ACT English practice test 19

Life in the Bike Lane

[1]

When I was growing up, I used to ride my bike all the time. Even though I spent most of my childhood around the daunting Pennsylvania hills₁ and mountains, I still loved to ride wherever and whenever I could. I suppose for someone who was too young to drive, the bicycle provided a certain amount of freedom.

[2]

Then₂ came my sixteenth year and a driver's license, and that was it for the bike. When I finally got my driver's license, I felt that I had turned a page in my life, and that my₃ old bike was part of a previous chapter. There it sat for my last two years of high school and all four years of college while I gleefully drove back and forth even the shortest distances,₄ through the worst traffic and weather conditions, and amid the mounting prices of gas.

[3]

Then I moved in₅ on my own and found that I had moved to a place where the car had a lot less allure. Fresh out of college, I didn't have bundles of money to throw around, and in my new environs, bundles of money were exactly₆ what I needed to use the car with any regularity. Gas cost at least fifty cents more per gallon than I was used to, and what would've been a quick 30-minute drive where I grew up easily became a two-hour drive because of all the traffic in this new place!

[4]

After I couldn't take any more, I resolved₈ that the next time I visited my parents, I would bring the bike out of retirement. As if uncovering a lost volume of an ancient work, I entered the attic with a flashlight, fighting₉ off fear and cobwebs in equal measure. It seemed hopeless, I thought. Even if I could find my bike in this above-house cavern, it wouldn't be the same as it was before. I was so much older now, had known the pleasures of the automobile, and was out of shape from all the highway snacking and sitting. Then, there it was, and I felt the surge that the gold-rushers₁₀ must have felt in California in the 1800s when they struck gold.

[5]

Needless to say, my joy at having rediscovered this long lost friend was overwhelming, but it was amplified when I had returned to my own place and began to riding₁₁ the bike around town. I had been freed from four-dollar-a-gallon gas, traffic jams, and the₁₂ interminable wait at the bus stop!

[6]

I realized then that I had regained that freedom I had enjoyed so much when I was younger. In₁₃ my first apartment, this freedom had taken on a different character;₁₄ Now it was a freedom from the constraints that prevented me from doing what I wanted to do in the city, that had me sitting in traffic or spending all my hard-earned cash on gas. I had moved out of the fast lane and into the bike lane, and I was finally able to get the most out of my new life.₁₅

Life in the Bike Lane

[1]

When I was growing up, I used to ride my bike all the time. Even though I spent most of my childhood around the daunting, Pennsylvania, hills⁴⁶ and mountains, I still loved to ride wherever and whenever I could. I suppose for someone who was too young to drive, the bicycle provided a certain amount of freedom.

[2]

Along⁴⁷ came my sixteenth year and a driver's license, and that was it for the bike. When I finally got my driver's license, I felt that I had turned a page in my life, and that its⁴⁸ old bike was part of a previous chapter. There it sat for my last two years of high school and all four years of college while I gleefully drove back and forth even the distances smallest in length,⁴⁹ through the worst traffic and weather conditions, and amid the mounting prices of gas.

[3]

Then I moved out⁵⁰ on my own and found that I had moved to a place where the car had a lot less allure. Fresh out of college, I didn't have bundles of money to throw around, and in my new environs, bundles of money was exactly⁵¹ what I needed to use the car with any regularity. Gas cost at least fifty cents more per gallon than I was used to, and what would've been a quick 30-minute drive where I grew up easily became a two-hour drive because of all the traffic in this new place!

[4]

After I couldn't take any more, I resolved and decided⁵³ that the next time I visited my parents, I would bring the bike out of retirement. As if uncovering a lost volume of an ancient work, I entered the attic with a flashlight, even if I fought⁵⁴ off fear and cobwebs in equal measure. It seemed hopeless, I thought. Even if I could find my bike in this above-house cavern, it wouldn't be the same as it was before. I was so much older now, had known the pleasures of the automobile, and was out of shape from all the highway snacking and sitting. Then, there it was, and I felt the surge that the gold-rushers'⁵⁵ must have felt in California in the 1800s when they struck gold.

[5]

Needless to say, my joy at having rediscovered this long lost friend was overwhelming, but it was amplified when I had returned to my own place and began by riding⁵⁶ the bike around town. I had been freed from four-dollar-a-gallon gas, traffic jams, and having been freed from the⁵⁷ interminable wait at the bus stop!

[6]

I realized then that I had regained that freedom I had enjoyed so much when I was younger, in⁵⁸ my first apartment, this freedom had taken on a different character; . Now it was a freedom from the constraints that prevented me from doing what I wanted to do in the city, that had me sitting in traffic or spending all my hard-earned cash on gas. I had moved out of the fast lane and into the bike lane, and I was finally able to get the most out of my new life.

English practice 19