Ohio Graduation Test for Reading – March 2008
Annotated Item 39
Standard and Benchmark Assessed:
Standard:
Benchmark:
Reading Applications: Literary Text
F. Identify and analyze how an author uses figurative language, sound devices
and literary techniques to shape plot, set meaning and develop tone.
Multiple Choice Question:
39.
Ling’s reference to digging a hole to China is effective because
A. clichés are common in literature.
B. China is far from Pennsylvania.
C. the author is Chinese.
D. the poem is about returning to China.
Commentary:
This multiple-choice question asks students to read the poem carefully, focus on the figurative
language the author uses and determine what it is meant to convey to the audience. The line, “If
you dig that hole deep enough, you’ll reach China,” appears in stanza 1 of the poem. In this
stanza, the writer is looking back on her childhood and thinking about her desire to return to the
country in which she was born. The stanza continues by the writer saying that since she wasn’t
strong enough to dig her way to China, she had to wait twenty years before she returned.
Answer choice “D” is correct. This poem is about the writer returning to China. Answer choice
“A” is incorrect. Since a cliché is a phrase that has been overused to the point where it is no
longer effective, it is not a type of figurative language that authors would use on a consistent
basis. Answer choice “B” is incorrect. Even though China is far from Pennsylvania, the writer is
speaking figuratively about digging a hole to China, which would be impossible to do. Answer
choice “C” is incorrect. Even though the author is Chinese, this reference by the writer is still a
use of figurative language. It is impossible to dig a hole from Pennsylvania to China.
Performance Data:
The percent of public school students selecting answer choice D for question 39 on the March
2008 Ohio Graduation Test for Reading was 70%.
Keywords:
word choice, figurative language
Passage:
Grandma Ling
1
If you dig that hole deep enough,
you’ll reach China, they used to tell me,
a child in a backyard in Pennsylvania.
Not strong enough to dig that hole,
I waited twenty years,
then sailed back, halfway around the world.
2
In Taiwan I first met Grandma.
Before she came to view, I heard
Source: Ohio Department of Education
July 05
Ohio Graduation Test for Reading – March 2008
Annotated Item 39
her slippered feet softly measure
the tatami 1 floor with even step;
the aqua paper-covered door slid open
and there I faced
my five foot height, sturdy legs and feet,
square forehead, high cheeks and wide-set eyes;
my image stood before me,
acted on by fifty years.
3
4
She smiled, stretched her arms
to take to heart the eldest daughter
of her youngest son a quarter century away.
She spoke a tongue I knew no word of,
and I was sad I could not understand,
but I could hug her.
MEET THE WRITER
Between Worlds
As a child, Amy Ling (1939 – 1999) had a special reason for wanting to reach China:
She’d be going home. Amy Ling, whose name was originally Ling Ying Ming, was born in
Beijing, China, and moved to the United States with her family at the age of six.
“Grandma Ling” was inspired by a trip to Taiwan the poet made in the early 1960s. Ling
studied and wrote about other American writers who are “between worlds,” especially
Asian American women writers.
Source: Ohio Department of Education
July 05