2022 Pre-Test English 11 - Laura Cripe | Library

Grammar Skills
Choose the correct way to rewrite the underlined section of each sentence.
 

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Mozart, a famous composer, was competent on both the keyboard and violin at the age of five he performed for the royal court.

 Choose the best way to combine the following sentences.
 

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A tornado touched down in a small town. Trees fell all over the park. Some cars got out safely. Fallen trees trapped many cars in the parking lot.

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The following sentence can be classified as which type of sentence: As the birds shivered in the falling snow, I realized that winter had come and that cold was on its way.

  Choose the underlined portion of the given sentence which needs revision.
 

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While working on his Eagle Scouts badge, Bob soon realized balancing a project and studies was a fine act of gymnastics because he soon got plum tuckered out, and decided to put his scout project on hold.

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Many canoes and kayaks are composed of hulls that contain support bars made of aluminum, which stabilizes the boat.

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If one wants to be a great mechanic, you must purchase quality tools and know how to use them.

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Each of the members of the baseball team had their own bat and mitt in the dugout.

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I was amazed at the speed of the dolphin as it fled across the bay very quick while it was being pursued by the sharks.

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Jill had to remove herself from tennis for a month because of a broken ankle , which she got while running.

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She couldn’t hardly believe it, when she received her test results; the scores were much higher than she had imagined they would be.

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Who is the most helpful with his younger sisters, Bob or Steve.

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We would of eaten more carrots for dinner, but there were other vegetables in our freezer to eat.

 
O Pioneers
  
Read the following excerpt from Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, an American novel which tells the story of a Swedish pioneers and the Nebraska plains and then answer the questions that follow.

One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away. A mist of fine snowflakes was curling and eddying about the cluster of low drab buildings huddled on the gray prairie, under a gray sky. The dwelling-houses were set about haphazard on the tough prairie sod; some of them looked as if they had been moved in overnight, and others as if they were straying off by themselves, headed straight for the open plain. None of them had any appearance of permanence, and the howling wind blew under them as well as over them. The main street was a deeply rutted road, now frozen hard, which ran from the squat red railway station and the grain “elevator” at the north end of the town to the lumber yard and the horse pond at the south end. On either side of this road straggled two uneven rows of wooden buildings; the general merchandise stores, the two banks, the drug store, the feed store, the saloon, the post-office. The board sidewalks were gray with trampled snow, but at two o’clock in the afternoon the shopkeepers, having come back from dinner, were keeping well behind their frosty windows. The children were all in school, and there was nobody abroad in the streets but a few rough-looking countrymen in coarse overcoats, with their long caps pulled down to their noses. Some of them had brought their wives to town, and now and then a red or a plaid shawl flashed out of one store into the shelter of another. At the hitch-bars along the street a few heavy work-horses, harnessed to farm wagons, shivered under their blankets. About the station everything was quiet, for there would not be another train in until night.

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The passage is told from which point of view

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The meaning of the word “eddying” in the second sentence most likely means

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The description of the snowflakes and the buildings can best be described as

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From the passage you can infer that the story will be told through the use of which style of narration

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The snow is described as all of the following except

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The frailty of the buildings in the town can be seen through which of the following lines

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The pronoun “them” in line 6 refers to

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Which literary device is used in the following sentences from the passage: “ At the hitch-bars along the street a few heavy work-horses, harnessed to farm wagons, shivered under their blankets.”

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The author’s purpose of the passage is primarily to

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The conflict in this passage is

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The narrator’s tone of the passage can best be described as

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The development of the passage is primarily created through

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The theme of the passage can best be stated as

   “Snow-Bound” 
Read the excerpt from the following poem “Snow-Bound:  a Winter Idyl” by American poet John Greenleaf Whittier and then answer the questions that follow.

 Within our beds awhile we heard    
The wind that round the gables roared, 
With now and then a ruder shock, 
Which made our very bedsteads rock. 
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,    5
The board-nails snapping in the frost; 
And on us, through the unplastered wall, 
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. 
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do 
When hearts are light and life is new;    10
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew, 
Till in the summer-land of dreams 
They softened to the sound of streams, 
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, 
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.    15
 

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The first sentence of the poem has all of the following poetic devices except

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The word “lapsing“ (line 15) most likely means …

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The choice of the word “summer-land” in (line 12) most likely means

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One possible tone word to describe the first sentence is

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The word stole (line 9) means

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The theme of this passage from “Snow-bound” could be

 King Philip, Metacom (Wampanoag) 1676
The English who came first to this country were but an handful of people, forlorn, poor and distressed. My father was then sachem. He relieved their distresses in the most kind and hospitable manner. He gave them land to build and plant upon. He did all in his power to serve them. Others of their country men came and joined them. 

Their numbers rapidly increased. My father's counselors became uneasy and alarmed lest, as they were possessed of firearms, which was not the case of the Indians, they should finally undertake to give law to the Indians, and take from them their country. They therefore advised him to destroy them before they should become too strong, and it should be too late. My father was also the father of the English. He represented to his counselors and warriors that the English knew many sciences which the Indians did not; that they improved and cultivated the earth, and raised cattle and fruits, and that there was sufficient room in the country for both the English and the Indians. His advice prevailed. It was concluded to give victuals to the English. They flourished and increased.

Experience taught that the advice of my father's counselors was right. By various means they got possessed of a great part of his territory. But he still remained their friend until he died. My elder brother became sachem. They pretended to suspect him of evil designs against them. He was seized and confined, and thereby thrown into sickness and died. Soon after I became sachem they disarmed all my people. They tried my people by their own laws and assessed damages against them which they could not pay. Their land was taken. 

Sometimes the cattle of the English would come into the cornfields of my people, for they did not make fences like the English. I must then be seized and confined till I sold another tract of my country for satisfaction of all damages and costs. But a small part of the dominion of my ancestors remains. I am determined not to live till I have no country.

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The author of the letter can best be described as

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The tone of the writer could be all except

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The author’s main claim is

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All of the evidence is given

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The English people changed over time by

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The author of the letter believed

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The word “sachem” is used throughout the letter it means

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In the second paragraph which statement implies a contradiction

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The line from paragraph two--"...they improved and cultivated the earth, and raised cattle and fruits"--is an example of what literary device

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What does the speaker propose?

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This letter is still appropriately relevant today regarding all of the following world issues except?

Long Answer
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.It seems that we are always ready to justify our own actions and overlook our own errors. Why, then, are we so unwilling to judge others in the same way? We tend to hold others to very high, even unrealistic standards, expecting them to be always right, always honest, or always conscientious. All of us have personal flaws and shortcomings that we are quite willing to excuse. Surely we should be more willing to excuse such shortcomings in others.

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Assignment: Should people be more willing to excuse the errors and shortcomings of others? Plan an essay and write an introductory paragraph stating your point of view on the issue outlining your main points of argument. Then explore one of your arguments into a well developed body paragraph. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.