Read the excerpt from "Mother Tongue."Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother’s English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It’s my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world. How does Tan build a central idea of her story in the excerpt?
Read the excerpts from “Take the Tortillas Out of Your Poetry” and “Speaking Arabic.”My friend had concluded that if he took his language and culture out of his poetry, he stood a better chance of receiving a fellowship. He took out his native language, the poetic patois of our reality, the rich mixture of Spanish, English, pachuco and street talk which we know so well. In other words, he took the tortillas out of his poetry, which is to say he took the soul out of his poetry. At a neighborhood fair in Texas, somewhere between the German Oom-pah Sausage Stand and the Mexican Gorditas booth, I overheard a young man say to his friend, “I wish I had a heritage. Sometimes I feel—so lonely for one.” And the tall American trees were dangling their thick branches right down over his head.Which structural element is used in the excerpt by Anaya but not in the excerpt by Nye?
Read this excerpt from "How the Internet and Other Technologies Came About."The Pentagon wanted to ensure that their pilots would be able to fly their jets and bombers in the most unpredictable, hostile environments, including the presence of huge winds whipped up by nuclear fireballs. To accomplish this, the Pentagon developed flight simulators, in what was the birth of virtual reality. The pilots would sit in chairs with goggles placed over their eyes and use joysticks to control the simulated computer image in their headset. Select the most accurate summary of Kaku’s argument.
Read this excerpt from "Like Mexicans.". . . I ignored them and climbed the back fence to see my best friend, Scott, a second-generation Okie.What is the meaning of the underlined term in this context?
How does Michio Kaku establish the sense of urgency that compelled the development of the Internet in "How the Internet and Other Technologies Came About"?
Read this excerpt from "Choreographers of Matter, Life, and Intelligence."But the few wondrous shells and pebbles picked up by Newton and other scientists on the seashore helped to trigger a marvelous chain of events. A profound transformation occurred in human society. With Newton’s mechanics came powerful machines, and eventually the steam engine, the motive force which reshaped the world by overturning agrarian society, spawning factories and stimulating commerce, unleashing the industrial revolution, and opening up entire continents with the railroad.Select the most accurate summary of Kaku’s argument.
Read the excerpt from Frederick Douglass’s speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.Which phrase best describes the connotation of the word “reigns”?
Read the excerpt from Leslie Marmon Silko’s story "The Man to Send Rain Clouds."The priest stared down at his scuffed brown loafers and the worn hem of his cassock. “For a Christian burial it was necessary.”His voice was distant, and Leon thought that his blue eyes looked tired.“It's O.K., Father, we just want him to have plenty of water.”The priest sank down into the green chair and picked up a glossy missionary magazine. He turned the colored pages full of lepers and pagans without looking at them.“You know I can't do that, Leon. There should have been the Last Rites and a funeral Mass at the very least.”Leon put on his green cap and pulled the flaps down over his ears. “It's getting late, Father. I've got to go.”Which statement best describes the thematic significance of this dialogue?
Read the excerpt from “Take the Tortillas Out of Your Poetry.”For me, reading has always been a path toward liberation and fulfillment. To learn to read is to start down the road of liberation, a road which should be accessible to everyone. No one has the right to keep you from reading, and yet that is what is happening in many areas in this country today. There are those who think they know best what we should read. These censors are at work in all areas of our daily lives.To convince readers that censors have unjust motives, the author uses rhetoric to appeal mostly to
Which piece of dialogue from Leslie Marmon Silko’s story "The Man to Send Rain Clouds" best reveals that Father Paul sees compromise between the two faiths as the best option?
Read this excerpt from "Talking Robots."Sejnowski rejected the usual top-down approach to reproducing human speech. He threw out the fat dictionaries of pronunciation and programs brimming with the rules of phonetics and the tedious list of exceptions to all the previous rules, which had no rhyme or reason. Instead, he replaced all this with a surprisingly simple neural circuit. What is the author’s purpose for including this statement?
Read the excerpt from the Declaration of Independence.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.Which best describes the language in this excerpt?
Read the excerpt from Leslie Marmon Silko’s story "The Man to Send Rain Clouds."The priest sank down into the green chair and picked up a glossy missionary magazine. He turned the colored pages full of lepers and pagans without looking at them."You know I can't do that, Leon. There should have been the Last Rites and a funeral Mass at the very least."Leon put on his green cap and pulled the flaps down over his ears. "It's getting late, Father. I've got to go."When Leon opened the door Father Paul stood up and said, "Wait." He left the room and came back wearing a long brown overcoat. What does the outcome of this discussion reveal about the priest?
Read the excerpt from “Take the Tortillas Out of Your Poetry.”My friend had concluded that if he took his language and culture out of his poetry, he stood a better chance of receiving a fellowship. He took out his native language, the poetic patois of our reality, the rich mixture of Spanish, English, pachuco and street talk which we know so well. In other words, he took the tortillas out of his poetry, which is to say he took the soul out of his poetry. Which best explains how Anaya’s text structure establishes his voice in the excerpt?
Read the excerpt from "Mother Tongue."And here you would be presented with a list of four possible pairs, one of which showed the same kind of relationship: red is to stoplight, bus is to arrival, chills is to fever, yawn is to boring. Well, I could never think that way. I knew what the tests were asking, but I could not block out of my mind the images already created by the first pair, “sunset is to nightfall”—and I would see a burst of colors against a darkening sky, the moon rising, the lowering of a curtain of stars.How does Tan build a central idea of her story in the excerpt?
Read the two excerpts about Jorge del Pino from Dreaming in Cuban.Excerpt 1: My grandfather came running and said, “Celia, let the girl go. She belongs with Lourdes.” Excerpt 2: “Pilar doesn’t hate you, hija. She just hasn’t learned to love you yet.”Which statement best synthesizes the ideas in these two excerpts?
Read the excerpt from Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue.”I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mother’s “limited” English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say. That is, because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect.Which phrase from this excerpt best indicates to the reader that the purpose of this essay is to inform?
Read the excerpt from “Speaking Arabic.”At a neighborhood fair in Texas, somewhere between the German Oom-pah Sausage Stand and the Mexican Gorditas booth, I overheard a young man say to his friend, “I wish I had a heritage. Sometimes I feel—so lonely for one.” And the tall American trees were dangling their thick branches right down over his head.Which best explains how Nye’s text structure helps establish her voice in the excerpt?
Read the excerpt from Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban.My father knew I understood more than I could say. He told me stories about Cuba after Columbus came. He said that the Spaniards wiped out more Indians with smallpox than with muskets.Which best describes an element of magic realism used by Garcia in this excerpt?
Read the sentence from “Speaking Arabic.”The cousins and neighbors file in to say, “Keef ha-lik?”—How are you?—the door opening into a thousand rooms.Which best explains how Nye’s word choice helps establish her voice in the excerpt?
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