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WorksheetsA Quilt of a Country
Total questions: 14
Worksheet time: 1hrs 10mins
Name
Class
Date
1.
An antonym is a word that means nearly the opposite of another word. Which word is an antonym for discordant?
a)
harmonious
b)
conflicting
c)
disconnected
d)
incompatible
2.
Which sentence gives the most accurate description of a pluralistic society?
a)
A pluralistic society contains a mix of religions, cultures, and traditions.
b)
In a pluralistic society, each member has more than one way of doing things.
c)
In a pluralistic society, people share their culture and traditions with others.
d)
A pluralistic society is a group of people who work together to get to know each other.
3.
Which is the best example of diversity in a town?
a)
The town has residents from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
b)
The town is run by a mayor and a city council.
c)
The town has gas stations, markets, and office buildings.
d)
The town has elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools.
4.
In “A Quilt of a Country,” what point is the author making when she discusses her father’s old neighborhood in Philadelphia, “in which Jewish boys would walk several blocks out of their way to avoid the Irish divide of Chester Avenue”?
a)
Conflicts and divisions between immigrant groups have appeared throughout history.
b)
Living in ethnically divided neighborhoods is the cause of hatred and prejudice.
c)
The people who live in ethnically divided neighborhoods work hard and value education for their children.
d)
Immigrants who live in ethnically divided neighborhoods undermine the unity of the people of the United States.
5.
Which quotation from “A Quilt of a Country” best supports the idea that the author is making the point that conflicts and divisions between immigrant groups have appeared throughout history?
a)
Do the Cambodians and the Mexicans in California coexist less easily today than did the Irish and Italians of Massachusetts a century ago? You know the answer.
b)
Historians today bemoan the ascendancy of a kind of prideful apartheid in America, saying that clinging to ethnicity, in background and custom, has undermined the concept of unity.
c)
What is the point of a nation in which Arab cabbies chauffeur Jewish passengers through the streets of New York—and in which Jewish cabbies chauffeur Arab passengers, too, and yet speak in theory of hatred, one for the other?
d)
“The old neighborhood Ma-Pa stores are still around. . . . Ma and Pa are now Korean, Vietnamese, Iraqi, Jordanian, Latin American. They live in the store. They work seven days a week. Their kids are doing well in school. They’re making it.”
6.
Which quotation from “A Quilt of a Country” best supports the idea that the main message the writer is trying to communicate in "A Quilt of a Country" is that it is amazing that a country made up of such diverse people can be united as one nation?
a)
These [people who died in the World Trade Center destruction] are the representatives of a mongrel nation that somehow, at times like this, has one spirit. Like many improbable ideas, when it actually works, it’s a wonder.
b)
America...is held together by a notion, the notion that all men are created equal, though everyone knows that most men consider themselves better than someone.
c)
“Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody’s image,” the historian Daniel Boorstin wrote.
d)
What is the point of a nation in which one part seems to be always on the verge of fisticuffs with another . . . ?
7.
Which of the following is the effect that Quindlen creates by repeating the word enormous in this sentence from “A Quilt of a Country”?
Perhaps they understand it at this moment, when enormous tragedy, as it so often does, demands a time of reflection on enormous blessings.
a)
The effect is to help the reader shift from one idea, tragedy, to its opposite, blessings.
b)
The effect is to make a sarcastic contrast between a tragic reality and the blessings it destroyed.
c)
The effect is to prove that two opposing ideas, tragedy and blessings, are really the same.
d)
The effect is to explain how bad situations always lead to good outcomes.
8.
Which of the following is the author’s main purpose in “A Quilt of a Country”?
a)
to reflect on how America is united despite its many ethnic groups
b)
to persuade Americans to be more tolerant of their differences
c)
to explain the reasons behind the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001
d)
to entertain readers with a description of the many cultures that make up America
9.
Read the following quotation from “A Quilt of a Country:" "I was the product of a mixed marriage, across barely bridgeable lines: an Italian girl, an Irish boy. How quaint it seems now, how incendiary then."
In what way does this quotation most clearly help the author meet her purpose in writing?
a)
It uses her own experience to illustrate a key point about American identity.
b)
It shows that her own experiences make her an authority on her topic.
c)
It shows that her own experience is unique and contrasts with typical experiences.
d)
It offers her own experience as an example of the dangers she is warning us about.
10.
Which quotation from “A Quilt of a Country” best supports the idea that Quindlen's offering the analogy of a quilt when America is suffering from the attacks on September 11 is most likely supposed to celebrate the diversity of a quilt as a way of lifting people above sorrow by reinforcing their pride in their country.
a)
But patriotism is partly taking pride in this unlikely ability to throw all of us together in a country that across its length and breadth is as different as a dozen countries, and still be able to call it by one name.
b)
That’s because it was built of bits and pieces that seem discordant, like the crazy quilts that have been one of its great folk-art forms, velvet and calico and checks and brocades.
c)
Today the citizens of the United States have come together once more because of armed conflict and enemy attack. Terrorism has led to devastation—and unity.
d)
One of the things that [the United States] stands for is this vexing notion that a great nation can consist entirely of refugees from other nations. . . .
11.
How does the Latin prefix dis- affect the meaning of the word to which it is added?
a)
It changes the word to mean its opposite.
b)
It changes the word’s part of speech.
c)
It indicates a state of being unusual.
d)
It indicates a state of being new.
12.
The word discredit is formed from the verb credit, meaning “to have confidence in” or “to honor or esteem someone or something,” and from the Latin prefix dis-. From this information and your knowledge of the prefix dis-, choose the most likely meaning of the verb discredit.
a)
to damage the reputation of someone
b)
to tear up a credit card
c)
to praise or honor someone
d)
to refuse to give someone money
13.
Read the following sentence from “A Quilt of a Country:” "There is that Calvinist undercurrent in the American psyche that loves the difficult, the demanding, that sees mastering the impossible, whether it be prairie or subway, as a test of character, and so glories in the struggle of this fractured coalescing."
Which of the following nouns or noun phrases from the sentence are most precise?
a)
prairie
b)
the difficult
c)
the impossible
d)
psyche
14.
Read the following quotation from “A Quilt of a Country”: "I was the product of a mixed marriage, across barely bridgeable lines: an Italian girl, an Irish boy. How quaint it seems now, how incendiary then."
Which of the following most accurately identifies two vivid words in the excerpt and explains their effect?
a)
Quaint, meaning “old-fashioned,” implies something harmless and contrasts strongly with incendiary, meaning “causing flame.”
b)
Product, meaning “result,” implies something impersonal and contrasts strongly with barely bridgeable, meaning “difficult to connect.”
c)
Italian and Irish are vivid adjectives that help readers clearly picture the writer’s parents.
d)
Marriage and lines are precise nouns that help readers understand the daring of the writer’s parents.
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