TSI Reading Test #3

The Shadowy Woods On either side of the frozen stream, a dense spruce forest scowled. A recent wind had robbed the trees of their frosty white covering, and in the dwindling light, they appeared to lean toward one another, black and foreboding. Overwhelming quiet pervaded the landscape. The area itself was a wasteland, dead, motionless, and so cold and lonely that it lacked even a mood of melancholy. There was a trace of laughing there, but it was a laughter worse than any melancholy, a laughter as gloomy as the sphinx's smile, as cold as the winter, and sharing in the bleakness of infallibility. It was the supreme, incomparable wisdom of eternity mocking the pointlessness and labor of life. It was the Wild, the Northland Wild, the ruthless, cold-hearted Wild. However, there was stubborn life present in the soil. A line of wolf-like dogs toiled their way down the icy stream. Their brittle fur was frost-rimmed. Their breath condensed as it left their mouths and froze in the air, spewing forth in spumes of vapor that fell to the hair on their bodies and crystallized into frost. The dogs wore leather harnesses, and leather traces connected them to a sled that trailed behind. There were no runners on the sled. Its entire surface rested on the snow and was composed of sturdy birch bark. To force down and under the blast of soft snow that surged like a wave in front of it, the front end of the sled was turned up like a scroll. A lengthy and narrow oblong box was on the sled and was tightly lashed. There were other items on the sled, including blankets, an axe, a coffee maker, and a cooking pan, but the long, narrow oblong box stood out and took up the majority of the area. A man toiled ahead of the dogs while wearing large snowshoes. A second man worked behind the sled. A third man, whose struggle was done, was lying on the sled and in the box. The Wild had subdued him and rendered him incapable of further movement or resistance. Movement is not something that the Wild do. It considers life to be an offense since it involves movement, and the Wild constantly seeks to stifle movement. The Wild harries and crushes into submission man, who is the most restless of life, ever in revolt against the maxim that all movement must, in the end, come to the cessation of movement. It freezes the water to stop it from flowing to the sea, drives the sap out of the trees until they are frozen to their mighty hearts. But the two men who weren't yet dead worked at the front and back, unmoved and unflappable. Fur and soft-tanned leather adorned their bodies. Their faces were obscured by the coating of crystals left behind by their frozen breath on their eyelashes, cheeks, and lips. This gave them the appearance of ghoulish masques and undertakers at a spooky funeral. But behind it all, there were men entering the country of emptiness, ridicule, and stillness. These petty explorers were on a quest for a great adventure, taking on the might of a planet that was as far away, strange, and lifeless as the depths of space. Which component of suspense does the passage demonstrate most?