From "Journal of the Plague Year"

Read the following excerpt from A Journal of the Plague Year.

The shrieks of women and children at the windows and doors of their houses, where their dearest relations were perhaps dying, or just dead, were so frequent to be heard as we passed the streets, that it was enough to pierce the stoutest heart in the world to hear them.

Which word best describes the narrator’s tone in this excerpt?

• Bitter

• Horrified

• Indignant

• Disgusted

What can you infer based on details about the burial pit in paragraphs 2–3?

• The mass burials in the pit violate the teachings of the church.

• The churchwardens care little about the people in their parish.

• The plague is deadlier than many citizens could have imagined.

• The churchwardens have mistakenly dug too shallow a burial pit.

In paragraph 7 of A Journal of the Plague Year, what does the sexton mean when he says that the churchyard is a speaking sight . . . and has a voice with it, and a loud one, to call us all to repentance?

• The narrator will hear voices of the dead when he visits the churchyard.

• The narrator will tell the world what is happening after he visits the churchyard.

• The churchyard is full of crying and wailing from mourners of the plague victims.

• The churchyard makes people think about death and seek forgiveness of their sins.

Match the word to this definition: the appearance of truth and actuality

• verisimilitude

• discourse

• irony

• promiscuously

Which excerpt from A Journal of the Plague Year are most effective at achieving verisimilitude, the sense that the narrator is recording actual events

• Were it possible to represent those times exactly to those that did not see them, and give the reader due ideas of the horror that everywhere presented itself, it must make just impressions upon their minds and fill them with surprise. (paragraph 1)

• I went all the first part of the time freely about the streets, though not so freely as to run myself into apparent danger, except when they dug the great pit in the churchyard of our parish of Aldgate. (paragraph 2) 

• This may serve a little to describe the dreadful condition of that day, though it is impossible to say anything that is able to give a true idea of it to those who did not see it . . . (paragraph 6)

• The cart had in it sixteen or seventeen bodies; some were wrapt up in linen sheets, some in rags, some little other than naked, or so loose that what covering they had fell from them in the shooting out of the cart, and they fell quite naked among the rest . . . (paragraph 10)

Which statement best describes the narrator of A Journal of the Plague Year?

• He wants to become famous for his reporting on the plague.

• He is driven to witness what is happening during the plague.

• He is skeptical about reports that he has heard about the plague.

• He is proud of his ability to evade restrictions imposed during the plague.

During their heated _________

, Mike and Mary were able to solve their disagreements and continue with plans for the project.

• visitation

• discourse

• huddle

• abate

There are rules limiting__________

at the college dorm.

• summon

• promiscuously

• visitation

• huddle

Joline leaves her laundry strewn ___________

across the floor of her room.

• promiscuously

• abated

• discourse

• summon

When it rains, we _______

under the awning to stay warm and dry.

• abate

• discourse

• huddle

• summon