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My Brother Sam is Dead
Chapters 3-5
Part I: Using Prior Knowledge and Contextual Clues - Below are the sentences in which the vocabulary words
appear in the text. Read the sentence. Use any clues you can find in the sentence combined with your prior
knowledge, and write what you think the underlined words mean in the space provided.
1. So I ran uphill and down, clambering over the stone and rail fences that divided the pastures.
2. Army commissary officers, like the one Sam was working for, were buying up a lot of
the livestock to feed the troops.
3. I liked ciphering all right, but I didn't care much for spelling and studying the Bible
and memorizing psalms.
4. " Perhaps I might take him on as an apprentice in a year or two, once he's learned to cipher."
5. Father said that surveyors always knew about the good deals on land and could get rich
speculating.
6. He sat down at the table, too, and I went back to rushing the chair.
7. "I'd pay him a shilling." My father stared into his beer again and then slowly he began to
shake his head.
8., 9. "Cholera gets them or consumption or something else, and they die. Tim it isn't worth it."
10. So I went inside to where he was holystoning the taproom table.
Part II: Determining the Meaning - Match the vocabulary words to their dictionary definitions.
___ 13. clambering
A. officer of providing provisions
___ 14. commissary
B. learner of a trade
___ 15. ciphering
C. weaving
___ 16. apprentice
D. acute disorder of the digestive tract
___ 17. speculating
E. rubbing with sandstone
___ 18. rushing
F. climbing with effort
___ 19. shilling
G. British money
___ 20. cholera
H. wasting disease such as TB
___ 21. consumption
I. taking a business risk
___ 22. holystoning
J. arithmetic
Short Answers Chapters 3-5 – Two to three complete sentences per answer.
1. Were there many changes in Redding due to the war in the summer of 1775?
2. Who passed secret information on Sam's whereabouts to Tim?
3. What disturbed Tim's fall afternoon wood chopping?
4. How does Tim respond when the Continental officer threatens his father?
5. Why didn't Sam rush into the tavern to help his father?
6. What happened when Sam and his father met face to face?
7. How did the war now affect Redding in the winter of 1776?
8. What are Tim's feelings about Sam since he has seen him?
9. What is Mr. Heron's offer to Mr. Meeker concerning Tim?
10. How does Tim react to Mr. Heron's offer?