"Mississippi Solo" Quiz Questions

The author includes the passage below (paragraph 2) most likely to _______________.

"I used to have nightmares filled with screams whenever I knew my family planned some excursion across the river and I’d have to go along. That old Veteran’s Bridge seemed so weak and rickety. My imagination constructed a dilapidated and shaky span of old wooden slats, rotted and narrow and weak with no concrete support anywhere. The iron girders that held the poor thing up were ancient and rusty, orange and bumpy with oxidation where they should have been shiny and black. The bridge wavered in the wind and was ready to collapse as the car with my family in it approached, and then we would plunge through the air after crashing the brittle wooden guardrail and we’d dive toward the river. Everyone screamed at me. I held my ears every time and waited for the splash. It never came. I always awoke, always lived to dream the dream again and again, not only when asleep but even as we crossed the river."

• show that he was an imaginative child

• establish himself as an unreliable narrator

• impress upon the reader the extent and power of the river’s impression on him

• give the reader an idea of the scenery of the river so that he or she can picture what it looks like

Tags

CCSS.RL.5.6

CCSS.RL.6.6

CCSS.RL.7.6

CCSS.RL.8.6

What does the following passage from the text (paragraphs 5-6) mainly reveal about its author?

“But now I am a man and my parents can’t stop me. I stand at that magical age, thirty, when a man stops to take stock of his life and he reflects on all the young-man’s dreams that won’t come true. No climbs up Everest, no try-out with the Yankees, no great American novel. Instead, reality: wives and babies and mortgages, pensions, security and the far-away future. No great risks. No more falling down. No more skinned knees. No great failures. I wondered: is all this inevitable?

I’ve never minded looking stupid and I have no fear of failure. I decided to canoe down the Mississippi River and to find out what I was made of.”

• That the author is somewhat disillusioned with the course of his life and is not afraid to take risks to alter his situation.

• That the author is a risk junky.

• That the author has low self-esteem.

• That the author is unwilling to fail and take risks, as he would prefer to follow the path society has set out for him.

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3

What is most closely the meaning of buffet as it is used in the passage below (paragraph 8)?

"Dreams are delicate and made of gossamer. They hang lightly on breezes and suspend as if from nothing. The slightest wind can tear them apart. My dream was buffeted by my friends. What the hell for? they asked me. What are you trying to prove? Why don’t you just go over Niagara Falls in a barrel?"

• | noun | a style of serving meals in which patrons serve themselves

• | noun | an assortment of offerings

• | verb | to strike with force by the hand

• | verb | to assail or harass with repeated blows over a period of time

Tags

CCSS.RI.11-12.4

CCSS.RI.8.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RL.11-12.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Which of the following selections best summarizes this excerpt from Mississippi Solo: A River Quest?

• Eddy L. Harris was persuaded to abandon his dream of being on the Mississippi River by remembering a nightmare he had as a child.

• Eddy L. Harris feared and hated the Mississippi River as a child and decided to canoe down it in order to prove to himself that he could conquer nature.

• Eddy L. Harris believes that nightmares have an inescapable power over us.

• Eddy L. Harris chose to follow his dream of adventuring on the Mississippi River due to a fascination with the river as a child, despite criticism from his friends.

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.2

CCSS.RI.11-12.2

CCSS.RI.8.2

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

The author characterizes the Mississippi River mainly as _________________.

• a force of destruction that serves to bring harm to anything in its path

• a powerful, terrifying force to be respected and admired

• an unremarkable feature of the boring landscape around it

• all of the above

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.6

CCSS.RI.11-12.6

CCSS.RI.8.9

CCSS.RL.11-12.6

CCSS.RL.9-10.6

Which quote from the text best supports that the author characterizes the Mississippi River as a powerful, terrifying force to be respected and admired?

• “The river was full of giant catfish and alligators, ice floes and trees that often enraged and monster-like river had ripped from the shores along its path.”

• “I wanted to dip my toes in the water to test, then all of me, hanging onto whatever and floating along with it, letting the river drop me off wherever and pick me up later and take me on again.”

• “Since I can remember I have wanted to be somehow a part of the river as much as I wanted to be a hero.”

• “Mighty, muddy, dangerous, rebellious, and yet a strong, fathering kind of river.”

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3

Based on section/chapter 2, the biggest obstacle to the author’s dreams was most likely _____________________.

• the realization that his dreams were foolish

• a fear of negative perceptions from his friends

• a lifelong fear of the Mississippi River

• All of the above

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.2

CCSS.RI.11-12.2

CCSS.RI.8.2

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

Which quote from the text best supports that the biggest obstacle to the author's dreams was most likely a fear of negative perceptions from his friends?

• “Perhaps it is the danger involved, perhaps it is too much an act of desire and determination, an act of passion and volition, or simply too out of the ordinary.”

• “For whatever reasons, my idea met with disapproval, and instead of childish jubilation I approached canoeing the river with doubt and sorrow—sorrow because the glory with which I first came upon this adventure was dashed by friends.”

• “But this dream of mine, still suspended on the breeze and delicate as ever, was just as real as those flimsy summer spider webs hanging in the air, and just as clinging.”

• “Once the webs attach themselves to you they are hard to get rid of. And so it was with my desire to ride the river.”

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3