WorksheetsHonors- A Long Way Home
Total questions: 20
Worksheet time: 59mins
In the selection from A Long Way Home, what does the narrator remember about his original hometown? Choose two options.
the language spoken there
the name of the state
the railway station
the mountains
the ocean
In the selection from A Long Way Home, how does the narrator use Google Earth to search for his original home?
He focuses on every train station in India to find the one he remembers.
He starts at Kolkata and searches the train lines working outward.
He scans the entire map of India to find landmarks he recalls.
He traces the rivers of India from the sea inland.
In the selection from A Long Way Home, why does the narrator’s girlfriend sometimes close his laptop and put it away?
She wants him to give up his search.
She believes that he is becoming too absorbed.
She wants him to participate in the conversation.
She fears that he will never succeed in finding his home.
In the selection from A Long Way Home, what are the narrator’s reasons for looking for his long-lost home? Choose two options.
to question his elders
to understand his past
to reclaim his inheritance
to speak his native tongue
to reconnect with his family
What is the first landmark found by the narrator of the selection from A Long Way Home that makes him believe that he may have found his destination?
a school
a windmill
an alleyway
a water tower
Concept Vocabulary: Which of the following situations best illustrates the word quest?
Alex has trouble understanding the author’s ideas.
Bonita will ride her horse in the annual competition.
Caroline always raises her hand during the presentations.
Damon has been looking for the perfect winter hike for years now.
Concept Vocabulary: If you do a thorough cleaning of your room, which of the following is most likely to be true? Base your answer on the meaning of thorough.
You determine where the dirt is and focus on cleaning that part.
You divide your room into quadrants and clean a bit of each.
You are careful to dust and vacuum every inch of the room.
You use cleaning products that mask any unpleasant odors.
Concept Vocabulary: If a runner relentlessly trains for a race, which of the following is most likely to be true? Base your answer on the meaning of relentlessly.
She does not accept help from a trainer.
She runs faster each day that she trains.
She acts harshly toward fellow runners.
She exercises intensely and constantly.
Read the following paragraph from the selection from A Long Way Home.
Still, even with the possibility of some winding, irregular paths out of Howrah, there was also a limit to how far I could have been transported in the time frame. I’d spent, I thought, a long time on the train—somewhere between twelve and fifteen hours. If I made some calculations, I could narrow the search field, ruling out places too far away.
Why can the narrator now “narrow the search field”?
He recognizes one of the irregular paths out of Howrah Station.
He feels confident that faraway places do not connect to Howrah Station.
He guesses that his home was less than fifteen hours from Howrah Station.
He realizes that the winding paths from Howrah Station do not extend very far.
In the selection from A Long Way Home, what is especially difficult about the narrator’s search?
The search covers a huge area.
The search is in a foreign country.
The narrator no longer speaks Hindi.
The narrator remembers no landmarks.
In the selection from A Long Way Home, how does the narrator feel about his search?
He is certain that he will find his former home.
He feels that he has embarked on a foolish quest.
He worries that his family members are no longer alive.
He struggles to manage and communicate his conflicting emotions.
Choose the author’s reflection that best reveals an important insight he has in his quest to find his childhood home in the selection from A Long Way Home.
I hadn’t lived by the sea, although I couldn’t rule out that I’d lived near it. And I hadn’t lived in the mountains.
So I had some vague thoughts on likely regions and some ways of identifying “Ginestlay” and the “B” place if I found them.
I didn’t know how a girlfriend would take to the time-consuming
quest.… But Lisa understood the personal and growing importance of the search and was patient and supportive.
[A]s it dawned on me that I could turn this into a painstaking, deliberate task that simply required dedication, something clicked inside.… Seeing it almost as much an intellectual challenge as an emotional quest, I threw myself into solving it.
Read the following passage from the selection from A Long Way Home.
Weeks and then months passed with my spending hours at a time every couple of nights on the laptop. Byron made sure I spent other nights out in the real world so I didn’t become an Internet recluse.
Memoirs reveal what an author feels and thinks. Which of the following statements best reveals the author’s feeling about his roommate, Byron?
He resented Byron for making him get out of the house.
He thought Byron should spend less time partying.
He appreciated Byron’s friendship.
He was jealous of Byron’s life.
Read the following passage from the selection from A Long Way Home.
South beyond Orissa, I eliminated Andhra Pradesh, five hundred kilometers farther down the east coast. Jharkhand and Bihar didn’t offer up anything promising, either, and as I wound up in Uttar Pradesh, I thought I’d keep going to cover most of the state. In fact, the states eventually replaced my zone boundary as a way of marking my progress. Ruling out areas state by state provided a series of goals that spurred me on.
Choose the sentence that best represents the central idea of the passage.
Sahoo realized he would not be successful searching near the coast.
Sahoo regretted changing his search method from using a zone boundary
to using states.
The state of Uttar Pradesh was so large that Sahoo had to search the whole state with care.
The new method of searching by state gave Sahoo clear goals that kept him going in his search.
Read this sentence from the selection from A Long Way Home.
I zoomed back in and re-examined the ring road, the water tower, the overpass, and they were all positioned where I remembered them.
To what does the underlined technical term refer?
natural speed
geographical position
physical direction
visual enlargement
Word Study: What is the meaning of the suffix -ive in the underlined word? She is very possessive when it comes to her favorite books.
able to be
tending to
resembling
process of making
The word cooperate comes from the Latin verb cooperari, meaning “work
together.” Based on this definition and your knowledge of the suffix -ive, choose the sentence that best illustrates the meaning of the word cooperative.
The bus driver forced the students to sit with one another.
The pack of wolves resembled a group of lions on the hunt.
The children helped one another as they cleaned the classroom.
The teacher warned the students who shared their answers with others.
Author's Style: Which sentence from the selection from A Long Way Home is the best example of the author’s use of descriptive details about his emotions?
I watched as the town unpixelated before my eyes. It was quite small. Too small, surely. But with a child’s perspective…
I finished work with Dad at five p.m., and by five-thirty I would be back at the laptop, slowly advancing along train tracks and studying the towns they led to.
I thought my Indian friends from college might be able to help, especially Amreen, whose father would likely have a more educated guess, so I got in touch with them.
The first time I zoomed in on Howrah Station, looking at the rows of ridged gray platform roofs and all the tracks spilling out of it like the fraying end of a rope, I was amazed and shocked that I’d once trod barefoot along these walkways.
Read the following passage from the selection from A Long Way Home.
Khandwa rang no bells whatsoever. Maybe “Ginestlay” was a part of Khandwa? A suburb? That seemed possible. I looked through the maze of alleys where my family lived, and although the image wasn’t as clear as what I would get when I looked at where I lived in Hobart, I was sure I could see the little rectangular roof of my childhood home. Of course, I’d never seen the place from above, but the building was the right shape and in precisely the correct location. I hovered over the streets for a while, astonished, trying to take it all in.
Identify phrases the author uses that are detailed descriptions of place. Choose
two options.
rang no bells
part of Khandwa
seemed possible
maze of alleys where my family lived
rectangular roof of my childhood home.
Read the following excerpt from the selection from A Long Way Home.
Could it be—perhaps it was the ring road I used to be able to see from the platform! Was it possible? I closed my eyes and went back twenty-four years in time to when I would walk to the station’s exit and see the ring road with an island in the middle. I thought to myself, This is unique; I haven’t seen this before.
Which word best describes the mood the author creates in this excerpt?
calm
fear
excitement
confusion
