Upper Level ISEE Reading Practice Test 63

1 According to game maker Hasbro,
2 approximately 750 million people have
3 played the well-known game Monopoly
4 since it was invented in the 1930s. Charles
5 Darrow is typically credited as the inventor
6 of the world's most famous board game.
7 However, he likely derived his version of
8 Monopoly from one of several other games
9 similarly involving realty buying and selling
10 that were already in existence prior to the
11 1930s when he got his patent for the game.
12 A probable reason that Darrow's
13 Monopoly became the hugely successful
14 game that still exists today is that he took
15 a diligent approach to producing it. Other
16 similar games existed, but some of them
17 had no board or regulation pieces. With
18 help from his wife and son who adorned the
19 sets with detail, Darrow personally created
20 the pieces and boards that became the first
21 Monopoly game sets. His extra work in
22 creating the entire environment that players
23 needed gave his game something extra that
24 other variations did not have.
25 Darrow had marginal success selling
26 his games in various parts of the country.
27 Several Philadelphia area stores were
28 the first to carry his game and sell it in
29 large quantities. Despite this, Darrow had
30 difficulty selling his game to the major game
31 manufacturer of the time, Parker Brothers.
32 He was told that his game was too complex
33 and had fundamental errors in its design
34 that would limit its appeal. Ultimately, the
35 continued sales he managed on his own
36 forced Parker Brothers to reassess the
37 worth of his game. Eventually, the company
38 agreed to produce the game and shortly
39 thereafter it became the bestselling game in
40 the country.
41 That success turned Charles Darrow
42 into a millionaire, which is the ultimate
43 irony. Darrow initially began work on
44 Monopoly to help support himself and his
45 family following the financial troubles tied
46 to the stock market crash of 1929.
47 Thus, Charles Darrow became a
48 millionaire by producing a game that allows
49 "regular" people to feel like they are buying
50 and selling homes and real estate like
51 millionaires.

1. The best title for this passage would be

• A. A Comparison of Several Early Real Estate Board Games
• B. How Hasbro Introduced Monopoly to the World
• C. The Early History of Charles Darrow's Monopoly
• D. Two Views of Charles Darrow's Life

2. It is suggested by the passage that

• A. Darrow decided to make his game less complex after initially meeting with Parker Brothers
• B. Darrow had no other skills to use after the stock market crash of 1929
• C. Parker Brothers probably doubted that a complex game could sell well
• D. Philadelphia was the only major city where he could sell his game

3. As used in line 49, "regular" refers to people who

• A. rent rather than own property
• B. are in the top 1% of wealthiest people
• C. love to play board games
• D. are in a lower economic class than millionaires

4. With which of the following would the author be LEAST likely to agree?

• A. Charles Darrow chose to continue to sell his game despite criticisms.
• B. Charles Darrow is not the first person to conceive of a board-based real estate game.
• C. Charles Darrow preferred to achieve his goals without the help of others.
• D. Some of the things Darrow chose to do helped make his game sell better than other games.

5. Which of the following was NOT mentioned by the author as contributing to the ultimate success of Monopoly?

• A. Darrow's efforts to initially sell the game on his own
• B. The addition of specific pieces and a playing board in each set
• C. The adjustments Parker Brothers made to the game
• D. The enjoyment people get in pretending to be millionaires

6. The author suggests in the third paragraph that

• A. certain errors in Monopoly served to limit its appeal
• B. Charles Darrow sold his game in Philadelphia because he knew it would be popular there
• C. Monopoly was initially too complex to be popular
• D. some people doubted that Monopoly would be popular