Pretest Answers

Read the excerpt from President Woodrow Wilson’s speech, “War Message to Congress.” It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars. Based on the excerpt, what can be said about President’s Wilson’s character?

Read the excerpt from President Woodrow Wilson’s speech, “War Message to Congress.” We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval . Which best states the type of appeal that is in the excerpt?

Read the sentence. As president of the Student Council for two years now, I think that it is time we try to establish a better system for spending our funds. What kind of appeal is the speaker using in this sentence?

Read the excerpt from President Woodrow Wilson’s speech, “War Message to Congress.” It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. Which emotion is President Wilson most likely trying to evoke in his listeners?

Read the excerpt from President Woodrow Wilson’s speech, “War Message to Congress.” I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only for the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. Which statement best describes the main idea of the excerpt?

To appeal to his audience, in “War Message to Congress,” Wilson mostly relies on

Read the excerpt from President Woodrow Wilson’s speech, “War Message to Congress.” On the 3rd of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the 1st day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feelings away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion. Who is the intended audience of this speech?

Read the sentences. Fellow students, I know I will be a wonderful class president because I truly care about all of you, and I want this school to be the best place that it can possibly be. I am open and willing to listen, and do whatever I need to do to help all of you. In these sentences, the speaker is appealing to

Read the excerpt from President Woodrow Wilson’s speech, “War Message to Congress.” We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. Which is the best reason why President Wilson uses the word “we”?

Read the excerpt from President Woodrow Wilson’s speech, “War Message to Congress.” With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty . . . Which best expresses the type of appeal in this excerpt?