This passage is adapted from Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners, ©2014 by Kirstin Chen. The narrator and her friend Frankie have come from California to work at Lin's Soy Sauce, the narrator's family's business in Singapore. This passage has been rewritten to reflect the complexity of the EST test.

After I furnished her with a concise overview of each individual on the office floor - "Eschew the drama vultures in marketing; be amiable to Fiona, she wields more power than you would surmise" - Frankie and I hunkered down to appraise the work my cousin Cal had already undertaken on the US Expansion Project. Given my cousin's affection for expedients, his propensity to retain vital intelligence unto himself, and his questionable vision of a more modern Lin's, we harbored skepticism as to whether his recommendations could be trusted.

From the commencement, I informed Frankie that she was in command, and the arrangement appeared to please her. She set to work forthwith, methodically navigating Cal's files, pursuing the inhabitants of marketing and sales, and even beseeching my father's assistance when I proved of no avail. If she discerned the manner in which her new colleagues whispered about her American assertiveness, she did not permit it to perturb her.

In contrast, I approached the work akin to a college class: exerting the minimum effort required to persevere. I endeavored to coerce Frankie into respite by regaling her with hilarious pictures I had discovered on the Internet and inundating her computer with inane instant messages. She would indulge me for a minute or two before resuming her work, but after I dispatched a third feline picture, she pivoted to face me and declared, "Heed me, I truly believe your uncle employed me primarily as a favor to you, but I genuinely think I can effectuate change in this establishment."

Duly chastised, I commenced perusing the files she deemed most pertinent, and the more I absorbed, the more I had to concede that some of this material was actually intriguing. Who would have fathomed that specialty food producers from bastions of Americana such as Gainesville, Florida, and Louisville, Kentucky, had begun to experiment with artisanal soy sauce? According to a culinary periodical, the Kentucky producer even aged its sauce in old bourbon barrels for an added whiff of smoke and local color. Preeminent chefs across America were extolling the depth of flavor the buttery black cod. An avant-garde chef in Chicago had infused the soy sauce into brioche. The resulting concoction was spread on bite-sized brioche, topped with tobiko caviar, and served as the amuse-bouche to his seventeen-course tasting menu. One needn't pore over these files to discern the burgeoning excitement for all things natural and handmade; after all, Frankie and I both hailed from San Francisco, the epicenter of the artisanal food movement. And yet, Lin's was edging away from its traditional brewing methods.

I apprised Frankie of the situation: several months prior, Uncle Robert's inaugural move as president had been to procure the factory's first industrial fiberglass tanks, a decision my father had opposed. To avoid further incensing my father, the tanks had been housed in a shed, out of sight. The new additions were large gray-green vats, as different from one of our jars as a Yamaha violin from a Stradivarius. But Uncle Robert maintained that each fiberglass tank possessed a capacity five times that of a single jar. Furthermore, the laborers would no longer be required to manually agitate the soybeans, as a simple twist of a valve would suffice to agitate the contents of each tank. As a result, the fermentation process would be reduced from six months to a mere four, thereby diminishing production time and expenses.

Frankie tapped her pen on the table. "It makes perfect sense. Especially if it all essentially tastes the same, does it not?"

I did not conceal my incredulousness. "We cannot proceed any further until you sample some sauce." I reached over, closed Frankie's laptop, and ordered her to move her papers aside. And so I staged an impromptu soy sauce tasting right in my office, exactly like the ones I had witnessed my father lead dozens of times. Despite the curious glances from co-workers passing by, I compelled Frankie to take one sip after another of our premium sauces until I was certain she grasped the value of our clay jars - jars that were rinsed every six months in tepid water and left to dry in direct sunlight. This special treatment preserved fifty years' worth of golden residue that coated the jars' interiors and bestowed our sauce its signature earthiness.

"Incredible," Frankie said, smacking her lips. "I have imbibed plenty of soy sauce in my lifetime, but this sauce is not even remotely the same species."

This passage is adapted from Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners, ©2014 by Kirstin Chen. The narrator and her friend Frankie have come from California to work at Lin's Soy Sauce, the narrator's family's business in Singapore. This passage has been rewritten to reflect the complexity of the EST test.

After I furnished her with a concise overview of each individual on the office floor - "Eschew the drama vultures in marketing; be amiable to Fiona, she wields more power than you would surmise" - Frankie and I hunkered down to appraise the work my cousin Cal had already undertaken on the US Expansion Project. Given my cousin's affection for expedients, his propensity to retain vital intelligence unto himself, and his questionable vision of a more modern Lin's, we harbored skepticism as to whether his recommendations could be trusted.

From the commencement, I informed Frankie that she was in command, and the arrangement appeared to please her. She set to work forthwith, methodically navigating Cal's files, pursuing the inhabitants of marketing and sales, and even beseeching my father's assistance when I proved of no avail. If she discerned the manner in which her new colleagues whispered about her American assertiveness, she did not permit it to perturb her.

In contrast, I approached the work akin to a college class: exerting the minimum effort required to persevere. I endeavored to coerce Frankie into respite by regaling her with hilarious pictures I had discovered on the Internet and inundating her computer with inane instant messages. She would indulge me for a minute or two before resuming her work, but after I dispatched a third feline picture, she pivoted to face me and declared, "Heed me, I truly believe your uncle employed me primarily as a favor to you, but I genuinely think I can effectuate change in this establishment."

Duly chastised, I commenced perusing the files she deemed most pertinent, and the more I absorbed, the more I had to concede that some of this material was actually intriguing. Who would have fathomed that specialty food producers from bastions of Americana such as Gainesville, Florida, and Louisville, Kentucky, had begun to experiment with artisanal soy sauce? According to a culinary periodical, the Kentucky producer even aged its sauce in old bourbon barrels for an added whiff of smoke and local color. Preeminent chefs across America were extolling the depth of flavor the buttery black cod. An avant-garde chef in Chicago had infused the soy sauce into brioche. The resulting concoction was spread on bite-sized brioche, topped with tobiko caviar, and served as the amuse-bouche to his seventeen-course tasting menu. One needn't pore over these files to discern the burgeoning excitement for all things natural and handmade; after all, Frankie and I both hailed from San Francisco, the epicenter of the artisanal food movement. And yet, Lin's was edging away from its traditional brewing methods.

I apprised Frankie of the situation: several months prior, Uncle Robert's inaugural move as president had been to procure the factory's first industrial fiberglass tanks, a decision my father had opposed. To avoid further incensing my father, the tanks had been housed in a shed, out of sight. The new additions were large gray-green vats, as different from one of our jars as a Yamaha violin from a Stradivarius. But Uncle Robert maintained that each fiberglass tank possessed a capacity five times that of a single jar. Furthermore, the laborers would no longer be required to manually agitate the soybeans, as a simple twist of a valve would suffice to agitate the contents of each tank. As a result, the fermentation process would be reduced from six months to a mere four, thereby diminishing production time and expenses.

Frankie tapped her pen on the table. "It makes perfect sense. Especially if it all essentially tastes the same, does it not?"

I did not conceal my incredulousness. "We cannot proceed any further until you sample some sauce." I reached over, closed Frankie's laptop, and ordered her to move her papers aside. And so I staged an impromptu soy sauce tasting right in my office, exactly like the ones I had witnessed my father lead dozens of times. Despite the curious glances from co-workers passing by, I compelled Frankie to take one sip after another of our premium sauces until I was certain she grasped the value of our clay jars - jars that were rinsed every six months in tepid water and left to dry in direct sunlight. This special treatment preserved fifty years' worth of golden residue that coated the jars' interiors and bestowed our sauce its signature earthiness.

"Incredible," Frankie said, smacking her lips. "I have imbibed plenty of soy sauce in my lifetime, but this sauce is not even remotely the same species."

Questions 1-10 are based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners, ©2014 by Kirstin Chen. The narrator and her friend Frankie have come from California to work at Lin's Soy Sauce, the narrator's family's business in Singapore. This passage has been rewritten to reflect the complexity of the EST test.

After I furnished her with a concise overview of each individual on the office floor - "Eschew the drama vultures in marketing; be amiable to Fiona, she wields more power than you would surmise" - Frankie and I hunkered down to appraise the work my cousin Cal had already undertaken on the US Expansion Project. Given my cousin's affection for expedients, his propensity to retain vital intelligence unto himself, and his questionable vision of a more modern Lin's, we harbored skepticism as to whether his recommendations could be trusted.

From the commencement, I informed Frankie that she was in command, and the arrangement appeared to please her. She set to work forthwith, methodically navigating Cal's files, pursuing the inhabitants of marketing and sales, and even beseeching my father's assistance when I proved of no avail. If she discerned the manner in which her new colleagues whispered about her American assertiveness, she did not permit it to perturb her.

In contrast, I approached the work akin to a college class: exerting the minimum effort required to persevere. I endeavored to coerce Frankie into respite by regaling her with hilarious pictures I had discovered on the Internet and inundating her computer with inane instant messages. She would indulge me for a minute or two before resuming her work, but after I dispatched a third feline picture, she pivoted to face me and declared, "Heed me, I truly believe your uncle employed me primarily as a favor to you, but I genuinely think I can effectuate change in this establishment."

Duly chastised, I commenced perusing the files she deemed most pertinent, and the more I absorbed, the more I had to concede that some of this material was actually intriguing. Who would have fathomed that specialty food producers from bastions of Americana such as Gainesville, Florida, and Louisville, Kentucky, had begun to experiment with artisanal soy sauce? According to a culinary periodical, the Kentucky producer even aged its sauce in old bourbon barrels for an added whiff of smoke and local color. Preeminent chefs across America were extolling the depth of flavor the buttery black cod. An avant-garde chef in Chicago had infused the soy sauce into brioche. The resulting concoction was spread on bite-sized brioche, topped with tobiko caviar, and served as the amuse-bouche to his seventeen-course tasting menu. One needn't pore over these files to discern the burgeoning excitement for all things natural and handmade; after all, Frankie and I both hailed from San Francisco, the epicenter of the artisanal food movement. And yet, Lin's was edging away from its traditional brewing methods.

I apprised Frankie of the situation: several months prior, Uncle Robert's inaugural move as president had been to procure the factory's first industrial fiberglass tanks, a decision my father had opposed. To avoid further incensing my father, the tanks had been housed in a shed, out of sight. The new additions were large gray-green vats, as different from one of our jars as a Yamaha violin from a Stradivarius. But Uncle Robert maintained that each fiberglass tank possessed a capacity five times that of a single jar. Furthermore, the laborers would no longer be required to manually agitate the soybeans, as a simple twist of a valve would suffice to agitate the contents of each tank. As a result, the fermentation process would be reduced from six months to a mere four, thereby diminishing production time and expenses.

Frankie tapped her pen on the table. "It makes perfect sense. Especially if it all essentially tastes the same, does it not?"

I did not conceal my incredulousness. "We cannot proceed any further until you sample some sauce." I reached over, closed Frankie's laptop, and ordered her to move her papers aside. And so I staged an impromptu soy sauce tasting right in my office, exactly like the ones I had witnessed my father lead dozens of times. Despite the curious glances from co-workers passing by, I compelled Frankie to take one sip after another of our premium sauces until I was certain she grasped the value of our clay jars - jars that were rinsed every six months in tepid water and left to dry in direct sunlight. This special treatment preserved fifty years' worth of golden residue that coated the jars' interiors and bestowed our sauce its signature earthiness.

"Incredible," Frankie said, smacking her lips. "I have imbibed plenty of soy sauce in my lifetime, but this sauce is not even remotely the same species."

Questions 1-10 are based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners, ©2014 by Kirstin Chen. The narrator and her friend Frankie have come from California to work at Lin's Soy Sauce, the narrator's family's business in Singapore. This passage has been rewritten to reflect the complexity of the EST test.

After I furnished her with a concise overview of each individual on the office floor - "Eschew the drama vultures in marketing; be amiable to Fiona, she wields more power than you would surmise" - Frankie and I hunkered down to appraise the work my cousin Cal had already undertaken on the US Expansion Project. Given my cousin's affection for expedients, his propensity to retain vital intelligence unto himself, and his questionable vision of a more modern Lin's, we harbored skepticism as to whether his recommendations could be trusted.

From the commencement, I informed Frankie that she was in command, and the arrangement appeared to please her. She set to work forthwith, methodically navigating Cal's files, pursuing the inhabitants of marketing and sales, and even beseeching my father's assistance when I proved of no avail. If she discerned the manner in which her new colleagues whispered about her American assertiveness, she did not permit it to perturb her.

In contrast, I approached the work akin to a college class: exerting the minimum effort required to persevere. I endeavored to coerce Frankie into respite by regaling her with hilarious pictures I had discovered on the Internet and inundating her computer with inane instant messages. She would indulge me for a minute or two before resuming her work, but after I dispatched a third feline picture, she pivoted to face me and declared, "Heed me, I truly believe your uncle employed me primarily as a favor to you, but I genuinely think I can effectuate change in this establishment."

Duly chastised, I commenced perusing the files she deemed most pertinent, and the more I absorbed, the more I had to concede that some of this material was actually intriguing. Who would have fathomed that specialty food producers from bastions of Americana such as Gainesville, Florida, and Louisville, Kentucky, had begun to experiment with artisanal soy sauce? According to a culinary periodical, the Kentucky producer even aged its sauce in old bourbon barrels for an added whiff of smoke and local color. Preeminent chefs across America were extolling the depth of flavor the buttery black cod. An avant-garde chef in Chicago had infused the soy sauce into brioche. The resulting concoction was spread on bite-sized brioche, topped with tobiko caviar, and served as the amuse-bouche to his seventeen-course tasting menu. One needn't pore over these files to discern the burgeoning excitement for all things natural and handmade; after all, Frankie and I both hailed from San Francisco, the epicenter of the artisanal food movement. And yet, Lin's was edging away from its traditional brewing methods.

I apprised Frankie of the situation: several months prior, Uncle Robert's inaugural move as president had been to procure the factory's first industrial fiberglass tanks, a decision my father had opposed. To avoid further incensing my father, the tanks had been housed in a shed, out of sight. The new additions were large gray-green vats, as different from one of our jars as a Yamaha violin from a Stradivarius. But Uncle Robert maintained that each fiberglass tank possessed a capacity five times that of a single jar. Furthermore, the laborers would no longer be required to manually agitate the soybeans, as a simple twist of a valve would suffice to agitate the contents of each tank. As a result, the fermentation process would be reduced from six months to a mere four, thereby diminishing production time and expenses.

Frankie tapped her pen on the table. "It makes perfect sense. Especially if it all essentially tastes the same, does it not?"

I did not conceal my incredulousness. "We cannot proceed any further until you sample some sauce." I reached over, closed Frankie's laptop, and ordered her to move her papers aside. And so I staged an impromptu soy sauce tasting right in my office, exactly like the ones I had witnessed my father lead dozens of times. Despite the curious glances from co-workers passing by, I compelled Frankie to take one sip after another of our premium sauces until I was certain she grasped the value of our clay jars - jars that were rinsed every six months in tepid water and left to dry in direct sunlight. This special treatment preserved fifty years' worth of golden residue that coated the jars' interiors and bestowed our sauce its signature earthiness.

"Incredible," Frankie said, smacking her lips. "I have imbibed plenty of soy sauce in my lifetime, but this sauce is not even remotely the same species."

Questions 1-10 are based on the following passage.

This passage is adapted from Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners, ©2014 by Kirstin Chen. The narrator and her friend Frankie have come from California to work at Lin's Soy Sauce, the narrator's family's business in Singapore. This passage has been rewritten to reflect the complexity of the EST test.

After I furnished her with a concise overview of each individual on the office floor - "Eschew the drama vultures in marketing; be amiable to Fiona, she wields more power than you would surmise" - Frankie and I hunkered down to appraise the work my cousin Cal had already undertaken on the US Expansion Project. Given my cousin's affection for expedients, his propensity to retain vital intelligence unto himself, and his questionable vision of a more modern Lin's, we harbored skepticism as to whether his recommendations could be trusted.

From the commencement, I informed Frankie that she was in command, and the arrangement appeared to please her. She set to work forthwith, methodically navigating Cal's files, pursuing the inhabitants of marketing and sales, and even beseeching my father's assistance when I proved of no avail. If she discerned the manner in which her new colleagues whispered about her American assertiveness, she did not permit it to perturb her.

In contrast, I approached the work akin to a college class: exerting the minimum effort required to persevere. I endeavored to coerce Frankie into respite by regaling her with hilarious pictures I had discovered on the Internet and inundating her computer with inane instant messages. She would indulge me for a minute or two before resuming her work, but after I dispatched a third feline picture, she pivoted to face me and declared, "Heed me, I truly believe your uncle employed me primarily as a favor to you, but I genuinely think I can effectuate change in this establishment."

Duly chastised, I commenced perusing the files she deemed most pertinent, and the more I absorbed, the more I had to concede that some of this material was actually intriguing. Who would have fathomed that specialty food producers from bastions of Americana such as Gainesville, Florida, and Louisville, Kentucky, had begun to experiment with artisanal soy sauce? According to a culinary periodical, the Kentucky producer even aged its sauce in old bourbon barrels for an added whiff of smoke and local color. Preeminent chefs across America were extolling the depth of flavor the buttery black cod. An avant-garde chef in Chicago had infused the soy sauce into brioche. The resulting concoction was spread on bite-sized brioche, topped with tobiko caviar, and served as the amuse-bouche to his seventeen-course tasting menu. One needn't pore over these files to discern the burgeoning excitement for all things natural and handmade; after all, Frankie and I both hailed from San Francisco, the epicenter of the artisanal food movement. And yet, Lin's was edging away from its traditional brewing methods.

I apprised Frankie of the situation: several months prior, Uncle Robert's inaugural move as president had been to procure the factory's first industrial fiberglass tanks, a decision my father had opposed. To avoid further incensing my father, the tanks had been housed in a shed, out of sight. The new additions were large gray-green vats, as different from one of our jars as a Yamaha violin from a Stradivarius. But Uncle Robert maintained that each fiberglass tank possessed a capacity five times that of a single jar. Furthermore, the laborers would no longer be required to manually agitate the soybeans, as a simple twist of a valve would suffice to agitate the contents of each tank. As a result, the fermentation process would be reduced from six months to a mere four, thereby diminishing production time and expenses.

Frankie tapped her pen on the table. "It makes perfect sense. Especially if it all essentially tastes the same, does it not?"

I did not conceal my incredulousness. "We cannot proceed any further until you sample some sauce." I reached over, closed Frankie's laptop, and ordered her to move her papers aside. And so I staged an impromptu soy sauce tasting right in my office, exactly like the ones I had witnessed my father lead dozens of times. Despite the curious glances from co-workers passing by, I compelled Frankie to take one sip after another of our premium sauces until I was certain she grasped the value of our clay jars - jars that were rinsed every six months in tepid water and left to dry in direct sunlight. This special treatment preserved fifty years' worth of golden residue that coated the jars' interiors and bestowed our sauce its signature earthiness.

"Incredible," Frankie said, smacking her lips. "I have imbibed plenty of soy sauce in my lifetime, but this sauce is not even remotely the same species."