Read the excerpt from The Great Gatsby.Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They were not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size. I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them.The use of words such as “fashionable,” “superficial,” “bizarre,” and “sinister” provide
Read the excerpt from Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens. The appearance of Gatsby from the shadows suggests that
Which strategy is the best way to improve the written expression in a redundant sentence?
Read the excerpt from Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. “Tenente,” Passini said. “We understand you let us talk. Listen. There is nothing as bad as war. We in the auto-ambulance cannot even realize at all how bad it is. When people realize how bad it is they cannot do anything to stop it because they go crazy. There are some people who never realize. There are people who are afraid of their officers. It is with them the war is made.” “I know it is bad but we must finish it.” “It doesn’t finish. There is no finish to a war.” “Yes there is.” Passini shook his head. “War is not won by victory. What if we take San Gabriele? What if we take the Carso and Monfalcome and Trieste? Where are we then? Did you see all the far mountains to-day? Do you think we could take all them too? Only if the Austrians stop fighting. One side must stop fighting. Why don’t we stop fighting? If they come down into Italy they will get tired and go away. They have their own country. But no, instead there is a war.”Which best describes the effect of Passini’s long pieces of dialogue?
Use the following definitions to answer the question.emerge:1. (verb) to come up, appearimmerge:1. (verb) to sink into, immerseWhich sentence contains correct word usage?
Which excerpt from The Great Gatsby best indicates that Nick is not fully content with his life?
Read the excerpt from the song, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”They used to tell me I was building a dream With peace and glory ahead— These lines emphasize the pre-Great Depression belief that
Read the sentence.The fake, counterfeit money, which isn't valid, was discovered in the crime investigation.What is the best way to revise this sentence to eliminate wordiness?
Which of the following sentences is written correctly?
Use the following definitions to answer the question.emit:1. (verb) to produce, to voiceomit:1. (verb) to leave something out, to forgetWhich sentence contains correct word usage?
Read the excerpt from the interview with E.Y. (Yip) Harburg.I was relieved when the Crash came. I was released. Being in business was something I detested. When I found that I could sell a song or a poem, I became me, I became alive. Other people didn’t see it that way. They were throwing themselves out of windows.Harburg was relieved when the crash occurred because
Read the excerpt from Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.The road was crowded and there were screens of corn-stalk and straw matting on both sides and matting over the top so that it was like the entrance at a circus or a native village.Keeping in mind Hemingway’s iceberg principle, what feeling is he trying to convey by describing the scene as an “entrance to a circus or a native village”?
Because of his journalistic background, Ernest Hemingway’s diction tends to be
Use the following definitions to answer the question.conscience:1. (noun) the sense of right and wrong2. (noun) inner thoughtsconscious:1. (adjective) aware2. (noun) area of the mind aware of surroundingsWhich sentence contains correct word usage?
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