Skill Check #1: "Fahrenheit 451"

Read the following excerpt:

He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back.

The author uses a simile that suggests that—

• Montag realizes that he was not really happy after all.

• Montag was truly happy until he met Clarisse.

• Montag feels that he will always be happy regardless of what Clarisse says.

• Montag only feels unhappy at home.

How does the empty sleeping-pill bottle affect Montag’s internal conflict?

• The empty bottle signifies that Milly is not happy either.

• Montag wanted to take a sleeping pill before bed.

• Montag is more unhappy because the medicine is expensive.

• Millie’s disregard for Montag’s feelings makes him more unhappy.

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.8

CCSS.RL.6.3

CCSS.RL.7.3

CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

Read the following excerpt:

"We get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built. With the optical lens, of course, that was new; the rest is ancient. You don't need an M.D., case like this; all you need is two handymen, clean p the problem in a half an hour. Look,"-- he started for the door-- "we gotta go. Just had another call on the old ear-thimble. Ten blocks from here. Someone else just jumped off the cap of a pillbox. Call if you need us again. Keep her quiet. We got a contrasedative in her. She'll wake up hungry. So long."

From this excerpt, the reader can infer that the handymen--

• take a personal interest in every patient they help.

• do not care about the individual people they purge of chemicals.

• have trained stringently to serve people who overdose.

• think that most people are better off dead than living in this society.

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.1

CCSS.RI.11-12.1

CCSS.RI.8.1

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

Read this paragraph from the selection.

The Mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and the copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylonbrushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber-padded paws.

The tone of this paragraph can best be described as –

• menacing

• entertaining

• comforting

• undermining

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.4

CCSS.RL.6.4

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Read the following excerpt:

The captain came over to the drop hole and gave Montag a questioning glance.

“I was just figuring,” said Montag, “what does the Hound think about down there nights? Is it coming alive on us, really? It makes me cold.”

“It doesn’t think anything we don’t want it to think.”

“That’s sad,” said Montag, quietly, “because all we put into it is hunting and finding and killing. What a shame if that’s all it can ever know.”

Beatty snorted, gently. “Hell! It’s a fine bit of craftsmanship, a good rifle that can fetch its own target and guarantees the bull’s-eye every time.”

In this excerpt, the metaphor indicates that Beatty –

• is afraid of the Hound.

• needs help understanding the Hound.

• thinks Montag’s personification of the Hound is ridiculous.

• believes that the hound will one day attack him.

Read the following excerpt:

“Didn’t firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them up and get them going?”

“That’s rich!” Stoneman and Black drew forth their rulebooks, which also contained brief histories of the Firemen of America, and laid them out where Montag, though long familiar with them might read:

“Established, 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies. First Fireman: Benjamin Franklin.”

In this excerpt, the word rich means—

• great wealth

• having many natural resources

• highly amusing

• food containing butter and cream

Tags

CCSS.RI.11-12.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RL.11-12.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Read the following excerpt:

“But now, tonight, someone had slipped. This woman was spoiling the ritual. The men were making too much noise, laughing, joking, to cover her terrible accusing silence below. She made the empty rooms roar with accusation and shake down a fine dust of guilt that was sucked in their nostrils as they plunged about. It was neither cricket nor correct. Montag felt an immense irritation. She shouldn’t be here, on top of everything!”

In this paragraph, the author uses personification to emphasize how—

• uncomfortable Montag is with woman there.

• unhappy Montag is to be away from Mildred.

• gratifying Montag finds his job.

• surprised Montag is that the woman is his friend.

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.4

CCSS.RL.6.4

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Read the following excerpt.

“Beatty flicked his finger to spark the kerosene.

He was too late. Montag gasped.

The woman on the porch reached out with contempt to them all, and struck the kitchen match against the railing.

People ran out of houses all down the street.”

Why does the woman light the match?

• She wants to burn the firemen.

• She was frightened because Montag threatened her.

• She wants to be in control of her own death.

• She thinks the diversion will let her get away.

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.1

CCSS.RI.11-12.1

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.8.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

Read the excerpt:

He made more soft sounds. He stumbled toward the bed and shoved the book clumsily under the cold pillow. He fell into bed and his wife cried out, startled. He lay far across the room from her, on a winter island separated by an empty sea. She talked to him for what seemed a long while and she talked about this and she talked about that and it was only words, like the words he had heard once in a nursery at a friend’s house, a two-year-old child building word patterns, talking jargon, making pretty sounds in the air. But Montag said nothing and after a long while when he made only small sounds, he felt her move in the room and come to his bed and stand over him and put her hand down to feel his cheek. He knew that when she pulled her hand away from his face it was wet.

The quotation suggests that the selection explores the theme of –

• the inability to communicate feelings.

• cherishing particular moments.

• sharing personal thoughts.

• happiness in the face of adversity.

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.9

CCSS.RI.11-12.9

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.8.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

Read the excerpt:

“Mildred, how would it be if, well, maybe I quit my job awhile?”

“You want to give up everything? After all these years of working, because, one night, some woman and her books—“

“You should have seen her, Millie!”

“She’s nothing to me; she shouldn’t have had books. It was her responsibility, she should’ve thought of that. I hate her. She’s got you going and next thing you know we’ll be out, no house, no job, nothing.”

The dialogue serves to support the theme of—

• the importance of curiosity

• the selfishness of this society.

• persistence in the face of obstacles.

• the generosity of strangers.

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3