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[SPED] 8th Grade Midterm Exam: "The Thrill of Horror"

Last updated 12 months ago
30 questions
Note from the author:
This is a modified version of the midterm exam for 8th grade English, using the same title and cover image. It is a shortened version of the exam, with 30 questions instead of 50. The writing prompt has been altered, but still assesses some of the same skills, with more of a focus on using figurative language to create mood and tone. There are 3 answer choices for each question rather than 4.

This exam assesses students' understanding of key English language skills, including reading comprehension, figurative language, narrative point of view, and suspense. It also evaluates their knowledge of sentence structure, including simple, compound, and complex sentences, as well as the proper use of conjunctions, colons, and clauses. Through multiple-choice questions and a constructed-response prompt, students demonstrate their ability to analyze literary elements and apply grammar rules effectively.
Midterm Exam Directions
Welcome to your 8th Grade English Midterm Exam! Please read the following instructions carefully before you begin:
  1. Exam Overview: This exam includes three reading passages. Each passage is followed by questions that assess the skills we’ve practiced this semester. At the end of the reading section, you will complete a short constructed response question. The final section focuses on grammar skills we have studied and practiced during the first semester.
  2. Important Information: This exam counts for 10% of your overall semester grade in this class, so take your time and do your best!
  3. Hints and Support: If you’re unsure about a question, you may request a hint by clicking the red hint button at the bottom of the question. Use this option wisely to help guide your thinking.
  4. Time Management: You have the entire class period to complete the exam. Make sure to pace yourself and review your answers if time allows.
  5. Final Reminders: Read each question carefully and answer to the best of your ability. Stay focused and try your hardest—you’ve worked hard this semester, and this is your chance to show what you’ve learned.
Antigonish [I met a man who wasn’t there]
By Hughes Mearns

1 Yesterday, upon the stair, 2 I met a man who wasn’t there 3 He wasn’t there again today 4 I wish, I wish he’d go away...

5 When I came home last night at three 6 The man was waiting there for me 7 But when I looked around the hall 8 I couldn’t see him there at all! 9 Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more! 10 Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (slam!)

11 Last night I saw upon the stair 12 A little man who wasn’t there 13 He wasn’t there again today 14 Oh, how I wish he’d go away...
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Part A: Which word best describes the tone of the poem?

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Part B: Select the line from the poem that best support your answer to Part A above.

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What is the purpose of repeating the phrase go away throughout the poem?

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What type of figurative language is used in the phrase, "Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door... (slam!)"

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How does the repetition of the phrase "He wasn't there" affect the tone of the poem?

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What might the "man who wasn't there" represent?

The Open Window
short story by H. H. Munro (Saki)

1 “My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.”

2 Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.

3 “I know how it will be,” his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; “you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.”

4 Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice division.

5 “Do you know many of the people round here?” asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.

6 “Hardly a soul,” said Framton. “My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.”

7 He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.

8 “Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?” pursued the self-possessed young lady.

9 “Only her name and address,” admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.

10 “Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,” said the child; “that would be since your sister’s time.”

11 “Her tragedy?” asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.

12 “You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,” said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.

13 “It is quite warm for the time of the year,” said Framton; “but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?”

14 “Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it.” Here the child’s voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. “Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing ‘Bertie, why do you bound?’ as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window—”

15 She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.

16 “I hope Vera has been amusing you?” she said.

17 “She has been very interesting,” said Framton.

18 “I hope you don’t mind the open window,” said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; “my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you men-folk, isn’t it?”

19 She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

20 “The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise,” announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably wide-spread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. “On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,” he continued.

21 “No?” said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention—but not to what Framton was saying.

22 “Here they are at last!” she cried. “Just in time for tea, and don’t they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”

23 Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

24 In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: “I said, Bertie, why do you bound?”

25 Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the gravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid an imminent collision.

26 “Here we are, my dear,” said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window; “fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?”

27 “A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,” said Mrs. Sappleton; “could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.”

28 “I expect it was the spaniel,” said the niece calmly; “he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.”

29 Romance at short notice was her speciality.

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discounting: (v.) downplaying the social status of someone or something
rectory: (n.) house where a local priest or minister lives
infirmities: (n.) bodily weaknesses; health problems
headlong: (adj.) very hasty and without thinking
pariah dogs: (n.) stray dogs
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What is the meaning of the phrase “a very self-possessed young lady” as it is used in the passage (paragraphs 1 and 14)?

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What can be inferred about Framton’s attitude toward his visit to Mrs. Sappleton’s house?

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Which of the following best supports the inference that Framton is unsure about whether Mrs. Sappleton is a suitable person for his visit?

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Part A: How does Framton's perspective about the visit change after the niece shares her aunt's "tragedy"?

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Part B: Which piece of evidence from the text most strongly supports your answer to Part A above?

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Read the sentence from paragraph 3.

“I know how it will be,” his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; “you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. . . .”

The underlined figurative language in this sentence conveys the idea that —

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Read this sentence from paragraph 14.

“Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window—”

How does this statement create suspense?

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Part A: What point of view is this story told from?

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Part B: What is the effect of using this point of view?

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Which line from the story is an example of foreshadowing?

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Which sentence from the story best supports the inference that Framton Nuttel is easily stressed out?

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What is the significance of the niece’s statement about “a creepy feeling” when she talks about the family returning?

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Read the dictionary entry.

sympathetic \sĭm´pə-thĕt´ĭk\ adj 1. feeling, showing, or expressing sympathy 2. showing approval of or favor toward an idea or action 3. attracting the liking of others

Which definition best matches the meaning of the word sympathetic as it is used in paragraph 23?

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In what way does the use of suspense in the description of the returning family increase the impact of the ending?

What effect does the moon have on the setting?
What effect might the bare tree branches have on the mood of this scene? Think about how trees create shadows and how shadows could add to the suspense and feeling of fear or dread in a story.
There is a light on inside the house. Is someone home, or does the light belong to another source?
There seems to be a lot of fog surrounding the house. How could fog create a suspenseful or tense atmosphere for the reader?
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The old house at the end of the street seems alive. Its windows glimmer like eyes in the moonlight, and the groan of its floorboards sounds like a sigh.

Describe an evening when a character ventures inside, using at least one simile and vivid sensory details to build tension and mystery. Write your scene from the first person point of view.

Use the picture above as inspiration for your writing.

Your written scene should be 4-6 sentences long, and use correct capitalization and end punctuation (periods at the end of your sentences).

…
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Which of the following is a compound sentence?

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Which sentence is a compound sentence?

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Which part of the sentence is the dependent clause?
I didn’t leave until I finished my homework.

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Choose the correct coordinating conjunction to complete the sentence:
I wanted to go to the park, _______ it was raining outside.

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Which of the following is a complex sentence?

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Which of the following is a simple sentence?

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Choose the correct conjunction for the sentence:
We were late to the movie, _______ we still enjoyed it.

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Which of the following sentences correctly combines the two sentences using a coordinating conjunction?
I wanted to go swimming. It was too cold.

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Which sentence correctly combines the two ideas using a subordinating conjunction?
He failed the test. He studied very hard.