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In this excerpt from one of his most famous speeches, Civil…

In this excerpt from one of his most famous speeches, Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reflects on a stay in the hospital several years before, when he was being treated for a condition that threatened his life. I’ve Been to the Mountaintop 1.   If I had merely sneezed, I would have died.  Well, about four days later, they              allowed me to move around in the wheelchair in the hospital.       They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the       states and the world, kind letters came in. 5    I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. It said simply,       “Dear Dr. King,       I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School.       While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I’m a white girl. I read       in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. 10 And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died.      And I’m simply writing you to say that I’m so happy that you didn’t sneeze.”      And I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn’t sneeze.      Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been around here in 1960, when      students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters, 15 standing up for the best in the American dream.      If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been around here in 1961,      when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended      segregation in interstate travel.      If I had sneezed, 20 I wouldn’t have been around here in 1962,      when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs      up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up,      they are going somewhere, because a man can’t ride your back unless      it is bent. If I had sneezed— 25 If I had sneezed I wouldn’t have been here in 1963,      when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience      of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill.      If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have had a chance later that year,      in August, to try to 30 tell America about a dream that I had had.      I’m so happy that I didn’t sneeze.   Adapted from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech in Memphis, TN, April 3, 1968. Retrieved from http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm. Copyright 2001-2006 by American Rhetoric.   Who is the speaker in lines 7-13? 

EXERPT FROM ‘THE OVERCOAT’ by Nikolai Gogol When and how he…

EXERPT FROM ‘THE OVERCOAT’ by Nikolai Gogol When and how he entered the department, and who appointed him, no one could remember.  However much the directors and chiefs of all kinds were changed, he was always to be seen in the same place, the same attitude, the same occupation; so that it was afterwards affirmed that he had been born in undress uniform with a bald head.  No respect was shown him in the department.  The porter not only did not rise from his seat when he passed, but never even glanced at him, any more than if a fly had flown through the reception-room.  His superiors treated him in coolly despotic1 fashion.  Some sub-chief would thrust a paper under his nose without so much as saying, “Copy,” or “Here’s a nice interesting affair,” or anything else agreeable, as is customary amongst well-bred officials.  And he took it, looking only at the paper and not observing who handed it to him, or whether he had the right to do so; simply took it, and set about copying it. The young officials laughed at and made fun of him, so far as their official with permitted; told in his presence various stories concocted about him, and about his landlady, an old woman of seventy; declared that she beat him; asked when the wedding was to be; and strewed bits of paper over his head, calling them snow.  But Akakiy Akakievitch answered not at word, any more than if there had been no one there besides himself.  It even had no effect upon his work; amid all these annoyances he never made a single mistake in a letter.  But I’d the joking became wholly unbearable, as when they jogged his hand and prevented his attending to his work, he would exclaim, “Leave me alone! Why do you insult me?” And there was something strange in the words and the voice in which they were uttered.  There was in it something which moved to pity; so much that one young man, a new comer, who, taking pattern by the others, had permitted himself to make sport of Akakiy, suddenly stopped short, as though all about him had undergone a transformation, and presented itself in a different aspect.  Some unseen force repelled him from the comrades whose acquaintance he had made on the supposition that they were well-bred and polite men.  Long afterwards, in his gayest moments, there recurred to his mind the little official with the bald forehead, with his heart-rending words, “Leave me alone! Why do you insult me?” In these moving words, other words resounded — “I am thy brother.” And the young man covered his face with his hand; and many a time afterwards, in the course of his life, shuddered at seeing how much inhumanity there is in man, how much savage coarseness is concealed beneath delicate, refined worldliness, and even in that man whom the world acknowledges as honourable and noble. It would be difficult to find another man who lived so entirely for his duties.  It is not enough to say that Akakiy laboured with zeal; no, he laboured with love.  In his copying, he found a varied and agreeable employment.  Enjoyment was written on his face: some letters were even favourites with him; and when he encountered these, he smiled, winked, and worked with his lips, till it seemed as though each letter might be read in his face, as his pen traced it.  If his pay had been in proportion to his zeal, he would, perhaps, to his great surprise, have been made even a councillor of state.  But he worked, as his companions, the wits, put it, like a horse in a mill. Moreover, it is impossible to say that no attention was paid to him.  One director being a kindly man, and desirous of rewarding him for his long service, ordered him to be given something more important than mere copying.  So he was ordered to make a report of an already concluded affair of another department: the duty consisting simply of changing the heading and altering a few words from the first to the third person.  This caused him so much toll that he broke into a perspiration, rubbed his forehead, and finally said, “No, give me rather something to copy.”  After that they let him copy on forever.    Which quotation from paragraph 3 best illustrates the meaning of the word “zeal” as it is used in the paragraph?

A lot of people hate to ride the New York City subways, but…

A lot of people hate to ride the New York City subways, but I love them because I like to get places fast. (1) A musician balancing a cello case, two Buddhist monks in saffron robes, and a group of stockbrokersin crisp, charcoal gray suits (2) get on at Wall Street. A passenger placidly sews while the subway train flings and jolts. A teenager whose (3) holding a shoebox containing a kitten as tiny as a gingersnap smiles even if (4) a line of girls in frilly white communion dresses file by. About three and a half millionpeople a day ride the subways (5) I think maybe I might possibly have (6) met them all.   Look at #2 and select the best answer.