This space contains reference text
beginning next to Question 13.
To answer Questions 13-18, please read the
following passage from Chapter 1 of Haruki Murakami’s After
Dark. Choose the best responses to the prompts next to
the passage. There is one and only one correct answer to
each prompt.
Chapter 1, page 3
“Through the eyes of a high-flying night bird, we take in
the scene from midair. In our broad sweep, the city looks
like a single gigantic creature—or more like a single
collective entity created by many intertwining organisms.
Countless arteries stretch to the ends of its elusive body,
circulating a continuous supply of fresh blood cells,
sending out new data and collecting the old, sending out new
consumables and collecting the old, sending out new
contradictions and collecting the old. To the rhythm of its
pulsing, all parts of the body flicker and flare up and
squirm. Midnight is approaching, and while the peak of
activity has passed, the basal metabolism that maintains
life continues undiminished, producing the basso continuo of
the city's moan, a monotonous sound that neither rises nor
falls but is pregnant with foreboding.”
To answer Questions 19-24, please read the
following passage from Chapter 1 of Haruki Murakami’s After
Dark. Choose the best responses to the prompts next to
the passage. There is one and only one correct answer to
each prompt.
Chapter 1, Pages 21-22
"So the three brothers found three boulders on the shore
just as the god had said they would. And they started
pushing them along as the god told them to. Now these were
huge, heavy boulders, so rolling them was hard, and
pushing them up an incline took an enormous effort. The
youngest brother quit first. He said, 'Brothers, this place
is good enough for me. It's close to the shore, and I can
catch fish. It has everything I need to go on living. I
don't mind if I can't see that much of the world from here.'
His two elder brothers pressed on, but when they were midway
up the mountain, the second brother quit. He said, 'Brother,
this place is good enough for me. There is plenty of fruit
here. It has everything I need to go on living. I don't mind
if I can't see that much of the world from here.' The eldest
brother continued walking up the mountain. The trail grew
increasingly narrow and steep, but he did not quit. He had
great powers of perseverance, and he wanted to see as much
of the world as he possibly could, so he kept rolling the
boulder with all his might. He went on for months,
hardly eating or drinking, until he had rolled the boulder
to the very peak of the high mountain. There he stopped and
surveyed the world. Now he could see more of the world than
anyone. This was the place he would live—where no grass
grew, where no birds flew. For water, he could only lick the
ice and frost. For food, he could only gnaw on moss. But he
had no regrets, because now he could look out over the whole
world. And so, even today, his great, round boulder is
perched on the peak of that mountain on an island in Hawaii.
That's how the story goes."
To answer Questions 25-27, please read the
following passage from enotes.com regarding the motifs and
themes of Haruki Murakami’s After Dark. Choose the
best responses to the prompts that follow. There is one and
only one correct answer to each prompt.
“Darkness, however, also represents the subconscious. The
subconscious is the realm of dreams, which usually occur at
night in the darkness. The model of dreams is found in the
character of Eri, who sleeps her life away. In her sleep,
she moves from the real to the unreal as her body passes
from her bedroom through the walls of her television into a
different realm. She wakes up on the other side, unaware of
where she is. All she knows is that she is not where she
should be. She is not where she was when she fell asleep.
None of the windows or doors will open. So she goes back to
sleep, hoping that all her problems will be solved the next
time she wakes up. Eri wakes in her dreams and sleeps in her
wake-reality, a mix-up for which no one can find a
solution.”
"After Dark - Themes" eNotes Publishing Ed. Scott
Locklear. eNotes.com, Inc. eNotes.com 30 Dec, 2016 <http://www.enotes.com/topics/after-dark-murakami/themes#themes-themes>
To answer Questions 30-32, please read
"India; High-Tech and Thirsty."
India: High-Tech and Thirsty
by Alice Andre-Clarke
When an American computer scientist wanted to develop the
best handwriting recognition software in the world, he
packed his bags for Bangalore, known as the Silicon Valley
of India. India’s large pool of highly skilled scientists
will earn the country about $100 billion in technology
revenue this year.
Yet all of India’s science and management talent has been
unable to bring its citizens one of the basic comforts of
modern life: a steady supply of running water. Fewer than
half of Indian households have tap water. Tens of millions
don’t have clean drinking water.
No major city in India delivers water 24 hours a day to all
its customers. While the fortunate ones buy pumps and
storage tanks to capture as much water as possible, those
less fortunate rely on tanker trucks to deliver the precious
resource.
Those dependent on the trucks must leave school or work to
meet them. Because parents place importance on boys’
education, that someone is often a preteen girl. Armed with
paint cans and cooking pots, residents toss a hose—not
always clean —into the tanker. Kids transport 50- to
100-pound containers on bicycles, or walk with cans balanced
on their heads.
In most rural villages, where there is an absence of pipes
and tanker trucks, girls might walk a few miles twice a day
to a neighboring village’s well. After hoisting heavy
buckets from 20 feet below ground level, they then carry the
full containers home.
Finding safe water is even more difficult. Rivers are
blackened by untreated sewage and fertilizers from farms’
run offs. Clothing factories in the city of Tirupur dump
dyed wastewater into the local reservoir.
India can’t deliver water 24/7 because its pipes are often
laced with tiny cracks. If forced to hold water pressure all
day every day, water would pour from those growing fissures,
losing as much as half of the water. While replacing pipes
would save water in the long run, doing so would require
money that water authorities don’t have.
More than anywhere else, India’s water is lost on its farms.
In the 1960s, a drought drastically reduced the country’s
grain production. To prevent mass starvation, the government
began offering free electricity to farmers to use to dig
wells and pump up groundwater. The number of wells rose from
800,000 in 1975 to 22 million in 2000. While the farmers’
hard work held back the famine, their success came at an
alarming cost.
Finding a better way to manage India’s water is urgent for
two reasons. First, India’s population is growing. Fifty
years ago, India’s population was under 500 million, but by
2040, the number will have passed 1.5 billion.
Second, India is experiencing climate change. The mountain
glaciers that feed India’s major rivers are rapidly melting
away. “Rising temperatures mean that water will evaporate
more quickly from rivers, reservoirs, and soil”, explains
Veena Srinivasan, a senior research affiliate at the Pacific
Institute’s International Communities and Water Initiative.
Experts have many good ideas for making the water supply
safe and accessible. Srinivasan argues that rates should be
raised, and meters should measure water use in wealthy
homes. If people pay for the water they use, they will make
wiser choices. Further, Rajendra K. Pachauri, director of
New Delhi’s The Energy and Resources Institute, has called
for the government to begin charging farmers more for
electricity.
Experts want to educate people on how to protect the water
supply. While Srinivasan favors programs to teach how to use
less water at home, Sanmugam Prathapar of Delhi’s
International Water Institute believes families should learn
to boil and filter water to make it safe to drink. Farmers
can be taught irrigation methods to plant grains that
require less water.
Water storage must improve. Srinivasan says that India
should expand reservoirs so it can capture heavy rainfalls
to be used during droughts.
Fourth, polluters must act more responsibly. Leading
conservationist Rajendra Singh has urged that factories be
required to treat wastewater so that it’s clean before
released into the water supply. He also believes in tougher
penalties for polluters.
The World Health Organization estimates that over 700,000
Indians a year die because of poor water and sanitation.
Unfortunately, the shortage of clean water is just one
crisis facing India. Hundreds of millions of people can’t
read or write, and one one-third have no electricity. Many
in India are hoping that the fast-growing technology
industry will bring in enough money so that people won’t
have to choose which problem to solve. |