Read the excerpt from "Harrison Bergeron."“All of a sudden you look so tired,” said Hazel. “Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa, so’s you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch.” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in a canvas bag, which was padlocked around George’s neck. “Go on and rest the bag for a little while,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.”George weighed the bag with his hands. “I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t notice it any more. It’s just a part of me.”This dialogue between George and Hazel portrays George as a
Read the excerpt from chapter 7 of Night.We all got up. We all pulled our soaked blankets tighter around our shoulders. And we tried to take a few steps, to shuffle back and forth, in place.Suddenly, a cry rose in the wagon, the cry of a wounded animal. Someone had just died.Others, close to death, imitated his cry. And their cries seemed to come from beyond the grave. Soon everybody was crying. Groaning. Moaning. Cries of distress hurled into the wind and the snow.The lament spread from wagon to wagon. It was contagious. And now hundreds of cries rose at once. The death rattle of an entire convoy with the end approaching. All boundaries had been crossed. Nobody had any strength left. And the night seemed endless.
Which is a compound-complex sentence?
Read the lines from The Elements of San Joaquín.When autumn rains flatten sycamore leaves,The tiny volcanos of dirtAnts raised around their holes,I should be out of work. My silverware and stack of plates will go unusedLike the old, my two good slacksWill smother under a growth of lintAnd smell of the old dustThat risesWhen the closet door opens or closes. The skin of my belly will tighten like a beltAnd there will be no reason for pockets.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Read the excerpt from chapter 2 of Night by Elie Wiesel.There was a woman among us, a certain Mrs. Schächter. She was in her fifties and her ten-year-old son was with her, crouched in a corner. Her husband and two older sons had been deported with the first transport, by mistake. The separation had totally shattered her.
Based on "Harrison Bergeron," which statement would Kurt Vonnegut most likely support?
Read this excerpt from “Not a Dove, But No Longer a Hawk.” I remember distinctly the thrill of climbing aboard a U.S. Army helicopter in the cool of the morning and taking off across the rice fields with a South Vietnamese battalion for a day’s jousting with the Vietcong guerillas. There was hope then that the non-Communist Vietnamese might win their war. I was proud of the young American pilots sitting at the controls in the cockpit and I was grateful for the opportunity to witness this adventure and to report it. We are fighting now, I used to think, and some day we will triumph and this will be a better country. Which choice best describes how the author builds conflict in this excerpt?
Which quotation from chapter 2 of Night by Elie Wiesel best demonstrates the author’s viewpoint about the dehumanization of the passengers?
Read the excerpt from "Harrison Bergeron."The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. “Play your best,” he told them, “and I’ll make you barons and dukes and earls.”The music began. It was normal at first—cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.How does Vonnegut use irony in this excerpt?
Read this excerpt from "A Visit from the Goon Squad."At last he found Rebecca, smiling, holding Cara-Ann in her arms. She was dancing. They were too far away for Alex to reach them, and the distance felt irrevocable, a chasm that would keep him from ever again touching the delicate silk of Rebecca’s eyelids, or feeling, through his daughter’s ribs, the scramble of her heartbeat. Without the zoom, he couldn’t even see them. In desperation, he T’d Rebecca, pls wAt 4 me, my bUtiful wyf, then kept his zoom trained on her face until he saw her register the vibration, pause in her dancing, and reach for it.Which of these is the best question to address the societal issue raised in this excerpt?
Read the lines from Between Words.Desire. Remember the blossoms In rain, because in the end Not even the ants Will care who we were When they climb our faces To undo the smiles.
Read this excerpt from Walt Whitman’s poem “In Cabin'd Ships at Sea” from Leaves of Grass.The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables, The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here, And this is ocean's poem. Why did the author most likely choose this structure for his poem?
Read the lines from Between Words. Love,The moon is between clouds, And we’re between words That could deepen But never arrive. Like this walk. We could go Under trees and moons, With the stars tearing Like mouths in the night sky, And we’ll never arrive. That’s the point.
Which best describes a theme of both “Ambush” and “Facing It”?
Read the excerpt from “A Visit from the Goon Squad.” Scotty climbed onto the platform and sat on the stool. Without a glance at the audience or a word of introduction, he began to play “I Am a Little Lamb,” a tune whose childishness was belied by the twanging filigree of his slide guitar, its gushy metallic complexity. He followed that with “Goats Like Oats” and “A Little Tree Is Just Like Me.” The amplification was fine and powerful enough to eclipse the chopper throb and deliver the sound even to the distant reaches of the crowd, where it disappeared between buildings. Alex listened in a sort of cringe, expecting a roar of rejection from these thousands he’d managed secretly to assemble, whose goodwill had already been taxed by the long wait. But it didn’t happen; the pointers, who already knew these songs, clapped and screeched their approval, and the adults seemed intrigued, attuned to double meanings and hidden layers, which were easy to find. Which of the following choices best describes the structure used in this excerpt?
Read the lines from The Elements of San Joaquín.At dusk the first stars appear.Not one eager finger points toward them.A little later the stars spread with the nightAnd an orange moon risesTo lead them, like a shepherd, toward dawn.
Read the excerpt from "Harrison Bergeron."“I am the Emperor!” cried Harrison. “Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!” He stamped his foot and the studio shook.“Even as I stand here—” he bellowed, “crippled, hobbled, sickened—I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!” Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds. Harrison’s scrap-iron handicaps crashed to the floor.What do Harrison’s words and actions reveal about his character?
Read this excerpt from "A Visit from the Goon Squad."That’s when he began singing the songs he’d been writing for years underground, songs no one had ever heard, or anything like them—“Eyes in My Head,” “X’s and O’s,” “Who’s Watching Hardest”—ballads of paranoia and disconnection ripped from the chest of a man you knew just by looking had never had a page or a profile or a handle or a handset, who was part of no one’s data, a guy who had lived in the cracks all these years, forgotten and full of rage, in a way that now registered as pure. Untouched.How does the author use satire in this excerpt?
Read the lines from Between Words.Just what is there to do? Eat Is one, sleep is another. But before the night ends We could walk under These camphors, hand in hand If you like, namedropping The great cities of the past, And if a dog should join Us with his happy tail, The three of us could talk.
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