Read the excerpt from "The Crab That Played with the Sea.”And the Rat said, ‘I am too busy biting through the line that this old Fisherman is spinning. I do not play with the Sea.’ And he went on biting the line.Then the little girl-daughter put up her little soft brown arms with the beautiful white shell bracelets and said, ‘O Eldest Magician! when my father here talked to you at the Very Beginning, and I leaned upon his shoulder while the beasts were being taught their plays, one beast went away naughtily into the Sea before you had taught him his play.And the Eldest Magician said, ‘How wise are little children who see and are silent! What was the beast like?’
Read the passage from Animal Farm."Boxer!" cried Clover in a terrible voice. "Boxer! Get out! Get out quickly! They're taking you to your death!"All the animals took up the cry of "Get out, Boxer, get out!" But the van was already gathering speed and drawing away from them. It was uncertain whether Boxer had understood what Clover had said. But a moment later his face disappeared from the window and there was the sound of a tremendous drumming of hoofs inside the van. He was trying to kick his way out. The time had been when a few kicks from Boxer's hoofs would have smashed the van to matchwood. But alas! his strength had left him; and in a few moments the sound of drumming hoofs grew fainter and died away. In desperation the animals began appealing to the two horses which drew the van to stop. "Comrades, comrades!" they shouted. "Don't take your own brother to his death!" But the stupid brutes, too ignorant to realise what was happening, merely set back their ears and quickened their pace. Boxer's face did not reappear at the window. Too late, someone thought of racing ahead and shutting the five-barred gate; but in another moment the van was through it and rapidly disappearing down the road. Boxer was never seen again.
Read the two passages from Sugar Changed the World.Knowing that their slaves were likely to die by the time they reached their thirties, Louisiana sugar planters were extremely selective—they bought only healthy-looking young men in their late teens. On average, the men purchased in Louisiana were an inch taller than the people bought in the other slave states. Those teenagers made up seven to eight out of every ten slaves brought to America's sugar Hell. The others were younger teenage girls, around fifteen to sixteen years old. Their job, for the rest of their short lives, was to have children. Elizabeth Ross Hite knew that, for sure, "all de master wanted was fo' dem wimmen to hav children." Enslaved children would be put to work or sold. The overseer S.B. Raby explained, "Rachel had a 'fine boy' last Sunday. Our crop of negroes will I think make up any deficiencies there may be in the cane crop." That is, a master could sell any slaves who managed to live, if he needed more money than he could make from sugar.Jazz was born in Louisiana. Could it be that a population of teenagers, almost all of them male, were inspired to develop their own music as a way to speak, to compete, to announce who they were to the world? Bomba in Puerto Rico, Maculelê in Brazil, jazz in Louisiana—all gave people a chance to be alive, to be human, to have ideas, and dreams, and passions when their owners claimed they were just cogs in machinery built to produce sugar.The sugar workers in Hawaii were not enslaved—they chose to come. But they still lived hard lives:Hawai'i, Hawai'iI came seeing the dreamBut my tears now flowIn the canefieldsWhen the Africans were brought to work in sugar, they had to form new families, learn new languages—they had to find ways to blend their new lives with what they recalled from their homelands. The holehole bushi hint at one way sugar workers have always found strength and comfort:My husband cuts the caneI carry the stalks from the fieldTogether, the two of usWe get by
What does the comprehension strategy of clarifying involve?
Study the editorial cartoon by Signe Wilkinson.

Read the excerpt from "How the Grimm Brothers Saved the Fairy Tale."This first edition is wholly unlike the so-called definitive edition of 1857. In the process of publishing seven different editions over forty years, the Grimms made vast changes in the contents and style. The stories in the first edition are closer to the oral tradition than the tales of the final, which can be regarded more as a literary collection, because Wilhelm, the younger brother, continually honed the tales so that they would resonate with a growing literary public. Their books would become second in popularity only to the Bible in German-speaking lands. By the twentieth century, they would become the most famous collection of folk and fairy tales in the western world.
Read the passage and study the image from Sugar Changed the World.Caption: Based on drawings from around 7000 BCE, this image depicts rock climbers finding honey in cliffs. This is the earliest known form of honey collecting. (Eva Crane, World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting). . . .A rock drawing in Spain from about 7000 B.C. shows a man who has climbed a hillside, found a crevice holding a hive, and is reaching in to grab the honey. Indeed, a lucky wanderer in just about any part of Europe, Africa, or Asia that wasn’t covered with ice could stumble on a hive and—at the risk of some stings—come away with a treat. (People in the Americas had no bees, so used syrups made from maple trees, agave cactus, or mashed fruits for their sweeteners.) Then someone figured out that you didn't have to be lucky. You could hollow out a log near bees, and they would make it their home. You could "keep" bees—you didn't have to find them.

Sara is researching colonial America for her US history class. Which text best matches her reading purpose?
What evidence from the passage best supports the inference that making sugar was difficult? Select two options.
Read the excerpt from Persepolis.Which details best help develop the central idea of the panels? Select three options.Marjane says she is the last prophet.The sky behind Marjane is dark.Several people kneel at Marjane's feet.Marjane has a star around her face.All of the men look angrily at Marjane.

Which quotations from chapter 7 of Night convey an atmosphere of panic? Select two options.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.The fairs were very well organized. They featured covered galleries so that merchants could buy and sell even if rain came drumming down; cellars were so large, they resembled underground cities. At the fairs, merchants could trust the weights and measures, and a strict order prevailed for how things were to be sold. For the first twelve days one could sell only woven cloth—which is what the traders from northern Europe brought. Then the "sergeants" of the fair would walk through the streets crying, "Pack up, pack up" and all the cloth must be put away. Now the leather traders, who came from as far as Spain, and the fur merchants, whose goods might come from Russia, filled the tables with piles of hides and pelts.
Read the excerpt from Mohini's essay about the Grimm brothers.When the Grimm brothers first published their collection of folk tales, they stuck to one rule: they wanted to save stories from the past, which had only been spread by word of mouth. They wanted to use details from the changing lives of the average German family to show how the German culture evolved. They also wanted to show how storytelling makes strong connections in a community and is the sign of a civilized people. Their collection of tales was a gift to the German people. They had no idea that these tales would take on a life of their own, becoming a standard source for folklorists from other nations and ensuring their popularity throughout the world to this day.
Which event is part of the rising action in "Little Snow White"?
Read the sentence.Keisha will run in the spring 5K race, so she had started a training program next Monday.Which correction of the underlined verb phrase fixes the inappropriate shift in tense in this sentence?
Read the excerpt from "Children of the Drug Wars."To permanently stem this flow of children, we must address the complex root causes of violence in Honduras, as well as the demand for illegal drugs in the United States that is fueling that violence.What literary device supports the author’s purpose, which is to show what has led to the refugee crisis?
How does Orwell use satirical techniques to develop the theme that the abuse of language is part of the abuse of power? Select the two options.
Which paragraphs from the excerpt best support the conclusion that the author’s primary purpose is to teach a lesson? Select two options.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.In the 1400s, Spain and Portugal were competing to explore down the coast of Africa and find a sea route to Asia. That way, they could have the prized Asian spices they wanted without having to pay high prices to Venetian and Muslim middlemen. Spanish and Portuguese sailors searching for that sea route conquered the Canary Islands and the Azores. Soon they began building Muslim-style sugar plantations on the islands, some of them staffed by slaves purchased from nearby Africa. One sailor came to know these islands particularly well because he traded in "white gold"—sugar. And then, as he set off on his second voyage across the sea to what he thought was Asia, he carried sugar cane plants from Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, with him on his ship.His name was Christopher Columbus.
Read the excerpt from Animal Farm.As winter drew on, Mollie became more and more troublesome. She was late for work every morning and excused herself by saying that she had overslept, and she complained of mysterious pains, although her appetite was excellent. On every kind of pretext she would run away from work and go to the drinking pool, where she would stand foolishly gazing at her own reflection in the water. But there were also rumours of something more serious. One day, as Mollie strolled blithely into the yard, flirting her long tail and chewing at a stalk of hay, Clover took her aside."Mollie,” she said, "I have something very serious to say to you. This morning I saw you looking over the hedge that divides Animal Farm from Foxwood. One of Mr. Pilkington's men was standing on the other side of the hedge. And—I was a long way away, but I am almost certain I saw this—he was talking to you and you were allowing him to stroke your nose. What does that mean, Mollie?”"He didn't! I wasn't! It isn't true!” cried Mollie, beginning to prance about and paw the ground."Mollie! Look me in the face. Do you give me your word of honour that that man was not stroking your nose?”"It isn't true!” repeated Mollie, but she could not look Clover in the face, and the next moment she took to her heels and galloped away into the field.A thought struck Clover. Without saying anything to the others, she went to Mollie's stall and turned over the straw with her hoof. Hidden under the straw was a little pile of lump sugar and several bunches of ribbon of different colours.Three days later Mollie disappeared.
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