SAT Reading & Writing Practice Set - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Adapted)
Tom Sawyer had not meant to see a murder that night in the graveyard; he had meant only to see ghosts.
He and Huckleberry Finn had slipped out with a dead cat and a head full of superstition, planning to
watch the “spunk-water” on a fresh grave and see if it would cure warts. Instead, crouched behind
headstones, they watched Dr. Robinson, Muff Potter, and Injun Joe dig up a newly buried body for the
doctor’s purposes. A quarrel over money and old grudges flared between the men; in the scuffle, Muff
was knocked senseless, and Injun Joe drove the doctor’s own knife into his chest. When Muff came to,
confused and reeking of drink, Injun Joe coolly put the bloody knife in Muff’s hand and told him he had
killed the doctor while drunk. Tom and Huck ran home shaking, swearing to each other by blood oath
never to tell what they had seen, certain that Injun Joe would cut their throats if he ever suspected them.
(Twain, 1876)
In the weeks that followed, the town settled into the tidy story Injun Joe had arranged for it. Muff Potter—
good-natured, weak, and fond of the bottle—went meekly to jail, half believing that he might indeed
have done the deed in a drunken fog. Tom tried to lose himself in games of pirates and courtship of
Becky Thatcher, but every time he passed the jail yard and saw Muff’s grateful smile through the bars,
his stomach turned. The same imagination that made the island adventures so vivid also painted, in
equal colors, Muff’s hanging and the gallows crowd, and it added Injun Joe’s cold eye watching Tom
from the edge of the mob. Aunt Polly and the Sunday-school teachers praised Tom when he brought
home a Bible for reciting verses, but Tom knew that the words about truth and mercy sounded different
when he repeated them than they had on the page the night he heard them. Under all his boasting about
buried treasure and robber bands ran a smaller, stubborn thought that would not play: if he kept the
oath to Huck and stayed silent, a man he liked would die for a crime Tom knew he had not committed.
(Twain, 1876)
On the day of Muff Potter’s trial, the courtroom in St. Petersburg was crowded enough to satisfy even
Tom’s appetite for spectacle. The townspeople sat in their Sunday clothes, ready to hear the story they
already thought they knew, while Muff’s lawyer, discouraged and halfhearted, shuffled his papers. The
witnesses called first only confirmed what everyone had heard: Potter had been seen with the doctor
and Injun Joe in the graveyard, had been found with the bloody knife, had been too drunk to remember
anything clearly. Injun Joe himself took the stand, telling his story in a calm, flat voice that carried
authority precisely because it matched what the town expected of Muff. Tom felt Huck’s eyes on him
from the gallery as the lawyer announced one last witness. When Tom Sawyer’s name was called, his
heart pounded so hard that it seemed to him everyone must hear it; he had the dizzy sense that he was
walking not just toward the witness chair but toward the place where his own nights would be peaceful
or haunted, depending on what he did next. (Twain, 1876)
Tom’s testimony came out in a rush, pushed forward by fear and a kind of desperate clarity. He began
by answering the lawyer’s questions as if he were still telling the familiar story—where he had been that
night, who was in the graveyard—and then, when the crucial moment came, he said the thing he and
Huck had sworn never to say: that he had seen Injun Joe take up the knife and stab Dr. Robinson. The
room seemed to freeze around his words. Injun Joe’s eyes met Tom’s for a heartbeat, then Joe leaped
through the open window and vanished, leaving behind a howl of shock and a courtroom suddenly
convinced that the story it had liked best was the wrong one. Muff Potter, bewildered, burst into tears
of relief and gratitude toward the boy who had first sneaked him tobacco through the bars and now had
risked his own safety to save his life. For Tom, the trial did not end with the judge’s gavel; nightmares of
, Injun Joe plagued him, and his old love of pretending to be a pirate no longer felt quite the same. Yet in
the long view of the river town, that day marked one of the first times Tom’s imagination and hunger for
drama had driven him, not into mischief, but into an act that matched the better part of the stories he
admired. (Twain, 1876)
(Adapted from the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain)
QUESTIONS 1–8: MAIN IDEA, BIG PICTURE
1. The passage as a whole primarily emphasizes
A. how Tom and Huck plan to search for buried treasure in a haunted house.
B. how Tom’s love of adventure collides with a situation in which telling the truth about Injun
Joe becomes a real test of courage.
C. how Aunt Polly uses biblical verses to punish Tom.
D. how the people of St. Petersburg decide to close McDougal’s Cave.
2. Across the four paragraphs, the murder and the trial together function mainly to show
A. the difference between Injun Joe’s skill as a lawyer and Muff Potter’s.
B. that children should never go to graveyards at night.
C. how a story arranged by the guilty can be upheld by a whole community until someone risks
contradicting it.
D. that Tom never takes his oaths seriously.
3. The first paragraph’s account of Tom and Huck’s visit to the graveyard suggests that
A. they go expecting mischief and superstition, only to encounter real violence that their games
have not prepared them to handle.
B. they are hired by the doctor to guard the grave.
C. Huck already suspects Injun Joe will attack someone.
D. Tom and Huck intend to rob the grave themselves.
4. Taken together, the second and third paragraphs portray Tom as
A. a boy whose imagination makes him unable to distinguish fantasy from reality.
B. someone who enjoys watching Muff Potter’s suffering.
C. a character who is both drawn to spectacle and gradually aware that his silence would help
make a deadly spectacle out of an innocent man.
D. someone entirely unconcerned with questions of right and wrong.
5. Which statement best expresses a central theme developed in the passage?
A. Childhood mischief never has serious consequences.
B. A community’s first, easiest story about guilt can persist until someone accepts personal
risk to tell a different one.
C. Legal trials always uncover the truth without difficulty.
D. Oaths are more important than justice.
Tom Sawyer had not meant to see a murder that night in the graveyard; he had meant only to see ghosts.
He and Huckleberry Finn had slipped out with a dead cat and a head full of superstition, planning to
watch the “spunk-water” on a fresh grave and see if it would cure warts. Instead, crouched behind
headstones, they watched Dr. Robinson, Muff Potter, and Injun Joe dig up a newly buried body for the
doctor’s purposes. A quarrel over money and old grudges flared between the men; in the scuffle, Muff
was knocked senseless, and Injun Joe drove the doctor’s own knife into his chest. When Muff came to,
confused and reeking of drink, Injun Joe coolly put the bloody knife in Muff’s hand and told him he had
killed the doctor while drunk. Tom and Huck ran home shaking, swearing to each other by blood oath
never to tell what they had seen, certain that Injun Joe would cut their throats if he ever suspected them.
(Twain, 1876)
In the weeks that followed, the town settled into the tidy story Injun Joe had arranged for it. Muff Potter—
good-natured, weak, and fond of the bottle—went meekly to jail, half believing that he might indeed
have done the deed in a drunken fog. Tom tried to lose himself in games of pirates and courtship of
Becky Thatcher, but every time he passed the jail yard and saw Muff’s grateful smile through the bars,
his stomach turned. The same imagination that made the island adventures so vivid also painted, in
equal colors, Muff’s hanging and the gallows crowd, and it added Injun Joe’s cold eye watching Tom
from the edge of the mob. Aunt Polly and the Sunday-school teachers praised Tom when he brought
home a Bible for reciting verses, but Tom knew that the words about truth and mercy sounded different
when he repeated them than they had on the page the night he heard them. Under all his boasting about
buried treasure and robber bands ran a smaller, stubborn thought that would not play: if he kept the
oath to Huck and stayed silent, a man he liked would die for a crime Tom knew he had not committed.
(Twain, 1876)
On the day of Muff Potter’s trial, the courtroom in St. Petersburg was crowded enough to satisfy even
Tom’s appetite for spectacle. The townspeople sat in their Sunday clothes, ready to hear the story they
already thought they knew, while Muff’s lawyer, discouraged and halfhearted, shuffled his papers. The
witnesses called first only confirmed what everyone had heard: Potter had been seen with the doctor
and Injun Joe in the graveyard, had been found with the bloody knife, had been too drunk to remember
anything clearly. Injun Joe himself took the stand, telling his story in a calm, flat voice that carried
authority precisely because it matched what the town expected of Muff. Tom felt Huck’s eyes on him
from the gallery as the lawyer announced one last witness. When Tom Sawyer’s name was called, his
heart pounded so hard that it seemed to him everyone must hear it; he had the dizzy sense that he was
walking not just toward the witness chair but toward the place where his own nights would be peaceful
or haunted, depending on what he did next. (Twain, 1876)
Tom’s testimony came out in a rush, pushed forward by fear and a kind of desperate clarity. He began
by answering the lawyer’s questions as if he were still telling the familiar story—where he had been that
night, who was in the graveyard—and then, when the crucial moment came, he said the thing he and
Huck had sworn never to say: that he had seen Injun Joe take up the knife and stab Dr. Robinson. The
room seemed to freeze around his words. Injun Joe’s eyes met Tom’s for a heartbeat, then Joe leaped
through the open window and vanished, leaving behind a howl of shock and a courtroom suddenly
convinced that the story it had liked best was the wrong one. Muff Potter, bewildered, burst into tears
of relief and gratitude toward the boy who had first sneaked him tobacco through the bars and now had
risked his own safety to save his life. For Tom, the trial did not end with the judge’s gavel; nightmares of
, Injun Joe plagued him, and his old love of pretending to be a pirate no longer felt quite the same. Yet in
the long view of the river town, that day marked one of the first times Tom’s imagination and hunger for
drama had driven him, not into mischief, but into an act that matched the better part of the stories he
admired. (Twain, 1876)
(Adapted from the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain)
QUESTIONS 1–8: MAIN IDEA, BIG PICTURE
1. The passage as a whole primarily emphasizes
A. how Tom and Huck plan to search for buried treasure in a haunted house.
B. how Tom’s love of adventure collides with a situation in which telling the truth about Injun
Joe becomes a real test of courage.
C. how Aunt Polly uses biblical verses to punish Tom.
D. how the people of St. Petersburg decide to close McDougal’s Cave.
2. Across the four paragraphs, the murder and the trial together function mainly to show
A. the difference between Injun Joe’s skill as a lawyer and Muff Potter’s.
B. that children should never go to graveyards at night.
C. how a story arranged by the guilty can be upheld by a whole community until someone risks
contradicting it.
D. that Tom never takes his oaths seriously.
3. The first paragraph’s account of Tom and Huck’s visit to the graveyard suggests that
A. they go expecting mischief and superstition, only to encounter real violence that their games
have not prepared them to handle.
B. they are hired by the doctor to guard the grave.
C. Huck already suspects Injun Joe will attack someone.
D. Tom and Huck intend to rob the grave themselves.
4. Taken together, the second and third paragraphs portray Tom as
A. a boy whose imagination makes him unable to distinguish fantasy from reality.
B. someone who enjoys watching Muff Potter’s suffering.
C. a character who is both drawn to spectacle and gradually aware that his silence would help
make a deadly spectacle out of an innocent man.
D. someone entirely unconcerned with questions of right and wrong.
5. Which statement best expresses a central theme developed in the passage?
A. Childhood mischief never has serious consequences.
B. A community’s first, easiest story about guilt can persist until someone accepts personal
risk to tell a different one.
C. Legal trials always uncover the truth without difficulty.
D. Oaths are more important than justice.
