Name: __________________________
I.
Period: __________
Date: ____________
Background
Answer the following questions by selecting the best answer choice. You may use the
text for support.
1. Which of the following is ​not true​ about the author, Ishmael Beah?
a. The author fought as a soldier in a war when he was a child.
b. The author is from a royal African family.
c. The author did not know how to play paintball before this story.
d. The author took school very seriously.
RI.2
2. What type of text is Ishmael Beah's "Unusual Normality"?
a. Short Story
b. Personal Essay
c. Poem
d. Informative Essay
RI.6
II. Vocabulary
L.4
Answer the following questions by selecting the best answer choice. You may use the
text for support.
3. A synonym for rehabilitation isa. Restoration
b. medical center
c. decline
d. Degeneration
4. ​Which word is ​not​ synonymous to naive?
a. well informed
b. innocent
c. ignorant
d. Gullible
5. What is the connotation of the word ​weird​ in paragraph 26?
a. alienated
b. quirky
c. bizarre
d. unconventional
6. What is the connotation of the word ​macho​ in paragraph 60?
60sec
a. Determined
b. Powerful
c. Boastful
d. Aggressive
7. What is the best definition of the term, “Counterparts”?
a. An enemy
b. People or things that closely resemble other people or things
c. Two things that are completely different or opposite of each other
d. None of the above
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III. Reading Comprehension
Answer the following questions using the text for support.
8. Which of the following phrases best reveal the author’s tone​(attitude)​ on page 19
(paragraphs 1-6)?
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a. “I came to New York in 1998. I was seventeen.”
b. “I just walked right out to meet my new adoptive mother”
c. “And I thought to myself, ​What a great omen. Fresh new start to everything.”​
d. “We left and went to Manhatten”
9. Why the author’s counterparts believe he is of royal-African decent?
a. The author has a funny accent
b. The author wore cultural attire
c. The author’s vocabulary was formal
d. The author lied to his classmates
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10A. Which of the following options best describe the author’s opinion of his classmates?
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a. The author believes his classmates are very tough
b. The author thinks his classmates know too much
c. The author is intimidated by his classmates
d. The author believes his classmates are naive
10B. Which of the following quotations best support your answer to part a?
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a. “These kids had a sort of idea of violence that they’d never really live.”
b. “They were like, ‘no worries, our African brother. Anytime, anytime.’”
c. “They had been to the Bronx. They had been to Bed-Stuy.”
d. “His family had property up there, and he said we were going there for the
weekend…”
11A. What is the author’s point of view about sharing his background?
​RI.6
a. He believes that sometimes it’s fun to pretend to be a different person.
b. He believes that a person should be careful not to share anything with people.
​c. He believes that in order to live the life he wants, he needs to hide certain things
from others.
d. He believes that in order to live the life he wants, he should share his background
with everyone.
11B. Which of the following quotations from the text best reveals the author’s reason for
staying silent about his life in Africa?
RI.1
a. “to live with a mother who was willing to take me into her life when most people at
the time were afraid of somebody like me” (Paragraph 8)
b. “Thus began my two years of high school and making other teenagers confused
about who I was.” (Paragraph 21)
c. “The reason I spoke like this was because of my British-African English that I’d
learned, which was the only formal English that I knew.” (Paragraph 28)
​ d. “I wanted to explain certain things, but I felt that if they knew about my
background, they would no longer allow me to be a child.” (Paragraph 91)
12. What is the best inference that can be made about the author’s message or central
idea in paragraph 17?
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a.Significant cultural differences exist between Sierra Leone and the US
​b.Americans can scarcely comprehend the horrors endured in war-torn places
c. Bureaucracies sometimes enforce regulations at the expense of those in need
d.War inflicts psychic scars that time may be slow to heal.
13. What belief of the author’s does paragraph 74 reveal?
RI.6
a. that he can forget his past by learning to play paintball
b. that he can convince others to overlook his background by praising them
​ c. that he can seem like a regular teenager by pretending not to understand war
d. that he can make lasting friendships by learning paintball from the other
teenagers
14. Words and phrases such as ​humongous​ or ​weirded out​ help establish the author’s
personality, or —
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a. tone
​b. voice
c. purpose
d. message
15. Label the items in the order in which they appear in the text. The first item will be
labeled 1, and the last will be labeled 4.
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________ School officials can not relate to the trials of a former child soldier.
________ Having been at actual war for his life, Beah excels at paintball.
________ Beah describes his childhood in Sierra Leone.
________ Beah learns that the bravado of young Americans is false.
2,4,1,3
16. The author’s traumatic past shaped his response to his new environment. Which two
examples of Ishmael Beah’s experiences in New York show when he carried himself like a
soldier?
a. In the airport on arrival
b. When strangers walked by
c. When the boys went rollerblading
d. On a weekend trip upstate
e. In his meetings with school principals
17. At the conclusion of the essaya. The author’s friends invite him to play paintball again
b. The author tells his friends about the past
c. The author finally gets into a good school
d. The author explains what he wanted to tell his friends
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18. Which of these best describes the purpose of the selection?
a. To explain how the author became a great paintball player
b. To show how people who think they are tough are really weak
c. To explain how the past made the author appreciate his new life
d. To describe how it was impossible for the author to escape his past
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IV. Open-Ended Response
Respond to each of the following questions with a well-written paragraph. Each response should
contain direct text evidence to support your response.
19.The author strikes a tone that almost suggests a spy, or an operative describing the thoughts
behind all the things he must not say. Explain briefly how the text creates this “spy like” tone.
Use text evidence from the passage to support your response.
20. How are Ishmael Beah’s memories central to his purpose in writing the essay?
20sec