Wild: From Lost to Found on Pacific Crest Trail

Which word or phrase best replaces futile in the following passage (paragraph 3)?

I clutched its mate to my chest like a baby, though of course it was futile. What is one boot without the other boot? It is nothing. It is useless, an orphan forevermore, and I could take no mercy on it. It was a big lug of a thing, of genuine heft, a brown leather Raichle boot with a red lace and silver metal fasts. I lifted it high and threw it with all my might and watched it fall into the lush trees and out of my life.

• A. showing a lack of intelligence

• confusing

• amusing

• D. having no result or effect

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.4

CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

The following passage (paragraph 4) mainly explains how ________.

I was alone. I was barefoot. I was twenty-six years old and an orphan too. An actual stray, a stranger had observed a couple of weeks before when I’d told him my name and explained how very loose I was in the world. My father left my life when I was six. My mother died when I was twenty-two. In the wake of her death, my stepfather morphed from the person I considered my dad into a man I only occasionally recognized. My two siblings scattered in their grief, in spite of my efforts to hold us together, until I gave up and scattered as well.

• A. the author has been disconnecting herself from the life she knew since the loss of her parents

• B. the author is happy to be a part of a close-knit family

• C. a stranger thought it was funny that someone with the last name Strayed acted like a stray animal

• D. the author has suffered great loss and is unable to cope

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

Choose the best sentence to add descriptive details to the following passage (paragraph 14).

I gazed at my bare and battered feet, with their smattering of remaining toenails. They were ghostly pale to the line a few inches above my ankles, where the wool socks I usually wore ended. My calves above them were muscled and golden and hairy, dusted with dirt and a constellation of bruises and scratches. I’d started walking in the Mojave Desert and I didn’t plan to stop until I touched my hand to a bridge that crosses the Columbia River at the Oregon-Washington border with the grandiose name the Bridge of the Gods.

• “I finally regretted setting off on this hike alone, but it was far too late for that now.”

• “I kept an extra pair of black wool socks in my left pocket.”

• “My shins were visibly swollen underneath a crusty exterior of dried mud and scabs.”

• “I bought the shirt I’d been wearing at a vintage store in San Diego.”

Tags

CCSS.W.9-10.2B

CCSS.W.9-10.3D

With which of the following statements would the author most likely agree?

• A hiker must always bring two pairs of everything, in case of loss or emergency.

• When faced with challenges, the first step to moving forward is simply moving.

• There is no better way to learn about oneself than spending time in solitude.

• Personal attachment is the only cause of pain.

Tags

CCSS.RI.9-10.2

CCSS.RI.9-10.6

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

Which inference about the author’s decision to hike the Pacific Crest Trail is best supported by the passage below (paragraphs 5-7)?

In the years before I pitched my boot over the edge of the mountain, I’d been pitching myself over the edge too. I’d ranged and roamed and railed—from Minnesota to New York to Oregon and all across the West—until at last I found myself, bootless, in the summer of 1995, not so much loose in the world as bound to it. It was a world I’d never been to and yet had known was there all along, one I’d staggered to in sorrow and confusion and fear and hope. A world I thought would both make me into the woman I knew I could become and turn me back into the girl I’d once been. A world that measured two feet wide and 2,663 miles long.

• Strayed had no expectations in mind when she planned to hike; she was simply looking for adventure.Incorrect. Although Strayed seemed to have traveled at random, she went into “the world” of the PCT with “sorrow and confusion and fear and hope” about what her coming future would hold.

• The hike would be an exercise in learning to trust and adapt to nature.Incorrect. Only during her hike did Strayed see herself as “bound to [the world]” when she needed to rely on nature for her wellbeing and safety, especially after losing her boot.

• She had hoped the hike, as part of her wanderings, would result in self-exploration and discovery.Correct. Strayed thought that hiking the PCT by herself would give her the opportunity to reflect on her past, reveal her true personality, and grow her “into the woman [she] knew [she] could become.”

• The PCT would be the trail she would take to visit Minnesota, New York, and Oregon.Incorrect. The PCT cuts through the West Coast of the United States, including Oregon and California, not Minnesota and New York.

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

Which sentence from the text best supports the correct answer to Question 5?

• “It was a world I’d never been to and yet had known was there all along, one I’d staggered to in sorrow and confusion and fear and hope.”

• “A world I thought would both make me into the woman I knew I could become and turn me back into the girl I’d once been.”

• “In the years before I pitched my boot over the edge of the mountain, I’d been pitching myself over the edge too.”

• “ I’d ranged and roamed and railed—from Minnesota to New York to Oregon and all across the West—until at last I found myself, bootless, in the summer of 1995, not so much loose in the world as bound to it.”

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

CCSS.W.9-10.9

Which sentence best summarizes the following passage (paragraph 8)?

I’d first heard of it only seven months before, when I was living in Minneapolis, sad and desperate and on the brink of divorcing a man I still loved. I’d been standing in line at an outdoor store waiting to purchase a foldable shovel when I picked up a book called The Pacific Crest Trail, Volume 1: California from a nearby shelf and read the back cover. The PCT, it said, was a continuous wilderness trail that went from the Mexican border in California to just beyond the Canadian border along the crest of nine mountain ranges—the Laguna, San Jacinto, San Bernardino, San Gabriel, Liebre, Tehachapi, Sierra Nevada, Klamath, and Cascades. The distance was a thousand miles as the crow flies, but the trail was more than double that. Traversing the entire length of the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, the PCT passes through national parks and wilderness areas as well as federal, tribal, and privately held lands; through deserts and mountains and rain forests; across rivers and highways. I turned the book over and gazed at its front cover—a boulder-strewn lake surrounded by rocky crags against a blue sky—then placed it back on the shelf, paid for my shovel, and left.

• During a difficult time in her life, the author learns of the Pacific Crest Trail, but thinks nothing of it.

• Several months ago, Strayed became interested in the PCT and researched it in her spare time.

• The author buys a foldable shovel at an outdoor store.

• The PCT runs from California to Canada, cutting through several mountain ranges.

Tags

CCSS.RI.9-10.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

Arrange the events described in the text, in the chronological order experienced by the author.

• The author “trek[s] across deserts and snow, past trees and bushes and grasses and flowers of all shapes and sizes and colors, walk[s] up and down mountains and over fields and glades and stretches of land . . .”

• The author first reads about the Pacific Crest Trail during a shopping trip.

• The author “pitche[s] [her] boot over the edge of the mountain.”

• The author decides to keep walking until she reaches “the Bridge of the Gods.”