Part 1: Text Details and Context Clues in an Informational Text Answers

Read the excerpt from "Benin Plaque: The Oba with Europeans.”Many wild theories were put forward. It was thought that the plaques must have come from ancient Egypt, or perhaps that the people of Benin were one of the lost tribes of Israel. Or the sculptures must have derived from European influence (after all, these were the contemporaries of Michelangelo, Donatello and Cellini). But research quickly established that the Benin plaques were entirely West African creations, made without European influence. The Europeans had to revisit, and to overhaul, their assumptions of easy cultural superiority.

Read the excerpt from "Benin Plaque: The Oba with Europeans.”The Portuguese galleons, cutting out all the middlemen and able to carry much bigger cargoes, offered a totally new kind of trading opportunity. They and their Dutch and English competitors, who followed later in the sixteenth century, carried gold and ivory to Europe and in return brought commodities from all over the world that were greatly valued by the Oba’s court, including coral from the Mediterranean, cowry shells from the India

Read the excerpt from "Ship's Chronometer from HMS Beagle.”As a maritime nation, the British were concerned with one problem in particular: they could make clocks that kept very good time as long as they stayed perfectly still but not when they were shaken about, and particularly not on board a rolling ship. If you wanted to sail, it was impossible to keep a precise record of time.

Read the excerpt from "Benin Plaque: The Oba with Europeans.”Whatever the real facts, the British, in ostensible revenge for the killing, organized a punitive expedition which raided Benin City, exiled the Oba and created the protectorate of Southern Nigeria.

What type of context clue offers information about the function, features, or appearance of an unfamiliar word?

Read the excerpt from "Ship's Chronometer from HMS Beagle."These were enormous and belief-shattering ideas for many people in the nineteenth century, but time was also changing in a much more day-to-day, or rather hour-to-hour, way. Thanks to clockmakers like Earnshaw, precise and reliable clocks and watches became ever more affordable. Before long the whole of Britain was running by the clock, and the measurement of time had been severed from the natural cycle of days and seasons. The clock ruled every aspect of life – shops and schools, pleasure and work. As Charles Dickens wrote, ‘There was even railway time observed in clocks, as if the sun itself had given in.’

Which details from the excerpt help readers visualize the chronometer? Select 3 options.

Which sentence best establishes visual details?

Consider the paragraph and image.In the early 1900s, a handy invention lightened laundry loads by squeezing water out of garments. Homemakers could attach a clothes wringer to a bucket with built-in vice clamps and crank individual pieces of laundry through two sturdy rollers.

Read the excerpt from "Ship's Chronometer from HMS Beagle” and consider the accompanying photo.It was not until around 1800 that two London clockmakers managed to simplify the chronometer mechanisms so that virtually any ship – and certainly the larger ships of the Royal Navy – could carry them as routine equipment.