READING QUIZ
NAME:
DIRECTIONS: Answer the following questions about the reading assigned for today. Remember
that you are responsible for completing reading assigned for both in and outside of class. This
one will be formative (recorded in Clarity). The next reading quiz will be summative.
LANGSTON HUGHES “SALVATION”
1. The first sentence of "Salvation"--"I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen"-proves to be an example of irony. After reading the essay, how might we reinterpret this
opening sentence?
(a) As it turns out, Hughes was actually only ten years old when he was saved from sin.
(b) Hughes is fooling himself: he may think that he was saved from sin when he was a boy,
but his lie in church shows that he did not want to be saved.
(c) Although the boy wants to be saved, in the end he only pretends to be saved "to save
further trouble."
(d) The boy is saved because he stands up in church and is led to the platform.
(e) Because the boy has no mind of his own, he simply imitates the behavior of his friend
Westley.
2. Who has told young Langston about what he will see and hear and feel when he is saved?
(a) his friend Westley
(b) the preacher
(c) the Holy Ghost
(d) his Auntie Reed and a great many old people
(e) the deacons and the old women
3. Why does Westley get up to be saved?
(a) He has seen Jesus.
(b) He is inspired by the prayers and songs of the congregation.
(c) He is frightened by the preacher's sermon.
(d) He wants to impress the young girls.
(e) He tells Langston that he is tired of sitting on the mourner's bench.
4. Why does young Langston wait so long before getting up to be saved?
(a) He wants to get revenge against his aunt for making him go to church.
(b) He is terrified of the preacher.
(c) He is not a very religious person.
(d) He wants to see Jesus, and he is waiting for Jesus to appear.
(e) He is afraid that God will strike him dead.
5. At the end of the essay, which one of the following reasons does Hughes not give to explain
why he was crying?
(a) He was afraid that God would punish him for lying.
(b) He couldn't bear to tell Auntie Reed that he had lied in church.
(c) He didn't want to tell his aunt that he had deceived everybody in the church.
(d) He wasn't able to tell Auntie Reed that he had not seen Jesus.
(e) He couldn't tell his aunt that he didn't believe that there was a Jesus anymore.
GEORGE ORWELL “SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT”
1. Orwell takes great length in describing the elephant’s demise. What does his description
foreshadow?
a. the rise of the empire
b. the fall of the empire
c. the prosperity of the empire
d. the birth of the empire
e. the dream of a new empire
2. Orwell was reluctant to shoot the elephant at first because he knew the elephant was:
I.
no longer a danger after his bout of “must” had worn off.
II.
worth less than the “coolie” who had been killed.
III.
worth more alive than dead.
a. I only
b. I and II only
c. II only
d. I and III only
e. I, II and III
3. The first two sentences of the passage perform which of the following function(s)?
In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life
that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of
the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter.
I.
II.
III.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
They state the main idea of the passage.
They establish the setting of the passage.
They introduce the speaker’s attitude toward the Burmese
I only
III only
I, II and III
I and II only
II and III only
4. Which sentence best describes the theme of the essay?
a. “As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed to do so.”
b. “He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of the sahib.”
c. “I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid
looking a fool.”
d. “At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant
and never wanted to.”
e. “I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom
he destroys.”
5. The natives influence Orwell’s decision to shoot the elephant in all the following ways, EXCEPT:
a. just punishment for the elephant killing the native.
b. the threat of native ridicule.
c. not being frightened in front of natives
d. by doing what the natives expect of him since he is a sahib
e. the presence of 2,000 natives created added pressure