There Will Come Soft Rains

How does the reader learn where and when "There Will Come Soft Rains" takes place?

• The date and location are burned into the side of the house.

• The reader must figure it out using a variety of clues throughout the story.

• An electronic device states the time, date, and location at the beginning of the story.

• There is a newspaper on the kitchen table that shows the date and location of the story.

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Where are the human beings in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

• They are at work or at school.

• They have moved to a different city.

• They have been killed by a nuclear bomb.

• They are being held prisoner in the basement of an automated house.

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Which details show what has happened to the owners of the house in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

• The stove prepares a breakfast that goes uneaten.

• Mrs. McClellan likes to listen to poetry in the evenings.

• The house keeps itself clean and protects itself from harm.

• The shapes of four people are burned into the side of the house.

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At the beginning of "There Will Come Soft Rains," the stove prepares eight pieces of toast, eight eggs, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two glasses of milk. What can you conclude is most likely to be true about the McClellan family, based on this information and other details?

• The family is having guests over for breakfast.

• Two of the family members are allergic to milk.

• The stove usually burns the toast and undercooks the eggs.

• .There are four family members, and two of them are children.

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How is the automated house destroyed in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

• It is blown up in a nuclear blast.

• The electronic mice tear it down.

• It catches on fire and is unable to put the fire out.

• The owners move away, and the house stops functioning.

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In “There Will Come Soft Rains,” what are the parents doing at the time of the tragedy?

• They are downstairs in the basement.

• They are outside working in the garden.

• They are sitting together in the nursery.

• They are playing bridge at the card table.

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What is surprising about what happens to the dog in “There Will Come Soft Rains”?

• The robot mice are trained to recognize the dog but do not help it.

• The house tries to provide medical aid to the dog but it refuses help.

• The dog gets sick even though it has no outward symptoms of illness.

• The hungry dog cannot get food even though the house can still cook.

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Read this passage from “There Will Come Soft Rains.”

The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, attending, in choirs.

But the gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly.

Which answer choice gives the most important reason the author chose to make this comparison?

• to show that the house works without a purpose now that the people it served are gone

• to show that the house continues to function exactly as it did when people lived there

• to show that the house has destroyed the people instead of serving them

• to show that the house was once a popular and well-attended church

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What conflict, or struggle, is presented in this scene from “There Will Come Soft Rains”?

“Fire!” screamed a voice. The house lights flashed, water pumps shot water from the ceilings.

But the solvent spread on the linoleum, licking, eating, under the kitchen door, while the

voices took it up in chorus: “Fire, fire, fire!” . . .

The house gave ground as the fire in ten billion angry sparks moved with flaming ease from

room to room and then up stairs.

• the conflict the house feels about whether or not to save itself from fire

• the conflict between nature, the fire, and the human-made solvent

• the conflict between the panicked house and the furious fire

• the conflict the fire feels about destroying the house

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Which sentence from “There Will Come Soft Rains” is an example of personification?

• The garden sprinklers whirled up in golden founts, filling the soft morning air with scatterings of brightness.

• The dog ran upstairs, hysterically yelping to each door, at last realizing, as the house realized, that only silence was here.

• At four o'clock the tables folded like great butterflies back through the paneled walls.

• The wind blew. A falling tree bough crashed through the kitchen window. Cleaning solvent, bottled, shattered over the stove.

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