English 12B Checkpoint 28
Read the excerpts from Brave New World. The men came nearer and nearer; their dark eyes looked at her, but without giving any sign of recognition, any smallest sign that they had seen her or were aware of her existence. The writhing snake hung limp again with the rest. The men passed. "I don't like it," said Lenina. "I don't like it." ... But Lenina was not listening. She was watching the old man. Slowly, slowly he came down. His feet touched the ground. He turned. In their deep-sunken orbits his eyes were still extraordinarily bright. They looked at her for a long moment expressionlessly, without surprise, as though she had not been there at all. Then slowly, with bent back the old man hobbled past them and was gone. "But it's terrible," Lenina whispered. "It's awful. We ought not to have come here." Which answer most accurately explains the meaning of Lenina's responses to the Indians' manner toward her?
Lenina expresses discomfort when the Indians do not acknowledge her because she has never been faced with free, non-brainwashed humans before, and they are challenging her reality.
Read the excerpt from Brave New World. The nurses obeyed; but at the approach of the roses, at the mere sight of those gaily-coloured images of pussy and cock-a-doodle-doo and baa-baa black sheep, the infants shrank away in horror, the volume of their howling suddenly increased. "Observe," said the Director triumphantly, "observe." Books and loud noises, flowers and electric shocks—already in the infant mind these couples were compromisingly linked; and after two hundred repetitions of the same or a similar lesson would be wedded indissolubly. What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder. "They'll grow up with what the psychologists used to call an 'instinctive' hatred of books and flowers. Reflexes unalterably conditioned. They'll be safe from books and botany all their lives." The Director turned to his nurses. "Take them away again." Still yelling, the khaki babies were loaded on to their dumb-waiters and wheeled out, leaving behind them the smell of sour milk and a most welcome silence. ... Which response most accurately explains what the excerpt implies about the role of books in this society?
Books are seen as a source of danger by those in power, so much so that children must be trained to permanently hate them, possibly because books contain knowledge that could destabilize society.
Read the excerpt from Brave New World. "Dr. Wells says that a three months' Pregnancy Substitute now will make all the difference to my health for the next three or four years." "Well, I hope he's right," said Lenina. "But, Fanny, do you really mean to say that for the next three months you're not supposed to." "Oh no, dear. Only for a week or two, that's all. I shall spend the evening at the Club playing Musical Bridge. I suppose you're going out?" Lenina nodded. "Who with?" "Henry Foster." "Again?" Fanny's kind, rather moon-like face took on an incongruous expression of pained and disapproving astonishment. "Do you mean to tell me you're still going out with Henry Foster?" Which response most accurately explains what the excerpt implies about dating in this society?
Citizens date many different people, but forming emotional bonds is looked down on, which is indicated by Fanny's surprise that Lenina has been dating the same boy for a while.
Read the excerpt from Brave New World. The Director opened a door. They were in a large bare room, very bright and sunny; for the whole of the southern wall was a single window. Half a dozen nurses, trousered and jacketed in the regulation white viscose-linen uniform, their hair aseptically hidden under white caps, were engaged in setting out bowls of roses in a long row across the floor. Big bowls, packed tight with blossom. Thousands of petals, ripe-blown and silkily smooth, like the cheeks of innumerable little cherubs, but of cherubs, in that bright light, not exclusively pink and Aryan, but also luminously Chinese, also Mexican, also apoplectic with too much blowing of celestial trumpets, also pale as death, pale with the posthumous whiteness of marble. What is the effect of describing the flowers in this way?
Comparing the petals to the cheeks of babies who are deathly white, or angry from blowing trumpets, creates a chilling tone and implies that there will be something unnatural about the babies in this nursery.
Read the excerpt from Brave New World. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. But there were also husbands, wives, lovers. There were also monogamy and romance. "Though you probably don't know what those are," said Mustapha Mond. They shook their heads. Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy. "But every one belongs to every one else," he concluded, citing the hypnopædic proverb. The students nodded, emphatically agreeing with a statement which upwards of sixty-two thousand repetitions in the dark had made them accept, not merely as true, but as axiomatic, self-evident, utterly indisputable. ... Which response lists context clues that a student could use to most accurately infer the meaning of axiomatic?
"self-evident, utterly indisputable"
Select the responses that correctly identify central ideas from Brave New World. (Select all that apply.)
People become easier to control when they have no love in their lives, because they have less to lose. AND Oppressive governments often mislead their citizens to prevent free thought and expression. AND It is impossible to completely crush the curious and independent side of the human spirit.
Which response most clearly explains the significance of the term "Our Ford" in the society portrayed in Brave New World?
There is no longer religion, but the leader has taken the name "Our Ford," which rhymes with "Our Lord."
Which excerpts from the scene in the Hatchery in Brave New World provide the strongest evidence that the Director cares more about scientific progress than about human individuality? (Select all that apply.)
... the original egg was in a fair way to becoming anything from eight to ninety- six embryos—a prodigious improvement, you will agree, on nature. Identical twins—but not in piddling twos and threes as in the old viviparous days, when an egg would sometimes accidentally divide. ... AND But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before.
Read the excerpt from Brave New World. An almost naked Indian was very slowly climbing down the ladder from the first-floor terrace of a neighboring house—rung after rung, with the tremulous caution of extreme old age. His face was profoundly wrinkled and black, like a mask of obsidian. The toothless mouth had fallen in. At the corners of the lips, and on each side of the chin, a few long bristles gleamed almost white against the dark skin. The long unbraided hair hung down in grey wisps round his face. His body was bent and emaciated to the bone, almost fleshless. Very slowly he came down, pausing at each rung before he ventured another step. "What's the matter with him?" whispered Lenina. Her eyes were wide with horror and amazement. "He's old, that's all," Bernard answered as carelessly as he could. He too was startled; but he made an effort to seem unmoved. "Old?" she repeated. "But the Director's old; lots of people are old; they're not like that." "That's because we don't allow them to be like that. We preserve them from diseases. We keep their internal secretions artificially balanced at a youthful equilibrium. We don't permit their magnesium-calcium ratio to fall below what it was at thirty. We give them transfusion of young blood. We keep their metabolism permanently stimulated. So, of course, they don't look like that. Partly," he added, "because most of them die long before they reach this old creature's age. Youth almost unimpaired till sixty, and then, crack! the end." Which responses accurately explain what the excerpt implies about old age in this society? (Select all that apply.)
Appearing old is rare, as scientific discoveries mask aging. This is implied when Lenina says, "What's wrong with him?" when she observes how old the Indian is, which shows she is familiar only with people who appear young and healthy. AND People are kept unnaturally young using medicine, but they die before the age of sixty either from the medicine or at the hands of society. This is implied when Bernard says, "crack! the end," which does not imply a peaceful, natural death.
Which excerpt from Brave New World provides the strongest evidence to support the idea that people of the same age live in large dormitories together?
From her dim crimson cellar Lenina Crowne shot up seventeen stories, turned to the right as she stepped out of the lift, walked down a long corridor and, opening the door marked GIRLS' DRESSING-ROOM, plunged into a deafening chaos of arms and bosoms and underclothing.
Reread the opening of the first chapter of Brave New World. Which responses most clearly explain how the author uses setting to advance the plot of the story? (Select all that apply.)
The author describes familiar settings like nurseries and locker rooms in unfamiliar ways to create tension and to introduce the main characters. AND The author describes short, disturbing scenes in different locales to show how this society works and to introduce the story's conflict between government oppression and human nature.
Which response most clearly explains the significance of the terms Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon in the society portrayed in Brave New World?
These are the names of the castes of the social hierarchy, whose members all wear the same color.
Read the excerpt from Brave New World. The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north. Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory. Wintriness responded to wintriness. The overalls of the workers were white, their hands gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber. The light was frozen, dead, a ghost. Only from the yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain rich and living substance, lying along the polished tubes like butter, streak after luscious streak in long recession down the work tables. Which responses most accurately explain how a student who did not know the word pallid could infer its meaning? (Select all that apply.)
The student could use the context clues "academic goose-flesh," "pale corpse-coloured rubber," and "frozen, dead, a ghost" to infer a meaning of "white or washed-out." AND The student could note the similarity between the roots of pallid and pale.
Read the excerpt from Brave New World. Suddenly it was as though the whole air had come alive and were pulsing, pulsing with the indefatigable movement of blood. Up there, in Malpais, the drums were being beaten. Their feet fell in with the rhythm of that mysterious heart; they quickened their pace. Their path led them to the foot of the precipice. The sides of the great mesa ship towered over them, three hundred feet to the gunwale. Which responses accurately explain how a student could determine the meaning of the word indefatigable? (Select all that apply.)
The student could make a connection to the word fatigue and infer that indefatigable relates to energy levels. AND The student could note the prefix in-, which means "not." AND The student could use the context clue "pulsing, pulsing," in which repetition implies unceasing action.
Which excerpts from Brave New World provide strong evidence to support the idea that people in this society have never experienced love? (Select all that apply.)
Maniacally, the mother brooded over her children (her children), brooded over them like a cat over its kittens; but a cat that could talk, a cat that could say, "My baby, my baby," over and over again. "My baby, and oh, oh, at my breast, the little hands, the hunger, and that unspeakable agonizing pleasure! Till at last my baby sleeps, my baby sleeps with a bubble of white milk at the corner of his mouth. My little baby sleeps.""Yes," said Mustapha Mond, nodding his head, "you may well shudder." AND Our Ford—or Our Freud, as, for some inscrutable reason, he chose to call himself whenever he spoke of psychological matters—Our Freud had been the first to reveal the appalling dangers of family life. The world was full of fathers—was therefore full of misery; full of mothers—therefore of every kind of perversion from sadism to chastity; full of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts—full of madness and suicide.
