AnswersEnglish Language Arts 9Mystery and Suspense

Mystery and Suspense — Test Answers

22 verified answers
2
Free Preview

In "Racing the Storm,” the author creates suspense through pacing, which is the

A
speed at which the plot develops.
B
thing that characters think but don’t say.
C
struggle between opposing characters.
D
atmosphere that the story creates.
5

Read this paragraph from The Dark Game . When the war began, Elizabeth Van Lew was considered a southern "spinster." She was in her early forties and unmarried. What could she do, she wondered, to serve her country? The answer came to her when she recalled her father's aunt Letitia telling her how she had ministered to the captured troops of the Continental army during the American Revolution, especially those who had been wounded in action. What is the best summary of this paragraph?

A
Elizabeth Van Lew was called a spinster in the South during the time of the Civil War because she had been unmarried for such a long time.
B
Elizabeth Van Lew wanted to help during the Civil War and drew inspiration from a relative who had taken care of wounded Revolutionary soldiers.
C
Elizabeth Van Lew asked herself what she wanted to do to help the Northern cause during the Civil War.
D
Elizabeth Van Lew was an unmarried woman in her forties who wanted to serve her country but did not know how.
7

Which best describes the author’s viewpoint about the people who learned to decipher the Enigma in "The Enigma Machine”?

A
They deserved more recognition for their service than they got.
B
They played a very significant role in helping Allied forces.
C
They were not as important as the soldiers on the battlefield.
D
They should not have tricked the Germans by sending false codes.
8

Which excerpt from "The Enigma Machine” supports the claim that German soldiers accidentally helped the Allies figure out the Enigma codes?

A
With the right settings, the recipient only needed to type in the encrypted text and the message would light up in plain text.
B
To use the Enigma machine, an operator typed a message into the machine, which would be scrambled by three rotors . . .
C
The Polish intelligence developed the "bomba", a complicated system of wires and rotors to scan and decode messages within hours.
D
Typing in messages was a boring task, so operators took shortcuts, like choosing three letters in a row or other simple, predictable patterns.
9

Which excerpt from " The Enigma Machine ” supports the idea that Allied forces expected the Germans to complicate their coding system?

A
The Enigma machine was invented at the end of World War I by German engineer Arthur Scherbius. He used rotors and an electrical pathway in his design.
B
The telegram was intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence, and it caused such outrage in the US that it helped generate public support for the United States’ entry into the war.
C
After 1938, when the Germans introduced additional rotors and plugs to increase the number of possible combinations, Polish and British cryptologists had already developed alternative methods of recovering the daily keys.
D
The two main weaknesses of the Enigma machine were careless operators and the distribution of the daily key. The daily key was printed on paper, and it had the potential of being captured en route to the field.
10

Which excerpt from "Code Talkers” best illustrates that the Navajo code talkers were quick-thinking and precise?

A
The code was comprised of two components. First, Navajo words were chosen to represent specific, frequently used military terms for which there was no direct equivalent in the Navajo language.
B
During the famous battle of Iwo Jima, six Navajo code talkers operated continuously, transmitting each message without a single mistake.
C
The code talkers’ work has also been recognized in popular culture. The movie Windtalkers and the novel Code Talker both offer fictional accounts of the code talkers’ experiences.
D
Although American Indian soldiers had effectively used their languages to create and transmit secret messages during World War I, military leaders were reluctant to use the code a second time, fearing that it would no longer be effective.
13

Read the excerpt from "Code Talkers.” The use of Navajo code was so successful that its existence was kept secret until 1968 so that the Marines could continue to use it, if necessary. Two decades later, many of the code talkers were recognized for their service. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan declared August 14 Navajo Code Talkers Day, and in 2000 President Bill Clinton awarded the Congressional Medal to the first twenty-nine code talkers. In the years since, code talkers from the Navajo and thirty-two other American Indian tribes have been awarded the medal. The author’s purpose in this paragraph was to

A
inform readers that the code talkers were recognized by the US government for their critical work during wartime.
B
entertain readers with a story about how code talkers received medals for their service during wartime.
C
persuade readers that they should learn to create code so they can be recognized by the US government.
D
educate readers about the history of US presidents and holidays created to honor groups like the code talkers.
14

The author of "Code Talkers” supports the idea that the code talkers were essential to America’s war effort by

A
highlighting the complexity of the Navajo language the code talkers used.
B
illustrating why the code talkers chose to help the US by creating a code.
C
illustrating how the code talkers provided a specific service in a major battle.
D
highlighting the bravery of the soldiers the code talkers worked with.
16

Read the excerpt from "The Rosetta Stone.” Egyptian scripts were replaced with Coptic, which included six demotic characters. In the ninth century, Arab scholar Abu Bakr Ahmad Ibn-Wahshiyah was able to partly decipher the hieroglyphs by comparing them to Coptic. But in the eleventh century, it too was replaced, by Arabic. The link was once again severed. For centuries, Western scholars tried to decipher the hieroglyphs, with little success. They were working under a false hypothesis, that the hieroglyphs were pictograms, with each symbol representing an object or an idea. Which is the best summary of this paragraph?

A
Hieroglyphs are letters, not symbols representing a whole idea, which many scholars throughout history were not aware of.
B
For a long time, scholars from different places tried to figure out the meaning of hieroglyphs, but they mistakenly believed each hieroglyph was a symbol.
C
After Coptic became the prominent script, it was replaced by Arabic, which resulted in breaking society’s connection to ancient times.
D
For many centuries, people who spoke a variety of different languages tried to figure out the meaning of hieroglyphs.
18

Which best describes the author’s viewpoint toward the actual Rosetta Stone in "The Rosetta Stone”?

A
It is a piece of history that has an exciting and entertaining story.
B
It is a historical artifact that scholars spent too much time trying to understand.
C
It is something that is interesting to learn about, but it is not historically significant.
D
It is a fascinating artifact that can help people better understand the past.
19

Which evidence from "The Rosetta Stone” supports the claim that Thomas Young played a key role in helping to decipher the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone?

A
Unfortunately, Young abandoned his research, believing that the letters in the cartouche were just an exception . . .
B
Young used an old code breaker's technique of looking for a crib, or a word that can be identified in the text.
C
Champollion deciphered the cartouche by identifying hieroglyphs translated by Young, and he used his knowledge of Coptic to discover that it belonged to the pharaoh Ramses.
D
Young's results were published and fell into the hands of a talented linguist, Jean-Francois Champollion.
20

If someone were to describe "The Rosetta Stone” to a friend, he or she would most likely compare it to

A
a romance novel.
B
a mystery novel.
C
an adventure novel.
D
a fantasy novel.

Did you find these answers helpful?