unforgettably hot and exotic it shocked us, but we kept eating.

55. The writer wishes to add another relevant example to Paragraph 2 without straying from the purpose of cataloguing a variety of meals, none of which can be more remarkable than the lampries meal described later in the essay. Which of the following sentences does that best?

A. In my family, all Thanksgiving dinners are created equal.

B. Surely, though, the most remarkable meal I've ever eaten, better and more exotic than all those curries, was the pure, elegant meal I had as part of a formal Japanese tea ceremony.

C. There was the first meal I ever cooked all by myself, but oozy scrambled eggs and blackened toast are not memoir material.

D. Dormitory food is, at best, bland and starchy.

Answer and Explanation

Your Answer is

Correct Answer is C

Explanation

The stem requirements reflect that there is no ability to surpass the lampries mentioned later.

Item C: "soft scrambled eggs and burnt toast are not good memory materials" is not as good as the lampries, correct.

Item A: Emphasize equal.

Item B: Emphasize that the most extraordinary things come from the Japanese tea ceremony.

Item D: Emphasize that dormitory food is bland (boring).