Read the excerpt from "Gawayne."

Now the giant cried aloud: "Yield or fight, King Arthur; which will you do? If you fight I shall conquer you, for you have no power to resist me; you will be my prisoner, with no hope of ransom, will lose your land and spend your life in my dungeon with many other brave knights. If you yield I will hold you to ransom, but you must swear to accept the terms I shall offer."

What do the giant's words reveal about him? (1 point)

Read the excerpt from "Gawayne."

Now the giant cried aloud: "Yield or fight, King Arthur; which will you do? If you fight I shall conquer you, for you have no power to resist me; you will be my prisoner, with no hope of ransom, will lose your land and spend your life in my dungeon with many other brave knights. If you yield I will hold you to ransom, but you must swear to accept the terms I shall offer."

What kind of conflict do the details in this excerpt reveal?

Read the excerpt from "Lewis Hine Helps a Nation See the Light."

Once inside a factory, Hine quickly got to work photographing children. He also talked to them, using a small notebook to record as much information as possible about their working conditions, education, and ages. He even measured the children's height by using the buttons of his coat. One example from his notebook reads, "Furman Owens, twelve years old. Can't read. Doesn't know his ABC's. Said, 'Yes I want to learn, but can't when I work all the time.'"

Which statement gives a historical detail that can clarify a reader's understanding of the excerpt?

Read the excerpt from "Lewis Hine Helps a Nation See the Light."

In 1904, a group of people who were concerned about children working in factories and other industries created the National Child Labor Committee. They wanted to raise the age at which children could be hired. They also sought to lower the number of hours children were allowed to work, because they wanted children to be able to attend school. This committee spoke out, but words were not enough to create change.

What the National Child Labor Committee needed was a champion—someone who could open Americans’ eyes and touch their hearts with the plight of working children. They found that champion in Lewis Hine, a teacher with an incredible talent for photography.

Hine was born in 1874 in Wisconsin. He knew what it was like to work in an industry at a young age: as a teen, he had to take a factory job during a time of family hardship. Luckily for Hine, his life in the factory was only temporary. He was eventually able to leave it behind, complete high school, and go to college.

The author's purpose for including this information (in green) in the text is to show that

Miss Honey

Matilda was a little late in starting school. Most children begin Primary School at five or even just before, but Matilda’s parents, who weren’t very concerned one way or the other about their daughter’s education, had forgotten to make the proper arrangements in advance. She was five and a half when she entered school for the first time. . . .

Naturally Matilda was put in the bottom class, where there were eighteen other small boys and girls about the same age as her. Their teacher was called Miss Honey, and she could not have been more than twenty-three or twenty-four. She had a lovely pale oval madonna face with blue eyes and her hair was light-brown. Her body was so slim and fragile one got the feeling that if she fell over she would smash into a thousand pieces, like a porcelain figure.

Miss Jennifer Honey was a mild and quiet person who never raised her voice and was seldom seen to smile, but there is no doubt she possessed that rare gift for being adored by every small child under her care. She seemed to understand totally the bewilderment and fear that so often overwhelms young children who for the first time in their lives are herded into a classroom and told to obey orders. Some curious warmth that was almost tangible shone out of Miss Honey’s face when she spoke to a confused and homesick newcomer to the class. . . .

After the usual business of going through all the names of the children, Miss Honey handed out a brand-new exercise-book to each pupil.

“You have all brought your own pencils, I hope,” she said.

“Yes, Miss Honey,” they chanted. . . .

“I myself,” Miss Honey went on, “want to help you to learn as much as possible while you are in this class. That is because I know it will make things easier for you later on. For example, by the end of this week I shall expect every one of you to know the two-times table by heart. And in a year’s time I hope you will know all the multiplication tables up to twelve. It will help you enormously if you do. Now then, do any of you happen to have learnt the two-times table already?”

Matilda put up her hand. She was the only one.

Miss Honey looked carefully at the tiny girl with dark hair and a round serious face sitting in the second row.

“Wonderful,” she said. “Please stand up and recite as much of it as you can.”

Matilda stood up and began to say the two-times table. When she got to twice twelve is twenty-four she didn’t stop. She went right on with twice thirteen is twenty-six, twice fourteen is twenty-eight, twice fifteen is thirty, twice sixteen is . . .”

“Stop!” Miss Honey said. She had been listening slightly spellbound to this smooth recital, and now she said, “How far can you go?”

“How far?” Matilda said. “Well, I don’t really know, Miss Honey. For quite a long way, I think.”

Miss Honey took a few moments to let this curious statement sink in. “You mean,” she said, “that you could tell me what two times twenty-eight is?”

“Yes, Miss Honey.”

“What is it?”

“Fifty-six, Miss Honey.”

“What about something much harder, like two times four hundred and eighty-seven? Could you tell me that?”

“I think so, yes,” Matilda said.

“Are you sure?”

“Why yes, Miss Honey, I’m fairly sure.”

“What is it then, two times four hundred and eighty-seven?”

“Nine hundred and seventy-four,” Matilda said immediately. She spoke quietly and politely and without any sign of showing off.

Miss Honey gazed at Matilda with absolute amazement, but when next she spoke she kept her voice level. “That is really splendid,” she said. “But of course multiplying by two is a lot easier than some of the bigger numbers. What about the other multiplication tables? Do you know any of those?”

“I think so, Miss Honey. I think I do.”

“Which ones, Matilda? How far have you got?”

“I . . . I don’t quite know,” Matilda said. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“What I mean is do you for instance know the three-times table?”

“Yes, Miss Honey.”

“And the four-times?”

“Yes, Miss Honey.”

“Well, how many do you know, Matilda? Do you know all the way up to the twelve-times table?”

“Yes, Miss Honey.”

“What are twelve sevens?”

“Eighty-four,” Matilda said.

Miss Honey paused and leaned back in her chair behind the plain table that stood in the middle of the floor in front of the class. She was considerably shaken by this exchange but took care not to show it. She had never come across a five-year-old before, or indeed a ten-year-old, who could multiply with such facility.

“I hope the rest of you are listening to this,” she said to the class. “Matilda is a very lucky girl. She has wonderful parents who have already taught her to multiply lots of numbers. Was it your mother, Matilda, who taught you?”

“No, Miss Honey, it wasn’t.”

“You must have a great father then. He must be a brilliant teacher.”

“No, Miss Honey,” Matilda said quietly. “My father did not teach me.”

“You mean you taught yourself?”

“I don’t quite know,” Matilda said truthfully. “It’s just that I don’t find it very difficult to multiply one number by another.”

Miss Honey took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She looked again at the small girl with bright eyes standing beside her desk so sensible and solemn. “You say you don’t find it difficult to multiply one number by another,” Miss Honey said. “Could you try to explain that a little bit.”

“Oh dear,” Matilda said. “I’m not really sure.”

Miss Honey waited. The class was silent, all listening.

“For instance,” Miss Honey said, “if I asked you to multiply fourteen by nineteen . . . No, that’s too difficult . . .”

“It’s two hundred and sixty-six,” Matilda said softly.

Miss Honey stared at her. Then she picked up a pencil and quickly worked out the sum on a piece of paper. “What did you say it was?” she said, looking up.

“Two hundred and sixty-six,” Matilda said.

Miss Honey put down her pencil and removed her spectacles and began to polish the lenses with a piece of tissue. The class remained quiet, watching her and waiting for what was coming next. Matilda was still standing up beside her desk.

“Now tell me, Matilda,” Miss Honey said, still polishing, “try to tell me exactly what goes on inside your head when you get a multiplication like that to do. You obviously have to work it out in some way, but you seem able to arrive at the answer almost instantly. Take the one you’ve just done, fourteen multiplied by nineteen.”

“I . . . I . . . I simply put the fourteen down in my head and multiply it by nineteen,” Matilda said. “I’m afraid I don’t know how else to explain it. I’ve always said to myself that if a little pocket calculator can do it why shouldn’t I?”

“Why not indeed,” Miss Honey said. “The human brain is an amazing thing.”

“I think it’s a lot better than a lump of metal,” Matilda said. “That’s all a calculator is.”

“How right you are,” Miss Honey said. “Pocket calculators are not allowed in this school anyway.” Miss Honey was feeling quite quivery. There was no doubt in her mind that she had met a truly extraordinary mathematical brain, and words like child-genius and prodigy went flitting through her head. She knew that these sort of wonders do pop up in the world from time to time, but only once or twice in a hundred years. After all, Mozart was only five when he started composing for the piano and look what happened to him.

“It’s not fair,” Lavender said. “How can she do it and we can’t?”

“Don’t worry, Lavender, you’ll soon catch up,” Miss Honey said, lying through her teeth.

Which excerpt from Matilda is an implicit detail that best demonstrates Miss Honey's concern for all her students?

Which line from Matilda by Roald Dahl contains dialogue?

Read this excerpt from “The Medicine Bag.”

“He carefully prepared for his quest with a purifying sweat bath, and then he went alone to a high butte top to fast and pray. After three days he received his sacred dream—in which he found, after long searching, the white man’s iron. He did not understand his vision of finding something belonging to the white people, for in that time they were the enemy. When he came down from the butte to cleanse himself at the stream below, he found the remains of a campfire and the broken shell of an iron kettle. This was a sign that reinforced his dream. He took a piece of the iron for his medicine bag, which he had made of elk skin years before, to prepare for his quest.

“He returned to his village, where he told his dream to the wise old men of the tribe. They gave him the name Iron Shell, but neither did they understand the meaning of the dream. The first Iron Shell kept the piece of iron with him at all times and believed it gave him protection from the evils of those unhappy days.

“Then a terrible thing happened to Iron Shell. He and several other young men were taken from their homes by the soldiers and sent far away to a white man’s boarding school. He was angry and lonesome for his parents and the young girl he had wed before he was taken away. At first Iron Shell resisted the teacher’s attempts to change him, and he did not try to learn. One day it was his turn to work in the school’s blacksmith shop. As he walked into the place, he knew that his medicine had brought him there to learn and work with the white man’s iron.

“Iron Shell became a blacksmith and worked at the trade when he returned to the reservation. All of his life he treasured the medicine bag.”

What is symbolic about the piece of the iron that Iron Shell keeps in his medicine bag?

Read the following sentence.

The newspaper reporter was dispatched to cover the breaking news story taking place in Seattle, Washington.

Which answer choice best describes the connotation of dispatched?

Read the excerpt from "Our Hero."

Bill Wilson has been gone for many years,

adventuring with courage and with flair.

He's climbed the highest mountains in the world.

He's sailed, like Sinbad, on the wildest seas.

How does the allusion to Sinbad the Sailor contribute to the characterization of Bill Wilson?

Which excerpt from "Our Hero" best supports the conclusion that helping others makes someone a true hero?

https://www.connexus.com/content/media/3540790-912020-34900-PM-514749632.docx

Which line from “Raymonds Run” best illustrates the theme “Being yourself is more important than impressing others”?