Unit 2 Assessment Answers

Read the excerpt from the interview with E.Y. (Yip) Harburg.When I lost my possessions, I found my creativity. I felt I was being born for the first time. So for me the world became beautiful.With the Crash, I realized that the greatest fantasy of all was business. The only realistic way of making a living was versifying. Living off your imagination.Based on the excerpt, which best describes Harburg’s view of the Great Depression?

Read the excerpt from "The Environmental Ethic."It is fashionable in some quarters to wave aside the small and obscure, the bugs and weeds, forgetting that an obscure moth from Latin America saved Australia’s pastureland from overgrowth by cactus, that the rosy periwinkle provided the cure for Hodgkin’s disease and childhood lymphocytic leukemia, that the bark of the Pacific yew offers hope for victims of ovarian and breast cancer, that a chemical from the saliva of leeches dissolves blood clots during surgery, and so on down a roster already grown long and illustrious despite the limited research addressed to it.Which of the following claims is best supported by the evidence in this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from the interview with E.Y. (Yip) Harburg.We thought American business was the Rock of Gibraltar. We were the prosperous nation, and nothing could stop us now. A brownstone house was forever. You gave it to your kids and they put marble fronts on it. There was a feeling of continuity. If you made it, it was there forever. Suddenly the big dream exploded. How do Harburg’s words reflect the experience of many Americans during the Great Depression?

Read the excerpt from "The Environmental Ethic." Mother Earth . . . is no more than the commonality of organisms and the physical environment they maintain with each passing moment, an environment that will destabilize and turn lethal if the organisms are disturbed too much. . . . To disregard the diversity of life is to risk catapulting ourselves into an alien environment. We will have become like the pilot whales that inexplicably beach themselves on New England shores.Which of the following choices best expresses the type of appeal Wilson uses in this passage?

Read the excerpt from Freakonomics. Now let’s look at the win-loss percentage between the 7–7 wrestlers and the 8–6 wrestlers the next time they meet, when neither one is on the bubble. In this case, there is no great pressure on the individual match. So you might expect the wrestlers who won their 7–7 matches in the previous tournament to do about as well as they had in earlier matches against these same opponents—that is, winning roughly 50 percent of the time. You certainly wouldn’t expect them to uphold their 80 percent clip. As it turns out, the data show that the 7–7 wrestlers win only 40 percent of the rematches. Eighty percent in one match and 40 percent in the next? How do you make sense of that?Which type of evidence does the authors use in this excerpt to support the claim that some sumo wrestlers will intentionally lose a match?

Read the excerpt from Freakonomics. It’s worth thinking about the incentive a wrestler might have to throw a match. Maybe he accepts a bribe (which would obviously not be recorded in the data). Or perhaps some other arrangement is made between the two wrestlers. Keep in mind that the pool of elite sumo wrestlers is extraordinarily tight-knit. Each of the sixty-six elite wrestlers fights fifteen of the others in a tournament every two months. Furthermore, each wrestler belongs to a stable that is typically managed by a former sumo champion, so even the rival stables have close ties. Which of the following claims is best supported by the evidence in this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from the interview with E.Y. (Yip) Harburg.The prevailing greeting at that time, on every block you passed, by some poor guy coming up, was: “Can you spare a dime?” Or: “Can you spare something for a cup of coffee?” . . . “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” finally hit on every block, on every street. I thought that could be a beautiful title. If I could only work it out by telling people, through the song, it isn’t just a man asking for a dime. This is the man who says: I built the railroads. I built that tower. I fought your wars. I was the kid with the drum. Why the hell should I be standing in line now? What happened to all this wealth I created? Why does Harburg feel that “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” is a legitimate question, not just a plea from a beggar?

Read the sentence.Nia, my best friend, scored the winning goal.Which is the best revision of the sentence?

Which sentence is written correctly?

Which excerpt from Fast Food Nation best illustrates the author’s use of the rhetorical appeal logos?

Read the excerpt from Fast Food Nation. Unlike Olympic gymnastics—an activity in which teenagers consistently perform at a higher level than adults—there’s nothing about the work in a fast food kitchen that requires young employees. Which type of evidence does the author use in this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from Fast Food Nation. The strict regimentation at fast food restaurants creates standardized products. It increases the throughput. And it gives fast food companies an enormous amount of power over their employees. “When management determines exactly how every task is to be done . . . and can impose its own rules about pace, output, quality, and technique,” the sociologist Robin Leidner has noted, “[it] makes workers increasingly interchangeable.”Which type of evidence is Schlosser using in this excerpt?

Which is the best use of punctuation?

Read the sentence.I am interested in drawing, painting, and make sculpture. Which is the best revision of the sentence?

Which sentence contains parallel elements?

Read the excerpt from the interview with E.Y. (Yip) Harburg.In the song the man is really saying: I made an investment in this country. Where the hell are my dividends? Is it a dividend to say: “Can you spare a dime?” What the hell is wrong? Let’s examine this thing. It’s more than just a bit of pathos. It doesn’t reduce him to a beggar. It makes him a dignified human, asking questions—and a bit outraged, too, as he should be.According to Harburg, the song “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”

Read the excerpt from song, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”Once I built a railroad, made it run, Made it race against time. Once I built a railroad, Now it's done— Which idea is conveyed in the excerpt?

Read the excerpt from Fast Food Nation. “When management determines exactly how every task is to be done . . . and can impose its own rules about pace, output, quality, and technique,” the sociologist Robin Leidner has noted, “[it] makes workers increasingly interchangeable.” The management no longer depends upon the talents or skills of its workers — those things are built into the operating system and machines. Jobs that have been “de-skilled” can be filled cheaply. The need to retain any individual worker is greatly reduced by the ease with which he or she can be replaced.Which best describes the type of evidence presented in this excerpt?

Which of the following pieces of evidence from Fast Food Nation best supports the author’s claim that teenagers are the ideal candidates for working in the fast food industry?

Which excerpt from the song, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” best emphasizes the idea that average Americans felt abandoned by the wealthy elite and the government?