There Will Come Soft Rains

What happened to the humans in "There Will Come Soft Rains?"

• They were killed by a nuclear blast

• They were killed by an earthquake

• They were on vacation

• They moved to Europe

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.

What can you conclude based on the fact that the house prepares two cups of coffee and two glasses of milk?

• The parents in the house are having guests over for breakfast

• There are two family members: a man and a woman

• There are four family members: two adults and two children

• The parents give their children coffee

How does the house "die" in the end?

• It burned down in a fire

• It was blown up by a nuclear explosion

• The electronic "mice" tore it down

• The owners move away and it stops working

If a writer manipulated words to create an advertisement, what did the writer do?

• treated words badly

• used words skillfully

• corrected another writer’s mistakes

• persuaded people to like her writing

Which of the following situations is most likely to make a person feel tremulous?

• performing a solo while experiencing stage fright

• learning that an exam has been moved to a later date

• getting a good grade on a research paper

• hearing one’s favorite song on the radio

What passage from the story supports the idea that the parents were outside in the garden when the tragedy occurred?

• Here the silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick flowers.

• In the cellar, the incinerator glowed suddenly and a whirl of sparks leaped up the chimney.

• Bridge tables sprouted from patio walls. Playing cards fluttered onto pads in a shower of pips.

• A voice spoke from the study ceiling: “Mrs. McClellan, which poem would you like this evening?”

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

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.

What does the Latin root -man- mean?

• hand

• name

• person

• month