• 60 questions

Accuplacer Reading Practice Test

Unofficial practice for the Accuplacer Reading test: short passages, paired passages and words in context, every answer explained.

Apprentice electricians at the Harlow training center spend their first month without touching a live wire. They bend conduit, read plans, and label every circuit they trace. Instructors say the delay is deliberate: a student who can explain a diagram makes fewer mistakes once the power is on. According to the passage, why do instructors keep new apprentices away from live wires for a month?

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Unofficial practice questions, not affiliated with College Board. Bank checked October 12, 2026.

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Information and Ideas 24

  • A translated poem is often judged by how closely it follows the original, word for word. This standard is mistaken. A poem is made of sound and rhythm as much as meaning, and a translator who keeps every word but loses the music has delivered a list, not a poem. Which choice best states the central idea of the passage? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), determining central ideas and themes. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Apprentice electricians at the Harlow training center spend their first month without touching a live wire. They bend conduit, read plans, and label every circuit they trace. Instructors say the delay is deliberate: a student who can explain a diagram makes fewer mistakes once the power is on. According to the passage, why do instructors keep new apprentices away from live wires for a month? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), reading closely. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Biologist Lena Okafor expected the marsh birds to nest farther from the new boardwalk each year. Her counts showed the opposite. Nests near the boardwalk increased, apparently because foxes avoided the people walking there. The birds, she concluded, were treating visitors as a shield. According to Okafor, why did nests near the boardwalk increase? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), reading closely. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
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Information and Ideas, continued

  • The choir at the Delmar community center holds no auditions. Its director, Ruth Baptiste, seats each new singer between two experienced ones and lets the newcomer listen for a month before asking for a full voice. Most stay for years, and several now lead sections. According to the passage, how does the director prepare a new singer? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), reading closely. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • City planners often treat street trees as decoration, the first item cut when a budget is tight. They should be counted as equipment instead. A mature tree shades pavement, slows rainwater, and breaks the wind, work that would otherwise require pipes, pumps, and energy that the city must buy. Which choice best states the central idea of the passage? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), determining central ideas and themes. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Early in her career the potter Mirela Danso threw away any bowl whose glaze had run. Later she began to keep them. The drips, she said, showed the kiln’s part in the work, and she started tilting pieces in the fire on purpose. Collectors now seek out the kind of bowl she once would have smashed. How did Danso’s view of a glaze that had run change over time? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), understanding relationships. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • The first week at the cannery, I counted hours. By the third, I counted cans, then stopped counting at all. My hands had learned the work before I agreed to it. What frightened me was not the noise or the cold but how quickly a summer job began to feel like a life someone had handed me. The narrator’s main point is that College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), determining central ideas and themes. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • The first week at the cannery, I counted hours. By the third, I counted cans, then stopped counting at all. My hands had learned the work before I agreed to it. What frightened me was not the noise or the cold but how quickly a summer job began to feel like a life someone had handed me. Which change does the narrator describe between the first week and the third? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), understanding relationships. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • For forty years the ferry was the only way across the river at Millbrook, and the town’s shops clustered at the landing. When a bridge opened two miles upstream, drivers stopped passing the landing at all. Within a decade most of the shops had moved to the bridge road, and the landing became a park. According to the passage, the shops left the landing because College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), understanding relationships. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • My grandmother kept her sewing machine by the front window, where the light was best and the street was in view. She claimed she sat there for the light. But she could name every car that slowed at the corner, and when a stranger parked, the machine went quiet until the stranger had been accounted for. According to the passage, what happened when a stranger parked on the street? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), reading closely. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • My grandmother kept her sewing machine by the front window, where the light was best and the street was in view. She claimed she sat there for the light. But she could name every car that slowed at the corner, and when a stranger parked, the machine went quiet until the stranger had been accounted for. The narrator suggests that the grandmother sat by the front window mainly because she College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), reading closely. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • On her first night as a dispatcher, Ana Reyes was told to keep her voice at the same level no matter what she heard. She thought the rule was about sounding professional. After a month she understood it differently: callers matched her tone, and a calm caller could give an address. According to the passage, a dispatcher’s steady voice matters because College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), understanding relationships. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Passage 1: A four-day school week gives families a day for appointments and gives teachers time to plan. Our district should adopt it: students lose nothing if each of the four days runs a little longer. Passage 2: Longer days sound simple until you teach the last hour of one. By midafternoon young children have stopped learning anything. A four-day week saves bus fuel, not attention. According to Passage 1, how would a four-day week help teachers? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), reading closely. The answer is read from the two passages printed with the question.
  • Passage 1: Automatic sensors now record the stream’s temperature every ten minutes, day and night. No volunteer with a thermometer could match that, and the gaps in our old paper logs prove it. Passage 2: A sensor reports a number. The volunteer who waded in each week also noticed the dead fish on the bank, the new culvert upstream, the smell. Our old logs have gaps, but their margins hold what no sensor was built to see. According to Passage 1, sensors do better than volunteers at College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), understanding relationships. The answer is read from the two passages printed with the question.
  • Passage 1: When the town repainted the faded mural on the mill wall, it matched the original colors exactly. The mural is a record of who we were, and a record that cannot be read is no record at all. Passage 2: The mural’s fading was part of its story. Sixty years of weather showed in it, and the fresh paint erased them. We now own a bright copy of something old, which is not the same as owning something old. According to Passage 2, what did the fresh paint erase? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), reading closely. The answer is read from the two passages printed with the question.
  • The seed bank in the valley stores its samples in a tunnel cut into the hillside, where the rock keeps the temperature steady without machines. The design was chosen after a week-long power failure ruined a third of the collection at the old building. The curators decided that the safest system was one with nothing to switch off. According to the passage, what led the curators to choose the tunnel design? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), understanding relationships. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • The seed bank in the valley stores its samples in a tunnel cut into the hillside, where the rock keeps the temperature steady without machines. The design was chosen after a week-long power failure ruined a third of the collection at the old building. The curators decided that the safest system was one with nothing to switch off. Which choice is the best summary of the passage? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), summarizing. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Some managers believe open offices encourage teamwork because everyone can see everyone else. But being visible is not the same as being available. In the open office where I worked, people wore headphones all day and sent messages to coworkers sitting ten feet away. The author’s example of headphones and messages suggests that workers in the open office College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), reading closely. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Tomás set the trophy on the shelf, then moved it behind the cookbooks. His sister had driven him to every practice for two years, waiting in the car with her homework under the dome light. Tonight she had clapped louder than anyone. He found a pen and began a note, crossed out “thanks,” and started again. The detail about homework “under the dome light” shows that the sister College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), understanding relationships. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Tomás set the trophy on the shelf, then moved it behind the cookbooks. His sister had driven him to every practice for two years, waiting in the car with her homework under the dome light. Tonight she had clapped louder than anyone. He found a pen and began a note, crossed out “thanks,” and started again. Why does Tomás most likely move the trophy behind the cookbooks? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), reading closely. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • The town of Carrow Ferry kept its records in the church until the fire of 1911, so almost nothing written there before that year survives. Historians of the town depend instead on what was mailed away: letters to relatives, orders sent to suppliers, and reports filed with the state. Carrow Ferry’s past is known mostly from the outside. According to the passage, why do historians of Carrow Ferry rely on documents that were sent elsewhere? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), reading closely. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • The weather station on Kettle Ridge was built to study wind, but its most cited data concern fog. A technician noticed that the instruments iced over on mornings when no rain had fallen, and she began logging those days. Twenty years of her notes now make up the longest fog record in the region. What prompted the technician to begin keeping her notes? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), reading closely. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • The weather station on Kettle Ridge was built to study wind, but its most cited data concern fog. A technician noticed that the instruments iced over on mornings when no rain had fallen, and she began logging those days. Twenty years of her notes now make up the longest fog record in the region. Which choice best states the central idea of the passage? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), determining central ideas and themes. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • When the bakery switched to a slower-rising dough, its bread took nineteen hours to make instead of four. Sales rose anyway. Customers said the new loaves stayed fresh for days, and the owner found she threw away far less unsold bread. The longer process cost time but saved flour. Which choice is the best summary of the passage? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Information and Ideas (35–55% of the test), summarizing. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.

Rhetoric 22

  • A town meeting where every resident may speak is often praised as democracy at its purest. Yet the meeting is held on a weeknight, lasts four hours, and offers no child care. Those who can attend are not a sample of the town. A vote is fair only if the people who can cast it resemble the people who must live with it. The author’s view of the town meeting is best described as College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing point of view. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • A town meeting where every resident may speak is often praised as democracy at its purest. Yet the meeting is held on a weeknight, lasts four hours, and offers no child care. Those who can attend are not a sample of the town. A vote is fair only if the people who can cast it resemble the people who must live with it. The details that the meeting “is held on a weeknight, lasts four hours, and offers no child care” are used to show that College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing arguments. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • A translated poem is often judged by how closely it follows the original, word for word. This standard is mistaken. A poem is made of sound and rhythm as much as meaning, and a translator who keeps every word but loses the music has delivered a list, not a poem. How does the author support the claim that the usual standard is mistaken? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing arguments. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Apprentice electricians at the Harlow training center spend their first month without touching a live wire. They bend conduit, read plans, and label every circuit they trace. Instructors say the delay is deliberate: a student who can explain a diagram makes fewer mistakes once the power is on. The main purpose of the passage is to College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing purpose. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Biologist Lena Okafor expected the marsh birds to nest farther from the new boardwalk each year. Her counts showed the opposite. Nests near the boardwalk increased, apparently because foxes avoided the people walking there. The birds, she concluded, were treating visitors as a shield. The word “shield” suggests that the visitors College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing word choice rhetorically. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • City planners often treat street trees as decoration, the first item cut when a budget is tight. They should be counted as equipment instead. A mature tree shades pavement, slows rainwater, and breaks the wind, work that would otherwise require pipes, pumps, and energy that the city must buy. The author contrasts the words “decoration” and “equipment” in order to College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing word choice rhetorically. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Critics complain that the new library looks like a warehouse. They are describing its outside. Inside, every reading table sits beside a window, and no shelf is taller than a child can reach. A building should be judged by what it lets people do, and by that measure this plain box is the most generous building in town. By calling the library “generous,” the author suggests that it College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing word choice rhetorically. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Critics complain that the new library looks like a warehouse. They are describing its outside. Inside, every reading table sits beside a window, and no shelf is taller than a child can reach. A building should be judged by what it lets people do, and by that measure this plain box is the most generous building in town. How does the author respond to the critics’ complaint? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing arguments. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Early in her career the potter Mirela Danso threw away any bowl whose glaze had run. Later she began to keep them. The drips, she said, showed the kiln’s part in the work, and she started tilting pieces in the fire on purpose. Collectors now seek out the kind of bowl she once would have smashed. The last sentence mainly serves to College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing purpose. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • The first week at the cannery, I counted hours. By the third, I counted cans, then stopped counting at all. My hands had learned the work before I agreed to it. What frightened me was not the noise or the cold but how quickly a summer job began to feel like a life someone had handed me. The narrator’s attitude toward the job is best described as College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing point of view. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • The first week at the cannery, I counted hours. By the third, I counted cans, then stopped counting at all. My hands had learned the work before I agreed to it. What frightened me was not the noise or the cold but how quickly a summer job began to feel like a life someone had handed me. The sentence “My hands had learned the work before I agreed to it” suggests that the narrator College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing word choice rhetorically. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • For forty years the ferry was the only way across the river at Millbrook, and the town’s shops clustered at the landing. When a bridge opened two miles upstream, drivers stopped passing the landing at all. Within a decade most of the shops had moved to the bridge road, and the landing became a park. Which choice best describes how the passage is organized? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing text structure. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • My grandmother kept her sewing machine by the front window, where the light was best and the street was in view. She claimed she sat there for the light. But she could name every car that slowed at the corner, and when a stranger parked, the machine went quiet until the stranger had been accounted for. The passage is told from the point of view of College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing point of view. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • My grandmother kept her sewing machine by the front window, where the light was best and the street was in view. She claimed she sat there for the light. But she could name every car that slowed at the corner, and when a stranger parked, the machine went quiet until the stranger had been accounted for. The phrase “had been accounted for” suggests that the grandmother treats a stranger as College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing word choice rhetorically. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Passage 1: A four-day school week gives families a day for appointments and gives teachers time to plan. Our district should adopt it: students lose nothing if each of the four days runs a little longer. Passage 2: Longer days sound simple until you teach the last hour of one. By midafternoon young children have stopped learning anything. A four-day week saves bus fuel, not attention. The author of Passage 2 supports the claim mainly by College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing arguments. The answer is read from the two passages printed with the question.
  • Passage 1: Automatic sensors now record the stream’s temperature every ten minutes, day and night. No volunteer with a thermometer could match that, and the gaps in our old paper logs prove it. Passage 2: A sensor reports a number. The volunteer who waded in each week also noticed the dead fish on the bank, the new culvert upstream, the smell. Our old logs have gaps, but their margins hold what no sensor was built to see. In Passage 2, the list “the dead fish on the bank, the new culvert upstream, the smell” serves to College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing purpose. The answer is read from the two passages printed with the question.
  • Passage 1: When the town repainted the faded mural on the mill wall, it matched the original colors exactly. The mural is a record of who we were, and a record that cannot be read is no record at all. Passage 2: The mural’s fading was part of its story. Sixty years of weather showed in it, and the fresh paint erased them. We now own a bright copy of something old, which is not the same as owning something old. In Passage 2, the phrase “a bright copy” suggests that the author sees the repainted mural as College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing word choice rhetorically. The answer is read from the two passages printed with the question.
  • Some managers believe open offices encourage teamwork because everyone can see everyone else. But being visible is not the same as being available. In the open office where I worked, people wore headphones all day and sent messages to coworkers sitting ten feet away. What kind of evidence does the author use against the managers’ belief? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing arguments. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Tomás set the trophy on the shelf, then moved it behind the cookbooks. His sister had driven him to every practice for two years, waiting in the car with her homework under the dome light. Tonight she had clapped louder than anyone. He found a pen and began a note, crossed out “thanks,” and started again. The final sentence suggests that Tomás crosses out “thanks” because College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing purpose. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • Tomás set the trophy on the shelf, then moved it behind the cookbooks. His sister had driven him to every practice for two years, waiting in the car with her homework under the dome light. Tonight she had clapped louder than anyone. He found a pen and began a note, crossed out “thanks,” and started again. The second and third sentences mainly serve to College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing text structure. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • The town of Carrow Ferry kept its records in the church until the fire of 1911, so almost nothing written there before that year survives. Historians of the town depend instead on what was mailed away: letters to relatives, orders sent to suppliers, and reports filed with the state. Carrow Ferry’s past is known mostly from the outside. The phrase “known mostly from the outside” means that knowledge of the town’s past comes from College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing word choice rhetorically. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.
  • When the bakery switched to a slower-rising dough, its bread took nineteen hours to make instead of four. Sales rose anyway. Customers said the new loaves stayed fresh for days, and the owner found she threw away far less unsold bread. The longer process cost time but saved flour. The sentence “Sales rose anyway” mainly serves to College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Rhetoric (35–55% of the test), analyzing text structure. The answer is read from the passage printed with the question.

Synthesis (paired passages) 6

  • Passage 1: A four-day school week gives families a day for appointments and gives teachers time to plan. Our district should adopt it: students lose nothing if each of the four days runs a little longer. Passage 2: Longer days sound simple until you teach the last hour of one. By midafternoon young children have stopped learning anything. A four-day week saves bus fuel, not attention. How would the author of Passage 2 most likely respond to the statement in Passage 1 that “students lose nothing”? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Synthesis (10% of the test), analyzing multiple texts. The answer is read from the two passages printed with the question.
  • Passage 1: A four-day school week gives families a day for appointments and gives teachers time to plan. Our district should adopt it: students lose nothing if each of the four days runs a little longer. Passage 2: Longer days sound simple until you teach the last hour of one. By midafternoon young children have stopped learning anything. A four-day week saves bus fuel, not attention. On which point do the two authors most clearly disagree? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Synthesis (10% of the test), analyzing multiple texts. The answer is read from the two passages printed with the question.
  • Passage 1: Automatic sensors now record the stream’s temperature every ten minutes, day and night. No volunteer with a thermometer could match that, and the gaps in our old paper logs prove it. Passage 2: A sensor reports a number. The volunteer who waded in each week also noticed the dead fish on the bank, the new culvert upstream, the smell. Our old logs have gaps, but their margins hold what no sensor was built to see. How does Passage 2 respond to the view in Passage 1? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Synthesis (10% of the test), analyzing multiple texts. The answer is read from the two passages printed with the question.
  • Passage 1: Automatic sensors now record the stream’s temperature every ten minutes, day and night. No volunteer with a thermometer could match that, and the gaps in our old paper logs prove it. Passage 2: A sensor reports a number. The volunteer who waded in each week also noticed the dead fish on the bank, the new culvert upstream, the smell. Our old logs have gaps, but their margins hold what no sensor was built to see. Which statement would both authors accept? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Synthesis (10% of the test), analyzing multiple texts. The answer is read from the two passages printed with the question.
  • Passage 1: When the town repainted the faded mural on the mill wall, it matched the original colors exactly. The mural is a record of who we were, and a record that cannot be read is no record at all. Passage 2: The mural’s fading was part of its story. Sixty years of weather showed in it, and the fresh paint erased them. We now own a bright copy of something old, which is not the same as owning something old. Both authors would most likely agree that the mural College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Synthesis (10% of the test), analyzing multiple texts. The answer is read from the two passages printed with the question.
  • Passage 1: When the town repainted the faded mural on the mill wall, it matched the original colors exactly. The mural is a record of who we were, and a record that cannot be read is no record at all. Passage 2: The mural’s fading was part of its story. Sixty years of weather showed in it, and the fresh paint erased them. We now own a bright copy of something old, which is not the same as owning something old. Which choice best describes the difference between the two passages? College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Synthesis (10% of the test), analyzing multiple texts. The answer is read from the two passages printed with the question.

Vocabulary 8

  • After weeks of dry weather, the orchard yielded only half its usual crop, and the growers sold what little fruit they had by the basket. As used in the passage, “yielded” most nearly means College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Vocabulary (10–20% of the test), meaning of a word in context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "yield" (verb).
  • Although Mr. Adeyemi was reserved in meetings, rarely offering a view unless asked, his letters argued his case at length and with feeling. As used in the passage, “reserved” most nearly means College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Vocabulary (10–20% of the test), meaning of a word in context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "reserved" (adjective).
  • Asked for a candid opinion of the draft, the editor did not soften her answer: the first chapter, she said, should be cut. As used in the passage, “candid” most nearly means College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Vocabulary (10–20% of the test), meaning of a word in context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "candid" (adjective).
  • Because fresh water was scarce on the island, each household stored rain in clay jars and used it only for drinking and cooking. As used in the passage, “scarce” most nearly means College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Vocabulary (10–20% of the test), meaning of a word in context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "scarce" (adjective).
  • The committee rejected the plan’s budget but agreed that its reasoning was sound: each step followed from the one before, and no one could find a gap. As used in the passage, “sound” most nearly means College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Vocabulary (10–20% of the test), meaning of a word in context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "sound" (adjective).
  • The engineers tried a novel approach: instead of strengthening the old bridge, as every earlier crew had done, they made it lighter. As used in the passage, “novel” most nearly means College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Vocabulary (10–20% of the test), meaning of a word in context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "novel" (adjective).
  • Her meticulous records listed every repair made to the clock tower, down to the date on which a single hinge was oiled. As used in the passage, “meticulous” most nearly means College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Vocabulary (10–20% of the test), meaning of a word in context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "meticulous" (adjective).
  • The new schedule addresses the complaint that the last bus left before the late shift ended: two evening runs have been added. As used in the passage, “addresses” most nearly means College Board, Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Reading placement test: Vocabulary (10–20% of the test), meaning of a word in context. Word meaning: Wiktionary, "address" (verb).

How this list was compiled: Our own passages and questions, written to the four question categories of the Reading placement test in College Board’s Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, Version 2.0 (https://accuplacer.collegeboard.org/accuplacer/pdf/next-generation-test-specifications-manual.pdf, read 2026-10-12): Information and Ideas (35 to 55 percent of the test), Rhetoric (35 to 55), Synthesis (10) and Vocabulary (10 to 20). The bank holds 24, 22, 6 and 8 of them. Taken in order, each run of 20 questions has the make-up of the specifications’ Table 2: four questions on one literary passage, four on one pair of informational passages and twelve on single informational passages. Word meanings were checked at Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/), read 2026-10-12; every other answer is checked against the passage printed with its question. Licence: Passages, questions, choices and explanations are original work of this site. The people, places and studies in the passages are made up for practice.

How it works

This Accuplacer reading practice test has 60 questions of our own on short passages, sorted by the four skill areas College Board lists for the test. It is unofficial and not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by College Board.

Read the full guide

What the Reading test asks

College Board’s test specifications, read October 12, 2026, give the test 20 questions: a literary passage with four questions, a pair of informational passages with four, and twelve single questions. Information and Ideas and Rhetoric each take 35 to 55 percent, Vocabulary 10 to 20 and Synthesis 10.

How this practice differs

Every passage here is our own and short enough to sit above its question; the specifications allow passages of up to 400 words. Each run of 20 questions keeps the real mix, so exam mode is one test-length sitting.

  • On a paired-passage question, decide what each author claims before you read the choices.
  • A choice can be true and still be wrong. Check that it answers the question asked.
  • For a word-in-context question, put each choice into the sentence and reread it.

Questions and answers

Is there a printable Accuplacer reading practice test PDF with answers?

Yes, from this page. Print the question sheet lays out the next 20 questions; tick With answer key to add the answers and their reasons. Choose Save as PDF in the print window to keep the file. The questions are ours, not College Board’s.

How do you pass the Accuplacer reading test?

No one passes or fails, College Board says. The test reports a score from 200 to 300, and each college sets the scores that place students in its courses. Your testing office can tell you its numbers.

How many questions are on the Accuplacer reading test?

20 multiple-choice questions, the specifications say. College Board’s test page adds that there is no time limit and that each answer decides how hard the next question is. Exam mode here asks a fixed 20 with no clock.

Are these Accuplacer reading sample questions from College Board?

No. Every passage and question was written for this site from the skill areas in College Board’s specifications. College Board offers its own free sample questions and practice tests on its Accuplacer practice page.

Is this the next-generation Accuplacer reading practice test?

Yes. It follows the Next-Generation ACCUPLACER Test Specifications, which name the Reading test “formerly Reading Comprehension” and say it added paired passages, literary passages and vocabulary questions.

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