The Briefcase Quick Quiz

For what crime was the main character arrested before the beginning of the story?

• publishing an underground newspaper

• serving food to revolutionaries

• fleeing his restaurant after it had caught fire

• stealing a man's briefcase

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CCSS.RI. 9-10.1

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In lines 43–44, the professor's papers are described as “a thousand doves flailing against the walls of the alley.” What literary device is the author using?

• metaphor

• personification

• simile

• idiom

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CCSS.RL.8.3

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CCSS.RL.7.3

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In order to look more like the professor, the chef

• gains weight.

• shaves his head.

• studies physics.

• grows a beard.

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After taking the professor's briefcase, the chef primarily supports himself by

• playing violin on the street and asking for money.

• publishing papers disproving common principles of physics.

• writing to the professor's friends asking for help.

• cooking for the widow who owns his apartment.

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CCSS.RI. 9-10.1

CCSS.RI.11-12.1

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

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CCSS.RL.9-10.2

Throughout the story, the chef works on “proving” that the sun moves around the earth. Why does he want to do this?

• Taking on the identity of the professor has reawakened his interest in math and science, which his mother discouraged.

• To avoid being recognized, he must keep his skills as a chef hidden, and the proof gives him something to do each day.

• He needs to believe that truth is open to debate so that he can live with his own lies in pretending to be the professor.

• If he can pass the exam he found in the briefcase, he thinks he may be able to teach the professor's physics class.

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CCSS.RL.8.3

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CCSS.RL.11-12.7

In lines 61–63, the narrator says that the chef “knew this: he had moved from his line of men, creating a vacuum—one that had sucked the good professor in to fill the void.” The author chose the words vacuum and void because they

• create alliteration and a musical quality.

• refer to concepts in the field of physics.

• are words that a professional chef would use often.

• have special meaning in the context of a revolution.

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CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.2.6

What is the professor's widow's tone when she says, “Then he is dead” (lines 279–280)?

• sorrowful

• confused

• frustrated

• relieved

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CCSS.RL.8.3

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CCSS.RL.8.7

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CCSS.RL.9-10.10. RL.11-12.10

What does the chef mean in lines 289–290 when he says that by confronting him, the widow is murdering her husband?

• If the professor is alive and in hiding, the police will now know and find him.

• The chef has taken on aspects of the professor's identity, and he is the only part of her husband that remains in the world.

• Since the chef is willing to take care of the widow and her son, she is giving up the chance for a new husband.

• In his loneliness, the chef has come to believe that he is the professor.

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CCSS.RL.2.10

CCSS.RL.2.2

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If a person is described as flailing, what might she be doing?

• sleeping soundly

• crying loudly and mournfully

• enthusiastically telling a story

• moving her arms wildly

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A synonym for flagrantly is

• secretively

• quickly

• excitedly

• blatantly

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