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(LC) Identify the word that provides an appropriate connotation of the word fire as it is used in this sentence: James was driven to achieve his goals by a fire within his heart. (4 points)

[LC] Fall of the House of Usher, excerptBy Edgar Allan Poe Upon my entrance, Usher rose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality—of the constrained effort of the ennuyé1 man of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity;—these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.1Bored What does the narrator believe about Roderick Usher’s greeting? (5 points)

(LC) From “The Tyranny of Things” by Elizabeth Morris Once upon a time, when I was very tired, I chanced to go away to a little house by the sea. “It is empty,” they said, “but you can easily furnish it.” Empty! Yes, thank Heaven! Furnish it? Heaven forbid! Its floors were bare, its walls were bare, its tables there were only two in the house were bare. There was nothing in the closets but books; nothing in the bureau drawers but the smell of clean, fresh wood; nothing in the kitchen but an oil stove, and a few a very few dishes; nothing in the attic but rafters and sunshine, and a view of the sea. After I had been there an hour there descended upon me a great peace, a sense of freedom, of in finite leisure. In the twilight I sat before the flickering embers of the open fire, and looked out through the open door to the sea, and asked myself, “Why?” Then the answer came: I was emancipated from things. There was nothing in the house to demand care, to claim attention, to cumber my consciousness with its insistent, unchanging companionship. There was nothing but a shelter, and outside, the fields and marshes, the shore and the sea. These did not have to be taken down and put up and arranged and dusted and cared for. They were not things at all, they were powers, presences. And so I rested. While the spell was still unbroken, I came away. For broken it would have been, I know, had I not fled first. Even in this refuge the enemy would have pursued me, found me out, encompassed me. If we could but free ourselves once for all, how simple life might become! One of my friends, who, with six young children and only one servant, keeps a spotless house and a soul serene, told me once how she did it. “My dear, once a month I give away every single thing in the house that we do not imperatively need. It sounds wasteful, but I don’t believe it really is. Sometimes Jeremiah mourns over missing old clothes, or back numbers of the magazines, but I tell him if he doesn’t want to be mated to a gibbering maniac he will let me do as I like.” The old monks knew all this very well. One wonders sometimes how they got their power; but go up to Fiesole, and sit a while in one of those little, bare, white-walled cells, and you will begin to understand. If there were any spiritual force in one, it would have to come out there. I have not their courage, and I win no such freedom. I allow myself to be overwhelmed by the invading host of things, making fitful resistance, but without any real steadiness of purpose. Yet never do I wholly give up the struggle, and in my heart I cherish an ideal, remotely typified by that empty little house beside the sea. Based on her descriptions, the reader can tell Morris finds things burdensome because (4 points)

(LC) From “The Tyranny of Things” by Elizabeth Morris Once upon a time, when I was very tired, I chanced to go away to a little house by the sea. “It is empty,” they said, “but you can easily furnish it.” Empty! Yes, thank Heaven! Furnish it? Heaven forbid! Its floors were bare, its walls were bare, its tables there were only two in the house were bare. There was nothing in the closets but books; nothing in the bureau drawers but the smell of clean, fresh wood; nothing in the kitchen but an oil stove, and a few a very few dishes; nothing in the attic but rafters and sunshine, and a view of the sea. After I had been there an hour there descended upon me a great peace, a sense of freedom, of in finite leisure. In the twilight I sat before the flickering embers of the open fire, and looked out through the open door to the sea, and asked myself, “Why?” Then the answer came: I was emancipated from things. There was nothing in the house to demand care, to claim attention, to cumber my consciousness with its insistent, unchanging companionship. There was nothing but a shelter, and outside, the fields and marshes, the shore and the sea. These did not have to be taken down and put up and arranged and dusted and cared for. They were not things at all, they were powers, presences. And so I rested. While the spell was still unbroken, I came away. For broken it would have been, I know, had I not fled first. Even in this refuge the enemy would have pursued me, found me out, encompassed me. If we could but free ourselves once for all, how simple life might become! One of my friends, who, with six young children and only one servant, keeps a spotless house and a soul serene, told me once how she did it. “My dear, once a month I give away every single thing in the house that we do not imperatively need. It sounds wasteful, but I don’t believe it really is. Sometimes Jeremiah mourns over missing old clothes, or back numbers of the magazines, but I tell him if he doesn’t want to be mated to a gibbering maniac he will let me do as I like.” The old monks knew all this very well. One wonders sometimes how they got their power; but go up to Fiesole, and sit a while in one of those little, bare, white-walled cells, and you will begin to understand. If there were any spiritual force in one, it would have to come out there. I have not their courage, and I win no such freedom. I allow myself to be overwhelmed by the invading host of things, making fitful resistance, but without any real steadiness of purpose. Yet never do I wholly give up the struggle, and in my heart I cherish an ideal, remotely typified by that empty little house beside the sea. Which central idea is not discussed in Morris’s essay? (4 points)

(MC) From The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new girl in the garden—a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow hair plaited into two long-tails, white summer frock and embroidered pan-talettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left not even a memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction; he had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poor little evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she had confessed hardly a week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudest boy in the world only seven short days, and here in one instant of time she had gone out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit is done. Identify the word that best describes Tom Sawyer as he is depicted in this excerpt. (4 points)

(MC) Which word best describes the smallest scrap of debris left after cleaning up a mess? (4 points)

(HC) From The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain There was a rustling of dresses, and the standing congregation sat down. The boy whose history this book relates did not enjoy the prayer, he only endured it—if he even did that much. He was restive all through it; he kept tally of the details of the prayer, unconsciously—for he was not listening, but he knew the ground of old, and the clergyman’s regular route over it—and when a little trifle of new matter was interlarded, his ear detected it and his whole nature resented it; he considered additions unfair, and scoundrelly. In the midst of the prayer a fly had lit on the back of the pew in front of him and tortured his spirit by calmly rubbing its hands together, embracing its head with its arms, and polishing it so vigorously that it seemed to almost part company with the body, and the slender thread of a neck was exposed to view; scraping its wings with its hind legs and smoothing them to its body as if they had been coat-tails; going through its whole toilet as tranquilly as if it knew it was perfectly safe. As indeed it was; for as sorely as Tom’s hands itched to grab for it they did not dare—he believed his soul would be instantly destroyed if he did such a thing while the prayer was going on. But with the closing sentence his hand began to curve and steal forward; and the instant the “Amen” was out the fly was a prisoner of war. His aunt detected the act and made him let it go. The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod—and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be hardly worth the saving. Tom counted the pages of the sermon; after church he always knew how many pages there had been, but he seldom knew anything else about the discourse. However, this time he was really interested for a little while. The minister made a grand and moving picture of the assembling together of the world’s hosts at the millennium when the lion and the lamb should lie down together and a little child should lead them. But the pathos, the lesson, the moral of the great spectacle were lost upon the boy; he only thought of the conspicuousness of the principal character before the on-looking nations; his face lit with the thought, and he said to himself that he wished he could be that child, if it was a tame lion. Read these lines from the excerpt again: There was a rustling of dresses, and the standing congregation sat down. The boy whose history this book relates did not enjoy the prayer, he only endured it—if he even did that much. He was restive all through it; he kept tally of the details of the prayer, unconsciously—for he was not listening, but he knew the ground of old, and the clergyman’s regular route over it—and when a little trifle of new matter was interlarded, his ear detected it and his whole nature resented it; he considered additions unfair, and scoundrelly. Based on the information provided in this excerpt, how would you characterize Tom? Answer in two to three complete sentences using supporting details from the text. (10 points)

(MC) Which of the following corrects the error in meaning and usage in the sentence below? The festival and the public conference will run concur with each other. (4 points)

(LC) From “The Tyranny of Things” by Elizabeth Morris Once upon a time, when I was very tired, I chanced to go away to a little house by the sea. “It is empty,” they said, “but you can easily furnish it.” Empty! Yes, thank Heaven! Furnish it? Heaven forbid! Its floors were bare, its walls were bare, its tables there were only two in the house were bare. There was nothing in the closets but books; nothing in the bureau drawers but the smell of clean, fresh wood; nothing in the kitchen but an oil stove, and a few a very few dishes; nothing in the attic but rafters and sunshine, and a view of the sea. After I had been there an hour there descended upon me a great peace, a sense of freedom, of in finite leisure. In the twilight I sat before the flickering embers of the open fire, and looked out through the open door to the sea, and asked myself, “Why?” Then the answer came: I was emancipated from things. There was nothing in the house to demand care, to claim attention, to cumber my consciousness with its insistent, unchanging companionship. There was nothing but a shelter, and outside, the fields and marshes, the shore and the sea. These did not have to be taken down and put up and arranged and dusted and cared for. They were not things at all, they were powers, presences. And so I rested. While the spell was still unbroken, I came away. For broken it would have been, I know, had I not fled first. Even in this refuge the enemy would have pursued me, found me out, encompassed me. If we could but free ourselves once for all, how simple life might become! One of my friends, who, with six young children and only one servant, keeps a spotless house and a soul serene, told me once how she did it. “My dear, once a month I give away every single thing in the house that we do not imperatively need. It sounds wasteful, but I don’t believe it really is. Sometimes Jeremiah mourns over missing old clothes, or back numbers of the magazines, but I tell him if he doesn’t want to be mated to a gibbering maniac he will let me do as I like.” The old monks knew all this very well. One wonders sometimes how they got their power; but go up to Fiesole, and sit a while in one of those little, bare, white-walled cells, and you will begin to understand. If there were any spiritual force in one, it would have to come out there. I have not their courage, and I win no such freedom. I allow myself to be overwhelmed by the invading host of things, making fitful resistance, but without any real steadiness of purpose. Yet never do I wholly give up the struggle, and in my heart I cherish an ideal, remotely typified by that empty little house beside the sea. Morris’s description of the little house by the sea helps the reader (4 points)

(MC) A very handsome young lady in the store offered me a pair of blue gloves. I did not want blue, but she said they would look very pretty on a hand like mine. The remark touched me tenderly. I glanced furtively at my hand, and somehow it did seem rather a comely member. I tried a glove on my left, and blushed a little. Manifestly the size was too small for me. But I felt gratified when she said: “Oh, it is just right!” yet I knew it was no such thing. I tugged at it diligently, but it was discouraging work. She said: “Ah! I see you are accustomed to wearing kid gloves while some gentlemen are so awkward about putting them on.” It was the last compliment I had expected. I only understand about putting on the buckskin article perfectly. I made another effort, and tore the glove from the base of the thumb into the palm of the hand, and tried to hide the tear. She kept up her compliments, and I kept up my determination to deserve them or die. “Ah, you have had experience!” (Yes, a rip down the back of the hand) “They are just right for you—your hand is very small—if they tear, you need not pay for them.” (There was a rent across the middle.) “I can always tell when a gentleman understands putting on kid gloves. There is a grace about it that only comes with long patience.” (Meanwhile, my efforts caused the whole afterguard of the glove to “fetch away,” as the sailors say, and then the fabric parted across the knuckles, and nothing was left but a melancholy ruin.) I was too much flattered to make an exposure and throw the merchandise on the angel’s hands. I was hot, vexed, confused, yet still happy, but I hated the other boys for taking such an absorbing interest in the proceedings. I wished they were in Jericho. I felt exquisitely mean when I said cheerfully: “This one does very well; it fits elegantly. I like a glove that fits. No, never mind, ma’am, never mind; I’ll put the other on in the street. It is warm here.” It was warm. It was the warmest place I ever was in. I paid the bill, and, as I passed out with a fascinating bow, I thought I detected a light in the woman’s eye that was gently ironical, and when I looked back from the street, and she was laughing to herself about something or other, I said to myself, with withering sarcasm: “Oh, certainly; you know how to put on kid gloves, don’t you?—a self-complacent heel, ready to be flattered out of your senses by every petticoat that chooses to take the trouble to do it!” And I tried to remember why I had entered the store in the first place, and if I shouldn’t return on the morrow to complete my initial mission. Read these lines from the excerpt again: I tried a glove on my left, and blushed a little. Manifestly the size was too small for me. But I felt gratified when she said: “Oh, it is just right!” yet I knew it was no such thing. These lines from the story show that the narrator is (4 points)