Jake thought his homework assignment would be easy. All he had to do was interview a family member. But Mom was working, and Dad was helping Jayne study for a math test. Jake wandered into the living room, where his little brother Jesse was lying upside down on the couch with his feet hanging over the top, watching TV. A dubious subject for an interview, to be sure. But his options were limited, and the assignment was due tomorrow. "Well, here it goes," Jake mumbled to himself as he approached the couch. He shoved his collar up around his chin, took out his notebook and pencil, and adopted the look of a seasoned reporter. Jesse looked away from the TV and studied him suspiciously with his upside-down eyes. "I would like to know how the world looks from your point of view," Jake said solemnly.
Click on the two words that are closest in meaning to the word "adopted" as it is used in the passage.
approved
selected
accepted
imitated
followed
assumed
selected
assumed
At school ... I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time, a very severe master, the Reverend James Bowyer. He early moulded my taste to the preference of Demosthenes to Cicero, of Homer and Theocritus to Virgil, and again of Virgil to Ovid. He habituated me to compare Lucretius, (in such extracts as I then read,) Terence, and above all the chaster poems of Catullus, not only with the Roman poets of the, so called, silver and brazen ages; but with even those of the Augustan aera: and on grounds of plain sense and universal logic to see and assert the superiority of the former in the truth and nativeness both of their thoughts and diction. At the same time that we were studying the Greek tragic poets, he made us read Shakespeare and Milton as lessons: and they were the lessons too, which required most time and trouble to bring up, so as to escape his censure. I learned from him, that poetry, even that of the loftiest and, seemingly, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science; and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more, and more fugitive causes.
(from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
Which meaning of the word censure is used in the passage?
1. accusation
• 2. blame
• 3. fault
• 4. reprimand
4. reprimand
As Marcus scanned the jewelry cases, his eyes came to rest on an intricately wound necklace. The chain was delicate silver strands, fine as hair, woven together in a subtle, beautiful pattern. Hanging from the chain shimmered a spiral, also made of exquisitely thin silver threads, and arranged in the center were several small lustrous onyx stones. He was stunned at the meticulous craftsmanship that must have been required to fashion such a painstaking work. The artisanship of its maker was clearly unequaled. He knew instinctively that his mother would love it.
Tim read this paragraph. When he came across the word meticulous, he decided it must mean "amazing."
Is Tim's understanding of meticulous correct?
• 1. No, because the passage indicates that "meticulous" is.used to describe very tiny objects.
2. No, because the context explains that the necklace was made with great attention to detail.
• 3. Yes, because most of the passage is describing how fantastic Marcus thinks the necklace is.
• 4. Yes, because most of the passage gives details about how Marcus admires objects of amazing quality.
2. No, because the context explains that the necklace was made with great attention to detail.
And he was no soft-tongued apologist;
He spoke straightforward, fearlessly uncowed;
The sunlight of his truth dispelled the mist,
And set in bold relief each dark-hued cloud;
To sin and crime he gave their proper hue, And hurled as evil what was evil's due.
Through good and ill report he cleaved his way
Right onward, with his face set toward the heights,
Not feared to face the foeman's dread array, The lash of scorn, the sting of petty spites.
He dared the lightning in the lightning's track, And answered thunder with his thunder back.When men maligned him, and their torrent wrath In furious imprecations o'er him broke,
He kept his counsel as he kept his path;
'T was for his race, not for himself, he spoke.
He knew the import of his Master's call, And felt himself too mighty to be small.
(from "Frederick Douglass" by Paul Laurence Dunbar)
In which way does the tone of the poem express the author's intent?
1. Words of strength and power establish a forceful tone, revealing an outrage at how a public figure was treated.
2. Heroic imagery establishes an admiring tone, showing an effort to inspire reverence for a public figure.
• 3. Ideas of conflict and struggle establish an insistent tone, illustrating an attempt to incite others into action.
• 4. The theme of perseverance establishes a hopeful tone, indicating a belief that hard work breeds success.
3. Ideas of conflict and struggle establish an insistent tone, illustrating an attempt to incite others into action.
Panting with eagerness, and struggling to suppress my hopes, I hurried home, and rushed up stairs to my room,—having first provided myself with a candle, though it was scarcely twilight yet, —then, shut and bolted the door, determined to tolerate no interruption, and sitting down before the table, opened out my prize and delivered myself up to its perusal-first, hastily turning over the leaves and snatching a sentence here and there, and then, setting myself steadily to read it through.
I have it now before me; and though you could not of course, peruse it with half the interest that I did, I know you would not be satisfied with an abbreviation of its contents and you shall have the whole, save, perhaps, a few passages here and there of merely temporal interest to the writer, or such as would serve to encumber the story rather than elucidate it. It begins somewhat abruptly, thus-but we will reserve its commencement for another chapter.
(from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte)
Dictionary
encumber v. 1. to stop 2. to cram or fill 3. to burden
Which word means the same as encumber as it is used in the second paragraph?
1. delay
• 3. inconvenience
2. hinder
• 4. prohibit
3. inconvenience
A recent editorial suggested the candidates ignored the issues of greatest interest to the citizens. This caused a majority of voters to purposely neglect voting. The low voter turnout at the polls yesterday supports the idea that the voters are jaded.
Dictionary
jaded (ja' did
1. adj. overworked, exhausted, weary
2. adj. bored, tired, or uninterested from having too much of something
3. adj. hardened due to negative experience or living to excess; indifferent
When Paul first read this paragraph in the newspaper, he thought the word jaded meant "busy." He looked it up in a dictionary to see if he was correct.
In the context of this paragraph, is Paul's understanding of the meaning of jaded correct?
• 1. No, because people were simply uninterested in the election.
• 2. No, because people had a negative experience with the candidates.
• 3. Yes, because people were overworked and therefore too tired to vote.
• 4. Yes, because people had rejected voting as a result of numerous elections.
2. No, because people had a negative experience with the candidates.
After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?-in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
(from "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau)
What is the effect of the oxymoron "Civil Disobedience"?
• 1. It describes a principle: civilians must use legal action to disobey the will of the majority.
• 2. It establishes a tone: if a government is uncivilized, it cannot expect citizens to obey the law.
• 3. It highlights a problem: to be civilized, citizens must conform rather than obey their consciences.
• 4. It illustrates a theme: standing by one's conscience is more civilized than simply obeying the majority.
4. It illustrates a theme: standing by one's conscience is more civilized than simply obeying the majority.
The scene was strangely homogeneous, in that the vale, the upland, the barrow, and the figure above it amounted only to unity. Looking at this or that member of the group was not observing a complete thing, but a fraction of a thing.
The form was so much like an organic part of the entire motionless structure that to see it move would have impressed the mind as a strange phenomenon. Immobility being the chief characteristic of that whole which the person formed portion of, the discontinuance of immobility in any quarter suggested confusion.
Yet that is what happened. The figure perceptibly gave up its fixity, shifted a step or two, and turned round. As if alarmed, it descended on the right side of the barrow, with the glide of a water-drop down a bud, and then vanished. The movement had been sufficient to show more clearly the characteristics of the figure, and that it was a woman's.
(from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy)
When Sasha first read the passage, she thought fixity meant "identity."
Was Sasha correct?
• 1. Yes, because any change or movement within the scene creates confusion that further obscures the identity of the figure.
• 2. Yes, because as the defining features of the figure are momentarily revealed, observers can clearly determine her true identity.
• 3. No, because the figure becomes frightened, turns around, and abruptly disappears, suggesting that the word means "mystery."
• 4. No, because the figure remains inseparable from the structure as a whole until she moves, implying that the word means
4. No, because the figure remains inseparable from the structure as a whole until she moves, implying that the word means something related to being motionless or stationary.
ROMEO
Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!
Thou talk'st of nothing
MERCUTIO
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air And more inconstant than the wind
What kind of dreams is Mercutio describing, especially when he calls them "children of an idle brain"?
• 1. childish, immature thoughts
• 2. the strange thoughts that come when our minds are at rest
3. the dreams and hopes of our youth that have long since blown away
• 4. the nightmares that come from an overactive imagination
1. childish, immature thoughts
I still keep in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the sombre shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun.
The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day care when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, after this fashion: This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morroy; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling "boils" show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that the troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously;
(from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain)
Which statement best conveys how the author's viewpoint changes in the passage?
• 1. His fear of nature intensifies as he comes to accept that a river is more dangerous than it is beautiful.
• 2. His ability to describe the river with precise language improves as he gains more skills in steamboating.
• 3. His way of seeing the river shifts from mysterious wonder to objective analysis as he becomes a steamboating expert.
• 4. His enjoyment of the river comes at first as the result of acute observations and later as the result of proven instincts.
3. His way of seeing the river shifts from mysterious wonder to objective analysis as he becomes a steamboating expert.
As the boat bounced from the top of each wave, the wind tore through the hair of the hatless men, and as the craft plopped her stern down again the spray splashed past them. The crest of each of these waves was a hill, from the top of which the men surveyed for a moment a broad, tumultuous expanse, shining and wind-riven.'
It was probably splendid, it was probably glorious, this play of the free sea, wild with lights of
emerald and white and amber.
"Bully good thing it's an on-shore wind,?" said the cook. "If not, where would we be? Wouldn't have a show."
"That's right," said the correspondent.
The busy oiler nodded his assent.
Then the captain, in the bow, chuckled in a way that expressed humor, contempt, tragedy, all in one. "Do you think we've got much of a show now, boys?" said he.
Whereupon the three were silent, save for a trifle of hemming and hawing. To express any particular optimism at this time they felt to be childish and stupid, ... On the other hand, the ethics of their condition was decidedly against any open suggestion of hopelessness. So they were silent.
Which evidence from the passage best supports the inference that the men are distracted?
• 1. the silence of the men after the captain asks his second question
• 2. the description of the captain's chuckle as showing contempt and tragedy
• 3. the use of "emerald" and "amber," jewel names, to describe the sea's colors
• 4. the word "probably" in the description of the sea as "splendid" and “Glorious”
1. the silence of the men after the captain asks his second question
The thought of Plato, of Aristotle, and of the heroes of modern philosophy is ever proving anew its fructifying power. Nowhere do we find such instructive errors as in the sphere of philosophy; nowhere is the new so essentially a completion and development of the old, even though it deem itself the whole and assume a hostile attitude toward its predecessors; nowhere is the inquiry so much more important than the final result; nowhere the categories "true and false" so inadequate. The spirit of the time and the spirit of the people, the individuality of the thinker, disposition, will, fancy - all these exert a far stronger influence on the development of philosophy, both by way of promotion and by way of hindrance, than in any other department of thought. If a system gives classical expression to the thought of an epoch, a nation, or a great personality; if it seeks to attack the world-riddle from a new direction, or brings us nearer its solution by important original conceptions, by a subtler or a simpler comprehension of the problem, by a wider outlook or a deeper insight; it has accomplished more than it could have done by bringing forward a number of indisputably correct principles.
(from History of Modern Philosophy by Richard Falckenberg)
Which device does the author use throughout the passage?
1. parallelism
2. rhetorical question
3. paradox
4. simile
3. paradox
Among the many exploring expeditions that have crossed the Arctic Circle with the sole view of reaching the
This sentence is from the passage.
"This expedition ... was intrusted to a born Arctic explorer, Charles Francis
North Pole, one only has sailed entirely under the auspices of the United States. This expedition ... was intrusted to a
Hall."
born Arctic explorer, Charles Francis Hall. Born in 1821, in Rochester, N.H., Hall early quitted his native hills for the freer
What does the phrase a born Arctic explorer suggest about Hall?
fields of the West, as the Ohio Valley was then called, and later settled in Cincinnati. There was ever a spirit of change
• 1. He read many books about exploring the Arctic.
in him, and as years rolled on he passed from blacksmith to journalist, from stationer to engraver. Through all these
• 2. He left home to further his plans for Arctic exploration.
changes of trades he held fast to one fancy, which in time became the dominating element of his eventful career: in early youth, fascinated with books of travel relating to
• 3. He had a lifelong interest and natural ability in Arctic exploration.
exploration in the icy zones, he eagerly improved every opportunity to increase his Arctic library, which steadily grew
• 4. He pursued a variety of jobs before he decided to explore the Arctic.
despite his very limited resources.
(from "Charles Francis Hall, and the North Pole" by General A. W. Greely)
Part B
Which detail from the passage best supports the correct answer from Part A?
1. "Hall early quitted his native hills for the freer fields of the West"
• 2. "There was ever a spirit of change in him"
• 3. "he passed from blacksmith to journalist, from stationer to engraver"
• 4. "he held fast to one fancy"