Be sure to choose each answer carefully. You get only one try to answer each question correctly!
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Question 24.
Excerpt from The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri
At this part of the novel, Gogol and his family return from a trip
to his parent’s homeland of Calcutta, India, where they have spent
eight months visiting their family.
Within twenty-four hours he and his family are back on Pemberton
Road, the late August grass in need of trimming, a quart of milk and
some bread left by their tenants in the refrigerator, four grocery
bags on the staircase filled with mail. At first the Gangulis sleep
most of the day and are wide awake at night, gorging themselves on
toast at three in the morning, unpacking the suitcases one by one.
Though they are home they are disconcerted by the space, by the
uncompromising silence that surrounds them. They still feel somehow
in transit, still disconnected from their lives, bound up in an
alternate schedule, an intimacy only the four of them share. But by
the end of the week, after his mother’s friends come to admire her
new gold and saris, after the eight suitcases have been aired out on
the sun deck and put away, after the chanachur is poured into
Tupperware and the smuggled mangoes eaten for breakfast with cereal
and tea, it’s as if they’ve never been gone. “How dark you’ve
become,” his parents’ friends say regretfully to Gogol and Sonia. On
this end, there is no effort involved. They retreat to their three
rooms, to their three separate beds, to their thick mattresses and
pillows and fitted sheets. After a single trip to the supermarket,
the refrigerator and the cupboards fill with familiar labels:
Skippy, Hood, Bumble Bee, Land O’ Lakes. His mother enters the
kitchen and prepares their meals once again; his father drives the
car and mows the lawn and returns to the university. Gogol and Sonia
sleep for as long as they want, watch television, make themselves
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at any time of day. Once again
they are free to quarrel, to tease each other, to shout and holler
and say shut up. They take hot showers, speak to each other in
English, ride their bicycles around the neighborhood. They call up
their American friends, who are happy enough to see them but ask
them nothing about where they’ve been. And so the eight months are
put behind them, quickly shed, quickly forgotten, like clothes worn
for a special occasion, or for a season that has passed, suddenly
cumbersome, irrelevant to their lives.
For Questions 1-12, please mark the letter of the correct definition of the given vocabulary word.
apoplectic
corruption
non-religious
an enemy
angry
depravity
corruption
non-religious
an enemy
angry
impious
corruption
non-religious
an enemy
angry
incredulous
excessively
unavoidably
skeptical
angry
indignation
anger
suspiciously
to decorate
untroubled
unperturbed
anger
suspiciously
to decorate
untroubled
nemesis
corruption
non-religious
an enemy
angry
ineluctably
excessively
unavoidably
skeptical
shame
adorn
anger
suspiciously
to decorate
untroubled
askance
anger
suspiciously
to decorate
untroubled
profusely
excessively
unavoidably
skeptical
shame
chagrin
excessively
unavoidably
skeptical
shame
Look at the following sentence:
She said “Shanshan don’t rush into marriage with him an unworthy match.”
Which of the following words should not be followed by a comma?
said
Shanshan
marriage
him
Look again at the sentence:
She said “Shanshan don’t rush into marriage with him an unworthy match.”
Which of the following is not a reason for using one of the commas above?
after a series of prepositional phrases
setting off direct quotations
setting off words of direct address
setting off nonessential appositives
What is Pi’s first religion?
Christianity
Hinduism
Buddhism
Islam
Who is NOT one of the religious men who meets Pi and his parents on the seaside esplanade?
a priest
a pandit
a rabbi
an imam
What does Pi believe that an atheist has that an agnostic will never possess?
a hate of the world
an ability to become a believer
a faith in things happening for a reason
a love of other people
Why does Pi’s father decide to move his family, and to where do they plan to move?
the failure of the zoo; the U.S.
a job transfer; Mexico
political problems; Canada
criminal charges; England
Pi and his family leave _________ in _________ by _________ bound for their new home.
England; January 1980; an airplane
Sri Lanka; May 1973; an express train
Pakistan; August 1983; a charter bus
India; June 1977; a cargo ship
What does the narrator indicate is evidence that Pi’s story has a happy ending?
Pi’s loving daughter
Pi’s successful career
Pi’s strong marriage
Pi’s new zoo
Which sentence is written correctly?
“Although we had forty-six inches of heavy, wet snow last winter, the bushes appear to be all right,” Fred noted.
Although we had 46 inches of heavy wet snow last winter the bushes appear to be alright fred noted.
“Although we had forty-six inches of heavy, wet, snow last winter, the bushes appear to be all right,” Fred, noted.
Although we had forty-six inches of heavy, wet snow last winter, the bushes appear to be all right, Fred noted.
Pi uses the words “All religions are true,” and “I just want to love God” (p. 87) with whom to justify what frowned upon behavior?
Pi uses these words (one a quote from Gandhi) with Francis Adirubasamy to justify missing swimming lessons.
Pi uses these words (one a quote from Gandhi) with Satish Kumar (an atheist) to justify embracing the practices and teachings of Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam.
Pi uses these words (one a quote from Gandhi) with the Hindu Pandit to justify embracing the practices and teachings of Christianity and Islam as well as the beliefs of Hinduism.
Pi uses these words (one a quote from Gandhi) with his parents and his three religious mentors to justify embracing the practices and teachings of Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam.
Pi mentions many documented cases of “zoomorphism,” where an animal takes a different animal or a human to be one of its own kind. How does this phenomenon relate to Pi’s attitude towards religion and to his mentors’ attitudes towards him? Although his parents seem to share his mentors’ beliefs, how does Pi’s father willingly embrace the new and strange by the end of Part I?
Very much like an animal which identifies with members of another species, Pi identifies with religions outside of his first religion, Hinduism. The phenomenon known as zoomorphism resembles Pi’s predicament because it is much more common for animals and people to identify with creatures that/who share characteristics with them. The compulsion to invent a better story, to improve one’s reality and make it more livable, is such a deep-seated and natural instinct, Pi says, that even animals do it, whether unconsciously or not. For example, a lion doesn’t think a human is really a lion. But given the right conditions and the appropriate circumstance, a lion may become willing to accept the human as one of its own. Faced either with life as an orphan or life with a foster mother, what lion cub wouldn’t accept a dog as a maternal figure? The fiction improves his life immeasurably. Adding stories or religions to one's life enriches it. Pi says, "I just want to love God!" (p. 88). By the end of Part 1, both Pi and his father are ready to embrace new ideas: Pi will practice three religions and his father will move the family to Canada.
The phenomenon known as zoomorphism resembles Pi’s predicament because both Pi and animals identify with creatures that/who share characteristics with them. Pi wants to be sure that he is protected by God, and animals want to be protected by a family - even if that family is made up of animals from different species. Pi's mentors are like animals who will not accept animals of other species. Pi is like the surviving animal that will. Pi's father embraces change at the end of Part 1 because the zoo fails p. 89), and he has to find another way to support the family.
Very much like an animal which identifies with members of another species, Pi identifies with religions outside of his first religion, Hinduism. The phenomenon known as zoomorphism resembles Pi’s predicament because it is much more common for animals and people to identify with creatures that/who share characteristics with them. Just as it is as uncommon for different species to intermingle, it is fairly uncommon for members of different religions to find common ground. The doctrine-based infighting amongst the mentors when they meet Pi and his parents illustrates this point well. Contrarily, Pi finds that Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam resonate with him and thus relate to one another. Due to his aberrant beliefs, Pi is seen as an anomaly by his parents and mentors. They even go so far as to demand that Pi choose one religion and to follow only that religion’s teachings. Pi’s father seems to be the most open to accepting Pi’s strange conduct when he abruptly ends the discussion with, “Ice cream, anyone?” (p. 88). This acceptance perhaps foreshadows his own openness to the idea of moving his family to a new, strange country halfway around the world at the end of Part I. In any case, it’s interesting that Pi links his beliefs about the universality of religion to his favorite subject, animal behavior.
Pi mentions many documented cases of “zoomorphism,” where an animal takes a different animal or a human to be one of its own kind. This phenomenon relates to Pi’s attitude towards religion and to his mentors’ attitudes towards him because Pi is so insecure, he believes everything, but his mentors do not. Although his parents seem to share the beliefs of Pi's mentors, Pi’s father willingly embraces the new and strange by the end of Part I when he decides to move the family to Canada so he, too, can study all religions.
Part A. Which choice best describes the central theme of the excerpt from
The Namesake?
the importance of family
the difficulties of travel
growing up in the modern world
being caught between two cultures
Which two sentences from the passage best support your answer to Part A?
(Choose only one answer: A, B, or C.)
Within twenty-four hours he and his family are back on Pemberton Road, the late August grass in need of trimming, a quart of milk and some bread left by their tenants in the refrigerator, four grocery bags on the staircase filled with mail.
At first the Gangulis sleep most of the day and are wide awake at night, gorging themselves on toast at three in the morning, unpacking the suitcases one by one. They retreat to their three rooms, to their three separate beds, to their thick mattresses and pillows and fitted sheets.
They still feel somehow in transit, still disconnected from their lives, bound up in an alternate schedule, an intimacy only the four of them can share. And so the eight months are put behind them, quickly shed, quickly forgotten, like clothes worn for a special occasion, or for a season that has passed, suddenly cumbersome, irrelevant to their lives.
Read the following sentence from The Namesake: "Though they are home they are disconcerted by the space, by the uncompromising silence that surrounds them."
Which statement best describes what the author means by “they are disconcerted by the space, by the uncompromising silence that surrounds them”?
They are unable to express their feelings about their trip.
They finally realize that they never felt quite at home there.
Their once familiar home seems strangely unfamiliar to them.
Their everyday lives seem boring after returning from vacation.