English II Bellringer Quiz

What is the meaning of vigilance as it is used in the paragraph below?

Spry as a goat, according to his friends, Tyndall became a daring and courageous proponent of the new sport of mountaineering. The combination of great physical exertion and great physical risk demanding his total vigilance proved a balm to Tyndall's overactive mind.

• B willingness to collaborate

• C scientific knowledge and skill

• D desire to achieve a goal

• A careful watch for danger or difficulty

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Choose the word that would best replace the word scope as it is used in the original sentence from the text.

"Evidence of the scope of such an undertaking is the fact that after Shackleton's failure, the crossing of the continent remained untried for fully forty-three years-until 1957-1958."

• A scan

• B extent

• D liberty

• C preview

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.4

CCSS.L.9-10.4A

CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

What is the effect of Reich's metaphor?

"Is anyone else alarmed that billionaires are having their own private space race while record-breaking heatwaves are sparking a 'fire-breathing dragon of clouds?'" the former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich tweeted last week.

• D It emphasizes the disregard of billionaires to existing environmental problems.

• A It implies that billionaires are the cause of problems facing the environment.

• B It contrasts the tranquility of space with recent inhospitable conditions on Earth.

• C It reminds readers of the dangers of space travel even to those with the financial means.

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.2

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.6

What is the meaning of inadvertently as it is used in paragraph 12?

He immediately made the connection to the work of Agassiz and others, noting that small differences in these same gases in the atmosphere could “account for all the mutations of climate which the research of geologists reveal.” Almost inadvertently, Tyndall had found a possible answer to the question raised by the theory of the ice ages: How do we account for dramatic changes in the past climate of the planet?

• A importantly

• B with great frustration

• C without intention

• D scientifically

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

What does the term endless drudgeries mean as it is used in paragraph 37?

37  As he waited, he could hear a woman’s fretful voice and the impatient jerk and jar of kitchen things, indicative of ill-temper or worry. The longer he stood absorbing this farm-scene, with all its sordidness, dullness, triviality, and its endless drudgeries, the lower his heart sank. All the joy of the home-coming was gone, when the figure arose from the cow and approached the gate, and put the pail of milk down on the platform by the pump. 

• C constant unpleasant chores

• D unresolved family conflicts

• B continuous deep poverty

• A ongoing personal needs

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.4

CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

In paragraph 1 of Robert Oppenheimer's speech, what does the phrase recipient of confidences mean?

There is one good reason for that—I don’t know very much about practical politics. And there is another reason, which has to some extent restrained me in the past. As you know, some of us have been asked to be technical advisors to the Secretary of War, and through him to the President. In the course of this we have naturally discussed things that were on our minds and have been made, often very willingly, the recipient of confidences; it is not possible to speak in detail about what Mr. A thinks and Mr. B doesn’t think, or what is going to happen next week, without violating these confidences. I don’t think that’s important. I think there are issues which are quite simple and quite deep, and which involve us as a group of scientists—involve us more, perhaps than any other group in the world.

• A The speaker has won numerous awards.

• C People have told the speaker their secrets.

• D People have given the speaker their support.

• B The speaker feels sure of his own abilities.

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.4

CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

What is the meaning of the phrase material strength as it is used in paragraph 8?

The added material strength which this lead gives to the United States brings with it the obligation of restraint, and if we were to violate this obligation, our moral position would be weakened in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes. It would then be more difficult for us to live up to our responsibility of bringing the unloosened forces of destruction under control.

• D powerful influence

• A superior weaponry

• B ethical character

• C overall wealth

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.4

CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

What is the intended meaning of the word scar as it is used by President Reagan in the last sentence of paragraph 4 of the speech "Address from the Brandenburg Gate"?

Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same—still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar.

• A comparison of East Berlin to West Berlin

• B a description of the areas found south of Berlin

• C a representation of the wall dividing East Berlin and West Berlin

• D an exaggeration of the extent of the devastation suffered by Berlin

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4