Eleven excerpt

Which of the following statements about the narrator is best supported by the following passage (paragraph 3)?

Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is.

• A. She feels young even though it is her eleventh birthday.

• B. She believes people are a product of all their past ages.

• C. She knows that each year she becomes more mature.

• D. She thinks people exhibit characteristics of familiar objects.

Reorder the following

• Mrs. Price asks the class to tell her who owns a particular red sweater.

• A student claims the red sweater is hers before the end of class.

• Mrs. Price tells Rachel to put the sweater on.

• Rachel explains in detail how it feels to be eleven years old.

• Rachel cries in front of the class when she feels overwhelmed.

Match the following

• Embarrassed in front of the class

• Phyllis Lopez

• The person the sweater actually belongs to

• Mrs. Price

• Frustrated that no one will claim the sweater

• Sylvia Saldivar

• Doesn’t like Rachel for some reason

• Rachel

Which of the following sentences best summarizes this short story?

• A. An encounter with an unkind teacher makes one schoolgirl realize she does not like red sweaters.

• B. A classroom of students refuse to listen to their teacher’s request to identify the owner of a certain sweater.

• C. An experience at school causes a girl to feel unsure of herself, leading her to consider what it means to be one year older.

• D. A teacher embarrasses a student on her birthday in front of other students, which causes three of the girls to argue.

Which of the following best explains the narrator’s feelings about the red sweater?

• A. She is looking forward to giving the sweater to her father when she gets home from school.

• B. She does not want the other students to know the sweater belongs to her.

• C. She enjoys wearing the new sweater but discovers that the sweater is too large.

• D. She is embarrassed that Mrs. Price and the other students think the sweater is hers.

Which passage from the story most strongly supports the answer to Question 5?

• A. "’It has to belong to somebody,’ Mrs. Price says, but no one can remember.”

• B. “’Of course it’s yours,’ Mrs. Price says. ’I remember you wearing it once.’ Because she’s older and the teacher, she’s right and I’m not.”

• C. “An ugly sweater like that all raggedy and old, but Mrs. Price believes her. Mrs Price takes the sweater and puts it right on my desk, but when I open my mouth nothing comes out.”

• D. “Maybe because I’m skinny, maybe because she doesn’t like me, that stupid Sylvia Saldivar says, ’I think it belongs to Rachel.’”

Which of the following abilities does the narrator mainly believe older people have that younger people don’t?

• A. The wisdom to handle a tough situation

• B. The ability to fall in love

• C. The ability to laugh at themselves

• D. The knowledge of when someone is being cruel

Which passage from the text most strongly supports the answer to Question 7?

• A. “That’s what I tell Mama when she’s sad and needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling three."

• B. “Today I wish I was one hundred and two instead of eleven because if I was one hundred and two I’d have known what to say when Mrs. Price put the red sweater on my desk.”

• C. “There’ll be candles and presents and everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you, Rachel, only it’s too late.”

• D. “You don’t feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes even months before you say Eleven when they ask you.”

What does the following passage mainly reveal about the narrator (paragraph 12)?

“I don’t know why but all of a sudden I’m feeling sick inside, like the part of me that’s three wants to come out of my eyes, only I squeeze them shut tight and bite down on my teeth real hard and try to remember today I am eleven, eleven.”

• A. She exaggerates her feelings sometimes.

• B. She wants to hide her birthday from her teacher.

• C. She feels unwell and worries she's coming down with a cold.

• D. She wants to cry but reminds herself she should be old enough not to.

Which of the following words most closely describes what the narrator is feeling in paragraph 22?

I’m eleven today. I’m eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one, but I wish I was one hundred and two. I wish I was anything but eleven, because I want today to be far away already, far away like a runaway balloon, like a tiny o in the sky, so tiny-tiny you have to close your eyes to see it.

• A. maturity

• B. guilt

• C. shame

• D. confusion