Greta Thunberg's Speech: Claims and Evidence

Which of the following statements from the text best represents Thunberg’s central position in the speech as a whole?

• (A) “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.” (paragraph 2, sentence 1)

• (B) “For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.” (paragraph 3)

• (C) “But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution . . . .”

  (paragraph 6, sentence 2)

• (D) “With today’s emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 1⁄2 years.” (paragraph 9,

  sentence 2)

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CCSS.RI.11-12.1

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CCSS.RI.11-12.6

Which of the following statements from the passage functions more as interpretation than as evidence for the claims or arguments Thunberg makes about climate change in her speech?

• (A) “People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. . . .” (paragraph 2, sentences 3–6)

• (B) “Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.” (paragraph 4, sentences 3 and 4)

• (C) “. . . cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees . . . .” (paragraph 5, sentence

  1)

• (D) “With today’s emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 1/2 years.” (paragraph 9,

  sentence 2)

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CCSS.SL.11-12.3

Thunberg’s most frequent and persuasive evidence is from

• (A) analogies

• (B) personal observations

• (C) testimonies

• (D) statistics

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CCSS.RL.9-10.1

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CCSS.RI.8.8

CCSS.RL.8.1

Which of the following statements best shows Thunberg’s approach to sharpening the edge of her claim?

• (A) If world leaders fail to listen to young activists, environmental damage may be irreparable.

• (B) World leaders who are aware of the facts and urgency of climate change but who fail to act are behaving immorally.

• (C) People who live in small island nations will bear the burden of the climate crisis if current leaders fail to act now.

• (D) Overly concerned with their public images, world leaders ignore the devastating impact of climate change.

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CCSS.RI.11-12.1

CCSS.RI.11-12.6

Which of the following examples shows Thunberg’s use of embedding source information to support her own ideas?

• (A) “For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear.”

  (paragraph 3, sentence 1)

• (B) “Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil.” (paragraph 4, sentence 3)

• (C) “They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2

  out of the air with technologies that barely exist.” (paragraph 6, sentence 3)

• (D) “To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise—the best odds given by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]—the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on Jan. 1st, 2018.” (paragraph 8, sentence 1)

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CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.2.6

Many of the statistics Thunberg provides for her audience are chosen to

• (A) prove beyond a doubt that the tipping point has been reached

• (B) dismiss economics as a possible part of the solution

• (C) balance her impassioned speech with the weight of science

• (D) offer hope to younger generations

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