This space contains reference material beginning next to
Question 13.
To answer Questions 13-18, please read the following passage from
Chapter 11 of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Choose the best
responses to the prompts next to each passage. There is one and only one
correct answer to each prompt.
Chapter 14, pages 133-135
“‘Can you tell me, Okonkwo, why it is that one of the commonest names we
give our children is Nneka, or Mother is Supreme? We all know
that a man is the head of the family and his wives do his bidding. A
child belongs to its father and his family and not to its mother and her
family. A man belongs to his fatherland and not to his motherland. And
yet we say Nneka -- Mother is Supreme. Why is that?’...
‘I do not know the answer,’ Okonkwo replied...
"‘Then listen to me,’ [Uchendu] said and cleared his throat. ‘It's true
that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child,
it seeks sympathy in its mother's hut. A man belongs to his fatherland
when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and
bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to
protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is
supreme. Is it right that you, Okonkwo, should bring to your mother a
heavy face and refuse to be comforted? Be careful or you may displease
the dead. Your duty is to comfort your wives and children and take them
back to your fatherland after seven years. But if you allow sorrow to
weigh you down and kill you they will all die in exile.’ He paused for a
long while.
‘These are now your kinsmen.’ He waved at his sons and daughters.
‘You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that
men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose
all their yams and even their children? I had six wives once. I have
none now except that young girl who knows not her right from her left.
Do you know how many children I have buried--children I begot in my
youth and strength? Twenty-two. I did not hang myself, and I am still
alive. If you think you are the greatest sufferer in the world ask my
daughter, Akueni, how many twins she has borne and thrown away. Have you
not heard the song they sing when a woman dies?
For whom is it well, for whom is it well? There is no one for whom it is
well.
I have no more to say to you.’ "
To answer Questions 19-24, please read the following
passage from Chapter 17 of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
Choose the best responses to the prompts next to each passage. There is
one and only one correct answer to each prompt.
Chapter 17, Pages 152-153
“As Okonkwo sat in his hut that night, gazing into a log
fire, he thought over the matter. A sudden fury rose within him and he
felt a strong desire to take up his machete, go to the church and wipe
out the entire vile and miscreant gang. But on further thought he told
himself that Nwoye was not worth fighting for. Why, he cried in his
heart, should he, Okonkwo, of all people, be cursed with such a son? He
saw clearly in it the finger of his personal god or chi. For how else
could he explain his great misfortune and exile and now his despicable
son's behaviour? Now that he had time to think of it, his son's crime
stood out in its stark enormity. To abandon the gods of one's father and
go about with a lot of effeminate men clucking like old hens was the
very depth of abomination. Suppose when he died all his male children
decided to follow Nwoye's steps and abandon their ancestors? Okonkwo
felt a cold shudder run through him at the terrible prospect, like the
prospect of annihilation. He saw himself and his fathers crowding round
their ancestral shrine waiting in vain for worship and sacrifice and
finding nothing but ashes of bygone days, and his children the while
praying to the white man's god. If such a thing were ever to happen, he,
Okonkwo, would wipe them off the face of the earth.
Okonkwo was popularly called the "Roaring Flame." As he
looked into the log fire he recalled the name. He was a flaming fire.
How then could he have begotten a son like Nwoye, degenerate and
effeminate? Perhaps he was not his son. No! he could not be. His wife
had played him false. He would teach her! But Nwoye resembled his
grandfather, Unoka, who was Okonkwo's father. He pushed the thought out
of his mind. He, Okonkwo, was called a flaming fire. How could he have
begotten a woman for a son? At Nwoye's age Okonkwo had already become
famous throughout Umuofia for his wrestling and his fearlessness.
He sighed heavily, and as if in sympathy the smouldering
log also sighed. And immediately Okonkwo's eyes were opened and he saw
the whole matter clearly. Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. He
sighed again, deeply.”
To answer Questions 25-29, please read the following analysis excerpt
about Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Choose the
best responses to the prompts next to each passage. There is one and only one
correct answer to each prompt.
Many critics see Things Fall Apart as a book with two narrators,
one that adheres to tradition, and another with more modern views.
In his essay, Wright plays off Neil McEwan's idea of the two narrative
voices: the traditional/communal which dominates the first 2/3 of the
book, and the individual/modern which takes over the last third.
He claims that Okonkwo's stubborn resistance and deep need to wipe out
his father's memory "…are out of harmony with a society which is
renowned for its talent for social compromise and which judges a man
according to his own worth, not that of his father." (Wright, 78)
Okonkwo resists change so much that he can't even accept it in others.
Wright claims that to the rest of his people, Okonkwo's recklessness and
fanaticism is embarrassing. This is not as evident in the first 2/3 of
the book, but in the modern narrator's voice, it becomes clearer how out
of touch Okonkwo really is.
But not everyone sees the book as narrated by two distinct voices. It
can also be seen as having a single narrator, whose tone changes and
adapts over time. This would be a reflection of the Umofian society's
gradual change and adaptation in order to survive. "The detached yet
tolerant tone of the narrator creates this perspective, and acts as a
most effective mediator between the individual and the community,
between the present and the past." (Carroll, 33) In fact, Carroll points
out that "…when the narrator begins to delve into the single mind we
anticipate with foreboding an unpleasant turn of events." (Carroll, 34)
"Things Fall Apart." Things Fall Apart. Western Michigan
University, n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.
To answer Questions 30-33, please read the following excerpt from Scott
Mikula's "The Savoy." Choose the
best responses to the prompts which appear next to each passage. There is one and only one
correct answer to each prompt.
The Savoy
by Scott C. Mikula
“Them boys got magic in their feet,” Momma said, leaning out the window
while I sat on the fire escape. “You best come inside now, Eugene. I
wish God’d saw fit to put magic in your feet, but he didn’t, and I won’t
have you frettin’ over something you can’t change.”
I hated when Momma said that. Why’d God put me right ’cross the street
from the Savoy Ballroom, if he didn’t want me to dance? Why’d he have me
born with a messed up leg just to fill my heart with rhythms I could
never express?
I crawled in through the window, but my thoughts were still on the boys
and girls down on Lenox Avenue. They had nothing but their own clapping
for a beat, but they’d practice their dance moves till the ballroom
opened. Frankie was the wildest of them, flipping the girl over his
shoulder or catching her from a flying leap—always trying out some
daring new “air step” to one-up the others.
Soon light from the windows of the second-floor ballroom would blaze
into the night, the music would strike up, and the dancers would crowd
inside. I heard that music near every night, but Momma couldn’t ever
spare me the thirty cents to go to the Savoy myself.
That’s why I let Willa Mae talk me into sneaking in.
I beat out a rhythm on the kitchen table while Willa Mae worked on her
footwork. She was one of the real dancers—one of those that practiced
with Frankie down on the street—but she was my friend, too, and she put
up with my handicapped leg. Sometimes we’d brave Momma’s consternation
and push all the living room furniture aside so we could try out some
moves. But today my leg ached, so I just watched Willa Mae step, step,
triple-stepping to the drumming of my hands.
“Don’t you want to try dancing to a real swing band?” she called. Sweat
clung to her face, but she didn’t stop moving. “If we get there after
the bands set up, we can sneak in the delivery entrance on 141st.”
Willa Mae was poor like me, and I knew she’d snuck in more than once
herself. Momma would be working till late, and we probably wouldn’t get
caught.
“It’s Benny Goodman tonight, battlin’ Chick Webb for King of Swing.”
Benny Goodman and Chick Webb! I’d only heard Goodman’s big band
orchestra on our tinny old Victrola. His drummer was the best, maybe.
But against Chick? My mind was made up.
The delivery entrance was halfway down a side street. Willa Mae waved
for me to follow as she tried the handle on one of the double doors.
Sure enough, it was unlocked.
“Hey, you kids!” I froze. Willa Mae’s eyes went wide. Leaning against a
parked car was one of the bandmen, a portly man in a suit and tie. “You
aren’t supposed to—”
That’s all I heard before Willa Mae yanked me through the door. “C’mon,
Gene!”
I stumbled after her as we ran down a long hallway. Tantalizing music
filtered through the floor from upstairs, but my heart was beating so
fiercely I could hardly hear it.
“I thought you said no one’d be around,” I panted.
“I got us in, didn’t I?”
Willa Mae led me up a dim staircase to the main hall.
Everyone knew music at the Savoy never stopped, but I’d always wondered
how the band could play all night without a break. The answer was two
bands, on side-by-side bandstands. As Chick’s band wound down, Benny’s
musicians jumped in, eager to prove they could swing harder and faster.
I saw the bandman from outside slip in behind the drums.
I grinned at Willa Mae. “Dance?”
Shyly at first, I took Willa Mae’s hand and put my other arm around her
back. Then the music swept us up, and we were dancing. I’d done the
steps before at home, but it’s something else entirely when the horns
are blaring their solos and the floor is vibrating under your feet. I
was in heaven, and that band was my choir of angels!
But my angels had it in for me that night. Those bandmen played faster
and harder, like their very souls were on the line, and my leg couldn’t
keep up. It crumpled. I landed hard on my tailbone.
“Man,” said a voice, “I never seen a butt planted on the floor quite
like that.” Frankie stood in front of me, all lanky arms and legs. He
offered me a hand, but I knew the rest of his gang must be laughing at
me.
Tears stung my eyes, but I was more furious than in pain. I swatted
Frankie’s hand away, and stalked off to find a table.
Willa Mae watched me go, but I wouldn’t meet her eye. Soon enough I saw
her dancing with Frankie, and that only made me madder. He swung her
out, and she twisted her hips with practiced grace, earning some whoops
from the crowd. Frankie, made Willa Mae look like a queen. Why'd she
ever put up with my clumsy dancing?
I should’ve been able to dance like that. I could see Frankie’s feet,
almost a blur, and the syncopated rhythm of his steps. I beat that
rhythm out on the table in front of me, at first just imitating it, but
then varying it, improvising, playing with the music that the band
poured out.
Momma was right, God hadn’t seen fit to let me dance like that. But that
didn’t mean I couldn’t be resentful about it.
Somebody slid into the chair next to me as the bands switched again. I
looked up—it was the drummer that had yelled at us before. Perfect. He
might as well haul me out by my collar.
But he said, “You feel it, don’t you? Like you’re not moving to the
music, but the music is moving you.”
I shrugged. “I sure don’t have magic in my feet, not like they do.”
“I can’t speak to your feet, son, but I reckon your hands have magic to
spare.” He nodded at the table, where I still beat out my rhythm without
even realizing it. “You should try these.”
He produced a pair of well-worn drumsticks. I took them, not sure what
to say. Could I really do what he did, make the music that brought the
dancers to life?
No, it wasn’t a question. I would. I’d practice every day, just like
Frankie and his friends out on the street, until I was one of the
bandmen the dancers cheered and stomped for.
I looked out on the dance floor, found Frankie and Willa Mae, and an
impish smile crossed my face as I beat my sticks to a wild rhythm. If
they thought the music made them sweat now, just wait till I made it
behind the drums on the Savoy bandstand!
*****************
To answer Question 34, please read the following excerpt from "Lunch at
Woolworth's" by Gloria Harris. Choose the
best response to the prompt next to the passage. There is one and only one
correct answer to the prompt.
Lunch
at Woolworth’s
by Gloria Harris
As news of the first sit-in spread, students organized shifts so that
they could join in without missing classes.
It came as no surprise when the waitress refused to serve Joseph McNeil,
David Richmond, Ezell Blair, Jr., and Franklin McCain. The four African
American men sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro,
North Carolina, on February 1, 1960, and requested service. In many
places in the South, blacks could shop at most stores, but they couldn’t
eat at the lunch counters in those stores. These college students from
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College knew the law, but they
had decided to take action against the injustice. The four young men
refused to leave their seats until they had been served at the counter,
or until the store closed. Woolworth’s closed with the students still
waiting.
While this “sit-in” was not the first, it was the most significant, as
it sparked a mass student movement. More students showed up the next
day, when the “Greensboro Four,” as these men became known, returned to
Woolworth’s to try again. As the days turned into weeks, the number of
protesters swelled. The students were peaceful but determined. They
requested service at the counter, and when they did not get it, they
remained seated quietly until fellow protesters relieved them or the
store closed. Many of the students brought homework or books to read.
Although the protestors remained nonviolent, white onlookers did not.
When television cameras showed well-dressed, polite young men and women
being pulled off stools, spat on, kicked, burned with cigarettes, and
called ugly names, the outpouring of support from students, both black
and white, in northern and southern colleges was overwhelming. News of
the sit-in in Greensboro spread like wildfire. In less than two weeks,
college students all over the South started their own sit-ins. Within 18
months, nearly 70,000 students had participated in similar protests. In
addition, people began to form picket lines at sister stores in the
North to protest those businesses’ segregated policies in the South.
The sit-in movement also won support from older established civil rights
organizations such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). CORE sent a
representative to Greensboro to provide training for the students,
which included role playing based on simple rules of conduct:
Do show yourself friendly at all times.
Do sit straight and face the counter.
Don’t strike back if attacked.
Don’t laugh.
Don’t hold conversations.
CORE field workers provided training throughout the sit-in movement,
while the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund provided lawyers and
bail money as hundreds of students were arrested for trespassing,
disturbing the peace, unlawful assembly, and disobeying police orders
to move from their seats. Some students refused to pay fines and served
jail sentences instead.
The SCLC provided support for the sit-in movement under the direction of
Ella Baker. Baker organized the first Sit-In Leadership Conference on
April 15, 1960, at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. She
invited students from 40 southern colleges and 19 northern campuses to
come listen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., share his message of
nonviolence.
Inspired by King’s words and encouraged by Baker, who supported a
grassroots movement that was organized and led by students, the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was born. The group adopted a
policy of achieving racial equality through nonviolent protest. It
participated in a number of sit-ins and also would breathe new life into
the Freedom Rides a year later.
As stores closed temporarily to avoid dealing with the sit-ins, and as
businesses suffered because customers stayed away, these peaceful,
student-led protests met with success. By the fall of 1960, lunch
counters in almost 100 southern cities were desegregated. Other sit-ins
desegregated movie theaters, amusement parks, and hotels. “Wade-ins”
desegregated beaches; “read-ins” desegregated libraries.
Although the sit-ins did not guarantee all rights for African Americans,
they did show a younger generation of civil rights protesters what could
be accomplished when people took a stand and worked together.
For Questions 1-12, please mark the letter of the correct definition of the given vocabulary word.
evangelists
(n.) missionaries
(n.) confirmation
(n.) a villain
(adj.) mesmerized
affirmation
(n.) a villain
(n.) missionaries
(adj.) mesmerized
(n.) confirmation
benevolently
(adj.) joyless
(n.) preoccupation
(adv.) harmlessly
(adj.) powerless
mirthless
(adj.) joyless
(adv.) harmlessly
(n.) preoccupation
(adj.) powerless
impotent
(adj.) joyless
(adv.) harmlessly
(n.) preoccupation
(adj.) powerless
callow
(adj.) necessary
(n.) a horror
(adj.) womanly
(adj.) immature
miscreant
(n.) a villain
(adj.) mesmerized
(n.) missionaries
(n.) confirmation
enthralled
(n.) missionaries
(n.) a villain
(adj.) mesmerized
(n.) confirmation
abomination
(adj.) womanly
(n.) a horror
(adj.) immature
(adj.) necessary
requisite
(adj.) necessary
(n.) a horror
(adj.) immature
(adj.) womanly
effeminate
(adj.) necessary
(n.) a horror
(adj.) womanly
(adj.) immature
fetish
(adj.) powerless
(adj.) joyless
(adv.) harmlessly
(n.) preoccupation
(RL4) What’s ironic about the common name Nneka, or Mother is Supreme, in Igbo culture?
There is only one supreme being and that is the God of the Igbo belief system.
The Igbo culture is a patriarchy or centered on the father as head of the family.
Everyone knows that mothers have the ultimate power in Igbo culture.
Daughters actually have more power than mothers in Igbo villages.
(RL3) What is Uchendu's motivation in saying what he does to Okonkwo?
He doesn’t want him to be weighed down by sorrow.
He wants to embarrass and humiliate Okonkwo.
He doesn’t want him to demonstrate respect for his mother.
He wants him to remember his father as the family head.
(RL1) Which of the following is the most essential part of Uchendu’s message?
“ ‘We all know that a man is the head of the family and his wives do his bidding.’ ”
“ ‘...if you allow sorrow to weigh you down and kill you they will all die in exile.’ “
“ ‘Do you know how many children I have buried--children I begot in my youth and strength?’ ”
“ ‘A man belongs to his fatherland and not to his motherland.’ ”
(RL2) Which of the following theme statements best summarizes this passage?
Times of goodness sweetness should be enjoyed in one’s fatherland.
The untimely death of a woman works out well for someone somewhere.
Men are heads of families and family members should do their best to do fathers’ biddings.
Refusal to be comforted dooms the refuser to misery of his/her own creation.
(RL6) What would Uchendu agree is a problematic misconception perpetuated by Igbo culture?
Banishment can make life good and sweet.
Mothers rule supreme in times of trouble.
Igbos only need to rely on the wisdom of their fathers.
Sorrow and bitterness can make a person better.
(RL5) Why does Uchendu’s lecturing of Okonkwo seem ironic at this juncture in the novel?
Okonkwo has suffered (as the result of his exile) more than any other person in the tribe, including Uchendu.
Okonkwo is an adult with many wives and children, but Uchendu has to instruct him as one would a child.
Uchendu is actually Okonkwo’s real biological father, as he reveals later in Chapter 14.
Uchendu has never met Okonkwo before that moment and knows nothing about him.
(RL6) Which of the following is NOT a way that Nwoye has disgraced his father according to Ibo culture?
Nwoye has gone about with effeminate men.
Nwoye has turned his back on his ancestors.
Nwoye has abandoned the gods of his father.
Nwoye has considered wiping out the missionaries.
(RL4) How does Okonkwo figuratively resemble his popular nickname, “Roaring Flame”?
His proclivity for spicy food makes his breath hot.
His ability to build roaring campfires is legendary.
His fiery temper expresses itself in roaring fury.
His skills at “spitting fire” in rap battles know no equal.
(RL1) Which of the following contradicts Okonkwo’s reputation (in his mind) as a “flaming fire”?
“His wife had played him false. He would teach her!”
“If such a thing were ever to happen, he, Okonkwo, would wipe them off the face of the earth.”
“A sudden fury rose within him and he felt a strong desire to...wipe out the entire vile and miscreant gang.”
“How then could he have begotten a son like Nwoye, degenerate and effeminate?”
(RL2) Which line best sums up the ultimate insight that Okonkwo discovers about himself?
“He, Okonkwo, was called a flaming fire.
“He sighed heavily, and as if in sympathy the
smouldering log also sighed.”
“Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.”
“He saw clearly in it the finger of his personal god or chi.”
(RL4) What is the best interpretation of what Okonkwo discovers about himself in this section?
Fire burns hot and passionately in those who live life to its fullest emotional potential.
The fickle finger of fate touches all of those who are unlucky enough to find themselves in its path.
Sympathy for the pain experienced by others is an expression of universal truth.
Furious anger, constantly expressed, produces outcomes rife with feelings powerlessness.
(RL5) What image does Achebe mention in the middle of the passage that foreshadows what Okonkwo discovers at its end?
“prospect of annihilation”
“praying to the white man's god”
“clucking like old hens”
“ashes of bygone days”
(RI3) How are the narrative voices of Achebe’s novel divided, according the referenced critical analysis?
reality and memory
traditional and communal
individual and modern
traditional and modern
(RI1) From the analysis, what is clear in the second narrator’s portion that isn’t clear in the first?
“how out of touch Okonkwo really is”
“Okonkwo’s deep need to wipe out his father's memory”
“Okonkwo resists change so much that he can't even accept it in others.”
“Okonkwo's stubborn resistance”
(RI4) What’s the closest interpretive meaning of the following quote from the academic analysis? “...Okonkwo's recklessness and fanaticism is embarrassing.”
Okonkwo causes fantastic accidents that make others feel sorry for him.
People can’t accept Okonkwo acting without thinking and to extremes.
No one is a fan of Okonkwo’s crashes because they are unintentional.
If Okonkwo wasn’t such a true believer, people would hate him.
(RI2) What is the main idea behind the single narrator theory that’s discussed in this excerpt?
Like the Umofian society, the narrator doesn’t change at all in response to pressure.
Everything seems to be destined to turn out okay due to single narrator consistency.
The tone of the narrator changes and adapts over time, like Umofian society.
A single narrator makes it easier to hear two distinct voices unraveling the narrative.
(RI6) What can we infer is the authors’ purpose in this particular analysis?
to explain how traditional values are key to the narrative
to discuss how Okonkwo is perceived throughout the novel
to examine the single and dual narrator theories about the work
to delve into how a single mind can anticipate an unpleasant turn of events
Pick the subject of following inverted sentence. (HW15)
Near the forest and inside a pair of large gates stands the house.
stands
house
gates
forest
Which sentence is written correctly?
Campers’ food supplies at Yellowstone National Park is sometimes broken into by animals.
Camper's food supplies at Yellowstone National Park are sometimes broken into by animals.
Campers’ food supplies at Yellowstone National Park are sometimes broken into by animals.
Camper's food supplies at Yellowstone
national park are sometimes broken into by animals.
Which statement best explains how Eugene’s mother influences him in “The Savoy”?
She nurtures his creative impulses.
She prevents him from developing a social life.
She discourages him from focusing on things he cannot change.
She inspires him to have dreams despite the challenges they present.
Which sentence from “The Savoy” best supports the idea that Eugene feels envy for other kids his age?
Shyly at first, I took Willa Mae’s hand and put my other arm around her back.
Willa Mae watched me go, but I wouldn’t meet her eye.
I should've been able to dance like that.
I looked out on the dance floor, found Frankie and Willa Mae, and an impish smile crossed my face as I beat my sticks to a wild rhythm.
(Scroll down to read the article "Lunch at Woolworth's.")
Which statement best summarizes the article?
Civil rights sit-ins guaranteed equality for African Americans.
The Greensboro protest and other sit-ins inspired many people to take a stand for civil rights.
Violent protests have proven throughout history to be less effective than peaceful acts of political resistance.
Grassroots movements are more successful than others because they address the true needs of the people.