Unit Test Answers

Read this excerpt from "A Visit from the Goon Squad."Whatever the reason, a swell of approval palpable as rain lifted from the center of the crowd and rolled out toward its edges, where it crashed against buildings and water wall and rolled back at Scotty with redoubled force, lifting him off his stool, onto his feet (the roadies quickly adjusting the microphones), exploding the quavering husk Scotty had appeared to be just moments before and unleashing something strong, charismatic, and fierce. Anyone who was there that day will tell you the concert really started when Scotty stood up.How does the author portray Scotty in this excerpt?

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?

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 "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 this excerpt from Infinite Jest.I cannot make myself understood. ‘I am not just a jock,’ I say slowly. Distinctly. ‘My transcript for the last year might have been dickied a bit, maybe, but that was to get me over a rough spot. The grades prior to that are de moi.’ My eyes are closed; the room is silent.How does the narration affect the narrator’s credibility in this excerpt?

Read this excerpt from Infinite Jest.‘My application’s not bought,’ I am telling them, calling into the darkness of the red cave that opens out before closed eyes. ‘I am not just a boy who plays tennis. I have an intricate history. Experiences and feelings. I’m complex.‘I read,’ I say. ‘I study and read. I bet I’ve read everything you’ve read. Don’t think I haven’t. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM-drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, “The library, and step on it.” My instincts concerning syntax and mechanics are better than your own, I can tell, with due respect.What assumption does the narrator make 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 this excerpt from "Look Homeward, Angel."Like all the older children of Major Pentland she had, since her twentieth year, begun the slow accretion of land: from the savings of her small wage as teacher and book-agent, she had already purchased one or two pieces of earth. From this excerpt, Eliza can best be described as a

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 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.I knew I could never let Mom hear the messages, because protecting her is one of my most important raisons d’être, so what I did was I took Dad’s emergency money from on top of his dresser, and I went to the Radio Shack on Amsterdam. What assumption does the narrator make in this excerpt?

Which sentence is punctuated correctly?

How does Michio Kaku illustrate the need for organization of the Internet in "Why No Policeman on the Block?"

Read this excerpt from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.His tuxedo was over the chair he used to sit on when he tied his shoes, and I thought, Weird. Why wasn’t it hung up with his suits? Had he come from a fancy party the night before he died? But then why would he have taken off his tuxedo without hanging it up? Maybe it needed to be cleaned? But I didn’t remember a fancy party. I remembered him tucking me in....How does the narration affect the story in this excerpt?

Read the sentence. That is [________] desk, but the one by the window belongs to you. Which word correctly fills in the blank?

Read the sentences. Because of the ice. The roads were a slippery hazard. Which is the best revision of the sentences?

Look at this chart of chronological events from Outcasts United.Which sentence best fills in the blank?

Read the excerpt from Outcasts United.Tryouts were to be held on the field of the Clarkston Community Center, an old brick and cream-colored clapboard building on Indian Creek Drive. At the time, the center was run by an energetic African American named Chris Holliday and governed by a board of trustees made up mostly of longtime Clarkston residents. But it was the refugee community that seemed to really embrace the center.The person point of view is used in this excerpt.

Read the excerpt from Elie Wiesel’s All Rivers Run to the Sea.My very last resistance broken, I let myself be pulled, pushed, and kicked, like a deaf and mute sleepwalker. Read the text and study the image from Art Spiegelman’s Maus.The theme best expressed by both Wiesel and Spiegelman is

Read the excerpt from "Finding Unity in the Alabama Coal Mines.”The UMWA’s efforts were so successful that they influenced practices in other trade unions as well. In 1901, arguments raised by UMWA members led to the repeal of discriminatory practices at the Birmingham Trades Council, the organization to which all unions in the city of Birmingham belonged.Two years later, in 1903, the coal companies began to assert significant power against the union, denying union contracts and instituting policies of hiring only non-union employees. In 1908, under the auspices of the Alabama Coal Operators Association, company owners voted to cut worker wages by seventeen percent.

Which excerpt from "Finding Unity in the Alabama Coal Mines” best supports the theme "When people work together through difficult times, they can impact future generations”?

Read the excerpt.My father had never met Andrzej, yet that morning he sent for the boy he had forbidden me to see to come into our house. Not a word had been spoken to me about these arrangements. This was my father, and of course I was not consulted.I was standing in the kitchen when I heard Andrzej’s voice at our door. My knees sank. Mama scrutinized me. I did not even look at his face.“Welcome, Andrzej. Please have a seat.” Papa offered him a chair. . . .“I have a favor to ask of you, Andrzej . . . This is very difficult for me, but I must ask. It is no longer safe in Tylicz for Rena. Her mother and I are worried for her safety every day.”Determine the narrator’s point of view in Rena's Promise: Two Sisters in Auschwitz.

Read the excerpt.The silence of the night shrank. Icy water crept into my clothes. Our ears pricked up for the sound of rudely woken dogs in the nearby kennels. There was the sound of water dripping off my elbows. Neither of us dared move or breathe. No dogs barked.Finally, Andrzej signaled for me to stand up. Slowly, bracing my hands against the river rocks, I stood. My legs were barely able to stand my weight, they were shaking so badly with cold and fear.Which best describes the impact of Gelissen’s first-person account of her experiences in the excerpt from Rena's Promise: Two Sisters in Auschwitz?

Read the excerpt from Gelissen’s Rena's Promise: Two Sisters in Auschwitz.Thrown off balance, struggling to keep from falling into the abyss below, I plummeted out of reach. Rolling down the steep incline, I grabbed at tree branches to break my fall as they ripped the mittens from my hands. Biting my tongue, I splashed into a stream with no cushion but ice-covered boulders. The silence of the night shrank. Icy water crept into my clothes. Our ears pricked up for the sound of rudely woken dogs in the nearby kennels. There was the sound of water dripping off my elbows. Neither of us dared move or breathe. No dogs barked. Which best describes the impact of this excerpt that reflects Gelissen’s decision to tell her story in memoir form?

Read the excerpt from Gelissen’s Rena's Promise: Two Sisters in Auschwitz.“I have a favor to ask of you, Andrzej . . . This is very difficult for me, but I must ask. It is no longer safe in Tylicz for Rena. Her mother and I are worried for her safety every day.” Look at this image from Art Spiegelman’s Maus.What idea is related in both excerpts?

Read the excerpt from "Mending Wall.”He moves in darkness as it seems to me,Not of woods only and the shade of trees.He will not go behind his father's saying,And he likes having thought of it so wellHe says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."