Fast Dark They Were

Which statement best describes the effect of beginning the radio play version of “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” with an excerpt from the middle of the story text?

• Because the excerpt is out of context, it makes little sense until the radio play reaches the middle of the plot.

• Starting with this excerpt quickly establishes Mars as a threat and creates a feeling of dread in the audience.

• Because the excerpt is out of context, it makes little sense until the radio play reaches the middle of the plot.

• Because the excerpt is out of context, it makes little sense until the radio play reaches the middle of the plot.

Which of the following are the most significant differences between the story and the radio play version of “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed”?

• The story features fewer characters than the radio play does.

• The actors in the radio play interpret the characters’ traits and emotions differently from the way described in the story.

• The radio play not only relies on the words of the text but also adds sound effects, music, and silence to bring the story to life

• The adaptation for the radio play leaves out important information from the written story.

Both the story text and the radio play versions of “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” include Harry Bittering as a character. Which statement best explains how the two versions develop his character?

• The radio play’s music and sound effects build on Harry’s thoughts and fears, which are not as well supported in the story text.

• The radio play’s dialogue and the actor’s interpretation of it create a better sense of his feelings than the story text’s narration does.

• The radio play’s music and sound effects build on Harry’s thoughts and fears, which are not as well supported in the story text.

• The story text’s narration directly reveals Harry’s thoughts and feelings, which must be inferred through his dialogue in the radio play.

Which of the following words is a synonym of destroy?

• uncover

• ruin

• upset

• copy

Which of the following quotations from the text contains an example of personification?

• The fear would not be stopped. It had his throat and heart.

• “I feel like a salt crystal,” he said, “in a mountain stream, being washed away."

• They saw the old cities, lost in their meadows, lying like children’s delicate bones...

• The children, small seeds, might at any instant be sown to all the Martian climes.

Why can the following sentence be correctly called a metaphor? A river of wind submerged the house.

• It shows that the house is near a river.

• It makes the river and the wind seem like human beings.

• It suggests that the wind is a powerful river.

• It describes how wind can overpower solid objects.

Which of the following quotations from the text contains a simile?

• And then the water can build on that skeleton—green things, deep water things, red things, yellow things.

• A few tremblings shook him, but were carried off in waves of pleasant heat as he lay in the sun.

• At any moment the Martian air might draw his soul from him.

• The man felt . . . the tissues of his body draw tight as if he were standing at the center of a vacuum.

At the end of “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed,” what is the attitude of the lieutenant who has recently arrived?

• He finds the environment on Mars unappealing.

• He likes the Martians and believes they are peaceful.

• He suspects the Martians’ involvement in the disappearance of the settlers.

• He feels enthusiastic about the new settlement that the captain is planning.

Which of the following best states a major theme in “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed”?

• Since we have limited resources on Earth, governments should look to other planets to meet our needs.

• Humans are generally open minded and peaceful in their encounters with the unknown.

• Though people often fear and resist it, change is unavoidable in the end.

• Far-off worlds can be anything people imagine them to be.

In “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed,” what does the constant wind on Mars most likely represent?

• the power of the environment to completely change the Earth people

• the sadness that Mr. Bittering feels when he cannot return to Earth

• the very hot weather on Mars that disturbs the Earth people

• he destruction of the Earth people’s settlement on Mars