Name:
Date:
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TEST: Characterization and Author’s Craft
Instructions: Read the passage below carefully. Use active reading strategies to insure
understanding. Then, read each question and the corresponding answers carefully and completely.
Choose the BEST answer for each question. Please circle the appropriate letter.
Barrio Boy by Ernesto Galarza
My mother and I walked south on Fifth Street one morning to the corner of Q Street and
turned right. Half of the block was occupied by the Lincoln School. It was a three-story wooden
building, with two wings that gave it the shape of a double-T connected by a central hall. It was a
new building, painted yellow, with a shingled roof that was not like the red tile of the school in
Mazatlán. I noticed other differences, none of them very reassuring. We walked up the wide
staircase hand in hand and through the door, which closed by itself. A mechanical contraption
screwed to the top shut it behind us quietly.
Up to this point the adventure of enrolling me in the school had been carefully rehearsed.
Mrs. Dodson had told us how to find it and we had circled it several times on our walks. Friends
in the barrio explained that the director was called a principal, and that it was a lady and not a
man. They assured us that there was always a person at the school who could speak Spanish.
Exactly as we had been told, there was a sign on the door in both Spanish and English:
“Principal.” We crossed the hall and entered the office of Miss Nettie Hopley.
Miss Hopley was at a roll-top desk to one side, sitting in a swivel chair that moved on wheels.
There was a sofa against the opposite wall, flanked by two windows and a door that opened on
a small balcony. Chairs were set around a table and framed pictures hung on the walls of a man
with long white hair and another with a sad face and a black beard.
The principal half turned in the swivel chair to look at us over the pinch glasses crossed on
the ridge of her nose. To do this she had to duck her head slightly as if she were about to step
through a low doorway.
What Miss Hopley said to us we did not know but we saw in her eyes a warm welcome and
when she took off her glasses and straightened up she smiled wholeheartedly, like Mrs.
Dodson. We were, of course, saying nothing, only catching the friendliness of her voice and the
sparkle in her eyes while she said words we did not understand. She signaled us to the table.
Almost tiptoeing across the office, I maneuvered myself to keep my mother between me and the
gringo lady. In a matter of seconds I had to decide whether she was a possible friend or a
menace. We sat down.
Then Miss Hopley did a formidable thing. She stood up. Had she been standing when we
entered she would have seemed tall. But rising from her chair she soared. And what she carried
up and up with her was a buxom superstructure, firm shoulders, a straight sharp nose, full
cheeks slightly molded by a curved line along the nostrils, thin lips that moved like steel springs,
and a high forehead topped by hair gathered in a bun. Miss Hopley was not a giant in body but
when she mobilized it to a standing position she seemed a match for giants. I decided I liked
her.
She strode to a door in the far corner of the office, opened it and called a name. A boy of
about ten years appeared in the doorway. He sat down at one end of the table. He was brown
like us, a plump kid with shiny black hair combed straight back, neat, cool, and faintly obnoxious.
Miss Hopley joined us with a large book and some papers in her hand. She, too, sat down
and the questions and answers began by way of our interpreter. My name was Ernesto. My
mother’s name was Henriqueta. My birth certificate was in San Blas. Here was my last report
card from the Escuela Municipal Numero 3 para Varones of Mazatlán, and so forth. Miss Hopley
put things down in the book and my mother signed a card.
As long as the questions continued, Doña Henriqueta could stay and I was secure. Now that
they were over, Miss Hopley saw her to the door, dismissed our interpreter and without further
ado took me by the hand and strode down the hall to Miss Ryan’s first grade. Miss Ryan took
me to a seat at the front of the room, into which I shrank—the better to survey her. She was, to
skinny, somewhat runty me, of a withering height when she patrolled the class. And when I least
expected it, there she was, crouching by my desk, her blond radiant face level with mine, her
voice patiently maneuvering me over the awful idiocies of the English language.
During the next few weeks Miss Ryan overcame my fears of tall, energetic teachers as she
bent over my desk to help me with a word in the pre-primer. Step by step, she loosened me and
my classmates from the safe anchorage of the desks for recitations at the blackboard and
consultations at her desk. Frequently she burst into happy announcements to the whole class.
“Ito can read a sentence,” and small Japanese Ito, squint-eyed and shy, slowly read aloud while
the class listened in wonder: “Come, Skipper, come. Come and run.” The Korean, Portuguese,
Italian, and Polish first graders had similar moments of glory, no less shining than mine the day I
conquered “butterfly,” which I had been persistently pronouncing in standard Spanish as booter-flee. “Children,” Miss Ryan called for attention. “Ernesto has learned how to pronounce
butterfly!” And I proved it with a perfect imitation of Miss Ryan. From that celebrated success, I
was soon able to match Ito’s progress as a sentence reader with “Come, butterfly, come fly with
me.”
Like Ito and several other first graders who did not know English, I received private lessons
from Miss Ryan in the closet, a narrow hall off the classroom with a door at each end. Next to
one of these doors Miss Ryan placed a large chair for herself and a small one for me. Keeping
an eye on the class through the open door she read with me about sheep in the meadow and a
frightened chicken going to see the king, coaching me out of my phonetic ruts in words like
pasture, bow-wow-wow, hay, and pretty, which to my Mexican ear and eye had so many
unnecessary sounds and letters. She made me watch her lips and then close my eyes as she
repeated words I found hard to read. When we came to know each other better, I tried
interrupting to tell Miss Ryan how we said it in Spanish. It didn’t work. She only said “oh” and
went on with pasture, bow-wow-wow, and pretty. It was as if in that closet we were both
discovering together the secrets of the English language and grieving together over the
tragedies of Bo-Peep. The main reason I was graduated with honors from the first grade was
that I had fallen in love with Miss Ryan. Her radiant, no-nonsense character made us either
afraid not to love her or love her so we would not be afraid, I am not sure which. It was not only
that we sensed she was with it, but also that she was with us. Like the first grade, the rest of the
Lincoln School was a sampling of the lower part of town where many races made their home.
My pals in the second grade were Kazushi, whose parents spoke only Japanese; Matti, a skinny
Italian boy; and Manuel, a fat Portuguese who would never get into a fight but wrestled you to
the ground and just sat on you. Our assortment of nationalities included Koreans, Yugoslavs,
Poles, Irish, and home-grown Americans.
At Lincoln, making us into Americans did not mean scrubbing away what made us originally
foreign. The teachers called us as our parents did, or as close as they could pronounce our
names in Spanish or Japanese. No one was ever scolded or punished for speaking in his native
tongue on the playground. Matti told the class about his mother’s down quilt, which she had
made in Italy with the fine feathers of a thousand geese. Encarnación acted out how boys
learned to fish in the Philippines. I astounded the third grade with the story of my travels on a
stagecoach, which nobody else in the class had seen except in the museum at Sutter’s Fort.
After a visit to the Crocker Art Gallery and its collection of heroic paintings of the golden age of
California, someone showed a silk scroll with a Chinese painting. Miss Hopley herself had a way
of expressing wonder over these matters before a class, her eyes wide open until they popped
slightly. It was easy for me to feel that becoming a proud American, as she said we should, did
not mean feeling ashamed of being a Mexican.
1. How does the author use the point of view of the young boy to develop the theme?
a. The point of view illustrates his frustration at learning English sounds
b. The point of view illustrates his growing love for his teacher
c. The point of view illustrates his journey to learn English and remain proud of his roots
d. The point of view illustrates his journey to learn English and be a good American
2. How does the author develop the central idea that the students were expected to become
American but maintain their own culture
a. The author develops the central idea by conveying how scared the young boy was
when he enrolled at the school
b. The author develops the central idea by describing the setting of the school
c. The author develops the central idea by emphasizing that the teachers called the
students by their name
d. The author develops the central idea by describing in detail the teacher praising a
student learning the word butterfly
3. Which quote supports the author’s theme of the story
a. “During the next few weeks Miss Ryan overcame my fears of tall, energetic teachers
as she bent over my desk to help me with a word in the pre-primer.”
b. “The teachers called us as our parents did, or as close as they could pronounce our
names in Spanish or Japanese.”
c. “The main reason I was graduated with honors from the first grade was that I had
fallen in love with Miss Ryan.”
d. “It was easy for me to feel that becoming a proud American, as she said we should,
did not mean feeling ashamed of being a Mexican.”
4. What is best describes author’s tone?
a. Timid but proud
b. Scared and angry
c. love and satisfaction
d. Fearful and modest
5. Which of the following excerpts is an example of characterization?
a. “It was a three-story wooden building,”
b. “A mechanical contraption screwed to the top shut it behind us quietly.”
c. “Come, Skipper, come. Come and run.”
d. “…my fears of tall, energetic teachers”
6. What is the tone of the following excerpt:
“It was a new building, painted yellow, with a shingled roof that was not like the red tile of the
school in Mazatlán. I noticed other differences, none of them very reassuring.”
a. Angry
b. isolated
c. excited
d. pleased
Section 2: “The White Umbrella”
Instructions: Read each question and the corresponding answers carefully and completely. Choose the BEST answer for
each question. Please circle the appropriate letter.
7. How does the author develop the main conflict that the protagonist rejects her culture and wants to be
more American?
a. The author develops the central idea by describing the umbrella as a “scepter on the blue carpet.”
b. The author develops the central idea by explaining that the protagonist throws the umbrella down
the sewer at the end of the passage.
c. The author develops the central idea by emphasizing the way the protagonist hides the umbrella
from her family by placing it under her skirt.
d. The author develops the central idea by conveying the protagonist’s desire to obtain the umbrella
when she believes that it belongs to Eugenie Roberts.
8. How does the Chinese expression “one beam cannot hold the roof up” reveal the meaning and tone
of the text?
a.
b.
c.
d.
The expression emphasizes the mother’s feelings of regret about working outside the home.
The expression emphasizes the mother’s desire to impress her daughters with her work ethic.
The expression emphasizes the mother’s view that working is necessary to provide for her family.
The expression emphasizes the mother’s distaste for the protagonist’s request that she quit
working.
9. Which quotation BEST supports the inference that the protagonist wants to be more like an American
girl?
a. “Any minute,” I said again, even though my mother had been at least twenty minutes late every
week since she started working.”
b. “As she resumed abuse of the piano, I stared at the umbrella. I wanted to open it, twirl it around
by its slender silver handle; I wanted to dangle it from my wrist on the way to school the way the
other girls did.”
c. “She was a grade ahead of me and, according to school rumor, had a boyfriend in high school. I
believed it…She had auburn hair, blue eyes, and, I noted with a particular pang, a pure white
folding umbrella.”
d. “Eugenie would be pleased to have it back; and I would have possession of the umbrella for an
entire night. I looked at it again, toying with the idea of asking for one for Christmas.”
10. What does the dialogue between the protagonist and Miss Crossman during her lesson reveal about
their relationship?
a. Miss Crossman unintentionally makes the protagonist feel insecure.
b. Miss Crossman believes the protagonist is a good student with great potential.
c. The protagonist feels that she should brag about her accomplishments to get Miss Crossman’s
praise.
d. The protagonist views Miss Crossman as a motherly figure and wants to be her daughter.
11. How does the symbolism in the passage contribute to the author’s theme?
a. The symbolism of the umbrella demonstrates the protagonist’s desire for another culture and
another life.
b. The symbolism of the umbrella demonstrates the way the protagonist is embarrassed by her
family and their differences.
c. The symbolism of the umbrella demonstrates the protagonist’s acceptance and appreciation of
her family.
d. The symbolism of the umbrella demonstrates the important of being grateful when someone gives
you a nice gift.
12. How does the connotation of the word pang in paragraph 18 impact the meaning of the selection?
a.
b.
c.
d.
The word pang allows the author to show the protagonist’s jealousy of Eugenie.
The word pang allows the author to reveal the protagonist’s interest and desire for the umbrella.
The word pang allows the author to express her distaste for materialism.
The word pang allows the author to emphasize the way envy can destroy a person.
13. Which excerpt supports the inference that the protagonist is struggling with an internal conflict?
a. “As Mona began to play, I jumped up and ran to the window, meaning to call to them – only to see
their brake lights flash then fade at the stop sign at the corner. As if to allow them passage, the
rain had let up; a quivering sun lit their way.”
b. “Nevertheless, she tried to be discreet; and if my mother wasn’t home by 5:30, we would start
cooking by ourselves, to make sure dinner would be on time. Mona would wash the vegetables
and put on the rice; I would chop.”
c. “’Thank you,’ I said again, but that didn’t seem like enough. Suddenly I knew just what she
wanted to hear. ‘I wish you were my mother.’ Right away I felt bad.”
d. “I listened to the windshield wipers. ‘You’re so quiet.’ My mother looked at me in the rear view
mirror. ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘I wish you would quit,’ I said after a moment.”
14. How do the differences in the points of view of the protagonist and Mona create tension?
a.
b.
c.
d.
The differences illustrate the protagonist’s concern that her sister played carelessly.
The differences illustrate the protagonist’s anxiety of being perceived as poor.
The differences illustrate the protagonist’s pride of her piano performance.
The differences illustrate the protagonist’s frustration that her sister had dirty glasses.
Section 3: “Thank You M’am”
15. Based on the excerpt below, which conflict is the protagonist facing?
“Then, Roger, you go to that sink and wash your face,” said the woman, whereupon she turned
him loose – at last. Roger looked at the door, looked at the woman, looked at the door and went to
the sink
a.
b.
c.
d.
Roger is facing the societal problem of homelessness because he has no one to take care of him.
Roger is facing an internal struggle about whether or not to steal from Mrs. Jones.
Roger is involved in a physical conflict with the woman he tried to rob.
Roger is suffering through the harshness of winter without proper clothing.
16. How does Mrs. Jones’s statement below convey the theme of the passage?
“And next time, do not make the mistake of latching onto my pocketbook nor nobody
else’s – because shoes come by devilish ways will burn your feet.”
a. Mrs. Jones’s statement conveys the theme because it encourages Roger not to steal
pocketbooks.
b. Mrs. Jones’s statement conveys the theme because it reminds Roger that stolen shoes will make
him feel guilty.
c. Mrs. Jones’s statement conveys the theme because it emphasizes the negative consequences
that will result from bad deeds.
d. Mrs. Jones’s statement conveys the theme because it highlights the idea that new shoes are not
worth the trouble he caused.
17. How does the characterization of Roger as a frail, misguided boy impact the mood of the passage?
a. The characterization of Roger makes the reader feel angry that he is taking out his misfortune on
poor Mrs. Jones.
b. The characterization of Roger makes the reader feel pity for Roger because has no one to take
care of him or advise him when he faces problems.
c. The characterization of Roger makes the reader feel sympathy for Roger because he cannot
physically defend himself in the passage.
d. The characterization of Roger makes the reader feel curious about Roger’s home life and
background.
18. What does the location and type of apartment suggest about the character of Mrs. Jones?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Mrs. Jones is very wealthy because she owns a large house.
Mrs. Jones is a kind, considerate person because she allows other people to live with her.
Mrs. Jones enjoys a modest lifestyle because she has a small room with a kitchenette.
Mrs. Jones is has plenty of extra money because members of the neighborhood rent rooms from her.
19. What does the author’s description of the dinner conversation reveal about Mrs. Jones’s character?
a. Mrs. Jones wants Roger to feel comfortable so she does not pry into his personal life.
b. Mrs. Jones wants Roger to feel protected so she asks how she can help him get his basic needs
met.
c. Mrs. Jones wants Roger to understand she will be there for him so she tells him all about her life
and her schedule.
d. Mrs. Jones wants Roger to feel relieved that he has escaped his problems so she does not ask
him about his situation and tells him she will help him.
20. Which quotation supports the inference that Roger needs more than blue suede shoes?
a. “‘If I turn you loose, will you run?’ asked the woman. ‘Yes’m,’ said the boy. ‘Then I won’t turn you
loose,’ said the woman. She did not release him.”
b. “The woman said, ‘You ought to be my son. I would teach you right from wrong. Least I can do
right now is to wash your face. Are you hungry?’ ‘No’m,’ said the being dragged boy. ‘I just want
you to turn me loose.’”
c. “The boy wanted to say something else other than ‘Thank you, m’am’ to Mrs. Luella Bates
Washington Jones, but he couldn’t do so as he turned at the barren stoop and looked back at the
large woman in the door. He barely managed to say “Thank you” before she shut the door. And
he never saw her again.”
d. “‘I’m very sorry, lady, I’m sorry,’ whispered the boy. ‘Um-hum! And your face is dirty. I got a great
mind to wash your face for you. Ain’t you got nobody home to tell you to wash your face?’ ‘No’m,’
said the boy.”
21. How does the author’s use of dialect help depict the relationship between Mrs. Jones and Roger?
a. The author’s use of dialect reveals that though Roger is polite, Mrs. Jones does not appreciate or
understand his use of manners.
b. The author’s use of dialect demonstrates that Mrs. Jones values manners and encourages Roger
to speak in a respectful way.
c. The author’s use of dialect reveals that Roger and Mrs. Jones share a similar cultural and
geographic background.
d. The author’s use of dialect emphasizes Roger’s attempts to avoid trouble with Mrs. Jones.
22. How do the differences in the points of view of Roger and Mrs. Jones develop the theme?
a.
b.
c.
d.
The differences illustrate Roger’s desire for the shoes and motive for trying to rob her.
The differences illustrate Roger learning to listen Mrs. Jones and eat her food.
The differences illustrate Roger’s desire to be trusted by Mrs. Jones and remain in her sight.
The differences illustrate Roger learning to honestly ask for what he wants in life.