Unit 6 Selected and Short Answers
Unit 6 Selected and Short Answers
Unit 6 Selected and Short Answers
Unit 6 Test
Selected and Short Response
ANALYZE CRAFT AND STRUCTURE/CONVENTIONS AND STYLE
“The Open Window,” Saki
Read the following short story. Then, answer the question(s).
(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 endeavored 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.”
(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?”
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(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 favorite snipe-shooting1 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 someday, 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.
(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 menfolk, 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
labored under the tolerably widespread 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.
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(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.”
____________
1.
snipe-shooting Snipe are wading birds hunted for sport.
1.
Which of the following is true about the narrator of the main story in “The
Open Window”?
a. The narrator is a character in the story who tells the story from a subjective
point of view, sharing his or her own thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
b. The narrator is a character in the story who tells the story from an
objective point of view, without commentary or opinions.
c. The narrator is not a character in the story but still focuses for most of the
story on one character’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
d. The narrator is not a character in the story and tells the story from an
objective point of view, without commentary or opinions.
2.
Identify the point of view used in the main story of “The Open Window”: first-
person, third-person omniscient, third-person limited, or a point of view that
shifts from one to another. Then, explain specific changes you would make to
the story to alter the point of view.
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3.
The following question has two parts. Answer Part A first, and then Part B.
Part A Read the following three quotations from the story.
“Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?” pursued the self-possessed
young lady. (paragraph 8)
“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.
(paragraph 12)
What conclusions can you most logically draw about Vera from
these quotations and the context of the story?
a. She is a clever and convincing storyteller.
b. She is a nosy busybody, inclined to gossip.
c. She is high strung and emotionally immature.
d. She is mentally unbalanced, suffering delusions.
Part B Based on the answer to Part A and the context of the story, what
conclusion can you most logically draw about Vera’s reasons for acting as she
does?
a. She maliciously desires to cause Framton harm for no reason.
b. She has become deranged because of a recent family tragedy.
c. She is a trickster who likes to test people’s willingness to believe.
d. She is jealous of the attention that she fears Framton will receive.
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4.
The following question has two parts. Answer Part A first, and then Part B.
Part A Which of the following answer choices best states one theme of the
story?
a. Appearances do not always reflect reality.
b. Social classes divide people into adversarial groups.
c. The miraculous can happen when one least expects it.
d. Lies and deception usually lead to destruction.
Part B Which description of a character in the story best reveals the theme
identified in Part A?
a. Vera’s imagination allows her to make the hunters’ innocent homecoming
and Framton’s panicked exit seem to be something they are not.
b. Framton’s ill health makes him reliant on Vera’s upper class family for
their hospitality.
c. Vera’s excellent memory allows her to predict the exact details of the
hunters’ mysterious return, down to their muddy appearance and the song
one of them sings.
d. Framton’s nervous condition makes him respond in terror to the events and
run away.
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5.
What paragraph from “The Open Window” most clearly foreshadows later
developments in the story?
a. paragraph 1
b. paragraph 3
c. paragraph 4
d. paragraph 8
6.
Which of the following paragraphs of the story most increases suspense?
a. paragraph 12
b. paragraph 15
c. paragraph 20
d. paragraph 23
7.
“The Open Window” may be considered to have a frame-story structure. Which
paragraph most clearly marks the shift to the internal story in “The Open
Window”?
a. paragraph 6
b. paragraph 10
c. paragraph 18
d. paragraph 23
8.
Explain the relationship between the introductory or frame story and the
internal story in “The Open Window.” In your response, address these
questions: Which story is more important? What role does the internal story
play in the introductory story?
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9.
The following question has two parts. Answer Part A first, and then Part B.
Part A Which is most clearly a motif in the story?
a. wet and gloomy weather, both in the main story and in Vera’s story
b. misfortune, both in the case of Framton’s condition and in the case of the
hunting accident
c. a person misled about a stranger, as when first Framton and then Mrs.
Sappleton is deceived
d. rebellion against an oppressive family, as when Vera deceives first
Framton and then her aunt
Part B What theme does the motif identified in Part A most clearly help to
convey?
a. Tragedy may strike even the innocent.
b. Individuals must break free of their families.
c. It is dangerous to trust a complete stranger.
d. Polite social interactions are often absurd.
10.
What does the “open window” most clearly symbolize?
a. the power of storytelling to shape perceptions
b. the impossibility of truly seeing others as they are
c. the need to escape from stifling social conventions
d. the difficulty of taming the dangerous side of nature
(2) Tragic though these deaths were, they indirectly helped to shape Woolf’s literary career.
After her father’s death, Woolf’s brother and sister sold the family house and bought a new
one in the Bloomsbury section of London. Woolf met and became part of the Bloomsbury
group, a circle of artists and writers who shared ideas and talked about their creative work.
(3) Already in 1908, Woolf was thinking of reinventing the novel. Through her Bloomsbury
connections, she was soon introduced to new trends in French painting, which helped
influence her ideas about how to represent life.
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(4) Woolf met her future husband through the Bloomsbury group, and they married in 1912,
deciding that they would make a living by writing. Woolf’s first two novels used conventional
plots as well as some experimental elements. Then, in 1922, she published Jacob’s Room, a
truly modernist novel, in which Woolf attempted to replace traditional forms with an “emotion
which you feel.”
11.
In what way does the chronological organization of this biography most
clearly support the writer’s main ideas in this passage?
a. It helps readers see that Woolf’s life had a clear sequence of events.
b. It helps readers understand Woolf’s development as a writer.
c. It helps readers understand Woolf’s growing influence on others.
d. It helps readers compare Woolf’s early failures with her later successes.
12.
Consider the way in which the biography uses chronological order to introduce
main ideas. Which event should the writer most logically focus on following
paragraph 4?
a. In 1929, Woolf wrote an essay speaking out against the limitations society
placed on women.
b. Woolf worked on her novel Between the Acts during the London bombings
of 1940 and 1942.
c. Woolf continued to experiment with the structure of fiction in her 1925 novel,
Mrs. Dalloway.
d. In addition to her novels and nonfiction, Woolf also wrote drama, finishing
a play in 1935.
(2) “Here we left it,” she said. And he added, “Oh, but here too!” “It’s upstairs,” she murmured.
“And in the garden,” he whispered. “Quietly,” they said, “or we shall wake them.”
(3) But it wasn’t that you woke us. Oh, no. “They’re looking for it; they’re drawing the curtain,”
one might say, and so read on a page or two. “Now they’ve found it,” one would be certain,
stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for
oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with
content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. “What did I come in
here for? What did I want to find?” My hands were empty. “Perhaps it’s upstairs then?” The
apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had
slipped into the grass.
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(4) But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The
windowpanes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they
moved in the drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if
the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling
—what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the
deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. “Safe, safe, safe,” the
pulse of the house beat softly. “The treasure buried; the room ...” the pulse stopped short.
Oh, was that the buried treasure?
(5) A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the trees spun darkness for
a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare, coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I
sought always burnt behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us; coming
to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; the
rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the
Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beneath the Downs. “Safe, safe, safe,” the
pulse of the house beat gladly. “The Treasure yours.”
(6) The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash
and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The
candle burns stiff and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering
not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.
(7) “Here we slept,” she says. And he adds, “Kisses without number.” “Waking in the morning—”
“Silver between the trees—” “Upstairs—” “In the garden—” “When summer came—” “In
winter snowtime—” The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse
of a heart….
13.
This story may be analyzed as shifting between points of view. Which of the
following would best describe two of the narrative points of view used?
Choose two options.
a. A woman who currently lives in the house tells what it is like to feel the presence of the
ghosts. She uses first-person point of view.
b. A ghost who lives in the house tells what it is like to haunt the house. She uses first-
person point of view.
c. The house tells what it was like in the house long ago. It uses first-person point of view.
d. A third-person limited narrator tells what it was like to live in the house
long ago.
e. A third-person omniscient narrator tells parts of the ghosts’ story.
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14.
Which of the following best explains why this excerpt is an example of stream-
of-consciousness writing?
a. It attempts to recreate the illogical association of ideas in a person’s
dreams.
b. It attempts to recreate the spontaneous flow of thought and feeling in an
individual’s mind.
c. It attempts to tap into a hidden part of human consciousness to discover
deep truths.
d. It attempts to analyze consciousness by breaking the flow of experience
into individual thoughts.
15.
Which of the following sentences uses flashback to tell a character’s story?
a. “Now they’ve found it,” one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the
margin. (paragraph 3)
b. The windowpanes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were
green in the glass. (paragraph 4)
c. Death was the glass; death was between us; coming to the woman first,
hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; the rooms
were darkened. (paragraph 5 )
d. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to
wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy. (paragraph 6)
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a. weaknesses of character
b. qualities or state of being ill
c. false ideas and perceptions
d. people whom one knows
Part B Which word or phrase in the sentence is the context clue that best
supports the answer to Part A?
a. an absence of mental excitement
b. widespread delusion
c. ailments
d. cause
17.
The following is a list of exocentric and endocentric compound words. Which
words are exocentric compounds? Select three options.
a. killjoy
b. waterbed
c. mailman
d. freewheeling
e. steamship
f. lighthouse
g. pickpocket
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18.
The following question has two parts. Answer Part A first, and then Part B.
Part A What does the Greek prefix dys- mean?
a. overly; excessive
b. under; below
c. bad; difficult
d. not; the opposite
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20.
The following question has two parts. Answer Part A first, and then Part B.
Part A What does the Latin root -strict- mean?
a. to use repeatedly
b. to bind or compress
c. to require modification
d. to fail to follow conventions
Part B The word constrictive features the root -strict-. Given this information
and the answer to Part A, what can you conclude is the meaning of constrictive
in the following sentence?
Once I was onstage and tried to move, I realized my costume was constrictive.
a. tight
b. ragged
c. gaudy
d. old-fashioned
21.
Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word ascendable as it used
in the sentence? Base your answer on context and on your knowledge of the
Latin root -scend-.
In the park, for instance, not far inside its northern border, there is a slight incline,
ascendable by any healthy adult, with an inviting platform where park goers may sit.
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24.
Which of the following sentences uses asyndeton?
a. I looked out over the hills and valleys, not knowing where they were.
b. We sat down, wiped our brows, wearily wondered if we would ever arrive.
c. Igor made sure to stake his tent to the ground, for he knew the wind
would pick up at night.
d. We searched far and wide for a site that was level, dry, and provided
cover from the wind.
25.
Which of the following excerpts from “A Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf
deviates from the conventions of standard English to achieve a stream-of-
consciousness effect? Choose two responses.
a. “What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?” My hands were
empty.
b. A moment later the light had faded.
c. Out in the garden then?
d. He left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the
Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beneath the Downs.
e. “Safe, safe, safe,” the pulse of the house beat gladly.
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26.
The following sentence is written in dialect. Rewrite it using standard English.
Pa was fixing to throw a party the likes of which we ain’t never seen.
27.
Which of the following sentences are in the passive voice? Select three
options.
a. Deshawn is happy with his gifts.
b. There is nothing she won’t do to win.
c. The crowd waited for hours.
d. The windows had been left open all day.
e. The crash happened to be witnessed by many people.
f. Rosemary sang along with the radio.
g. Mary Rossi was elected governor for another term.
28.
Combine the following facts into one sentence that uses the active voice.
Fact: Richard Drew was the inventor of cellophane tape.
Fact: Cellophane was invented in 1930.
29.
Which sentence contains a simile?
a. Darius matches his brother in height and weight.
b. Su-Lin’s head comes up to the roof of her family’s car.
c. My feelings were painful—so much jagged glass strewn about.
d. Heartache hovered nearby like a tiger ready to pounce.
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30.
What is most clearly suggested by the metaphor in the following sentence?
Those who strive for excellence run a race with no finish line.
a. People who strive for excellence do not know where they will end up.
b. People who strive for excellence are competing against each other.
c. People who strive for excellence will always set new goals for
themselves.
d. People who strive for excellence feel as if their lives are like a race.
31.
What does the dialect in the following conversation most clearly communicate
to a reader?
(1) Rita saw Jake fishing at the lake and realized that she could ask him. “Hey,
Jake, can you tell me how to get to the Bowens’ house?”
(2) “Ya jes’ gotta go ’bout a tin minute walk down that there road, but don’t turn off
none, and ’fore ya know it, da house’ll be dere,” replied Jake.
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(2) “Tired?” said Detective Marney. Marney was older, long past the age of retirement, a fixture
at the station, even late at night.
(3) “Guess I am,” said Barnes. “But at least I’m finished. It’s an open-and-shut case.”
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32.
Write the next section of LaToya’s story, using her notes to tell Detective
Marney’s story as a flashback. Include details that help characterize Detective
Marney.
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33.
Rewrite paragraph 5 of LaToya’s draft so that it includes dialogue. Make sure that
your version keeps the basic meaning of the original.