THE JOY LUCK CLUB

What is most likely the author’s intent by including the mother’s line “You already know how. Don’t need talent for crying!” in Paragraph 5?

• A. She is pointing out that the mother had no idea how show business worked.

• B. She is demonstrating how violent the mother could be to her daughter.

• C. She is proving what a big Shirley Temple fan the mother was.

• D. She is showing the mother’s humorous side.

  
  

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CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.2.6

Which of the following choices best explains why the beauty instructor tells the narrator and her mother that “Peter Pan is very popular these days” in Paragraph 8?

• A. The instructor is blown away by the narrator’s resemblance to Peter Pan.

• B. The instructor is trying to put a positive spin on an unfortunate situation.

• C. The instructor is explaining the signature style of the beauty school.

• D. The instructor thinks that the narrator is a boy.

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CCSS.RL.9-10.2

CCSS.RI. 9-10.1

CCSS.RI.8.1

CCSS.RL.8.1

CCSS.RI.7.1

What do the following lines from Paragraph 10 reveal about the narrator?

But sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient. “If you don’t hurry up and get me out of here, I’m disappearing for good,” it warned. “And then you’ll always be nothing.”

• A. She never believed she had a shot at becoming a big success.

• B. She was desperate to escape out of her parents’ home.

• C. She believed that she would disappoint her mother if she did not become a child prodigy.

• D. She is very self-confident and was not affected by her mother’s aspirations for her.

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CCSS.RL.9-10.3

CCSS.RL.8.6

CCSS.RL.11-12.3

CCSS.RL.7.6

CCSS.RL.6.6

What is the meaning of “willful thoughts” in Paragraph 16?

• A. strategies to pass her mother’s tests

• B. plans on becoming a prodigy

• C. different ideas for herself than her mother’s

• D. intentions to hurt herself

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CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RI.11-12.4

What is a central idea of the excerpt?

• A. Immigrant families are more likely to have quarrels at home.

• B. The mother believed that their family could succeed in America by immersing themselves in its culture.

• C. California was the best place to pursue the American Dream.

• D. During this period, America was eager to have a Chinese child movie star.

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CCSS.RI. 9-10.2

CCSS.RI.8.2

CCSS.RL.8.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

Which sentence from the text most strongly supports the answer to question 5?

• A. “She had come here in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls.”

• B. “She would present new tests, taking her examples from stories of amazing children that she read in Ripley’s Believe It or Not or Good Housekeeping, Reader’s Digest, or any of a dozen other magazines she kept in a pile in our bathroom.”

• C. “I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations.”

• D. “I was a dainty ballerina girl standing by the curtain, waiting to hear the music that would send me floating on my tiptoes.”

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CCSS.RI. 9-10.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

CCSS.RI.8.1

CCSS.RL.8.1

CCSS.RL.7.1

Which of these inferences is best supported by the text?

• A. The narrator’s early ideas about becoming a famous prodigy were unlikely to occur.

• B. Magazines are highly entertaining for adults, but not for children.

• C. The best plan would have been to cast the narrator in a production of Peter Pan.

• D. The narrator refused to participate in her mother’s grand schemes from the very beginning.

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CCSS.RI.9-10.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

CCSS.RL.8.1

CCSS.RI.8.1

CCSS.RL.7.1

Which sentence from the text most strongly supports your answer to question 7?

• A. “She would look through them all, searching for stories about remarkable children.”

• B. “America was where all my mother’s hopes lay.”

• C. “I got so bored that I started counting the bellows of the foghorns out on the bay while my mother drilled me in other areas.”

• D. “And after seeing, once again, my mother's disappointed face, something inside me began to die. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations.”

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CCSS.RI. 9-10.2

CCSS.RL.8.2

CCSS.RI.8.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

Order these events chronologically as they occur in the text:

FIRST

• The mother attempts to train the narrator to become an expert on very specialized areas of knowledge.

• The mother takes the narrator to a beauty school in order to make her look more like Shirley Temple.

• The narrator refuses to go along with her mother’s vision of turning her into a prodigy.

• The narrator is filled with ideas on possible ways to become the prodigy her mother wants.

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CCSS.RL.4.3

CCSS.RL.4.4

CCSS.RL.2.3

CCSS.RL.2.2

CCSS.RL.2.10

Order these events chronologically as they occur in the text:

SECOND

• The narrator is filled with ideas on possible ways to become the prodigy her mother wants.

• The narrator refuses to go along with her mother’s vision of turning her into a prodigy.

• The mother takes the narrator to a beauty school in order to make her look more like Shirley Temple.

• The mother attempts to train the narrator to become an expert on very specialized areas of knowledge.

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CCSS.RL.4.4

CCSS.RL.4.3

CCSS.RL.2.3

CCSS.RL.2.2

CCSS.RL.2.10