This space contains reference material beginning next
to Question 13.
To answer Questions 13-18, please read the
following passage from Chapter 18 of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall
Apart. Choose the best responses to the prompts located next to
each passage. There is one and only one correct answer to each
prompt.
Chapter 18, pages 158-159
“ ‘It is not our custom to fight for our gods,’
said one of them [Okeke]. ‘Let us not presume to do so now. If a man
kills the sacred python in the secrecy of his hut, the matter lies
between him and the god. We did not see it. If we put ourselves
between the god and his victim we may receive blows intended for the
offender. When a man blasphemes, what do we do? Do we go and stop
his mouth? No. We put our fingers into our ears to stop us hearing.
That is a wise action.’
‘Let us not reason like cowards,’ said Okonkwo.
‘If a man comes into my hut and defecates on the floor, what do I
do? Do I shut my eyes? No! I take a stick and break his head. That
is what a man does. These people are daily pouring filth over us,
and Okeke says we should pretend not to see.’ Okonkwo made a sound
full of disgust. This was a womanly clan, he thought. Such a thing
could never happen in his fatherland, Umuofia.
‘Okonkwo has spoken the truth,’ said another man.
‘We should do something. But let us ostracize these men. We would
then not be held accountable for their abominations.’
Everybody in the assembly spoke, and in the end it
was decided to ostracize the Christians. Okonkwo ground his teeth in
disgust.”
To answer Questions 19-24, please read the
following passage from Chapter 20 of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall
Apart. Choose the best responses to the prompts located next to
each passage. There is one and only one correct answer to each
prompt.
Chapter 20, page 176
" ‘Perhaps I have been away too long,’ Okonkwo said,
almost to himself. ‘But I cannot understand these things you tell
me. What is it that has happened to our people? Why have they lost
the power to fight?’
‘Have you not heard how the white man wiped out Abame?’
asked Obierika.
‘I have heard,’ said Okonkwo. ‘But I have also heard
that Abame people were weak and foolish. Why did they not fight
back? Had they no guns and machetes? We would be cowards to compare
ourselves with the men of Abame. Their fathers had never dared to
stand before our ancestors. We must fight these men and drive them
from the land.’
‘It is already too late,’ said Obierika sadly. ‘Our
own men and our sons have joined the ranks of the stranger. They
have joined his religion and they help to uphold his government. If
we should try to drive out the white men in Umuofia we should find
it easy. There are only two of them. But what of our own people who
are following their way and have been given power? They would go to
Umuru and bring the soldiers, and we would be like Abame.’ He paused
for a long time and then said: ‘I told you on my last visit to
Mbanta how they hanged Aneto.’
‘What has happened to that piece of land in dispute?’
asked Okonkwo.
‘The white man's court has decided that it should
belong to Nnama's family, who had given much money to the white
man's messengers and interpreter.’
‘Does the white man understand our custom about
land?’
‘How can he when he does not even speak our tongue?
But he says that our customs are bad, and our own brothers who have
taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you
think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us? The
white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his
religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay.
Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like
one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we
have fallen apart.’ "
To answer Questions 25-29, please read the
following excerpted interview with Chinua Achebe’s about Things
Fall Apart. Choose the best responses to the prompts that
follow. There is one and only one correct answer to each prompt.
Interviewer: “A character in Things Fall Apart remarks
that the white man ‘has put a knife on the things that held us
together, and we have fallen apart.’ Are those things still severed,
or have the wounds begun to heal?”
Achebe: “What I was referring to there, or what
the speaker in the novel was thinking about, was the upsetting of a
society, the disturbing of a social order. The society of Umuofia,
the village in Things Fall Apart, was totally disrupted by
the coming of the European government, missionary Christianity, and
so on. That was not a temporary disturbance; it was a once and for
all alteration of their society. To give you the example of Nigeria,
where the novel is set, the Igbo people had organized themselves in
small units, in small towns and villages, each self-governed. With
the coming of the British, Igbo land as a whole was incorporated into
a totally different polity, to be called Nigeria, with a whole lot
of other people with whom the Igbo people had not had direct contact
before. The result of that was not something from which you could
recover, really. You had to learn a totally new reality, and
accommodate yourself to the demands of this new reality, which is
the state called Nigeria. Various nationalities, each of which had
its own independent life, were forced by the British to live with
people of different customs and habits and priorities and religions.
And then at independence, fifty years later, they were suddenly on
their own again. They began all over again to learn the rules of
independence. The problems that Nigeria is having today could be
seen as resulting from this effort that was initiated by colonial
rule to create a new nation. There's nothing to indicate whether it
will fail or succeed. It all depends.
One might hear someone say, How long will it take
these people to get their act together? It's going to take a very,
very long time, because it's really been a whole series of
interruptions and disturbances, one step forward and two or three
back. It has not been easy. One always wishes it had been easier.
We've compounded things by our own mistakes, but it doesn't really
help to pretend that we've had an easy task.”
Bacon, Katie. "An African Voice." The Atlantic.
Atlantic Media Company, 2 Aug. 2000. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.
To answer Questions 32-34, please read the
following passage from “Lunch at Woolworth’s." Choose the best
responses to the prompts located next to the passage. There is one
and only one correct answer to each 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.
pensively
(n.) disrespect
(n.) believers
(adv.)
fearfully
(n.) exemption
derision
(adj.) conceited
(n.) believers
(n.) disrespect
(n.) exemption
adherents
(n.) exemption
(n.) disrespect
(adj.) conceited
(n.) believers
dispensation
(n.) believers
(adj.) conceited
(n.) disrespect
(n.) exemption
zeal
(n.) ability
(adj.) sacrilegious
(n.) enthusiasm
(adj.) flexible
ostracize
(adj.) quick
(v.) to exile
(adj.) broken
(n.) amends
atonement
(adj.) quick
(v.) to exile
(adj.) broken
(n.) amends
wherewithal
(adj.) flexible
(n.) ability
(n.) enthusiasm
(adj.) sacrilegious
irreparable
(v.) to exile
(n.) amends
(adj.) quick
(adj.) broken
expedient
(v.) to exile
(adj.) broken
(n.) amends
(adj.) quick
blasphemous
(adj.) sacrilegious
(n.) ability
(adj.) flexible
(n.) enthusiasm
resilient
(adj.) flexible
(n.) enthusiasm
(adj.) sacrilegious
(n.) ability
(RL2) Which of the following is the best summary of this section of the text?
Okeke argues for strong actions to be taken, while Okonkwo argues for careful restraint to be employed.
Okeke believes the clan should stay out conflicts with a deity, while Okonkwo thinks this is womanly.
Okeke wants to defend the rights of blasphemers, while Okonkwo wants to defend the rights of fathers.
Okeke fights for the Christians to flourish amongst the clan, while Okonkwo fights for them to be destroyed.
(RL1) Which quote best sums up Okeke’s central argument about how the Igbos should respond to the death of the sacred python?
“ ‘It is not our custom to fight for our gods.’ ”
“ ‘Let us not presume to do so now.’
“ ‘If a man kills the sacred python in the secrecy of his hut…’ ”
“ ‘When a man blasphemes, what do we do?’ ”
(RL4) To what does Okeke compare the killing of the sacred python, and to what does Okonkwo compare this offense?
(RL4) Which of the following is the best translation of the clan’s verdict (provided below)? “ ‘But let us ostracize these men. We would then not be held accountable for their abominations.’”
Let’s reward them; then we can get them to see it our way.
Let’s punish them; then we can win the favor of the gods.
Let’s kill them; then we won’t have to worry about their mistakes.
Let’s exile them; then we won’t be responsible for their crimes.
(RL3) How does this excerpt reveal the flaws in Okonkwo’s tragic character?
Okonkwo agrees to go along with what the others think even though he disagrees.
Okonkwo sees violence as the only solution that is acceptable to those who act as men.
Okonkwo regrets acting like a coward by killing the python and then lying.
Okonkwo wants to uphold the values of his motherland regardless of the costs.
(RL5) Why does Achebe utilize parallel arguments in this particular passage?
He’s trying to illustrate how Okonkwo has become a changed man in exile.
He’s showing how Okonkwo’s thinking conflicts with his clanmates.
He wants to show how Okonkwo has assimilated well into the culture of his motherland.
He has an interest in proving that Okonkwo is able to identify with others’ opinions.
(RL6) In the following quote, who is the “he” of whom Obierika speaks and what customs would be considered “bad”? “ ‘But he says that our customs are bad, and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad.’ ”
The white man thinks practices like the abandonment of twins are bad.
Okonkwo thinks that that not fighting back against the white man is bad.
The soldiers think that policies which imprison their own people are bad.
The Abame think that that standing up against white oppressors is bad.
(RL1) According to Obierika, why have their people “ ‘lost the power to fight’ ”?
They have “ ‘not heard.’ ”
They are “ ‘weak and foolish.’ ”
They have “ ‘no guns and machetes.’
They know “ ‘the white man wiped out the Abame.’ ”
(RL2) What is the greatest fallacy in Okonkwo’s way of thinking and involves his greatest flaw?
He believes that things have fallen apart when they have actually stayed together.
He believes that his people have been too warlike when they’ve actually been too peaceable.
He believes that the white man’s religion is to blame when it is actually his military might.
He believes a lack of strength led to his people’s fall when the white man took over peaceably.
(RL3) In contrast to Obierika, what does Okonkwo still erroneously believe that his people can do?
“ ‘[join] the ranks of the stranger’ ”
“ ‘help to uphold his government’ ”
“ ‘fight these men and drive them from the land’ ”
“ ‘compare ourselves with the men of Abame’ ”
(RL4) What sort of figurative language is employed in the following quote and what’s being compared? “ ‘He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.’ "
simile; a knife and religion
metaphor; ropes and cultural beliefs
personification; a knife and an Igbo
hyperbole; ropes and chains
RL5) Why does Achebe take Obierika’s turn of phrase “we have fallen apart” and transform it for the title of his novel?
He wants people to be thought of as things so it isn’t painful for readers to think of them falling apart.
He wants to indicate that things “things” falling apart are more important than the “we” falling apart.
He wants to communicate an uplifting message about how falling apart is a good thing.
He wants to imply that first “things fall apart” in a cultural takeover and then people fall apart.
(RI1) What are the “things still severed” that the interviewer speaks of and that Achebe addresses?
countries in Africa
aspects of Umuofian society
the Igbo people themselves
Christian beliefs
(RI2) From what Achebe indicates, which of the following was not a disrupting factor of Umuofian society?
missionary Christianity
Igbo traditions
White colonialism
European government
(RI3) What example does Achebe give to illustrate “a once and for all alteration” of Umuofian society?
the establishment of small Igbo towns and villages
the incorporation of Igbo land into Nigeria
the killing of innocent Umuofians
the decision of missionaries to spread religion
(RI5) Which of the following best encapsulates Achebe’s primary claim in his answer?
“...Igbo land as a whole was incorporated into a totally different polity, to be called Nigeria …”
“The problems...could be seen as resulting from this effort that was initiated by colonial rule to create a new nation.”
“One always wishes it had been easier.”
“Igbo people had organized themselves in small units, in small towns and villages...”
(RI6) What can we infer is the author’s (interviewer’s) purpose in this portion of the interview?
to determine if the wounds created by the White colonization of Nigeria have begun to heal
to test Achebe on his knowledge of Africa in general and Nigeria specifically
to find out if Achebe still cares about his homeland after so many years after his novel’s publication
to prove that
Things Fall Apart is the greatest book in the history of literature
Pick the correct verbs for the following sentence. (HW16) Neither of us _________ successful in saving the dog who is run over, and none of his injuries ________ minor.
is; are
are; is
is; is
are; are
Which sentence is written correctly?
“Either Bobs' or Carlos’s brothers have the tickets because neither the girls nor Henry has them,” claimed Dad.
Either Bob’s or Carlos’s brothers have the tickets because neither the girls nor Henry has them, claimed dad.
“Either Bob’s or Carlos’s brothers have the tickets because neither the girls nor Henry has them,” claimed Dad.
“Either Bob's or Carlos’ brothers have the tickets because neither the girls nor Henry has them,” claimed Dad.
Which sentence from “Lunch at Woolworth’s”
best supports the idea that the sit-ins achieved their desired effect?
The four young men refused to leave their seats until they had been served at the counter or until the store closed.
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.
The group adopted a policy of achieving racial equality through nonviolent protest.
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.
Which statement best explains the likely purpose of the paragraph beginning with the phrase "Although the protestors remained nonviolent"?
It illustrates a scene to commend the protesters, highlighting their resolve and patience in the face of challenges.
It lists specific rules of conduct to help readers understand what it was like to be a civil rights protester in Greensboro.
It states a controversial opinion about the value of political protests and questions their ability to enact actual change.
It compares the Woolworth’s protest with political protests in other countries, admiring the international scope of the Greensboro event.
Read the excerpt from the article “Lunch at Woolworth’s.”
As news of the first sit-in spread, students organized shifts so that they could join in without missing classes.
Which statement best explains how this excerpt contributes to the message of the article?
It suggests that the sit-ins were deliberate and well-organized events.
It indicates that student protesters were afraid of being penalized for missing classes.
It illustrates the students’ general lack of experience at the time of their first protests.
It shows how the first sit-in influenced people across the country.