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June 2023 English Regents — Answer Key & Worked Solutions

Every question from the June 2023 English Regents exam, with the correct answer and a full step-by-step solution. Check your work, learn the method, then see how it's scored.

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These are real questions from the June 2023 English New York State Regents examination, published by NYSED. Worked solutions are written by RegentsLab.

Question 1 · 2 pts
I stood in the kitchen doorway, all reluctance. Why? I wanted to ask.

The question "Why?" in line 7 creates a mood of

The narrator's silent, unspoken resistance to her mother's instruction, paired with her reluctance in the doorway, builds an unspoken strain between them, creating tension rather than any calmer mood.

Question 2 · 2 pts
My mother tied an apron around my waist. "All right," she said. She nodded toward the table, the bowl and the spoon and the recipe card. I looked at her. The morning sunlight through the single window lit the down on her cheeks. It showed her brown eyes had some green in them, too. And that on either side of her tall forehead her dark hair was turning gray.

The details in lines 9 through 12 reflect the narrator's recognition of her mother's

The physical details of graying hair and aging skin show Marie noticing her mother as an ordinary, aging person rather than simply an authority figure, revealing her mother's humanity.

Question 3 · 2 pts
I looked down at the little card. The ink my mother had used was brown. Her handwriting was lovely and neat, the capital S and the capital B at the top of the card were striking, perfectly shaped, perfectly proportioned. My mother had learned from Irish nuns.

Lines 37 through 40 characterize the mother as

The precise, perfectly formed handwriting taught by nuns reflects a rigorous, orderly upbringing, characterizing the mother as disciplined.

Question 4 · 2 pts
"There's a recipe in front of you," she said. "And unless I'm very much mistaken you know how to read. Read it." I lowered my head the way I'd seen horses do, and dogs, when they didn't want to be led. "You tell me," I said again. "I won't." Anger always stirred my mother's brogue, like meat brought up from the bottom of a stew. "I wrote it out for you so you could read it. Now read it." I didn't turn around. "Just tell me," I said. "A recipe is meant to be read," my mother said. I dipped my head again. "I'd rather you just tell me."

The dialogue in lines 45 through 54 contributes to a central idea by depicting the

The repeated back-and-forth demands, each refusing to yield, show a battle of wills between mother and daughter over who will control the situation.

Question 5 · 2 pts
She turned to me again. The sunlight caught the green in my mother's narrowed eyes, as if she were peering into a deep green wood.

The figurative language in lines 68 through 70 emphasizes

Comparing the mother's narrowed eyes to peering into a deep, disorienting wood conveys her confusion and inability to understand her daughter's stubborn refusal.

Question 6 · 2 pts
Once again my mother studied my face, as if it were lost in a thicket of trees. "And you can read, too," she said, measuring out her words. "But today it seems it's not a question of can, is it? It's a question of will. Will you do it is what I'm asking."

Lines 79 through 81 reveal the mother's realization of Marie's

The mother recognizes that Marie's refusal is not about ability but about willful choice, a sign of Marie asserting her own independent will.

Question 7 · 2 pts
I said yes, but my eyes went to the sunlight at the window.

Which quote best illustrates the narrator's "reluctance" (line 7)?

Saying yes while her attention drifts to the window shows Marie's continued unwillingness to fully engage with the task, directly illustrating her reluctance.

Question 8 · 2 pts
I turned my face to the light at the window. I pulled off my glasses. I was a bold piece, I could hear my mother's accusation even before she said it. "All right," I said, and then collapsed into the single chair beside the table. "I will," I said, and crossed my arms over my chest, turning my exaggerated gaze to the small clock on the stove.

Marie's language in lines 84 through 87 conveys an attitude of

Her exaggerated collapse into the chair and theatrically pointed gaze at the clock while grudgingly agreeing convey a mocking, sarcastic compliance rather than genuine submission.

Question 9 · 2 pts
"I suppose this is how it's going to be," she said softly, more to herself than to me. "You're growing up." And then, for a moment, she put a gentle hand to my head. She said, "God help us both," and left the kitchen.

Based on the passage, it can be inferred that the mother and daughter's relationship is

The mother's closing realization that Marie is growing up, coupled with her resigned, tender gesture, shows the relationship shifting as the daughter asserts new independence.

Question 10 · 2 pts
"I suppose this is how it's going to be," she said softly, more to herself than to me. "You're growing up."

Which quotation best supports a central idea in the passage?

This line captures the passage's central idea that the standoff is really about Marie's growing independence and the mother's acceptance of that change.

Question 11 · 2 pts
You to the left and I to the right, For the ways of men must sever, And it well may be for a day and a night, And it well may be forever.

In lines 1 through 4, the narrator acknowledges the inevitability of

The image of two people going opposite directions, with paths that must sever, establishes that parting is unavoidable.

Question 12 · 2 pts
We have striven fair in love and war, But the wheel was always weighted; We have lost the prize that we struggled for, We have won the prize that was fated.

The figurative language in lines 11 through 14 suggests that fortune is a result of

The image of a "weighted wheel" and prizes being "fated" rather than earned through struggle suggests outcomes are governed by destiny, not effort.

Question 13 · 2 pts
With a steady swing and an open brow We have tramped the ways together, But we're clasping hands at the crossroads now In the Fiend's own night for weather;

The statement "But we're clasping hands at the crossroads now" (line 35) creates a sense of

Clasping hands before parting emphasizes a bond of solidarity and unity between the two travelers even as they face separation.

Question 14 · 2 pts
And whether we bleed or whether we smile In the leagues that lie before us, The ways of life are many a mile And the dark of Fate is o'er us.

The figurative language in line 40 reflects

Describing fate as "dark" and looming "o'er us" suggests uncertain, threatening difficulties lying ahead.

Question 15 · 2 pts
He'd travelled more than three miles through the earth by then, over stalagmites and boulder fields, cave-ins and vaulting galleries. He'd spidered down waterfalls, inched along crumbling ledges, and bellied through tunnels so tight that his back touched the roof with every breath.

The description in lines 4 and 5 suggests that caving requires

Spidering down waterfalls, inching along ledges, and squeezing through tight tunnels describe physically agile, flexible movement rather than speed or mental skills.

Question 16 · 2 pts
They'd spent the past two days on a platform suspended above another sump, rebuilding their gear. Many of the parts had been cracked or contaminated on the way down, so the two men took their time, cleaning each piece and cannibalizing components from an extra kit, knowing that they'd soon have no time to spare.

As used in line 14, "cannibalizing" most nearly means

The divers take working parts from an extra kit to rebuild their damaged gear, meaning they are repurposing existing resources rather than discarding or sorting them.

Question 17 · 2 pts
The truth is they had nowhere better to go. All the pleasant places had already been found. The sunlit glades and secluded coves, phosphorescent lagoons and susurrating groves had been mapped and surveyed, extolled in guidebooks and posted with Latin names. To find something truly new on the planet, something no human had ever seen, you had to go deep underground or underwater. They were doing both.

Lines 19 through 23 support a central idea by depicting the cavers as

Since all pleasant, accessible places have already been explored, cavers must go where no one has ever been, casting them as pioneers venturing into truly unknown territory.

Question 18 · 2 pts
A cave's depth is measured from the entrance down, no matter how high it is above sea level. When prospecting for deep systems, cavers start in mountains with thick layers of limestone deposited by ancient seas. Then they look for evidence of underground streams and for sinkholes, sometimes many miles square, where rain and runoff get funnelled into the rock. As the water seeps in, carbon dioxide that it has picked up from the soil and the atmosphere dissolves the calcium carbonate in the stone, bubbling through it like water through a sponge.

Lines 24 through 30 serve to

This passage explains the factual, scientific process of how limestone caves form, providing background geological information rather than arguing or theorizing.

Question 19 · 2 pts
Deep caving demands what [expedition leader, Bill] Stone calls siege logistics. It's not so much a matter of conquering a cave as outlasting it. Just to set up base camp in Mexico, his team had to move six truckloads of material more than twelve hundred miles and up a mountain.

The details in lines 38 through 43 stress the

Moving six truckloads of material over twelve hundred miles and up a mountain just to establish base camp emphasizes the sheer scale and difficulty of the undertaking.

Question 20 · 2 pts
Cavers, even more than climbers, have to travel light and tight. Bulky packs are a torture to get through narrow fissures, and every ounce is extracted tenfold in sweat. Over the years, caving gear has undergone a brutal Darwinian selection, lopping off redundant parts and vestigial limbs. Toothbrushes have lost their handles, forks a tine or two, packs their adjustable straps.

The reference to the "lopping off redundant parts and vestigial limbs" (lines 49 and 50) implies that caving

The Darwinian selection metaphor describing gear losing unnecessary parts over time shows that caving equipment has gradually evolved toward extreme minimalism.

Question 21 · 2 pts
Stone has a Ph.D. in structural engineering from the University of Texas and spent twenty-four years at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in Gaithersburg, Maryland. His company has worked on numerous robotics projects for NASA, including autonomous submarines destined for Europa, Jupiter's sixth moon. The rebreathers for the Chevé trip were of his own design. Their carbon-fibre tanks weighed a fourth of what conventional tanks weigh and lasted more than four times longer underwater; their software could precisely regulate the mix and flow of gases.

The details in lines 54 through 62 emphasize that the development of caving technology requires

Stone's advanced engineering degree and work designing sophisticated tanks and software show that creating caving technology relies on deep engineering expertise.

Question 22 · 2 pts
"People think that cave diving is an adrenaline sport, but really it's the opposite," Short told me. "Whenever you feel your adrenaline racing, you have to slow down. Stop, breathe, think, act, and, in general, abort. That's the rule in cave diving."

Lines 66 through 68 suggest that cavers should interpret a surge in adrenaline as a signal to

Short's rule to slow down, stop, breathe, and think when adrenaline rises means cavers should pause and reassess rather than push forward instinctively.

Question 23 · 2 pts
Deep caving has no end. Every depth record is provisional, every barrier a false conclusion. Every cave system is a jigsaw puzzle, groped at blindly in the dark. A mountain climber can at least pretend to some mastery over the planet. But cavers know better.

The figurative language in line 70 supports a central idea that cavers

Describing cave exploration as an endless jigsaw puzzle groped at blindly suggests cavers embrace the ongoing, unresolved challenge itself, unlike climbers who reach a definite summit.

Question 24 · 2 pts
Deep caving demands what [expedition leader, Bill] Stone calls siege logistics. It's not so much a matter of conquering a cave as outlasting it.

Which statement best illustrates a central idea in the text?

This statement captures the passage's overarching theme that deep caving is a test of endurance and persistence rather than a quick conquest.

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