Author's Purpose

Multiple Choice

What is the definition of author's purpose?

• Who an author is

• Why an author is writing

• What an author is writing about

• How the author feels about the topic

Multiple Choice

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What is the author's purpose?

• To entertain you with a story about artists

• To teach you how all artists become famous

• To persuade you to attend an art program

• To explain how to paint a sunset

Multiple Select

What is the author's purpose for writing this passage?

In "The Hunger Games," Suzanne Collins uses the character of Katniss Everdeen to critique the dangers of totalitarianism and the abuse of power. Through Katniss's experiences in the Hunger Games, Collins shows how the government manipulates and controls its citizens in order to maintain its power.

• To critique totalitarianism

• To highlight the dangers of the abuse of power

• To propose totalitarianism

• To eliminate the dangers of the abuse of power

Multiple Choice

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1966) is a well-known example of the “nonfiction novel,” a popular type of writing based upon factual events in which the author attempts to describe the underlying forces, thoughts and emotions that lead to actual events. In Capote’s book, the author describes the sadistic murder of a family on a Kansas farm, often showing the point of view of the killers. To research the book, Capote interviewed the murderers, and he maintains that his book presents a faithful reconstruction of the incident.

The purpose of this passage is to _____.

• tell the story of In Cold Blood

• discuss an example of a particular literary genre

• explain Truman’s Capote’s reasons for writing In Cold Blood

• describe how Truman Capote researched his nonfiction novel

Multiple Choice

Up to now, confessions that have been obtained from defendants in a hypnotic state have not been admitted into evidence by courts in the United States. Experts in the field of hypnosis have found that such confessions are not completely reliable. Subjects in a hypnotic state may confess to crimes they did not commit for one or two reasons. Either they fantasize that they committed crimes, or they believe that others want them to confess.

A landmark case concerning a confession obtained under hypnosis went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the case of Layra v. Denno, a suspect was hypnotized by a psychiatrist for the district attorney; in a posthypnotic state the suspect signed three separate confessions to a murder. The Supreme Court ruled that the confessions were invalid because the confessions had been the only evidence against him.

Which of the following best describes the author’s purpose in this passage?

• To explain the details of a specific court case

• To demonstrate why confessions made under hypnosis are not reliable

• To clarify the role of the Supreme Court in invalidating confessions from hypnotized subjects

• To explain the legal status of hypnotically induced confessions

Multiple Choice

The last gold rush belongs as much to Canadian history as it does to American. The discovery of gold among the Klondike River, which flows from Canada’s Yukon Territory into Alaska, drew some 30,000 fortune hunters to the north. The Yukon became a territory, and its capital of the time, Dawson, would not have existed without the gold rush. The gold strike furnished material for a dozen of Jack London’s novels. It inspired Robert Service to write “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and other poems, and it proved the background for the wonderful Charlie Chaplin movie. The Gold Rush. It also marked the beginnings of modern Alaska.

This author’s main purpose in writing is to _____.

• discuss the significance of mining in Canada and the United States

• show the influence of the Klondike gold strike on the creative arts

• point out the impact of the Klondike gold strike

• emphasize the importance of the Klondike Gold Rush as a significant event in both Canadian and American history

Multiple Select

Circumstantial evidence is evidence not drawn from the direct observation of a fact. If, for example, there is evidence that a piece of rock embedded in a wrapped chocolate bar is the same type of rock found in the vicinity of the candy factory, and that rock of this type is found in new other places, then there is circumstantial evidence that the stone found its way into the candy during manufacture and suggests that the candy-maker was negligent. Despite a popular notion to look down on the quality of circumstantial evidence, it is of great usefulness if there is enough of it and if it is properly interpreted. Each circumstance, taken singly, may mean little, but a whole chain of circumstances can be as conclusive as direct evidence.

What is the author’s main purpose in this passage?

• To show that a manufacturer’s negligence can be shown by direct evidence only

• To define circumstantial evidence and show its usefulness

• To demonstrate that circumstantial evidence can be very useful in science

• To clarify the concept of circumstantial evidence