Writing an Argumentative Essay about the Nobel Prize in Literature — Cumulative exam Answers

Read the passage from Ronald Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" speech.Where four decades ago there was rubble, today in West Berlin there is the greatest industrial output of any city in Germany—busy office blocks, fine homes and apartments, proud avenues, and the spreading lawns of park land. Where a city's culture seemed to have been destroyed, today there are two great universities, orchestras and an opera, countless theaters, and museums. Where there was want, today there's abundance. . . . From devastation, from utter ruin, you Berliners have, in freedom, rebuilt a city that once again ranks as one of the greatest on earth. . . .In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted: "We will bury you." But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind—too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.

Read the excerpt from act 2 of A Doll's House.Nora: How should you understand it? A wonderful thing is going to happen!Mrs. Linde: A wonderful thing?Nora: Yes, a wonderful thing! But it is so terrible, Christine; it mustn't happen, not for all the world.Mrs. Linde: I will go at once and see Krogstad.Nora: Don't go to him; he will do you some harm.Mrs. Linde: There was a time when he would gladly do anything for my sake.Nora: He?Mrs. Linde: Where does he live?

Read the passage from A Raisin in the Sun.MAMA: Lord have mercy, baby. You done gone and bought your grandmother a hat?TRAVIS (very proud): Open it!She does and lifts out an elaborate, but very elaborate, wide gardening hat, and all the adults break up at the sight of it.RUTH: Travis, honey, what is that?TRAVIS (who thinks it is beautiful and appropriate): It's a gardening hat! Like the ladies always have on in the magazines when they work in their gardens.BENEATHA (giggling fiercely): Travis—we were trying to make Mama Mrs. Miniver—not Scarlett O'Hara!MAMA (indignantly): What's the matter with you all! This here is a beautiful hat! (Absurdly.) I always wanted me one just like it!She pops it on her head to prove it to her grandson, and the hat is ludicrous and considerably oversized.RUTH: Hot dog! Go, Mama!WALTER (doubled over with laughter): I'm sorry, Mama—but you look like you ready to go out and chop you some cotton sure enough!They all laugh except Mama, out of deference to Travis’s feelings.MAMA (gathering the boy up to her): Bless your heart—this is the prettiest hat I ever owned—

Angeline is preparing an oral presentation about the need for an alternative to the town landfill. What is the best technique or strategy she can use to motivate and inspire her audience to take action?

Read the passage from "By the Waters of Babylon.”How shall I tell what I saw? There was no smell of man left, on stone or metal. Nor were there many trees in that wilderness of stone. There are many pigeons, nesting and dropping in the towers—the gods must have loved them, or, perhaps, they used them for sacrifices. There are wild cats that roam the god-roads, green-eyed, unafraid of man. At night they wail like demons but they are not demons. The wild dogs are more dangerous, for they hunt in a pack, but them I did not meet till later. Everywhere there are the carved stones, carved with magical numbers or words.

When revising an essay, how can a writer best connect ideas more clearly?

Read the passage from "Marriage Is a Private Affair” by Chinua Achebe."I shall never see her,” was the reply. From that night the father scarcely spoke to his son. He did not, however, cease hoping that he would realize how serious was the danger he was heading for. Day and night he put him in his prayers.Nnaemeka, for his own part, was very deeply affected by his father’s grief. But he kept hoping that it would pass away. If it had occurred to him that never in the history of his people had a man married a woman who spoke a different tongue, he might have been less optimistic. "It has never been heard,” was the verdict of an old man speaking a few weeks later. In that short sentence he spoke for all of his people. This man had come with others to commiserate with Okeke when news went round about his son’s behaviour. By that time the son had gone back to Lagos."It has never been heard,” said the old man again with a sad shake of his head."What did Our Lord say?” asked another gentleman. "Sons shall rise against their fathers; it is there in the Holy Book.”"It is the beginning of the end,” said another.

Read the passage from an argumentative essay.Healthcare costs are becoming an issue for many Americans. In just two years, the average family has seen an increase of 3 percent in insurance costs. The increase rises to 25 percent when you include families who buy insurance on an exchange. At this rate, health care will soon be completely unaffordable for most Americans. Therefore, lowering the cost of health insurance must be a priority for lawmakers.

Which type of fallacy uses circular reasoning to support an argument?

Read the two passages about school uniforms.Passage 1"What should I wear today? Will this help me fit in?” If we listen to recent studies, which reveal the impact that school uniforms have, our children no longer have to ask themselves those questions. Uniforms decrease fighting. Uniforms decrease drug use. Uniforms decrease vandalism. There is no other possible solution to fix our schools.Passage 2When schools introduce uniforms, students become complacent, no longer interested in individuality. When schools introduce uniforms, schools lose their identities, blending in to look the same as other schools. When schools introduce uniforms, what is the true cost? The unfortunate answer will come as no surprise.

Read the excerpt from "A Latina Judge's Voice" by Hon. Sonia Sotomayor.Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues, including Brown.However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Others simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

Read the excerpt from act 3 of A Doll’s House.Nora: Maybe. But you neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over—and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you—when the whole thing was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile. [Getting up.] Torvald—it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children—. Oh, I can't bear to think of it! I could tear myself into little bits!

Read the excerpt from act 3 of A Doll’s House.Helmer: Do you know, you ought to embroider.Mrs. Linde: Really? Why?Helmer: Yes, it's far more becoming. Let me show you. You hold the embroidery thus in your left hand, and use the needle with the right—like this—with a long, easy sweep. Do you see?Mrs. Linde: Yes, perhaps—Helmer: But in the case of knitting—that can never be anything but ungraceful; look here—the arms close together, the knitting-needles going up and down—it has a sort of Chinese effect—. That was really excellent champagne they gave us.Mrs. Linde: Well,—goodnight, Nora, and don't be self-willed any more.Helmer: That's right, Mrs. Linde.Mrs. Linde. Goodnight, Mr. Helmer.Helmer [accompanying her to the door]: Goodnight, goodnight. I hope you will get home all right. I should be very happy to—but you haven't any great distance to go. Goodnight, goodnight. [She goes out; he shuts the door after her, and comes in again.] Ah!—at last we have got rid of her. She is a frightful bore, that woman.

Read the excerpt from act 2 of A Doll's House.Nora: [glancing at the card] Oh! [Puts it in her pocket.]Rank: Is there anything wrong?Nora: No, no, not in the least. It is only something—it is my new dress—Rank: What? Your dress is lying there.Nora: Oh, yes, that one; but this is another. I ordered it. Torvald mustn't know about it—Rank: Oho! Then that was the great secret.Nora: Of course. Just go in to him; he is sitting in the inner room. Keep him as long as—Rank: Make your mind easy; I won't let him escape.

Read Mireille's rebuttal to the counterclaim that Bob Dylan's lyrics cannot be considered literature.Although it is true that Bob Dylan is primarily a songwriter, I consider his lyrics to be just as good as any poetry.

Which text evidence from the passage supports the theme that even nonliving things contain a life force? Select two options.

Read this prompt.Create a multimedia presentation about the risk to farmers using standard farming methods such as pesticides, as compared to organic farming techniques. Use research and evidence to support your opinion. Use persuasive techniques and a variety of visual aids in your presentation.

Which ideas from the excerpt would be most appropriate to include in a summary? Select two options.

Which image would be the best choice for convincing a middle school audience to clean up litter on a local waterway?

Read the line from Rita Dove’s poem "Sonnet in Primary Colors,” then study Frida Kahlo’s painting Self-Portrait with Monkey and Parrot.the thumbprint searing her immutable brow.