SSAT Middle Level Reading Practice Test 39

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by.

And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

1. The poem suggests that if the speaker had traveled the road not taken, his life would have been

• A. easier
• B. harder
• C. similar
• D. special
• E. different

2. In lines 9-12, the author is most likely saying that

• A. neither road is less traveled than the other.
• B. the goal is to find the road most people take.
• C. stepping on leaves is like stepping on people.
• D. travelers need to rest between making decisions.
• E. hesitation can lead people in the wrong direction.

3. The poem focuses mainly on

• A. hope for the future
• B. the nature of the roads we travel
• C. moments of decision
• D. learning from past mistakes
• E. the regret of wrong choices

4. The poet would most likely agree with all of the following EXCEPT:

• A. People are free to choose, but really don't know their choices till later.
• B. People should offer advice on which road to travel.
• C. People cannot travel all the roads.
• D. Our lives are a mixture of choice and chance.
• E. Moments of decision, one after another, mark the passing of time.

5. It can be inferred from the last stanza that the speaker will one day

• A. sigh that he even worried about the critical decisions in life.
• B. be too old to remember choices made in the distant past.
• C. yearn to go back in time and change the mistakes he made.
• D. wonder what awaited him down the path he didn't choose.
• E. rejoice at his life built on good and bad choices.