SSAT Middle Level Reading Practice Test 23

It's difficult to imagine road-building conditions any worse than those workers faced in 1942, when they began carving a supply route over the Canadian Rockies, through the Yukon Territory, all the way to remote military outposts in Alaska. "Men hired for this job will be required to work and live under the most extreme conditions imaginable," read one recruitment notice. "Temperatures will range from 90 degrees above zero to 70 degrees below zero. Men will have to fight swamps, rivers, ice and cold. Mosquitoes, flies and gnats will not only be annoying but will cause bodily harm. If you are not prepared to work under these and similar conditions, do not apply."

The idea of laying a roadway to connect the United States with the continent's "far north" can be traced all the way back to the Yukon gold rushes of the 1890s. But it wasn't until the 1930s that Alaska's territorial legislature commissioned a study of possible routes—and it took the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to finally get the work started. Once drawn into World War II, the U.S. government worried that Japan would follow the destruction of the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii with an invasion of Alaska. Within a few weeks of the Pearl Harbor attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided that plans for a highway to Alaska deserved re-examination.

-J. Kingston Pierce

1. This passage deals primarily with the road's

• A. route through the Yukon Territory.
• B. history leading up to it being built.
• C. construction from 1890 to 1942.
• D. design by President Roosevelt.
• E. building conditions in wintertime.

2. The "far north" mentioned at the beginning of the second paragraph most likely refers to

• A. Japan
• B. the Pacific
• C. Alaska
• D. the Yukon
• E. Canada

3. All of the following are mentioned as working conditions of building the road in 1942 EXCEPT:

• A. The insects were harmful.
• B. The surface was not all land.
• C. The temperatures were extreme.
• D. Workers had to live there.
• E. The pay was not very good.

4. It can be inferred from the passage that

• A. most of the road did not go through the U.S.
• B. construction of the road never got started.
• C. many men died while building the road.
• D. the gold rushes helped to buy materials for the road.
• E. Pearl Harbor was located near Alaskan posts.

5. The author would most likely agree that

• A. a Japanese invasion of Alaska was highly unlikely.
• B. Canada should have helped pay for the road.
• C. the road was not worth risking human life.
• D. a demand for gold first sparked interest in the road.
• E. President Franklin D. Roosevelt acted too slowly.