Test Prep CBEST Section 2: Reading Exam (page: 4)
Test Prep California Basic Educational Skills Test - Reading
Updated on: 09-Feb-2026

Businesses today routinely keep track of large amounts of both financial and non-financial information. Sales departments keep track of current and potential customers; marketing departments keep track of product details and regional demographics; accounting departments keep track of financial data and issue reports. To be useful, all this data must be organized into a meaningful and useful system. Such a system is called a management information system, abbreviated MIS. The financial hub of the MIS is accounting. Accounting is the information system that records, analyzes, and reports economic transactions, enabling decision-makers to make informed choices when allocating scarce economic resources. It is a tool that enables the user, whether a business entity or an individual, to make wiser, more informed economic choices. It is an aid to planning, controlling, and evaluating a broad range of activities. A financial accounting system is intended for use by both the management of an organization and those outside the organization. Because it is important that financial accounting reports be interpreted correctly, financial accounting is subject to a set of ___________ guidelines called "generally accepted accounting principles" (GAAP).
On the basis of above passage please answer the following question.
This passage is most likely taken from

Businesses today routinely keep track of large amounts of both financial and non-financial information. Sales departments keep track of current and potential customers; marketing departments keep track of product details and regional demographics; accounting departments keep track of financial data and issue reports. To be useful, all this data must be organized into a meaningful and useful system. Such a system is called a management information system, abbreviated MIS. The financial hub of the MIS is accounting. Accounting is the information system that records, analyzes, and reports economic transactions, enabling decision-makers to make informed choices when allocating scarce economic resources. It is a tool that enables the user, whether a business entity or an individual, to make wiser, more informed economic choices. It is an aid to planning, controlling, and evaluating a broad range of activities. A financial accounting system is intended for use by both the management of an organization and those outside the organization. Because it is important that financial accounting reports be interpreted correctly, financial accounting is subject to a set of ___________ guidelines called "generally accepted accounting principles" (GAAP).
On the basis of above passage please answer the following question.
The word that would fit most correctly into the blank in the final sentence is:

Businesses today routinely keep track of large amounts of both financial and non-financial information. Sales departments keep track of current and potential customers; marketing departments keep track of product details and regional demographics; accounting departments keep track of financial data and issue reports. To be useful, all this data must be organized into a meaningful and useful system. Such a system is called a management information system, abbreviated MIS. The financial hub of the MIS is accounting. Accounting is the information system that records, analyzes, and reports economic transactions, enabling decision-makers to make informed choices when allocating scarce economic resources. It is a tool that enables the user, whether a business entity or an individual, to make wiser, more informed economic choices. It is an aid to planning, controlling, and evaluating a broad range of activities. A financial accounting system is intended for use by both the management of an organization and those outside the organization. Because it is important that financial accounting reports be interpreted correctly, financial accounting is subject to a set of ___________ guidelines called "generally accepted accounting principles" (GAAP).
On the basis of above passage please answer the following question.
According to the information in the passage, which of the following is LEAST likely to be a function of accounting?

The fictional world of Toni Morrison’s novel Sula—the African-American section of Medallion, Ohio, a community called "the Bottom"—is a place where people, and even natural things, are apt to go awry, to break from their prescribed boundaries, a place where bizarre and unnatural happenings and strange reversals of the ordinary are commonplace. The very naming of the setting of Sula is a turning upside- down of the expected; the Bottom is located high up in the hills. The novel is furthermore filled with images of mutilation, both psychological and physical. A great part of the lives of the characters, therefore, is taken up with making sense of the world, setting boundaries and devising methods to control what is essentially uncontrollable. One of the major devices used by the people of the
Bottom is the seemingly universal one of creating a ____________in this case, the title character Sula upon which to project both the evil they perceive outside themselves and the evil in their own hearts.
On the basis of above passage please answer the following question.
Based on the description of the setting of the novel Sula, which of the following adjectives would most likely describe the behavior of many of its residents?

The fictional world of Toni Morrison’s novel Sula—the African-American section of Medallion, Ohio, a community called "the Bottom"—is a place where people, and even natural things, are apt to go awry, to break from their prescribed boundaries, a place where bizarre and unnatural happenings and strange reversals of the ordinary are commonplace. The very naming of the setting of Sula is a turning upside- down of the expected; the Bottom is located high up in the hills. The novel is furthermore filled with images of mutilation, both psychological and physical. A great part of the lives of the characters, therefore, is taken up with making sense of the world, setting boundaries and devising methods to control what is essentially uncontrollable. One of the major devices used by the people of the
Bottom is the seemingly universal one of creating a ____________in this case, the title character Sula upon which to project both the evil they perceive outside themselves and the evil in their own hearts.
On the basis of above passage please answer the following question.
Which of the following words would BEST fit into the blank in the final sentence of the passage?