Unit Test Review :)
Read the excerpt from "A Genetics of Justice" by Julia Alvarez. When the novel came out, I decided to go ahead and risk her anger. I inscribed a copy to both Mami and Papi with a note: "Thank you for having instilled in me through your sufferings a desire for freedom and justice." I mailed the package and—what I seldom do except in those moments when I need all the help I can get—I made the sign of the cross as I exited the post office. Days later, my mother called me up to tell me she had just finished the novel. "You put me back in those days. It was like I was reliving it all," she said sobbing. "I don't care what happens to us! I'm so proud of you for writing this book." I stood in my kitchen in Vermont, stunned, relishing her praise and listening to her cry. It was one of the few times since l had learned to talk that I did not try to answer my mother back. If there is such a thing as genetic justice that courses through the generations and finally manifests itself full-blown in a family moment, there it was. How does the author develop the central idea across these paragraphs?
Alvarez explains how her mother's reaction to her novel provoked a rare moment of peace between them.
Which underlined phrase is a prepositional phrase?
Before passing out the test, the teacher asked students to close their books.
Read the excerpt from "A Genetics of Justice" by Julia Alvarez. My mother must have been intrigued. She knew nothing of the horrid crimes of the dictatorship, for her parents were afraid to say anything—even to their own children—against the regime. So, as a young girl, my mother must have thought of El Jefe as a kind of movie star. She must have wanted to meet the great man. What is the central idea in this paragraph?
Her mother's image of the great man did not match reality.
Read the two excerpts. "Remembering to Never Forget: Dominican Republic's 'Parsley Massacre'" by Mark Memmott: Seventy-five years ago, thousands of Haitians were murdered in the Dominican Republic by a brutal dictator. It was one of the 20th Century's least-remembered acts of genocide. As many as 20,000 people are thought to have been killed on orders given by Rafael Trujillo. But the "parsley massacre" went mostly unnoticed outside Hispaniola. Even there, many Dominicans never knew about what happened in early October 1937. They were kept in the dark by Trujillo's henchmen. "A Genetics of Justice" by Julia Alvarez: During my early teen years in this country, I knew very little about what was actually going on in the Dominican Republic. Whenever Ia situación on the island came up, my parents spoke in hushed voices. In December 1960, four months after our arrival, Time magazine reported the murder of the three Mirabal sisters, who along with their husbands had started the national underground Dominican Republic. My parents confiscated the magazine. To our many questions about what was going on, my mother always had the ready answer, "En boca cerrada no entran moscas." No flies fly into a closed mouth. Later, I found out that this very saying had been scratched on the lintel of the entrance of the SIM's torture center at La Cuarenta. Which statement best compares how the two authors address this topic?
Memmott presents facts about the dictatorship objectively, while Alvarez gives details about how it affected people.
The following sentence has a misplaced modifier. Players must maintain good grades, meet all physical-fitness requirements, and attend regularly practices to play on the varsity team. Which revision corrects the error in this sentence?
Players must maintain good grades, meet all physical-fitness requirements, and attend practices regularly to play on the varsity team.
Read the excerpt from "A Genetics of Justice" by Julia Alvarez. My father and mother were once again trapped in a police state. They laid low as best they could. Now that they had four young daughters, they could not take any chances. For a while, that spark which has almost cost my father his life and which he had lighted in my mother seemed to have burnt out. Periodically, Trujillo would demand a tribute, and they would acquiesce. A tax, a dummy vote, a portrait on the wall. To my father and other men in the country, the most humiliating of these tributes was the occasional parade in which women were made to march and turn their heads and acknowledge the great man as they passed the review stand. What is the central idea in this paragraph?
The author's parents tried to get by in the dictatorship, but felt humiliated by the tributes they were forced to participate in.
Read the excerpt from "Children of the Drug Wars." The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recently interviewed 404 children who had arrived in the United States from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico; 58 percent said their primary reason for leaving was violence. (A similar survey in 2006, of Central American children coming into Mexico, found that only 13 percent were fleeing violence.) They aren't just going to the United States: Less conflicted countries in Central America had a 712 percent increase in asylum claims between 2008 and 2013. Read the excerpt from Enrique's Journey. Enrique allows himself to doze only on trains farther north, where the gangsters no longer control the tops of the trains. There, he jams his body into the crevice on top of a hopper, next to the trapdoors used to fill the car. Or he waits until the train rounds a curve, giving him a good view of all of the cars. He spots a boxcar with its door open. When the train slows, he jumps off and races to the boxcar, jumping inside for a quick nap. What technique does the author use in each excerpt to support her purpose?
The first excerpt uses facts and statistics, and the second excerpt is told as a story.
Read the excerpt from Enrique's Journey. The train passes into northern Chiapas. Enrique sees men with hoes tending their corn and women inside their kitchens patting tortillas into shape. Cowboys ride past and smile. Fieldworkers wave their machetes and cheer the migrants on: "Qué bueno!" Mountains draw closer. Plantain fields soften into cow pastures. Enrique's train slows to a crawl. Monarch butterflies flutter alongside, overtaking his car. How do the underlined phrases support the author's purpose?
They show that the worst part of the train ride may be over.
Read the excerpt from "Children of the Drug Wars." This would allow life-or-death decisions to be made within hours by Homeland Security officials, even though studies have shown that border patrol agents fail to adequately screen Mexican children to see if they are being sexually exploited by traffickers or fear persecution, as the agents are supposed to do. Why would they start asking Central American children key questions needed to prove refugee status? The United States expects other countries to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees on humanitarian grounds. Countries neighboring Syria have absorbed nearly 3 million people. Jordan has accepted in two days what the United States has received in an entire month during the height of this immigration flow—more than 9,000 children in May. The United States should also increase to pre-9/11 levels the number of refugees we accept to 90,000 from the current 70,000 per year and, unlike in recent years, actually admit that many. Which elements of the excerpt indicate that it is an editorial? Select two options.
evidence to support an opinion words with strong connotations
Read the sentences. Focused on helping his neighbors, Mark began rebuilding after the storm. He organized a team of volunteers after a local hardware store began delivering donated supplies. To watch the town come back to life was incredible. Which phrase is a participial phrase?
focused on helping his neighbors
Read the excerpt from "Children of the Drug Wars." To permanently stem this flow of children, we must address the complex root causes of violence in Honduras, as well as the demand for illegal drugs in the United States that is fueling that violence. What device supports the author's purpose, which is to show what has led to the refugee crisis?
repetition
Read the sentence. The students found the grammatical rules incredibly simple to understand and use. Which word does the underlined phrase modify?
rules