PreACT Practice Test 13

Seeds in Envelopes

Every autumn, my grandmother collects seeds from the tomatoes, beans, and peppers in her backyard garden. She dries the seeds on paper towels, folds them into envelopes, and labels each envelope neat [11] in pencil with the plant's name and the year. She stores the envelopes in a shoebox, she keeps [12] the box on a high shelf in her closet.

When I was twelve, I asked her why she bothered, since a packet of seeds at the hardware store cost only a few dollars. For example, [13] she told me, the seeds in her box could not be bought anywhere. Some of her bean seeds came from plants first grown by her mother who [14] had carried a handful of them from Puerto Rico in 1961. That fall, my grandmother gave the box to my brother and I [15] to look after the next summer.

My brother and I planted the beans along the fence in May. By July, the vines had grown taller than the fence [16], and we were picking beans by the bowlful. In September, I dried seeds from the best vines, folded them into envelopes, and labeled each one. [17] Then I added a line my grandmother had never written: grown by her grandchildren.