Answers GSC - English Language Arts 11 - BWriting a Research-Based Essay

Vietnam Literary Journalism Answers

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Which excerpt from A Rumor of War contains the best example of sensory language?

Having been among the first Americans to fight in Vietnam, I was also among the last to be evacuated, only a few hours before the North Vietnamese Army entered the capital.

America seemed omnipotent then: the country could still claim it had never lost a war, and we believed we were ordained to play cop to the Communists’ robber and spread our own political faith around the world.

The discovery that the men we had scorned as peasant guerrillas were, in fact, a lethal, determined enemy and the casualty lists that lengthened each week with nothing to show for the blood being spilled broke our early confidence.

Weeks of bottled-up tensions would be released in a few minutes of orgiastic violence, men screaming and shouting obscenities above the explosions of grenades and the rapid, rippling bursts of automatic rifles.

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Which excerpt from Dispatches contains sensory language to describe the geography of Vietnam?

There would be the muted rush of illumination rounds, fired from 60-mm. mortars inside the wire, dropping magnesium-brilliant above the NVA trenches for a few seconds, outlining the gaunt, flat spread of the mahogany trees, giving the landscape a ghastly clarity and dying out.

It was awesome, worse than anything the Lord had ever put down on Egypt, and at night, you’d hear the Marines talking, watching it, yelling, “Get some!” until they grew quiet and someone would say, “Spooky understands.” The nights were very beautiful.

Once in a while—I guess I saw it happen three or four times in all—there would be a secondary explosion, a direct hit on a supply of NVA ammunition. And at night it was beautiful. Even the incoming was beautiful at night, beautiful and deeply dreadful.

Nights were when the air and artillery strikes were heaviest because that was when we knew that the NVA was above ground and moving. At night you could lie out on some sandbags and watch the C-47’s mounted with Vulcans doing their work.

Read the excerpt from A Rumor of War.Repeatedly, I have found myself wishing that I had been the veteran of a conventional war, with dramatic campaigns and historic battles for subject matter instead of a monotonous succession of ambushes and firefights. Which best describes the purpose of the paradox in the excerpt?

to demonstrate how bored the narrator felt while serving in Vietnam

to illustrate the hardships faced by soldiers who have fought in wars

to emphasize the difficulties faced by soldiers in untraditional warfare

to highlight the complexities of more traditional warfare and weaponry

Read the excerpt from Dispatches.Because, really, what a choice there was; what a prodigy of things to be afraid of! The moment that you understood this, really understood it, you lost your anxiety instantly. Anxiety was a luxury, a joke you had no room for once you knew the variety of deaths and mutilations the war offered.The purpose of the paradox in the excerpt is to

illustrate the narrator’s desire to relieve his uneasiness.

reinforce the physical and emotional challenges of war.

show that indulgences are stolen during war, not provided.

highlight the idea that fear can be viewed in different ways.

Read the excerpt from A Rumor of War. We left Vietnam peculiar creatures, with young shoulders that bore rather old heads.What is the author attempting to convey to the reader using sensory language?

Only old men were allowed to fight in the war.

Injuries caused veterans to age more quickly.

While their bodies were young, their minds were old.

Physical damage caused psychological damage.

Read the excerpt from Dispatches.I remembered the way a Phantom pilot had talked about how beautiful the surface-to-air missiles looked as they drifted up toward his plane to kill him, and remembered myself how lovely .50-caliber tracers could be, coming at you as you flew at night in a helicopter, how slow and graceful, arching up easily, a dream, so remote from anything that could harm you.Based on the sensory details, what can be inferred about the narrator’s feelings toward the airstrikes he witnessed?

He was fascinated by the way they looked.

He became drowsy from their slowness.

He despised them because they were destructive.

He feared them for their unpredictability.

Which excerpt from A Rumor of War best illustrates Vietnam’s uncomfortable climate?

By autumn, what had begun as an adventurous expedition had turned into an exhausting, indecisive war of attrition in which we fought for no cause other than our own survival.

But there were no Normandies and Gettysburgs for us, no epic clashes that decided the fates of armies or nations. The war was mostly a matter of enduring weeks of expectant waiting and, at random intervals, of conducting vicious manhunts through jungles and swamps where snipers harassed us constantly and booby traps cut us down one by one.

The tedium was occasionally relieved by a large-scale search-and-destroy operation, but the exhilaration of riding the lead helicopter into a landing zone was usually followed by more of the same hot walking, with the mud sucking at our boots and the sun thudding against our helmets while an invisible enemy shot at us from distant tree lines.

Read the excerpt from A Rumor of War. The tedium was occasionally relieved by a large-scale search-and-destroy operation, but the exhilaration of riding the lead helicopter into a landing zone was usually followed by more of the same hot walking, with the mud sucking at our boots and the sun thudding against our helmets while an invisible enemy shot at us from distant tree lines. The paradox in the excerpt illustrates the idea that

danger could alleviate the monotony of war.

walking was often necessary after flying.

the soldiers could not see their enemies.

the heat was more difficult to overcome than the enemy.

Which sentence from Dispatches contains the best example of sensory language?

Sometimes you’d step from the bunker, all sense of time passing having left you, and find it dark out.

There would be dozens of them at once sometimes, trailing an intense smoke, dropping white-hot sparks, and it seemed as though anything caught in their range would be made still, like figures in a game of living statues.

Once in a while—I guess I saw it happen three or four times in all—there would be a secondary explosion, a direct hit on a supply of NVA ammunition.

If they did, when they did, it might not matter that you were in the best bunker in the DMZ, wouldn’t matter that you were young and had plans, that you were loved, that you were a noncombatant, an observer.

Which excerpt from Dispatches is an example of paradox?

And at night it was beautiful. Even the incoming was beautiful at night, beautiful and deeply dreadful.

One hit anywhere in the chopper would bring you back, bitten lips, white knuckles and all, and then you knew where you were.

At night you could lie out on some sandbags and watch the C-47’s mounted with Vulcans doing their work.

At night in Khe Sanh, waiting there, thinking about all of them (40,000, some said), thinking that they might really try it, could keep you up.

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Vietnam Literary Journalism Answers

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