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Intermediate Algebra with Applications

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MULTIPLE CHOICE. Choose the one alternative that best completes the statement or answers the question.

Determine whether the expression is rational.


4
1)
x
A) Yes B) No
Answer: A

19
2)
x
A) Yes B) No
Answer: B

7 - 2x
3)
x2
A) Yes B) No
Answer: A

3 + 4x
4)
x
A) Yes B) No
Answer: B

Use the verbal representation of a rational function to find the symbolic representation.
5) Divide x by the quantity x plus 5.
x x x x+5
A) f(x) = B) f(x) = + 5 C) f(x) = D) f(x) =
x+5 x x-5 x
Answer: A

6) Add 3 to x and then divide the result by the quantity x plus 12.
x+3 x+3 x+3 x + 12
A) f(x) = + 12 B) f(x) = C) f(x) = D) f(x) =
x x - 12 x + 12 x+3
Answer: C

7) Divide x squared by the quantity x minus 19.


x2 2x x2 x2
A) f(x) = B) f(x) = C) f(x) = - 19 D) f(x) =
x - 19 x - 19 x x + 19
Answer: A

8) Compute the reciprocal of ten times x.


x 1 1
A) f(x) = B) f(x) = -10x C) f(x) = D) f(x) = 10
10 10x x
Answer: C

Identify the domain of f. Write your answer in set-builder notation.


5x
9) f(x) =
x+1
A) {x|x ≠ 0, x ≠ -1} B) {x|x ≠ -1} C) {x|x ≠ 1} D) All real numbers
Answer: B

1
x+8
10) f(x) =
x-5
A) {x|x ≠ 5} B) {x|x ≠ -8} C) {x|x ≠ -5} D) {x|x ≠ -8, x ≠ 5}
Answer: A

35 - x
11) f(x) =
8x + 7
7 8 7 7
A) x|x ≠ - B) x|x ≠ - C) x|x ≠ D) x|x ≠ - , x ≠ 35
8 7 8 8
Answer: A

x+6
12) f(x) =
x2 - 9
A) {x|x ≠ -3, x ≠ 3} B) {x|x ≠ 0, x ≠ 9}
C) {x|x ≠ -3, x ≠ 3, x ≠ -6} D) All real numbers
Answer: A

5x
13) f(x) =
4 - x2
A) {x|x ≠ -2, x ≠ 2, x ≠ 5} B) {x|x ≠ -2, x ≠ 2}
C) {x|x ≠ 0, x ≠ 4} D) {x|x ≠ -2, x = 0, x ≠ 2}
Answer: B

x+2
14) f(x) =
2
x - 64x
A) {x|x ≠ -8, x ≠ 8} B) {x|x ≠ 0, x ≠ 64}
C) {x|x ≠ -8, x ≠ 8, x ≠ -2} D) {x|x ≠ -8, x ≠ 0, x ≠ 8}
Answer: B

x2 - 13
15) f(x) =
x2 + 5x - 24
A) {x|x ≠ -8, x ≠ 3} B) {x|x ≠ -8, x ≠ 3, x ≠ 13}
C) {x|x ≠ -24, x ≠ 1} D) {x|x ≠ 8, x ≠ -3}
Answer: A

x2 + 2
16) f(x) =
2
2x - 5x - 7
7 7
A) x x ≠ - , x≠1 B) x x ≠ , x ≠ -1
2 2
2 7
C) x x ≠ , x ≠ -1 D) x x ≠ , x ≠ -2, x ≠ -1
7 2
Answer: B

2
3
17) f(x) =
x3 - 36x
A) {x|x ≠ -6, x ≠ 6} B) {x|x ≠ 0, x ≠ 6}
C) {x|x ≠ -6, x ≠ 0, x ≠ 6} D) {x|x ≠ 0, x ≠ 36}
Answer: C

Graph y = f (x). Be sure to include any vertical asymptote as a dashed line.


1
18) f(x) =
x-3
10 y

-10 -5 5 x

-5

-10

A) B)
10 y 10 y

5 5

-10 -5 5 x -10 -5 5 x

-5 -5

-10 -10

C) D)
10 y 10 y

5 5

-10 -5 5 x -10 -5 5 x

-5 -5

-10 -10

Answer: B
3
3
19) f(x) =
x
10 y

-10 -5 5 x

-5

-10

A) B)
10 y 10 y

5 5

-10 -5 5 x -10 -5 5 x

-5 -5

-10 -10

C) D)
10 y 10 y

5 5

-10 -5 5 x -10 -5 5 x

-5 -5

-10 -10

Answer: B

4
1
20) f(x) =
4x
10 y

-10 -5 5 x

-5

-10

A) B)
10 y 10 y

5 5

-10 -5 5 x -10 -5 5 x

-5 -5

-10 -10

C) D)
10 y 10 y

5 5

-10 -5 5 x -10 -5 5 x

-5 -5

-10 -10

Answer: C

5
x-2
21) f(x) =
x
10 y

-10 -5 5 x

-5

-10

A) B)
10 y 10 y

5 5

-10 -5 5 x -10 -5 5 x

-5 -5

-10 -10

C) D)
10 y 10 y

5 5

-10 -5 5 x -10 -5 5 x

-5 -5

-10 -10

Answer: D

6
3
22) f(x) =
x2 + 4
10 y

-10 -5 5 x

-5

-10

A) B)
2 y 2 y

1 1

-10 -5 5 x -10 -5 5 x

-1 -1

-2 -2

C) D)
2 y 2 y

1 1

-10 -5 5 x -10 -5 5 x

-1 -1

-2 -2

Answer: B

7
1
23) f(x) =
7x + 3
y

A) B)
10 y 5 y

8 4
6 3
4 2
2 1

-12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 2 4 6 8 10 12 x -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 1 2 3 4 5x
-2 -1

-4 -2
-6 -3
-8 -4
-10 -5

C) D)
5 y 10 y

4 8
3 6
2 4
1 2

-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 1 2 3 4 5x -12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 2 4 6 8 10 12 x
-1 -2

-2 -4
-3 -6
-4 -8
-5 -10

Answer: B

8
4
24) f(x) =
9 - x2
10 y

-10 -5 5 x

-5

-10

A) B)
2 y 2 y

1 1

-10 -5 5 x -10 -5 5 x

-1 -1

-2 -2

C) D)
2 y 2 y

1 1

-10 -5 5 x -10 -5 5 x

-1 -1

-2 -2

Answer: D

9
Evaluate f(x) at the given value of x by hand.
7x - 7
25) f(x) = ;x=3
7x
4 14 2 66
A) B) - C) D)
3 73 3 73
Answer: C

9 x2 - 8 x
26) f(x) = ; x = -3
5x
19 19
A) 7 B) - C) D) - 7
5 5
Answer: D

6x - 3
27) f(x) = ; x = -4
2
5x + 2x + 3
7 27 7 9
A) B) - C) - D) -
25 85 25 25
Answer: D

9 x2 - 2 x + 6
28) ;x=2
2 -x
163 163
A) Undefined B) C) 326 D) -
2 2
Answer: A

Use the graph to evaluate the expression.


29) f(3)
y
5
4
3
2
1

-4 -3 -2 -1 1 2 3 4 5 6 x
-1
-2
-3
-4
-5
A) 2 B) Undefined C) 1 D) 4
Answer: A

10
30) f(2)
5 y

4
3
2
1

-3 -2 -1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 x
-1
-2
-3
-4
-5

A) 5 B) Undefined C) -10 D) -5
Answer: B

31) f(-2)
y
5
4
3
2
1

-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 1 2 3 4 5 x
-1
-2
-3
-4
-5

A) -3 B) Undefined C) -1 D) -2
Answer: A

32) f(2)
5 y

4
3
2
1

-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 1 2 3 4 5 x
-1
-2
-3
-4
-5

A) 5 B) 2 C) Undefined D) 10
Answer: C

11
Solve the equation.
x-2
33) = -2
x+6
14 10
A) x = 14 B) No solution C) x = - D) x = -
3 3
Answer: D

-5 1
34) =-
x+5 7
30
A) x = 40 B) x = - C) x = 30 D) No solution
7
Answer: C

x+1 x+2
35) =
2 3
A) x = 3 B) x = -1 C) x = 1 D) x = -3
Answer: C

x-7 -8
36) =
x-1 x-1
A) x = - 1 B) No solution C) x = 1 D) x = -1
Answer: D

-10 -5
37) =
x-5 x+7
1 1
A) x = - 19 B) x = 3 C) x = - , D) x = 5, -7
5 7
Answer: A

Solve the problem.


38) Evaluate (f + g)(2) given f(x) = x - 3 and g(x) = x - 7.
A) 8 B) -6 C) 0 D) 14
Answer: B

39) Evaluate (f - g)(-3) given f(x) = 2x2 - 6 and g(x) = x - 1.


A) 14 B) -9 C) 16 D) 10
Answer: C

40) Evaluate (fg)(-4) given f(x) = x + 7 and g(x) = 3x2 + 10x + 3.


A) -121 B) -63 C) -561 D) 33
Answer: D

41) Evaluate (f/g)(-3) given f(x) = 4x - 1 and g(x) = 5x2 + 14x + 4.


13 5 5 4
A) - B) C) D)
7 11 7 7
Answer: A

12
42) Find (f + g)(x) given f(x) = 3x - 3 and g(x) = -7x + 7.
A) 10x - 4 B) -5x + 10 C) -4x + 4 D) -4x2 + 4
Answer: C

43) Find (f - g)(x) given f(x) = 9x - 9 and g(x) = 7x - 7.


A) -2x + 2 B) 16x - 16 C) 2x - 2 D) 2x - 16
Answer: C

44) Find (fg)(x) given f(x) = 7x - 2 and g(x) = 9x + 3.


A) 63x2 - 15x - 6 B) 63x2 - 6 C) 16x2 + 3x + 1 D) 63x2 + 3x - 6
Answer: D

45) Find (f/g)(x) given f(x) = 7x - 5 and g(x) = 5x - 2.


5x - 2 5x + 2 7x + 5 7x - 5
A) B) C) D)
7x - 5 7x + 5 5x + 2 5x - 2
Answer: D

46) Find (f + g)(x) given f(x) = 4x - 3 and g(x) = -9x2 + 6.


A) -9x2 + 4x - 3 B) 13x - 3 C) -5x2 + 3 D) -9x2 + 4x + 3
Answer: D

47) Find (fg)(x) given f(x) = 3x + 1 and g(x) = 5x2 - 1.


A) 15x3 - 1 B) 15x3 - 3x2 + 5x - 1 C) 15x3 + 5x2 - 3x - 1 D) 3x3 + 5x2 - 1
Answer: C

900
48) If the average cost per unit C(x) to produce x units of plywood is given by C(x) = , what is the unit cost for
x + 30
10 units?
A) $22.50 B) $60.00 C) $3.00 D) $90.00
Answer: A

212,500
49) Suppose the cost per ton, y, to build an oil platform of x thousand tons is approximated by y = . What is
x + 425
the cost per ton for x = 20?
A) $10,200.00 B) $477.53 C) $25.00 D) $10,625.00
Answer: B

50) In the following formula, y is the minimum number of hours of studying required to attain a test score of x:
0.55x
y= . How many hours of study are needed to score 85? Round to the nearest hundredth of an hour.
100.5 - x
A) 3.02 hr B) 5.18 hr C) 30.20 hr D) 100.85 hr
Answer: A

1200
51) If the average cost per unit C(x) to produce x units of plywood is given by C(x) = , what do 800 units cost?
x + 40
A) $24,000.00 B) $1142.86 C) $320.00 D) $1199.95
Answer: B

13
312,500
52) Suppose the cost per ton, y, to build an oil platform of x thousand tons is approximated by y = . What is
x + 625
the cost per ton for x = 400?
A) $200,000.00 B) $304.88 C) $121,951.22 D) $156.25
Answer: B

7.1x
53) Suppose a cost-benefit model is given by y = , where y is the cost in thousands of dollars for removing x
100 - x
percent of a given pollutant. Find the cost of removing 80% to the nearest dollar.
A) $7100 B) $4000 C) $28,400 D) $5680
Answer: C

Simplify.
6 1
54) ∙
7 7
1 1 1 6
A) B) C) D)
6 7 2 49
Answer: D

1 3
55) ∙
2 5
7 3 1 6
A) B) C) D)
13 10 10 5
Answer: B

21 17
56) ∙
29 27
119 493 7 19
A) B) C) D)
261 567 261 28
Answer: A

8 5
57) ∙
3 2
4 15 13 20
A) B) C) D)
3 16 5 3
Answer: D

2 1
58) -
5 10
1 1 1 4
A) - B) - C) - D) -
100 25 15 15
Answer: B

14
1 3
59) - ÷ -
6 4
1 2 9 2
A) - B) C) D) -
8 9 2 9
Answer: B

2 1
60) ÷ -
11 5
11 2 10 10
A) B) - C) D) -
10 55 11 11
Answer: D

Simplify the expression.


(y + 9)(y - 4)
61)
(y - 4)(y + 6)
y- 9 y+9 y+ 4 2y - 4
A) B) C) D)
y- 6 y+6 y+ 2 2y + 2
Answer: B

a 2 - 7a
62)
(a + 8)(a - 7)
1 a a-7 a2
A) B) C) D)
a+8 a+8 a+8 a+8
Answer: B

4x + 3
63)
2
20x + 23x + 6
1 4x + 5 4x + 3 4x
A) B) C) D)
5x + 2 5x + 23 2
20x + 23x + 6 5x + 2

Answer: A

42m 3p2
64)
7m 8p
6p 6m 5
A) 6m 5p2 B) 6mp C) D)
m5 p

Answer: C

2x + 2
65)
6x2 + 16x + 10
2x + 2 1 2x + 3 2x
A) B) C) D)
2
6x + 16x + 10 3x + 5 3x + 16 3x + 5

Answer: B

15
y2 + 11y + 18
66)
y2 + 12y + 27
y+ 2 11y + 2 11y + 18 y2 + 11y + 18
A) B) C) D) -
y+ 3 12y + 3 12y + 27 y2 + 12y + 27
Answer: A

y2 + 2y - 8
67)
y2 + 7y - 18
2y - 8 y2 + 2y - 8 y+ 4 2y - 4
A) B) - C) D)
7y - 18 y2 + 7y - 18 y+ 9 7y - 9

Answer: C

m 2 - 64
68)
m 2 - 16m + 64
m+8 m-8 1
A) B) C) D) 1
m-8 m+8 m-8
Answer: A

m 2 - 25m
69)
25 - m
A) -m B) m + 5 C) m D) -(m + 5)
Answer: A

Find the reciprocal.


17
70)
19
17 19
A) 19 B) - C) 17 D)
19 17
Answer: D

71) 9x
9 1 x
A) B) C) -9x D)
x 9x 9
Answer: B

23
72)
x
x 23 1 x
A) - B) C) D)
23 x 23x 23
Answer: D

16
x
73)
x + 16
1 x + 16
A) B) x(x + 16) C) 16 D)
x(x + 16) x
Answer: D

y+ 9
74)
y
y+ 9 1 y
A) - B) C) D) 9
y 9 y+ 9
Answer: C

x
75)
20
20 x
A) B) - C) 20 D) x
x 20
Answer: A

6
76)
a-b
a-b 6 6 a+b
A) B) - C) 6(a - b) D)
6 a b 6
Answer: A

(x - y)2
77)
x
x 1 x x
A) B) C) 1 - D)
(x - y)2 y2 y (x - y)

Answer: A

2
78)
25m 2 + 47m
2 -25m 2 - 47m 25m 2 + 47m 2
A) B) C) D)
25m 2 - 47m 2 2 25m 2 + 47m
Answer: C

n 2 - 7n + 11
79)
n 2 - 3n
n 2 + 3n n 2 + 7n + 11 n 2 - 3n
A) B) C) 11 D)
n 2 - 7n + 11 n 2 + 3n n 2 - 7n + 11
Answer: D

17
Multiply. Leave the answer in factored form when appropriate.
2z 3 20
80) ∙
4 z2
10z2 z 10
A) B) C) 10z D)
z3 10 z

Answer: C

2p - 2 5p2
81) ∙
p 4p - 4
2 8p2 + 16p + 8 5p 10p3 - 10p2
A) B) C) D)
5p 5p3 2 4p2 - 4p
Answer: C

k2 + 6k + 8 k2 + 8k
82) ∙
k2 + 10k + 16 k2 + 11k + 28
k k 1 k2 + 8k
A) B) C) D)
2
k + 10k + 16 k+7 k+ 7 k+ 7

Answer: B

k2 + 11k + 24 k2 + 5k
83) ∙
k2 + 13k + 40 k2 - 4k - 21
k2 + 5k k 1 k
A) B) C) D)
k-7 k-7 k- 7 2
k + 13k + 40
Answer: B

3x2 32
84) ∙
4 x3
24 x5 x 24x2
A) B) C) D)
x 42 42 x3
Answer: A

5y 8y + 4
85) ∙
10y + 5 7
y 4 4 4
A) B) C) y D) y
7 7 7 35
Answer: C

y2 - 9 y - 7
86) ∙
7y + 21 y - 3
(y - 7)(y - 3) 1 y- 7
A) B) y - 7 C) D)
7(y - 3) 7 7
Answer: D

18
z 2 + 14z + 49 z 2 - 4z
87) ∙
z 2 - 16 z+7
z(z + 7) (z + 7) z z(z + 7)
A) B) C) D)
z+4 z+4 z-4 z-4
Answer: A

x2 + 3x + 2 4x3 - 25x
88) ∙
2x3 + 5x2 5x + 5
(x - 2)(2x - 5) (x + 2)(2x + 5) (x + 2)(2x - 5) (x + 2)(2x - 5)
A) B) C) D)
5 5x 5x 5x2
Answer: C

Divide. Leave the answer in factored form when appropriate.


5x - 15 x - 3
89) ÷
x x3
1 5x2 - 30x + 45
A) B) 5x2 + 5x C) 5x2 D)
5x2 x4
Answer: C

4p - 4 9p - 9
90) ÷
p 8p2
32p3 - 32p2 32p 9 36p2 + 72p + 36
A) B) C) D)
9p2 - 9p 9 32p 8p3
Answer: B

3x2 x3
91) ÷
4 28
x 21 21x x5
A) B) C) D)
21 x x3 37

Answer: B

30x10 20x3
92) ÷
12y9 12y6
25x7 2y7 3x7 25x13
A) B) C) D)
6y3 3x3 2y3 6y15
Answer: C

z 2 - 36 z - 6
93) ÷
z z-7
z (z + 6)(z - 7) (z - 6)(z 2 - 6)
A) B) C) D) (z + 6)(z - 7)
(z + 6)(z - 7) z z(z - 7)
Answer: B

19
9x2 - 1 3x - 1
94) ÷
x2 - 64 x+8

x-8 3x - 1 (3x - 1)(9x2 - 1) 3x + 1


A) B) C) D)
3x + 1 x+8 (x2 + 8)(x + 8) x-8

Answer: D

y3 - 9y y2 + 4y - 45
95) ÷
y2 - 81 y2 + 18y + 81
(y + 9)(y + 5) (y - 9)(y - 5) y y(y2 - 9)
A) B) C) D)
y(y2 - 9) y(y2 - 9) y- 5 (y - 9)(y - 5)

Answer: D

z 2 + 11z + 30 z 2 + 6z
96) ÷
z 2 + 12z + 35 z 2 + 10z + 21
z+3 z+3 z
A) B) C) z + 3 D)
z z 2 + 7z z2 + 12z + 35
Answer: A

z 2 + 12z + 32 z 2 + 8z
97) ÷
z 2 + 13z + 36 z 2 + 2z - 63
z-7 z z-7
A) B) C) D) z - 7
z 2 + 9z z 2 + 13z + 36 z

Answer: C

x2 - 25 10x - 50
98) ÷
x2 - 8x + 16 x2 - x - 12
10(x + 5) (x - 5)(x + 3) (x + 5)(x + 3)
A) B) C) D) x + 3
(x + 3)(x - 4) 10(x - 4) 10(x - 4)
Answer: C

Solve the problem.


x-1 x-4
99) If f(x) = and g(x) = , find (fg)(x).
x2 + 3x - 28 x-1
x-4 x-1 1 1
A) B) C) D)
x-7 x+7 x+7 x-7
Answer: C

3 x-3
100) If f(x) = and g(x) = , find (fg)(x).
x2 - 9x + 18 x+6
3 3 3(x - 3) 3(x - 3)
A) B) C) D)
x-6 x2 - 36 x-6 x2 - 36
Answer: B

20
101) If f(x) = x2 - 100 and g(x) = x - 10, find (f/g)(x).
1
A) x3+ 1000 B) C) x - 10 D) x + 10
x + 10
Answer: D

7x - 6 6 - 7x
102) If f(x) = and g(x) = , find (f/g)(x).
72 12
1 (7x - 6)2 1
A) - B) - C) D) -6
6 6 6
Answer: A

103) The area A of a rectangle is 4x2 + 5x - 21 and its width W is x + 3. Find the length L of the rectangle.
A) 4x2 - 7 B) 4x + 7 C) 4x - 21 D) 4x - 7
Answer: D

104) The area A of a rectangle is 4x2 + 21x - 18 and its width W is x + 6. Find the length if the width is 16 feet.
A) 40 ft B) 37 ft C) 10 ft D) 61 ft
Answer: B

105) The area A of a rectangle is given by x2 - 16. Find its length if its width is x - 4.
1
A) x - 4 B) x + 4 C) D) x3 + 64
x+4
Answer: B

106) The area A of a rectangle is given by x2 - 64 and its width W is x - 8. Find the dimensions of the rectangle when
x = 12.
A) 80 by 4 B) 12 by 4 C) 4 by 4 D) 20 by 4
Answer: D

107) The volume V of a box with a square bottom is 8x3 + 17x2 + 2x. If its height is x, find the area of the bottom.
2
A) 8x + 17 + B) 8x2 + 17x + 2 C) 8x4 + 17x3 + 2x2 D) 8x3 + 17x2 + x
x
Answer: B

108) The area A of a triangle is 15x2 + 14x - 8. Find its height if the base of the triangle is 3x + 4.
5x + 2
A) B) 2(5x - 2) C) 2(5x + 2) D) 5x - 2
2
Answer: B

Find the least common multiple.


109) 30, 18, 15
A) 18 B) 90 C) 45 D) 30
Answer: B

110) 20, 12, 15


A) 20 B) 30 C) 12 D) 60
Answer: D

21
111) 500, 300, 150
A) 1500 B) 300 C) 500 D) 750
Answer: A

112) 50x5 y , 30x4 y3 , 15x2 y4


A) 50 x5 y4 B) 150 x5 y4 C) 75 x20y12 D) 30 x5 y
Answer: B

113) 9xy , 15x2


A) 45 xy2 B) 45 xy3 C) 45 x2 y D) 45 x3 y
Answer: C

114) 8x - 56 , x2 - 7x
A) 8 x(x - 7 ) B) 8 x - 7 C) 8 x2 - 56 D) 8 x2 - 7
Answer: A

115) x2 + 6 x + 5 , x2 + 7 x + 6
A) (x + 5 )(x + 1 )(x + 6 ) B) (x + 5 )(x + 1 )
C) (x - 5 )(x - 1 )(x + 6 ) D) (x + 1 )(x + 6 )
Answer: A

116) x2 - 11 x + 30 , 4 x - 24
A) 4 (x - 5 )(x + 6 ) B) 4 (x + 5 )(x + 6 ) C) 4 (x - 5 )(x - 6 ) D) 4 (x + 5 )(x - 6 )
Answer: C

Simplify.
4 4
117) +
9 9
7 7 8 9
A) B) C) D)
9 8 9 10
Answer: C

5 1
118) -
21 21
4 1 4 1
A) B) C) D)
7 3 21 2
Answer: C

5 1
119) -
7 2
3 1 4 4
A) B) C) D)
14 7 7 9
Answer: A

22
4 3
120) -
5 20
13 7 1 3
A) B) C) D)
20 10 20 5
Answer: A

7 1
121) -
12 16
3 1 1 25
A) B) C) D)
16 6 8 48
Answer: D

2 2
122) +
9 7
32 4 1
A) B) 2 C) D)
63 63 4
Answer: A

13 3
123) +
15 8
2 149 16 149
A) B) C) D)
15 23 23 120
Answer: D

3 5
124) +
16 81
19 19 323 323
A) B) C) D)
210 7776 35 1296
Answer: D

5 7 1
125) + +
6 9 2
13 19 228 13
A) B) C) D)
108 9 17 17
Answer: B

8 3
126) +
14 x 14 x
11 14 x 11
A) B) C) D) 1
14 x 11 28 x
Answer: A

16 3
127) -
14 x 14 x
13 14 x 13
A) B) C) D) 13
28x 13 14 x
Answer: C

23
3m 12
128) -
m- 4 m- 4
3 3 (m + 4 )
A) B) 3 C) D) 0
m- 4 m- 4
Answer: B

10 z + 20 8 z - 9
129) +
z + 11 z + 11
2 z + 29 18 z + 11 11 z + 31 9z + 9
A) B) C) D)
z + 11 z + 11 9z + 2 7 z + 20
Answer: B

2 4
130) -
21x 15x2
2(5x - 14) 2 8 -2
A) B) - C) D)
105x2 315x2 105x2 21x + 15x2
Answer: A

3 9
131) -
10x 14x2
6 -6 3(7x - 15) -18
A) - B) C) D)
140x2 10x + 14x2 70x2 70x2
Answer: C

2 1
132) +
8x + 16 32x - 320
7x - 82 9x - 78 -7x + 82 9x - 78
A) B) C) D)
32(x + 2)(x - 10) (8x + 2)(4x - 10) (8x + 2)(4x - 10) 32(x + 2)(x - 10)
Answer: D

2 7
133) +
2 2
y - 3y + 2 y - 1
9y - 12 9y - 12
A) B)
(y - 1)(y + 1)(y - 2) (y - 1)(y - 2)
28y - 12 12y - 9
C) D)
(y - 1)(y + 1)(y - 2) (y - 1)(y + 1)(y - 2)
Answer: A

x 8
134) -
2 2
x - 16 x + 5x + 4
x2 - 7x + 32 x2 - 7x + 32
A) B)
(x - 4)(x + 4) (x - 4)(x + 4)(x + 1)
x2 - 7 x2 + 7x + 32
C) D)
(x - 4)(x + 4)(x + 1) (x - 4)(x + 4)(x + 1)
Answer: B

24
8 2 x-4
135) - +
4 - 5x 5x - 4 5x2 + 16x - 16
-9x - 44 7x + 20 -5x - 28
A) None of these B) C) D)
(5x - 4)(x + 4) (5x - 4)(x + 4) (5x - 4)(x + 4)
Answer: B

11xy x-y
136) -
x2 - y2 x + y
-x2 + 13xy - y2 x2 + 13xy + y2 -x2 + 9xy - y2 x2 + 9xy + y2
A) B) C) D)
(x + y)(x - y) (x + y)(x - y) (x + y)(x + y) (x + y)(x - y)
Answer: A

8y 5y
137) -
2 2
y + 9y + 14 y + 7y + 10
13y2 + 75y 3y2 + 5y
A) B)
(y + 2)(y + 2)(y + 5) (y + 2)(y + 7)(y + 5)
3y2 + 5 3y2 + 5y
C) D)
(y + 2)(y + 7)(y - 7) (y + 2)(y + 2)(y + 7)(y + 5)
Answer: B

8x - 1 x-4
138) -
x + 4x - 21 x2 - 9
2

7x + 3 7x2 + 20x + 25
A) B)
(x - 3)(x + 3) (x - 3)(x + 3)(x + 7)
9x - 5 9x2 + 26x - 31
C) D)
(x - 3)(x + 7) (x - 3)(x + 3)(x + 7)
Answer: B

Solve the problem.


x 8
139) Find (f + g)(x) given f(x) = and g(x) = .
x-5 x-5
9x 8 x+8 8x
A) B) - C) D)
x-5 5 x-5 2
x - 10x + 25
Answer: C

4 x
140) Find (f - g)(x) given f(x) = and g(x) = .
x-4 x-4
4+x 1
A) B) 1 C) -1 D)
x-4 x-4
Answer: C

25
6 7
141) Find (f + g)(x) given f(x) = and g(x) = .
x 6x
13 43 43x 43
A) B) C) D)
x2 x 6 6x

Answer: D

1 7
142) Find (f - g)(x) given f(x) = and g(x) = .
3x 18x
1 1 1 13
A) - B) C) - D) -
3x 18x 18x 18x
Answer: C

1 1
143) Find (f + g)(x) given f(x) = and g(x) = .
x+8 x-8
2 2x 1 -16
A) B) C) D)
(x + 8)(x - 8) (x + 8)(x - 8) x (x + 8)(x - 8)
Answer: B

1 1
144) Find (f - g)(x) given f(x) = and g(x) = .
x+9 x-9
1 2x -18 18
A) B) C) D)
18 (x + 9)(x - 9) (x + 9)(x - 9) (x + 9)(x - 9)
Answer: C

1 1
145) Find (f + g)(x) given f(x) = and g(x) = .
x-8 x
8 -16 1 2x - 8
A) B) C) D)
x(x - 8) x(x - 8) 2x - 8 x(x - 8)
Answer: D

1 1
146) Find (f - g)(x) given f(x) = and g(x) = .
x-7 x
2x - 7 7 7 1
A) B) C) - D) -
x(x - 7) x(x - 7) x(x - 7) 7
Answer: B

v2 - v1
147) The formula a = gives an object's average acceleration a when its velocity changes from v1 at time t1 to
t2 - t1
v2 at time t2 . Solve for t2.
v2 - v1 v2 - v1 + at1 v2 - v1 + t1 a - t1
A) t2 = B) t2 = C) t2 = D) t2 =
a - t1 a a v2 - v1

Answer: B

26
2Tt + Qq
148) The formula A = gives a student's average A after T tests and Q quizzes, where each test counts as 2
2T + Q
quizzes, t is the test average and q is the quiz average. Solve for T.
Qq - QA 2At + QA - Qq
A) T = B) T =
2A - 2t 2t
Qq - A 2t + Qq - QA
C) T = D) T =
2A - 2t 2A
Answer: A

Find the least common denominator (LCD).


2 6
149) ,
x x+1
A) x B) 12 C) x(x + 1) D) x + 1
Answer: C

1 6 8
150) , ,
35x 5x2 7x3

A) 7x3 B) 35x2 C) 35x3 D) 35x5


Answer: C

5 2
151) ,
6x + 36 x2 + 6x

A) 6x2 + 36 B) 6x(x + 6) C) 6x + 6 D) 6x2 + 6


Answer: B

4 9 4
152) , ,
x 5+x 5-x
A) 25x2 B) x2 + 25 C) x(5 + x)(5 - x) D) x + 5
Answer: C

1 1
153) ,
2 2
x + 18x + 81 x + 9x
A) x(x + 1)(r + 9) B) x(x + 9) C) x(x + 9)2 D) (x + 9)2
Answer: C

8 7
154) ,
x2 - 5x x2 - 2x - 15
A) x(x - 5)(x + 3) B) x(x - 8)(x + 3) C) x(x - 8)2 D) (x - 8)2
Answer: A

8 8
155) ,
2 2
x + 3x - 4 x + 4x - 5
A) (x + 4)(x - 1) B) (x - 1)(x + 5) C) (x + 4)(x - 1)(x + 5) D) (x - 4)(x + 1)(x + 5)
Answer: C

27
4 3
156) ,
x2 - 11x + 30 -4x + 24
A) -4(x + 5)(x - 6) B) -4(x - 5)(x - 6) C) -4(x + 5)(x + 6) D) -4(x - 5)(x + 6)
Answer: B

Solve the equation.


x+2
157) = -4
x+6
26 22 22
A) - B) - C) D) No solutions
5 5 3
Answer: A

8 7
158) =
x+9 5
23 11 103
A) - B) C) No solutions D)
7 5 7
Answer: A

x+1 x+2
159) =
2 3
A) 3 B) 1 C) -1 D) -3
Answer: B

2 x
160) =
x 5x - 12
24
A) 0 B) 0, 36 C) 0, D) 4, 6
9
Answer: D

x + 10 -5
161) =
x - 15 x - 15
1
A) 15 B) -15 C) - D) No solutions
15
Answer: B

4 -8
162) =
x-8 x+4
1 1
A) - , B) 8, -4 C) - 20 D) 4
8 4
Answer: D

Solve the rational equation symbolically, numerically, or graphically.


1 42
163) 1 + =
x x2
1 1
A) 7, 6 B) 7, -6 C) -7, 6 D) - ,
7 6
Answer: C

28
7 5 4
164) - =
x + 3 x - 3 x2 - 9
A) 40 B) -20 C) 2 10 D) 20
Answer: D

5-x 3 7
165) + =
x 4 x
29
A) 8 B) C) -4 D) -8
20
Answer: D

5x 1
166) +3=
6 7
32 24 25 6
A) B) - C) - D)
7 7 7 5
Answer: B

x-2 9
167) =
x-2 2-x
A) -7 B) 7 C) 11 D) -11
Answer: A

4 1 9
168) + =
x- 4 2x - 8 2
A) 1 B) 45 C) 5 D) -3
Answer: C

Solve f(x) = 0 for the given f(x).


1
169) f(x) = - 49x
x
1 1 1
A) No solutions B) -7, 7 C) - , D)
7 7 7
Answer: C

6-x
170) f(x) = -3
x
6 3 3
A) B) - C) D) No solutions
5 2 2
Answer: C

29
Use the graph to solve the rational equation.
4
171) - 1 = -3
x
y
8
4
y1 = - 1 (solid line)
6 x
4 y2 = -3 (dashed line)

-8 -6 -4 -2 2 4 6 8 x
-2

-4

-6

-8

A) No solutions B) 0 C) 2 D) -2
Answer: D

2
172) = 2x
x2

y
8 2
y1 = (solid line)
6 x2
4 y2 = 2x (dashed line)

-8 -6 -4 -2 2 4 6 8 x
-2

-4

-6

-8

A) No solutions B) 1 C) 0 D) -1
Answer: B

30
Solve the rational equation graphically. Approximate your answer to the nearest hundredth if appropriate.
1 1
173) =
x-3 5
y
10

-10 -5 5 10 x

-5

-10

A) -8 B) 0.13 C) -0.13 D) 8
Answer: D

8
174) 4 - =6
x
y
10

-10 -5 5 10 x

-5

-10

A) 4 B) -4 C) 8 D) -8
Answer: B

31
27
175) = -x
x2
y
10

-10 -5 5 10 x

-5

-10

A) 3 B) 5 C) -10 D) -3
Answer: D

-2
176) x =
x+3
y
10

-10 -5 5 10 x

-5

-10

A) -3, -1 B) -2, -1 C) 2, 1 D) -2
Answer: B

32
2 1
177) =
x+2 x-8
y

A) 10 B) 6 C) 18 D) -14
Answer: C

8 4
178) =
x-5 x
y
10

-10 -5 5 10 x

-5

-10

A) 5 B) -0.2 C) -5 D) -1.67
Answer: C

33
2 2
179) + =1
x x+3
y
10

-10 -5 5 10 x

-5

-10

A) 2 B) -2, 3 C) 3 D) 2, -3
Answer: B

12 14
180) - =1
x-4 x+4
y
10

-10 -5 5 10 x

-5

-10

A) -10, 12 B) 10, -12 C) No solution D) -14, 12


Answer: B

34
1 42
181) 1 + =
x x2

y
10

-10 -5 5 10 x

-5

-10

A) 7, -6 B) 7, 6 C) -7, 6 D) -0.25, 0.33


Answer: C

1 1
182) + =7
x x2

y
10

-10 -5 5 10 x

-5

-10

A) -0.46, 0.31 B) -0.63, 0.91 C) -0.23, 0.16 D) -0.31, 0.46


Answer: D

Solve the formula for the specified letter.


1
183) A = h(B + b) for b
2
2A + Bh 2A - Bh A - Bh
A) b = B) b = 2A - Bh C) b = D) b =
h h h
Answer: C

PV pv
184) = for P
T t
pv pvT tvT pvV
A) P = B) P = C) P = D) P =
tTV tV pV tT
Answer: B

35
E
185) I = for r
R+r
E E - IR IR E-R
A) r = - IR B) r = C) r = D) r =
I I E I
Answer: B

A
186) P = for r
1 + rt
A- P P-1 P-A
A) r = P - tA B) r = C) r = D) r =
Pt At 1+t
Answer: B

1 1
187) + = c for b
a b
1 1 a 1
A) b = B) b = -a C) b = D) b = ac -
ac c ac - 1 a
Answer: C

1 1 1
188) + = for c
a b c
a+b ab
A) c = B) c = a + b C) c = D) c = ab(a + b)
ab a+b
Answer: C

H
189) S = for m
mt1 - mt2
H + St2 SH H H
A) m = B) m = C) m = D) m =
St1 t1 - t2 St1 - t2 S(t1 - t2 )

Answer: D

H
190) S = for t2
m(t1 - t2)
H - Smt1 mt1 - SH Smt1 - H Smt1 - H
A) t2 = B) t2 = C) t2 = D) t2 =
Sm Sm m Sm
Answer: D

dR
191) L = for d
D- d
LD LD L(D - d)
A) d = LD - R - L B) d = C) d = D) d =
R-L R+L R
Answer: C

36
nE
192) I = for n
nr + R
I(nr + R) IR IR
A) n = B) n = C) n = D) n = IR - E + Ir
E Ir - E E - Ir
Answer: C

Solve.
193) Martha can rake the leaves in her yard in 3 hours. Her younger brother can do the job in 4 hours. How long will
it take them to do the job if they work together?
12 7
A) hr B) 12 hr C) 4 hr D) hr
7 12
Answer: A

194) One maid can clean the house three times faster than another. Working together they can clean the entire house
in 3 hours. How long would it take the faster maid cleaning alone?
3
A) hr B) 3 hr C) 5 hr D) 4 hr
4
Answer: D

195) Frank can type a report in 2 hours and James takes 7 hours. How long will it take the two of them typing
together?
9 14 14
A) hr B) hr C) 7 hr D) hr
14 5 9
Answer: D

196) An experienced accountant can balance the books twice as fast as a new accountant. Working together it takes
the accountants 8 hours. How long would it take the experienced accountant working alone?
A) 4 hr B) 12 hr C) 16 hr D) 20 hr
Answer: B

197) Amy can clean the house in 7 hours. When she works together with Tom, the job takes 5 hours. How long
would it take Tom, working by himself, to clean the house?
1 1
A) 18hr B) 17 hr C) 2 hr D) 18 hr
2 2
Answer: B

198) Jeff takes 5 hr longer to build a fence than it takes Bill. When they work together, it takes them 6 hours. How
long would it take Bill to do the job alone?
A) 12 hours B) 10 hours C) 9 hours D) 11 hours
Answer: B

199) A loaded moving truck is traveling 25 mph faster than a freight train. In the time it takes the train to travel 180
miles, the truck travels 280 miles. Find the speed of the truck.
A) 140 mph B) 70 mph C) 25 mph D) 14 mph
Answer: B

37
200) A boat goes 320 miles downstream in the same time it can go 240 miles upstream. The speed of the current is 9
miles per hour. Find the speed of the boat in still water.
A) 56 mph B) 72 mph C) 63 mph D) 54 mph
Answer: C

201) A jet plane traveling at a constant speed goes 1200 miles with the wind, then turns around and travels for 1000
miles against the wind. If the speed of the wind is 50 mph and the total flight took 4 hours, find the speed of the
plane in still air.
A) 550 mph B) 525 mph C) 605 mph D) 435 mph
Answer: A

202) A plane flies 450 miles with the wind and 350 miles against the wind in the same length of time. If the speed of
the wind is 25 mph, what is the speed of the plane in still air?
A) 225 mph B) 200 mph C) 205 mph D) 190 mph
Answer: B

Simplify the complex fraction. Leave the answer in factored form when appropriate.
1
5
203)
5
8
25 1 8
A) B) C) 8 D)
8 8 25
Answer: D

5
8
204)
8
3
64 3 15 5
A) B) C) D)
15 5 64 3
Answer: C

5
3
205)
1
6
1 5 18
A) B) C) 10 D)
10 18 5
Answer: C

8
11
206)
7
8 77 4 8
A) B) C) D)
11 8 9 77
Answer: D

38
12
7
207)
3
36 7 4
A) B) C) D) 4
7 4 7
Answer: C

1
+1
a
208)
1
-1
a
a 1+a
A) 1 B) C) D) 1 - a2
1 - a2 1-a

Answer: C

9 10
-
x2 - 16 x+4
209)
11 7
-
2
x - 16 x - 4
-31 - 10x -10x - 49 -10x + 49 9x - 40
A) B) C) D)
7x - 39 -7x - 17 -7x - 17 11x - 28
Answer: C

-3 5
+
x+3 x+5
210)
5 -3
-
x+5 x+2

-(x + 2) 2x2 + 4x 2x2 + 4x 2x2 - 34x + 60


A) B) C) D)
x+3 8x2 + 49x + 75 2x2 - 23x + 75 2x2 - 31x + 75
Answer: B

7
-7
5r - 1
211)
7
+7
5r - 1
2 + 5r 2-r 5r 2 - 5r
A) B) C) D)
5r r 2 - 5r 5r
Answer: D

39
x5
2y8
212)
x2
y6

x3 x3 x3 x7
A) B) C) D)
2y14 y2 2y2 2y14
Answer: C

Simplify the expression, using only positive exponents in your answer.


m -1 + z-1
213)
m -1 - z-1
z+m z-m z+m z+m
A) B) C) D)
z-m z m z
Answer: A

x-2
214)
x-2 - y-2
y2 y y2 y2 - x2
A) B) C) D)
y2 + x2 y2 - x2 y2 - x2 y2
Answer: C

x-6 + y-6
215)
x-1 + y-1
y6 + x6 1 1 y6 + x6
A) B) C) D)
x5 y6 + x6 y5 x+y x5 + y5 x5 + y5
Answer: A

x-2 - 36y-2
216)
10y - 60x
y + 6x x + 6y y2 + 6x
A) B) C) 10x - 60y2 D)
10x2 y2 10x2 y 10x2
Answer: A

Solve.
217) A commuter travels to work, driving a distance d at speed r. At the end of the day, she returns home and drives
the same distance 6 mph faster, at a speed r + 6. Her average speed for the round trip can be represented by the
2d
expression . Simplify this expression.
d d
+
r r+6
1 r(r + 3) r(r + 6) dr(r + 6)
A) B) C) D)
r+3 r+6 r+3 dr + 3
Answer: C

40
218) The fixed monthly payment required to amortize a loan of L dollars over a term of n months at an annual
Lr r -n
interest rate of r is given by ÷ 1- 1+ . Write this expression as a complex fraction.
12 12
Lr Lr
1-
12 Lr 12 Lr
A) B) C) D)
r -n r -n r -n r -n
1- 1+ 12 - 1 + 1+ 1- 1+
12 12 12 12
12

Answer: A

V
219) The total current flowing through a particular circuit is given by , where V represents voltage and R
1 1
+
R R-8
represents resistance. Simplify this expression.
V V(R - 8) VR(R - 8)
A) B) VR(R - 8) C) D)
R(R - 8) 2(R - 4) 2(R - 4)
Answer: D

220) If two light bulbs have resistances R1 and R2 , then their combined resistance R is given by the complex fraction
1
R= . Evaluate this formula when R1 = 50 ohms and R2 = 90 ohms. Round to the nearest tenth of an
1 1
+
R1 R2

ohm.
A) 140 ohmsohm B) 32.1 ohms C) 50.01 ohms D) 0.031 ohms
Answer: B

221) The fixed monthly payment required to amortize a loan of L dollars over a term of n months at an annual
Lr
12
interest rate of r is given by . Evaluate this expression when L = $200,000, r = 0.07, and
r -n
1- 1+
12
n = 360 months .
A) $1463.67 B) $1264.07 C) $1397.14 D) $1330.60
Answer: D

Solve the proportion.


1 x
222) =
3 18
A) 3 B) 15 C) 18 D) 6
Answer: D

3 x
223) =
5 15
A) 11 B) 15 C) 9 D) 6
Answer: C

41
6 x
224) =
8 24
A) 6 B) 48 C) 144 D) 18
Answer: D

14 9
225) =
x 18
A) 14 B) 252 C) 28 D) 126
Answer: C

9 23
226) =
x 138
A) 54 B) 15 C) 9 D) 106
Answer: A

Write a proportion that models the situation described. Then, solve the proportion for x.
227) 11 is to 12, as 3 is to x
11 3 36 11 x 33 11 x 11 11 3 38
A) = ;x= B) = ;x= C) = ;x= D) = ;x=
12 x 11 12 3 10 12 3 4 12 x 11
Answer: A

228) A rectangle has sides of 6 and 11. In a similar rectangle, the longer side is 44 and the shorter side is x.
6 44 242 6 44 487 6 x 6 x
A) = ;x= B) = ;x= C) = ; x = 24 D) = ; x = 26
11 x 3 11 x 6 11 44 11 44
Answer: C

229) If 3.3 ounces of oil are to be added to 16.5 gallons of gasoline, then x ounces of oil should be added to 39.5
gallons of gasoline.
16.5 x 3.3 x
A) = ; x = 197.5 ounces B) = ; x = 8.1 ounces
3.3 39.5 16.5 39.5
3.3 x 3.3 x
C) = ; x = 7.9 ounces D) = ; x = 7.8 ounces
16.5 39.5 16.5 39.5
Answer: C

230) If at a given speed a car can travel 142.8 miles on 6 gallons of gasoline, then the car can travel x miles on 102
gallons of gasoline at that speed.
6 x 142.8 x
A) = ; x = 2435 miles B) = ; x = 2435 miles
142.8 102 6 102
6 x 142.8 x
C) = ; x = 2427.6 miles D) = ; x = 2427.6 miles
142.8 102 6 102
Answer: D

Solve the problem.


231) Suppose that y is directly proportional to x and that y = 40 when x = 8. Find the constant of proportionality k.
Then use y = kx to find y when x = 17.
320
A) k = 7; y = 119 B) k = 320; y = C) k = 5; y = 85 D) k = - 5; y = - 85
17
Answer: C

42
232) Suppose that y is directly proportional to x and that y = 39 when x = 6. Find the constant of proportionality k.
Then use y = kx to find y when x = 15.
78
A) k = 234; y = B) k = 6.5; y = 112.5 C) k = 6.25; y = 93.75 D) k = 6.5; y = 97.5
5
Answer: D

233) Suppose that y is directly proportional to x and that y = 14.4 when x = 6. Find the constant of proportionality k.
Then use y = kx to find y when x = 15.
86.4
A) k = 2.6; y = 36 B) k = 86.4; y = C) k = 2.4; y = 36 D) k = 2.4; y = 39
15
Answer: C

234) Suppose that y is directly proportional to x and that y = 3.5 when x = 7. Find the constant of proportionality k.
Then use y = kx to find y when x = 10.
49
A) k = 1.5; y = 4 B) k = 0.5; y = 5 C) k = 0.5; y = 4 D) k = 24.5; y =
20
Answer: B

235) Suppose that y is inversely proportional to x and that y = 40 when x = 9. Find the constant of proportionality k.
k
Then use y = to find y when x = 8.
x
40 320
A) k = 72; y = 9 B) k = ;y= C) k = 180; y = 22.5 D) k = 360; y = 45
9 9
Answer: D

236) Suppose that y is inversely proportional to x and that y = 17.5 when x = 5. Find the constant of proportionality k.
k
Then use y = to find y when x = 25.
x
A) k = 3.5; y = 87.5 B) k = 95; y = 3.8 C) k = 80; y = 3.2 D) k = 87.5; y = 3.5
Answer: D

237) Suppose that y is inversely proportional to x and that y = 26.4 when x = 6. Find the constant of proportionality k.
k
Then use y = to find y when x = 36.
x
A) k = 158.4; y = 4.4 B) k = 146.4; y = 4.4 C) k = 176.4; y = 4.9 D) k = 4.4; y = 158.4
Answer: A

238) Suppose that y is inversely proportional to x and that y = 3.5 when x = 7. Find the constant of proportionality k.
k
Then use y = to find y when x = 10.
x
49 49 49
A) k = 9.8; y = B) k = 4.9; y = C) k = 24.5; y = D) k = 0.5; y = 5
50 20 20
Answer: C

43
Solve the problem. Round amounts to the nearest tenth if necessary.
239) Suppose that z varies jointly with x and y and that z = 405 when x = 9 and y = 15. Find the constant of variation
k. Then use z = kxy to find z when x = 3 and y = 4.
A) k = 5; z = 60 B) k = 0.3; z = 3.6

18225
C) k = 3; z = 36 D) k = 54,675; z =
4
Answer: C

240) Suppose that z varies jointly with x and y and that z = 1080 when x = 9 and y = 16. Find the constant of variation
k. Then use z = kxy to find z when x = 3 and y = 10.
A) k = 7.3; z = 219 B) k = 7.5; z = 225
C) k = 7.8; z = 234 D) k = 155,520; z = 5184
Answer: B

241) Suppose that z varies jointly with x and y and that z = 504 when x = 7 and y = 16. Find the constant of variation
k. Then use z = kxy to find z when x = 7 and y = 4.
A) k = 4.9; z = 137.2 B) k = 3.9; z = 109.2
C) k = 4.5; z = 126 D) k = 56,448; z = 2016
Answer: C

242) Suppose that z varies jointly with x and y and that z = 10.5 when x = 7 and y = 3. Find the constant of variation
k. Then use z = kxy to find z when x = 2 and y = 6.
147
A) k = 220.5; z = B) k = 5; z = 60 C) k = 0.3; z = 3.6 D) k = 0.5; z = 6
8
Answer: D

Determine whether the data represent direct variation, inverse variation, or neither.
243) x 1 2 3 4
y 2.2 4.4 6.6 8.8
A) Neither B) Direct C) Inverse
Answer: B

244) x 1 2 3 4
y 72 36 24 18
A) Direct B) Neither C) Inverse
Answer: C

245) x 1 2 3 4
y 2.5 2.7 3 3.4
A) Direct B) Neither C) Inverse
Answer: B

246) x 1 4 8 11
y 7 28 56 77
A) Neither B) Inverse C) Direct
Answer: C

44
Use the graph to determine whether the data represent direct variation, inverse variation, or neither.
247)
y
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

1 2 3 4 x

A) Direct B) Neither C) Inverse


Answer: A

248)
y
8

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 x

A) Neither B) Inverse C) Direct


Answer: B

45
249)
y
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 x

A) Neither B) Inverse C) Direct


Answer: B

250)
y
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 x

A) Inverse B) Direct C) Neither


Answer: B

Determine the equation of variation.


251) x 1 2 3 4
y 1.6 3.2 4.8 6.4
1.6
A) y = 3.6x B) y = C) y = 1.6 + x D) y = 1.6x
x
Answer: D

252) x 1 2 3 4
y 96 48 32 24
96 80
A) y = 80x B) y = C) y = 96x D) y =
x x
Answer: B

46
253)
y
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

1 2 3 4 x

12
A) y = 1.5x B) y = 2.5x C) y = D) y = 2x
x
Answer: D

254)
y
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 x

12 x
A) y = -x + 13 B) y = 12x C) y = D) y =
x 12
Answer: C

Solve the problem.


255) The volume V of a given mass of gas varies directly as the temperature T and inversely as the pressure P.
If V = 168.7 in.3 when T = 230° and P = 15 lb/ in.2 , what is the volume when T = 350° and P = 15 lb/in. 2?
A) 236.7 in. 3 B) 256.7 in.3 C) 266.7 in. 3 D) 216.7 in. 3
Answer: B

256) The intensity I of light varies inversely as the square of the distance D from the source. If the intensity of
illumination on a screen 5 ft from a light is 2 foot-candles, find the intensity on a screen 20 ft from the light.
1 1 50
A) 2 foot-candles B) 1 foot-candles C) foot-candle D) foot-candle
8 8 401
Answer: C

47
257) The weight of a body above the surface of the earth is inversely proportional to the square of its distance from
the water of the earth. What is the effect on the weight when the distance is multiplied by 2?
A) The weight is divided by 4. B) The weight is divided by 2.
C) The weight is multiplied by 4. D) The weight is multiplied by 2.
Answer: A

258) The period of vibration P for a pendulum varies directly as the square root of the length L. If the period of
vibration is 2.5 sec when the length is 25 inches, what is the period when L = 4 inches?
A) 3 sec B) 3.25 sec C) 2.75 sec D) 1 sec
Answer: D

259) The gravitational attraction A between two masses varies inversely as the square of the distance between them.
If the force of attraction is 9 lb when the masses are 2 ft apart, what is the attraction when the masses are 6 ft
apart?
A) 2 lb B) 4 lb C) 1 lb D) 3 lb
Answer: C

260) The time T necessary to make an enlargement of a photo negative varies directly as the area A of the
enlargement. If 100 seconds are required to make a 5-by-4 enlargement, find the time required for a 6-by-6
enlargement.
A) 252 sec B) 144 sec C) 216 sec D) 180 sec
Answer: D

261) The weight of a liquid varies directly as its volume V. If the weight of the liquid in a cubical container 5 cm on a
side is 375 g, find the weight of the liquid in a cubical container 3 cm on a side.
A) 27 g B) 81 g C) 9 g D) 12 g
Answer: B

262) The shadow cast by an object on a sunny day varies directly as the height of the object. If a person 72 inches tall
casts a shadow 55 inches long, how tall is a tree which casts a shadow 48 feet in length?
A) 62.84 feet B) 63.5 feet C) 82.5 feet D) 36.67 feet
Answer: A

Divide.
9x7 - 30x5
263)
3x3
A) 3x4 - 30x5 B) 9x7 - 10x2 C) -7x9 D) 3x4 - 10x2
Answer: D

10x6 - 25x3
264)
-5x6
5 5
A) 10x6 + B) -2 + 5x3 C) -2 + D) -2 - 25x3
x3 x3
Answer: C

48
-48x7 - 30x6 - 48x5
265)
-6x6
8 8
A) 8x - 30x6 + B) 8x + 5 + C) 8x + 5 D) 16x + 5
x x
Answer: B

-45x10 + 27x9 + 45x5


266)
9x3
A) -45x7 + 27x6 + 45x2 B) -45x13 + 27x12 + 45x8
C) -5x13 + 3x12 + 5x8 D) -5x7 + 3x6 + 5x2
Answer: D

-8x9 - 6x8 + 10x7 - 10x4


267)
2x4
A) -4x13 - 3x12 + 5x11 - 5 B) -8x5 - 6x4 + 10x3 - 10
C) -8x13 - 6x12 + 10x11 - 10 D) -4x5 - 3x4 + 5x3 - 5
Answer: D

268) (30x6 + 18x9 - 30x10) ÷ 6x3


A) 30x3 + 18x6 - 30x7 B) 5x3 + 3x6 - 5x7
C) 5x9 + 3x12 - 5x13 D) 30x9 + 18x12 - 30x13
Answer: B

269) (-25x10 - 15x8 - 10x6 - 25x2 ) ÷ -5x2


A) -25x8 - 15x6 - 10x4 - 25 B) -25x12 - 15x10 - 10x8 - 25
C) 5x8 + 3x6 + 2x4 + 5 D) 5x12 + 3x10 + 2x8 + 5
Answer: C

270) (8x5 y3 - 10x2 y2 - 6x3 y) ÷ (-2x2 y)


A) -4x3 y3 - 5y2 - 3xy B) -4x3y2 + 5y + 3xy
C) -4x3 y2 + 5y + 3x D) -4x3y2 - 5y - 3x
Answer: C

x2 - 121
271)
x - 11
A) x + 11 B) x2 - 11 C) x + 121 D) x - 121
Answer: A

x2 + 6 x + 8
272)
x+4
A) x - 4 B) x + 2 C) x3 - 4 D) x2 + 2
Answer: B

49
x2 + 7 x - 18
273)
x +9
A) x + 2 B) x2 - 2 C) x - 2 D) x2 + 8 x - 9
Answer: C

274) ( 2 m 2 + 6 m - 20 ) ÷ (m + 5 )
7
A) m - 4 B) 2 m + 4 C) 2 m - 4 D) 2 m - 4 +
m -4
Answer: C

275) (y 2 + 12 y + 36 ) ÷ (y + 6 )
6
A) y2 + 6 B) y + 6 C) y - 6 D) y +
y +6
Answer: B

276) (p2 + 2 p - 1 ) ÷ (p + 4 )
2 7 7
A) p - 7 + B) p - 2 C) p - 2 + D) p + 2 +
p +4 p +4 p +4
Answer: C

277) (x2 + 10 x + 12 ) ÷ (x + 7 )
9 x +3 9
A) x + 4 B) x + 3 + C) D) x + 3 -
x +7 x +7 x +7
Answer: D

278) ( 5 r3 - 28 r2 - 3 r - 54 ) ÷ (r - 6 )
9
A) 5 r2 + 2 r + 9 B) 5 r2 + 2 r + C) r2 + 9 r + 2 D) 5 r2 - 2 r - 9
r -6
Answer: A

279) (8x3 - 2x2 - 7x + 10) ÷ (4x + 5)


A) 2x2 - 3x + 2 B) x2 - 3x + 2 C) x2 + 3x - 2 D) 2x2 + 2
Answer: A

x4 - 16
280)
x2 - 4
A) x2 - 4x + 2 B) x2 + 4 C) x2 + 2x + 2 D) x2 - 4
Answer: B

x4 + 9x2 + 10
281)
x2 + 1
1 2
A) x2 + 8x + B) x2 + 8x + 1 C) x2 + 8 + D) x2 + 8
2 2
x +1
Answer: C

50
282) (16x5 + 4x4 - 20x3 - 24x2 - 28x - 12) ÷ (4x2 - 4x - 4)
A) 4x3 + 5x2 - 4x + 3 B) 4x3 + 5x2 + 4x + 3 C) 4x3 - 5x2 + 4x + 3 D) 4x3 + 5x2 + 4x - 3
Answer: B

Use synthetic division to divide.


x3 - 4x2 + 2x - 7
283)
x+4
-143
A) x2 - 8x + 34 + B) x3 - 4x2 + 34x - 143
x+4
-79 -143
C) x2 - 8x + 18 + D) x2 - 8x + 34 +
x+4 x3 - 4x2 +2x - 7
Answer: A

12x2 + 41x - 28
284)
x+4
A) x - 7 B) -7x + 4 C) -12x + 7 D) 12x - 7
Answer: D

285) (-5x3 - 15x2 - 5x + 10) ÷ (x + 2)


-5 2 -15 -5
A) 5x2 - 2x + 5 B) x + x+
2 2 2

C) -5x2 - 5x + 5 D) -5x - 5

Answer: C

286) (6x3 + 34x2 + 26x + 30) ÷ (x + 5)


6 34 26
A) x2 + x+ B) 6x2 + 4x + 6 C) 6x + 4 D) -6x2 - 5x + 6
5 5 5
Answer: B

287) ( 7 m 3 + 11 m 2 - 4 m + 4 ) ÷ (m + 2 )
A) m 2 + 3 m + 7 B) 7 m 2 - 3 m + 2 C) 7 m 2 + 3 m + 2 D) m 2 + 4 m + 5
Answer: B

288) ( 8 r3 - 70 r2 - 10 r - 72 ) ÷ (r - 9 )
8
A) 8 r2 - 2 r - 8 B) 8 r2 + 2 r + C) r2 + 8 r + 2 D) 8 r2 + 2 r + 8
r -9
Answer: D

289) (-3x3 - 14x2 - 6x + 8) ÷ (x + 4)


-3 2 -7 -3
A) -3x - 2 B) -3x2 - 2x + 2 C) x + x+ D) 3x2 - 4x + 2
4 2 2
Answer: B

51
x4 + 256
290)
x-4
512 256
A) x3 - 4x2 + 16x - 64 + B) x3 + 4x2 + 16x + 64 +
x-4 x-4
512
C) x3 + 4x2 + 16x + 64 D) x3 + 4x2 + 16x + 64 +
x-4
Answer: D

Solve the problem.


291) The area A of a rectangle is 15z 2 + 14z - 8. If the width W of the rectangle is 3z + 4, find the length L of the
rectangle.
1 1
A) 5z - 2 + B) 15z - 2 - C) 5z + 2 D) 5z - 2
3z + 4 3z + 4
Answer: D

292) The area A of a rectangle is 4x2 + 2x - 2. If the width W of the rectangle is 2x - 1, find the length L of the
rectangle when x = 10 feet.
A) 28 ft B) 22 ft C) 18 ft D) 19 ft
Answer: B

293) The area A of a rectangle is 15x2 - 9x + 2. If the length L of the rectangle is 5x + 2, find the width W of the
rectangle.
9 8
A) 3x + 5 B) 3x - 3 C) 3x - 4 + D) 3x - 3 +
5x + 2 5x + 2
Answer: D

294) The volume of a rectangular box is x3 - 5x2 - 12x + 36. If the width of the box is x - 2 and its length is x + 3, find
the height of the box.
A) x - 3 B) x + 6 C) x - 6 D) x + 33
Answer: C

295) The area A of a triangle is 10x2 + 7x - 12. If the height of the triangle is 2x + 3, find the length of its base.
5x + 4
A) 5x - 4 B) 2(5x + 4) C) D) 2(5x - 4)
2
Answer: D

Evaluate p(k) by dividing p(x) by x - k and determining the remainder.


296) p(x) = x2 + 2x - 5, k =-3
A) -10 B) -2 C) 8 D) -20
Answer: B

297) p(x) = 4x2 - 5x - 9, k = -1


A) 0 B) 9 C) 11 D) 4
Answer: A

52
298) p(x) = x3 + 3x2 + 5x + 36, k = -4
A) 36 B) 13 C) 120 D) 0
Answer: D

299) p(x) = x3 - 5x2 + 3x - 5, k = 4


A) -137 B) 1 C) -132 D) -9
Answer: D

300) p(x) = 7x3 - 27x2 + 3x - 28, k = 4


A) 29 B) 28 C) 0 D) 27
Answer: C

301) p(x) = 4x3- 4x2 - 3x + 5, k = -3


A) -130 B) -158 C) -86 D) -42
Answer: A

302) p(x) = 7x4 + 8x3 + 2x2 - 3x + 33, k = -2


A) 146 B) 129 C) 71 D) 95
Answer: D

Evaluate p(k). Then determine whether x - k is a factor of p(x).


303) p(x) = x2 + 3x + 5, k = -3
A) 5; no B) -5; no C) 0; yes D) 5; yes
Answer: A

304) p(x) = x2 - 12x - 13, k = -1


A) 12; no B) 13; yes C) 0; no D) 0; yes
Answer: D

305) p(x) = 5x2 - 3x - 8, k = -1


A) 0; yes B) 8; yes C) 8; no D) 0; no
Answer: A

306) p(x) = x3 - 4x2 + 4x - 7, k = -4


A) -151; no B) 0; yes C) -87; no D) -151; yes
Answer: A

307) p(x) = 9x3 + 5x2 - x - 89, k = 2


A) -17; no B) -17; yes C) 0; yes D) 1; no
Answer: D

308) p(x) = 9x3 - 35x2 + 4x - 32, k = 4


A) 37; yes B) 0; yes C) 0; no D) 37; no
Answer: B

53
309) p(x) = x3 + 2x2 + 5x + 24, k = -3
A) 11; yes B) 11; no C) 0; no D) 0; yes
Answer: D

54
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
“In scarce a circumstance of my life that has brought me in the least
under the cognizance of the public have I ever been judged justly.”
There is no doubt that he himself—or rather the temperament given
him by nature—was to blame for this, but the fact is unquestionable.
Add to this that he was, in his way and in what was unfortunately
the most obnoxious way, a reformer. That is, he was what may be
called a reformer in the conservative direction,—he belabored his
fellow citizens for changing many English ways and usages, and he
wished them to change these things back again, immediately. In all
this he was absolutely unselfish, but utterly tactless; and inasmuch
as the point of view he took was one requiring the very greatest tact,
the defect was hopeless. As a rule, no man criticises American ways
so unsuccessfully as an American who has lived many years in
Europe. The mere European critic is ignorant of our ways and frankly
owns it, even if thinking the fact but a small disqualification; while the
American absentee, having remained away long enough to have
forgotten many things and never to have seen many others, may
have dropped hopelessly behindhand as to the facts, yet claims to
speak with authority. Cooper went even beyond these professional
absentees, because, while they are usually ready to praise other
countries at the expense of America, Cooper, with heroic impartiality,
dispraised all countries, or at least all that spoke English. A
thoroughly patriotic and high-minded man, he yet had no mental
perspective, and made small matters as important as great.
Constantly reproaching America for not being Europe, he also
satirized Europe for being what it was.
As a result, he was for a time equally detested by the press of both
countries. The English, he thought, had “a national propensity to
blackguardism,” and certainly the remarks he drew from them did
something to vindicate the charge. When the London “Times” called
him “affected, offensive, curious, and ill-conditioned,” and “Fraser’s
Magazine,” “a liar, a bilious braggart, a full jackass, an insect, a grub,
and a reptile,” they clearly left little for America to say in that
direction. Yet Park Benjamin did his best, or his worst, when he
called Cooper (in Greeley’s “New Yorker”) “a superlative dolt and the
common mark of scorn and contempt of every well-informed
American”; and so did Webb, when he pronounced the novelist “a
base-minded caitiff who had traduced his country.” Not being able to
reach his English opponents, Cooper turned on these Americans,
and spent years in attacking Webb and others through the courts,
gaining little and losing much through the long vicissitudes of petty
local lawsuits. The fact has kept alive their memory; but for Lowell’s
keener shaft, “Cooper has written six volumes to show he’s as good
as a lord,” there was no redress. The arrow lodged and split the
target.
Like Scott and most other novelists, Cooper was rarely successful
with his main characters, but was saved by his subordinate ones.
These were strong, fresh, characteristic, human; and they lay, as I
have already said, in several different directions, all equally marked.
If he did not create permanent types in Harvey Birch the spy,
Leather-Stocking the woodsman, Long Tom Coffin the sailor,
Chingachgook the Indian, then there is no such thing as the creation
of characters in literature. Scott was far more profuse and varied, but
he gave no more of life to individual personages, and perhaps
created no types so universally recognized. What is most remarkable
is that, in the case of the Indian especially, Cooper was not only in
advance of the knowledge of his own time, but of that of the authors
who immediately followed him. In Parkman and Palfrey, for instance,
the Indian of Cooper vanishes and seems wholly extinguished; but
under the closer inspection of Alice Fletcher and Horatio Hale, the
lost figure reappears, and becomes more picturesque, more poetic,
more thoughtful, than even Cooper dared to make him. The instinct
of the novelist turned out more authoritative than the premature
conclusions of a generation of historians.
It is only women who can draw the commonplace, at least in
English, and make it fascinating. Perhaps only two English women
have done this, Jane Austen and George Eliot; while in France
George Sand has certainly done it far less well than it has been
achieved by Balzac and Daudet. Cooper never succeeded in it for a
single instant, and even when he has an admiral of this type to write
about, he puts into him less of life than Marryat imparts to the most
ordinary midshipman. The talk of Cooper’s civilian worthies is, as
Professor Lounsbury has well said,—in what is perhaps the best
biography yet written of any American author,—“of a kind not known
to human society.” This is doubtless aggravated by the frequent use
of thee and thou, yet this, which Professor Lounsbury attributes to
Cooper’s Quaker ancestry, was in truth a part of the formality of the
old period, and is found also in Brockden Brown. And as his writings
conform to their period in this, so they did in other respects:
describing every woman, for instance, as a “female,” and making her
to be such as Cooper himself describes the heroine of “Mercedes of
Castile” to be when he says, “Her very nature is made up of religion
and female decorum.” Scott himself could also draw such inane
figures, yet in Jeanie Deans he makes an average Scotch woman
heroic, and in Meg Merrilies and Madge Wildfire he paints the
extreme of daring self-will. There is scarcely a novel of Scott’s where
some woman does not show qualities which approach the heroic;
while Cooper scarcely produced one where a woman rises even to
the level of an interesting commonplaceness. She may be
threatened, endangered, tormented, besieged in forts, captured by
Indians, but the same monotony prevails. So far as the real interest
of Cooper’s story goes, it might usually be destitute of a single
“female,” that sex appearing chiefly as a bundle of dry goods to be
transported, or as a fainting appendage to the skirmish. The author
might as well have written the romance of an express parcel.
His long introductions he shared with the other novelists of the
day, or at least with Scott, for both Miss Austen and Miss Edgeworth
are more modern in this respect and strike more promptly into the
tale. His loose-jointed plots are also shared with Scott, but Cooper
knows as surely as his rival how to hold the reader’s attention when
once grasped. Like Scott’s, too, is his fearlessness in giving details,
instead of the vague generalizations which were then in fashion, and
to which his academical critics would have confined him. He is
indeed already vindicated in some respects by the advance of the art
he pursued; where he led the way, the best literary practice has
followed. The “Edinburgh Review” exhausted its heavy artillery upon
him for his accurate descriptions of costume and localities, and
declared that they were “an epilepsy of the fancy,” and that a vague
general account would have been far better. “Why describe the dress
and appearance of an Indian chief, down to his tobacco-stopper and
button-holes?” We now see that it is this very habit which has made
Cooper’s Indian a permanent figure in literature, while the Indians of
his predecessor, Charles Brockden Brown, were merely dusky
spectres. “Poetry or romance,” continued the “Edinburgh Review,”
“does not descend into the particulars,” this being the same fallacy
satirized by Ruskin, whose imaginary painter produced a quadruped
which was a generalization between a pony and a pig. Balzac, who
risked the details of buttons and tobacco pipes as fearlessly as
Cooper, said of “The Pathfinder,” “Never did the art of writing tread
closer upon the art of the pencil. This is the school of study for
literary landscape painters.” He says elsewhere: “If Cooper had
succeeded in the painting of character to the same extent that he did
in the painting of the phenomena of nature, he would have uttered
the last word of our art.” Upon such praise as this the reputation of
James Fenimore Cooper may well rest.
VI
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
When, in 1834, the historian Jared Sparks undertook the
publication of a “Library of American Biography,” he included in the
very first volume—with a literary instinct most creditable to one so
absorbed in the severer paths of history—a memoir of Charles
Brockden Brown by W. H. Prescott. It was an appropriate tribute to
the first imaginative writer worth mentioning in America,—he having
been born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 17, 1771, and
died there of consumption on February 22, 1810,—and to one who
was our first professional author. He was also the first to exert a
positive influence, across the Atlantic, upon British literature, laying
thus early a few modest strands towards an ocean-cable of thought.
As a result of this influence, concealed doors opened in lonely
houses, fatal epidemics laid cities desolate, secret plots were
organized, unknown persons from foreign lands died in garrets,
usually leaving large sums of money; the honor of innocent women
was constantly endangered, though usually saved in time; people
were subject to somnambulism and general frenzy; vast conspiracies
were organized with small aims and smaller results. His books,
published between 1798 and 1801, made their way across the ocean
with a promptness that now seems inexplicable; and Mrs. Shelley, in
her novel of “The Last Man,” founds her whole description of an
epidemic which nearly destroyed the human race, on “the masterly
delineations of the author of ‘Arthur Mervyn.’”
Shelley himself recognized his obligations to Brown; and it is to be
remembered that Brown himself was evidently familiar with Godwin’s
philosophical writings, and that he may have drawn from those of
Mary Wollstonecraft his advanced views as to the rights and
education of women, a subject on which his first book, “Alcuin,”
offered the earliest American protest. Undoubtedly his books
furnished a point of transition from Mrs. Radcliffe, of whom he
disapproved, to the modern novel of realism, although his immediate
influence and, so to speak, his stage properties, can hardly be traced
later than the remarkable tale, also by a Philadelphian, called
“Stanley; or the Man of the World,” first published in 1839 in London,
though the scene was laid in America. This book was attributed, from
its profuse literary quotations, to Edward Everett, but was soon
understood to be the work of a very young man of twenty-one,
Horace Binney Wallace. In this book the influence of Bulwer and
Disraeli is palpable, but Brown’s concealed chambers and aimless
conspiracies and sudden mysterious deaths also reappear in full
force, not without some lingering power, and then vanish from
American literature forever.
Brown’s style, and especially the language put by him into the
mouths of his characters, is perhaps unduly characterized by
Professor Woodberry as being “something never heard off the stage
of melodrama.” What this able critic does not sufficiently recognize is
that the general style of the period at which they were written was
itself melodramatic; and that to substitute what we should call
simplicity would then have made the picture unfaithful. One has only
to read over the private letters of any educated family of that period
to see that people did not then express themselves as they now do;
that they were far more ornate in utterance, more involved in
statement, more impassioned in speech. Even a comparatively terse
writer like Prescott, in composing Brown’s biography only sixty years
ago, shows traces of the earlier period. Instead of stating simply that
his hero was a born Quaker, he says of him: “He was descended
from a highly respectable family, whose parents were of that
estimable sect who came over with William Penn, to seek an asylum
where they might worship their Creator unmolested, in the meek and
humble spirit of their own faith.” Prescott justly criticises Brown for
saying, “I was fraught with the apprehension that my life was
endangered”; or “his brain seemed to swell beyond its continent”; or
“I drew every bolt that appended to it”; or “on recovering from
deliquium, you found it where it had been dropped”; or for resorting
to the circumlocution of saying, “by a common apparatus that lay
beside my head I could produce a light,” when he really meant that
he had a tinder-box. The criticism on Brown is fair enough, yet
Prescott himself presently takes us halfway back to the florid
vocabulary of that period, when, instead of merely saying that his
hero was fond of reading, he tells us that “from his earliest childhood
Brown gave evidence of studious propensities, being frequently
noticed by his father on his return from school poring over some
heavy tome.” If the tome in question was Johnson’s dictionary, as it
may have been, it would explain both Brown’s style of writing and the
milder amplifications of his biographer. Nothing is more difficult to
tell, in the fictitious literature of even a generation or two ago, where
a faithful delineation ends and where caricature begins. The four-
story signatures of Micawber’s letters, as represented by Dickens, go
but little beyond the similar courtesies employed in a gentlewoman’s
letters in the days of Anna Seward. All we can say is that within a
century, for some cause or other, English speech has grown very
much simpler, and human happiness has increased in proportion.
In the preface to his second novel, “Edgar Huntley,” Brown
announces it as his primary purpose to be American in theme, “to
exhibit a series of adventures growing out of our own country,”
adding, “That the field of investigation opened to us by our own
country should differ essentially from those which exist in Europe
may be readily conceived.” He protests against “puerile superstition
and exploded manners, Gothic castles and chimeras,” and adds:
“The incidents of Indian hostility and the perils of the western
wilderness are far more suitable.” All this is admirable, but
unfortunately the inherited thoughts and methods of the period hung
round him to cloy his style, even after his aim was emancipated. It is
to be remembered that almost all his imaginative work was done in
early life, before the age of thirty, and before his powers became
mature. Yet with all his drawbacks he had achieved his end, and had
laid the foundation for American fiction.
With all his inflation of style, he was undoubtedly, in his way, a
careful observer. The proof of this is that he has preserved for us
many minor points of life and manners which make the Philadelphia
of a century ago now more familiar to us than is any other American
city of that period. He gives us the roving Indian; the newly arrived
French musician with violin and monkey; the one-story farmhouses,
where boarders are entertained at a dollar a week; the gray cougar
amid caves of limestone. We learn from him “the dangers and toils of
a midnight journey in a stage coach in America. The roads are knee
deep in mire, winding through crags and pits, while the wheels groan
and totter and the curtain and roof admit the wet at a thousand
seams.” We learn the proper costume for a youth of good fortune
and family,—“nankeen coat striped with green, a white silk waistcoat
elegantly needle-wrought, cassimere pantaloons, stockings of
variegated silk, and shoes that in their softness vie with satin.” When
dressing himself, this favored youth ties his flowing locks with a black
ribbon. We find from him that “stage boats” then crossed twice a day
from New York to Staten Island, and we discover also with some
surprise that negroes were freely admitted to ride in stages in
Pennsylvania, although they were liable, half a century later, to be
ejected from street-cars. We learn also that there were negro free
schools in Philadelphia. All this was before 1801.
It has been common to say that Brown had no literary skill, but it
would be truer to say that he had no sense of literary construction.
So far as skill is tested by the power to pique curiosity, Brown had it;
his chapters almost always end at a point of especial interest, and
the next chapter, postponing the solution, often diverts the interest in
a wholly new direction. But literary structure there is none: the plots
are always cumulative and even oppressive; narrative is inclosed in
narrative; new characters and complications come and go, while
important personages disappear altogether, and are perhaps fished
up with difficulty, as with a hook and line, on the very last page.
There is also a total lack of humor, and only such efforts at vivacity
as this: “Move on, my quill! wait not for my guidance. Reanimated
with thy master’s spirit, all airy light. A heyday rapture! A mounting
impulse sways him; lifts him from the earth.” There is so much of
monotony in the general method, that one novel seems to stand for
all; and the same modes of solution reappear so often,—
somnambulism, ventriloquism, yellow fever, forged letters, concealed
money, secret closets,—that it not only gives a sense of puerility, but
makes it very difficult to recall, as to any particular passage, from
which book it came.
VII
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
There has been in America no such instance of posthumous
reputation as in the case of Thoreau. Poe and Whitman may be
claimed as parallels, but not justly. Poe, even during his life, rode
often on the very wave of success, until it subsided presently
beneath him, always to rise again, had he but made it possible.
Whitman gathered almost immediately a small but stanch band of
followers, who have held by him with such vehemence and such
flagrant imitation as to keep his name defiantly in evidence, while
perhaps enhancing the antagonism of his critics. Thoreau could be
egotistical enough, but was always high-minded; all was open and
aboveboard; one could as soon conceive of self-advertising by a
deer in the woods or an otter of the brook. He had no organized
clique of admirers, nor did he possess even what is called personal
charm,—or at least only that piquant attraction which he himself
found in wild apples. As a rule, he kept men at a distance, being
busy with his own affairs. He left neither wife nor children to attend to
his memory; and his sister seemed for a time to repress the
publication of his manuscripts. Yet this plain, shy, retired student,
who when thirty-two years old carried the unsold edition of his first
book upon his back to his attic chamber; who died at forty-four still
unknown to the general public; this child of obscurity, who printed but
two volumes during his lifetime, has had ten volumes of his writings
published by others since his death, while four biographies of him
have been issued in America (by Emerson, Channing, Sanborn, and
Jones), besides two in England (by Page and Salt).
Thoreau was born in Boston on July 12, 1817, but spent most of
his life in Concord, Massachusetts, where he taught school and was
for three years an inmate of the family of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
practicing at various times the art of pencil-making—his father’s
occupation—and also of surveying, carpentering, and housekeeping.
So identified was he with the place that Emerson speaks of it in one
case as Thoreau’s “native town.” Yet from that very familiarity,
perhaps, the latter was underestimated by many of his neighbors, as
was the case in Edinburgh with Sir Walter Scott, as Mrs. Grant of
Laggan describes.
When I was endeavoring, about 1870, to persuade Thoreau’s
sister to let some one edit his journals, I invoked the aid of Judge
Hoar, then lord of the manor in Concord, who heard me patiently
through, and then said: “Whereunto? You have not established the
preliminary point. Why should any one wish to have Thoreau’s
journals printed?” Ten years later, four successive volumes were
made out of these journals by the late H. G. O. Blake, and it became
a question if the whole might not be published. I hear from a local
photograph dealer in Concord that the demand for Thoreau’s
pictures now exceeds that for any other local celebrity. In the last
sale catalogue of autographs which I have encountered, I find a
letter from Thoreau priced at $17.50, one from Hawthorne valued at
the same, one from Longfellow at $4.50 only, and one from Holmes
at $3, each of these being guaranteed as an especially good
autograph letter. Now the value of such memorials during a man’s
life affords but a slight test of his permanent standing,—since almost
any man’s autograph can be obtained for two postage-stamps if the
request be put with sufficient ingenuity;—but when this financial
standard can be safely applied more than thirty years after a man’s
death, it comes pretty near to a permanent fame.
It is true that Thoreau had Emerson as the editor of four of his
posthumous volumes; but it is also true that he had against him the
vehement voice of Lowell, whose influence as a critic was at that
time greater than Emerson’s. It will always remain a puzzle why it
was that Lowell, who had reviewed Thoreau’s first book with
cordiality in the “Massachusetts Quarterly Review,” and had said to
me afterwards, on hearing him compared to Izaak Walton, “There is
room for three or four Waltons in Thoreau,” should have written the
really harsh attack on the latter which afterwards appeared, and in
which the plain facts were unquestionably perverted. To transform
Thoreau’s two brief years of study and observation at Walden, within
two miles of his mother’s door, into a life-long renunciation of his
fellow men; to complain of him as waiving all interest in public affairs
when the great crisis of John Brown’s execution had found him far
more awake to it than Lowell was,—this was only explainable by the
lingering tradition of that savage period of criticism, initiated by Poe,
in whose hands the thing became a tomahawk. As a matter of fact,
the tomahawk had in this case its immediate effect; and the English
editor and biographer of Thoreau has stated that Lowell’s criticism is
to this day the great obstacle to the acceptance of Thoreau’s writings
in England. It is to be remembered, however, that Thoreau was not
wholly of English but partly of French origin, and was, it might be
added, of a sort of moral-Oriental, or Puritan Pagan temperament.
With a literary feeling even stronger than his feeling for nature,—the
proof of this being that he could not, like many men, enjoy nature in
silence,—he put his observations always on the level of literature,
while Mr. Burroughs, for instance, remains more upon the level of
journalism. It is to be doubted whether any author under such
circumstances would have been received favorably in England; just
as the poems of Emily Dickinson, which have shafts of profound
scrutiny that often suggest Thoreau, had an extraordinary success at
home, but fell hopelessly dead in England, so that the second
volume was never even published.
Lowell speaks of Thoreau as “indolent”; but this is, as has been
said, like speaking of the indolence of a self-registering thermometer.
Lowell objects to him as pursuing “a seclusion that keeps him in the
public eye”; whereas it was the public eye which sought him; it was
almost as hard to persuade him to lecture (crede experto) as it was
to get an audience for him when he had consented. He never
proclaimed the intrinsic superiority of the wilderness, as has been
charged, but pointed out better than any one else has done its
undesirableness as a residence, ranking it only as “a resource and a
background.” “The partially cultivated country it is,” he says, “which
has chiefly inspired, and will continue to inspire, the strains of poets
such as compose the mass of any literature.” “What is nature,” he
elsewhere says, “unless there is a human life passing within it?
Many joys and many sorrows are the lights and shadows in which
she shines most beautiful.” This is the real and human Thoreau, who
often whimsically veiled himself, but was plainly enough seen by any
careful observer. That he was abrupt and repressive to bores and
pedants, that he grudged his time to them and frequently withdrew
himself, was as true of him as of Wordsworth or Tennyson. If they
were allowed their privacy, though in the heart of England, an
American who never left his own broad continent might at least be
allowed his privilege of stepping out of doors. The Concord school-
children never quarreled with this habit, for he took them out of doors
with him and taught them where the best whortleberries grew.
His scholarship, like his observation of nature, was secondary to
his function as poet and writer. Into both he carried the element of
whim; but his version of the “Prometheus Bound” shows accuracy,
and his study of birds and plants shows care. It must be
remembered that he antedated the modern school, classed plants by
the Linnæan system, and had necessarily Nuttall for his elementary
manual of birds. Like all observers, he left whole realms uncultivated;
thus he puzzles in his journal over the great brown paper cocoon of
the Attacus Cecropia, which every village boy brings home from the
winter meadows. If he has not the specialized habit of the naturalist
of to-day, neither has he the polemic habit; firm beyond yielding, as
to the local facts of his own Concord, he never quarrels with those
who have made other observations elsewhere; he is involved in
none of those contests in which palæontologists, biologists,
astronomers, have wasted so much of their lives.
His especial greatness is that he gives us standing-ground below
the surface, a basis not to be washed away. A hundred sentences
might be quoted from him which make common observers seem
superficial and professed philosophers trivial, but which, if accepted,
place the realities of life beyond the reach of danger. He was a
spiritual ascetic, to whom the simplicity of nature was luxury enough;
and this, in an age of growing expenditure, gave him an unspeakable
value. To him, life itself was a source of joy so great that it was only
weakened by diluting it with meaner joys. This was the standard to
which he constantly held his contemporaries. “There is nowhere
recorded,” he complains, “a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with
the gift of life, any memorable praise of God.... If the day and the
night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a
fragrance, like flowers and sweet-scented herbs,—is more elastic,
starry, and immortal,—that is your success.” This was Thoreau, who
died unmarried at Concord, Massachusetts, May 6, 1862.
VIII
EMERSON’S “FOOT-NOTE PERSON,”—ALCOTT
EMERSON’S “FOOT-NOTE PERSON,”—ALCOTT
The phrase “foot-note person” was first introduced into our
literature by one of the most acute and original of the anonymous
writers in the “Atlantic Monthly” (July, 1906), one by whose consent I
am permitted to borrow it for my present purpose. Its originator
himself suggests, as an illustration of what he means, the close
relation which existed through life between Ralph Waldo Emerson
and his less famous Concord neighbor, Amos Bronson Alcott. The
latter was doubtless regarded by the world at large as a mere “foot-
note” to his famous friend, while he yet was doubtless the only
literary contemporary to whom Emerson invariably and candidly
deferred, regarding him, indeed, as unequivocally the leading
philosophic or inspirational mind of his day. Let this “foot-note,” then,
be employed as the text for frank discussion of what was, perhaps,
the most unique and picturesque personality developed during the
Transcendental period of our American literature. Let us consider the
career of one who was born with as little that seemed advantageous
in his surroundings as was the case with Abraham Lincoln, or John
Brown of Ossawatomie, and who yet developed in the end an
individuality as marked as that of Poe or Walt Whitman.
In looking back on the intellectual group of New England, eighty
years ago, nothing is more noticeable than its birth in a circle already
cultivated, at least according to the standard of its period. Emerson,
Channing, Bryant, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Holmes, Lowell, even
Whittier, were born into what were, for the time and after their own
standard, cultivated families. They grew up with the protection and
stimulus of parents and teachers; their early biographies offer
nothing startling. Among them appeared, one day, this student and
teacher, more serene, more absolutely individual, than any one of
them. He had indeed, like every boy born in New England, some
drop of academic blood within his traditions, but he was born in the
house of his grandfather, a poor farmer in Wolcott, Connecticut, on
November 29, 1799. He went to the most primitive of wayside
schools, and was placed at fourteen as apprentice in a clock factory;
was for a few years a traveling peddler, selling almanacs and
trinkets; then wandered as far as North Carolina and Virginia in a
similar traffic; then became a half-proselyte among Quakers in North
Carolina; then a school-teacher in Connecticut; always poor, but
always thoughtful, ever gravitating towards refined society, and
finally coming under the influence of that rare and high-minded man,
the Rev. Samuel J. May, and placing himself at last in the still more
favored position of Emerson’s foot-note. When that took place, it
suddenly made itself clear to the whole Concord circle that there was
not one among them so serene, so equable, so dreamy, yet so
constitutionally a leader, as this wandering child of the desert. Of all
the men known in New England, he seemed the one least likely to
have been a country peddler.
Mr. Alcott first visited Concord, as Mr. Cabot’s memoir of Emerson
tells us, in 1835, and in 1840 came there to live. But it was as early
as May 19, 1837, that Emerson wrote to Margaret Fuller: “Mr. Alcott
is the great man. His book [‘Conversations on the Gospels’] does
him no justice, and I do not like to see it.... But he has more of the
Godlike than any man I have ever seen and his presence rebukes
and threatens and raises. He is a teacher.... If he cannot make
intelligent men feel the presence of a superior nature, the worse for
them; I can never doubt him.”[12] It is suggested by Dr. W. T. Harris,
one of the two joint biographers of Alcott, that the description in the
last chapter of Emerson’s book styled “Nature,” finished in August,
1836, was derived from a study of Mr. Alcott, and it is certain that
there was no man among Emerson’s contemporaries of whom
thenceforward he spoke with such habitual deference. Courteous to
all, it was to Alcott alone that he seemed to look up. Not merely
Alcott’s abstract statements, but his personal judgments, made an
absolutely unique impression upon his more famous fellow
townsman. It is interesting to notice that Alcott, while staying first in
Concord, “complained of lack of simplicity in A⸺, B⸺, C⸺,
and D⸺ (late visitors from the city).” Emerson said approvingly to
his son: “Alcott is right touchstone to test them, litmus to detect the
acid.”[13] We cannot doubt that such a man’s own judgment was
absolutely simple; and such was clearly the opinion held by
Emerson, who, indeed, always felt somewhat easier when he could
keep Alcott at his elbow in Concord. Their mutual confidence
reminds one of what was said long since by Dr. Samuel Johnson,
that poetry was like brown bread: those who made it in their own
houses never quite liked the taste of what they got elsewhere.
And from the very beginning, this attitude was reciprocated. At
another time during that same early period (1837), Alcott, after
criticising Emerson a little for “the picture of vulgar life that he draws
with a Shakespearian boldness,” closes with this fine tribute to the
intrinsic qualities of his newly won friend: “Observe his style; it is full
of genuine phrases from the Saxon. He loves the simple, the natural;
the thing is sharply presented, yet graced by beauty and elegance.
Our language is a fit organ, as used by him; and we hear classic
English once more from northern lips. Shakespeare, Sidney,
Browne, speak again to us, and we recognize our affinity with the
fathers of English diction. Emerson is the only instance of original
style among Americans. Who writes like him? Who can? None of his
imitators, surely. The day shall come when this man’s genius shall
shine beyond the circle of his own city and nation. Emerson’s is
destined to be the high literary name of this age.”[14]
No one up to that time, probably, had uttered an opinion of
Emerson quite so prophetic as this; it was not until four years later, in
1841, that even Carlyle received the first volume of Emerson’s
“Essays” and said, “It is once more the voice of a man.” Yet from that
moment Alcott and Emerson became united, however inadequate
their twinship might have seemed to others. Literature sometimes,
doubtless, makes strange friendships. There is a tradition that when
Browning was once introduced to a new Chinese ambassador in
London, the interpreter called attention to the fact that they were
both poets. Upon Browning’s courteously asking how much poetry
His Excellency had thus far written, he replied, “Four volumes,” and
when asked what style of poetic art he cultivated, the answer was,
“Chiefly the enigmatical.” It is reported that Browning afterwards
charitably or modestly added, “We felt doubly brothers after that.” It
may have been in a similar spirit that Emerson and his foot-note
might seem at first to have united their destinies.
Emerson at that early period saw many defects in Alcott’s style,
even so far as to say that it often reminded him of that vulgar saying,
“All stir and no go”; but twenty years later, in 1855, he magnificently
vindicated the same style, then grown more cultivated and powerful,
and, indeed, wrote thus of it: “I have been struck with the late
superiority Alcott showed. His interlocutors were all better than he:
he seemed childish and helpless, not apprehending or answering
their remarks aright, and they masters of their weapons. But by and
by, when he got upon a thought, like an Indian seizing by the mane
and mounting a wild horse of the desert, he overrode them all, and
showed such mastery, and took up Time and Nature like a boy’s
marble in his hand, as to vindicate himself.”[15]
A severe test of a man’s depth of observation lies always in the
analysis he gives of his neighbor’s temperament; even granting this
appreciation to be, as is sometimes fairly claimed, a woman’s
especial gift. It is a quality which certainly marked Alcott, who once
said, for instance, of Emerson’s combination of a clear voice with a
slender chest, that “some of his organs were free, some fated.”
Indeed, his power in the graphic personal delineations of those about
him was almost always visible, as where he called Garrison “a
phrenological head illuminated,” or said of Wendell Phillips, “Many
are the friends of his golden tongue.” This quality I never felt more,
perhaps, than when he once said, when dining with me at the house
of James T. Fields, in 1862, and speaking of a writer whom I thought
I had reason to know pretty well: “He has a love of wholeness; in this
respect far surpassing Emerson.”
It is scarcely possible, for any one who recalls from his youth the
antagonism and satire called forth by Alcott’s “sayings” in the early
“Dial,” to avoid astonishment at their more than contemptuous
reception. Take, for example, in the very first number the fine saying
on “Enthusiasm,” thus:—

“Believe, youth, that your heart is an oracle; trust her


instinctive auguries; obey her divine leadings; nor listen too
fondly to the uncertain echoes of your head. The heart is the
prophet of your soul, and ever fulfils her prophecies; reason is

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