Speaking and Listening: Formal Debate — Unit test Answers

Read the passage from "How Should One Read a Book?”The thirty-two chapters of a novel—if we consider how to read a novel first—are an attempt to make something as formed and controlled as a building: but words are more impalpable than bricks; reading is a longer and more complicated process than seeing.

Read the passage from "How Should One Read a Book?”Yet few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning.

Read the passage from "How Should One Read a Book?”Then turn from your blurred and littered pages to the opening pages of some great novelist—Defoe, Jane Austen, Hardy. Now you will be better able to appreciate their mastery.

Look at the procedural text.

Read the excerpt from "Career Planning for High Schoolers."According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the most popular fields of study for associate’s degree recipients between 2001–02 and 2011–12 were liberal arts and sciences, general studies, and humanities.

Read the excerpt from "Digging"The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slapOf soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edgeThrough living roots awaken in my head.But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.Between my finger and my thumbThe squat pen rests.I’ll dig with it.Read the haiku by Bashō. When the winter chrysanthemums go,there’s nothing to write about but radishes.What common concern do these poems share?

Read the affirmative claim and the negative counterclaim.Affirmative claim: All students should have access to a free college education. Within the last twenty years, the average cost of college has nearly tripled, making a college degree unobtainable for many.Negative counterclaim: Most students already receive some form of financial assistance that reduces the cost of a college education. Since many states are already financially burdened, it would be irresponsible of them to cover all college fees for all students.

Read Pat Mora’s poem quoted in "The Leader in the Mirror."Immigrantswrap their babies in the American flag,feed them mashed hot dogs and apple pie,name them Bill and Daisy,buy them blonde dolls that blink blueeyes or a football and tiny cleatsbefore the baby can even walk,speak to them in thick EnglishNow read the excerpt from Mora’s essay "The Leader in the Mirror."My own father was once a paper boy for the newspaper hosting the banquet. I might not have known that fact, nor his long history of hard work, had I not been listening to him with my tape recorder a few years ago. I did not want the students to wait as long as I had to begin preserving the rich inheritance of their family voices. The strength of their heritage would give them the courage to face the future.

Which quotation from Derek Walcott’s Midsummer contains an allusion?

Which statement best describes the purpose of a conclusion in a persuasive letter?

Read the excerpt from "Ghost House."The whippoorwill is coming to shoutAnd hush and cluck and flutter about

Based on the passage, what are the best ways to describe Tom Sawyer’s character? Select 3 options.

Which line from "Ghost House" summarizes the speaker’s overall perspective?

Which excerpt from "Ghost House" uses both alliteration and assonance to add emphasis?

fearhappinesshopelonging

Which excerpt from Tom Sawyer allows the reader to infer the time of year?

creedssufficedharborenergy

celebrateshallassumebelongs

Read the passage from "Song of Myself."You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

impartialityindifferenceperspectivepopularity