(02.07 HC)Read the fairy tale. Then respond to the essay question that follows.”Old Sultan”by The Brothers Grimm   A shepherd had a faithful dog, called Sultan, who was grown very old, and had lost all his teeth. And one day when the shepherd and his wife were standing together before the house the shepherd said, ‘I will give away old Sultan tomorrow morning, for he is of no use now.’ But his wife said, ‘Pray let the poor faithful creature stay; he has served us well a great many years, and we ought to give him a livelihood for the rest of his days.’ ‘But what can we do with him?’ said the shepherd, ‘he has not a tooth in his head, and the thieves don’t care for him at all; to be sure he has served us, but then he did it to earn his livelihood; tomorrow shall be his last day, depend upon it.’   Poor Sultan, who was lying close by them, heard all that the shepherd and his wife said to one another, and was very much frightened to think tomorrow would be his last day; so, in the evening he went to his good friend the wolf, who lived in the wood, and told him all his sorrows, and how his master meant to kill him in the morning. ‘Make yourself easy,’ said the wolf, ‘I will give you some good advice. The shepherd, you know, goes out every morning very early with his wife into the field; and they take their little child with them, and lay it down behind the hedge in the shade while they are at work. Now do you lie down close by the child, and pretend to be watching it, and I will come out of the wood and run away with it; you must run after me as fast as you can, and I will let it drop; then you may carry it back, and they will think you have saved their child, and will be so thankful to you that they will take care of you as long as you live.’ The dog liked this plan very well; and accordingly, so it was managed. The wolf ran with the child a little way; the shepherd and his wife screamed out; but Sultan soon overtook him and carried the poor little thing back to his master and mistress. Then the shepherd patted him on the head, and said, ‘Old Sultan has saved our child from the wolf, and therefore he shall live and be well taken care of and have plenty to eat. Wife, go home, and give him a good dinner, and let him have my old cushion to sleep on as long as he lives.’ So, from this time forward Sultan had all that he could wish for.   Soon afterwards the wolf came and wished him joy, and said, ‘Now, my good fellow, you must tell no tales, but turn your head the other way when I want to taste one of the old shepherd’s fine fat sheep.’ ‘No,’ said the Sultan; ‘I will be true to the shepherd.’ However, the wolf thought he was in joke, and came one night to get a dainty morsel. But Sultan had told his master what the wolf meant to do; so, he laid wait for him behind the barn door, and when the wolf was busy looking out for a good fat sheep, he had a stout cudgel laid about his back, that combed his locks for him finely.   Then the wolf was very angry, and called Sultan ‘an old rogue,’ and swore he would have his revenge. So, the next morning the wolf sent the boar to challenge Sultan to come into the wood to fight the matter. Now Sultan had nobody he could ask to be his second but the shepherd’s old three-legged cat; so, he took her with him, and as the poor thing limped along with some trouble, she stuck up her tail straight in the air.   The wolf and the wild boar were first on the ground; and when they espied their enemies coming, and saw the cat’s long tail standing straight in the air, they thought she was carrying a sword for Sultan to fight with; and every time she limped, they thought she was picking up a stone to throw at them; so they said they should not like this way of fighting, and the boar lay down behind a bush, and the wolf jumped up into a tree. Sultan and the cat soon came up and looked about and wondered that no one was there. The boar, however, had not quite hidden himself, for his ears stuck out of the bush; and when he shook one of them a little, the cat, seeing something move, and thinking it was a mouse, sprang upon it, and bit and scratched it, so that the boar jumped up and grunted, and ran away, roaring out, ‘Look up in the tree, there sits the one who is to blame.’ So, they looked up, and espied the wolf sitting amongst the branches; and they called him a cowardly rascal and would not suffer him to come down till he was heartily ashamed of himself and had promised to be good friends again with old Sultan.In a well-written paragraph of 5−7 sentences, achieve the following: Explain how “Old Sultan” could be considered an allegory. Explain how the author developed the allegory through the use of literary elements.

(01.01 MC)Read the excerpt from The Great Gatsby. Then answer the question that follows.She was dressed to play golf and I remember thinking she looked like a good illustration, her chin raised a little, jauntily, her hair the color of an autumn leaf, her face the same brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee. When I had finished she told me without comment that she was engaged to another man. I doubted that though there were several she could have married at a nod of her head but I pretended to be surprised. For just a minute I wondered if I wasn’t making a mistake, then I thought it all over again quickly and got up to say goodbye.Which figurative language device is not present in these lines?

(01.01 MC)Read the excerpt from The Great Gatsby. Then answer the question that follows.There was music from my neighbour’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.Which of the following figurative language devices is present in this passage?

(02.07 HC)Read the short story. Then respond to the essay question that follows.”Bruce and the Spider”by James Baldwin   There was once a king of Scotland whose name was Robert Bruce. He had need to be both brave and wise, for the times in which he lived were wild and rude. The King of England was at war with him, and had led a great army into Scotland to drive him out of the land.   Battle after battle had been fought. Six times had Bruce led his brave little army against his foes; and six times had his men been beaten, and driven into flight. At last his army was scattered, and he was forced to hide himself in the woods and in lonely places among the mountains.   One rainy day, Bruce lay on the ground under a rude shed, listening to the patter of the drops on the roof above him. He was tired and sick at heart, and ready to give up all hope. It seemed to him that there was no use for him to try to do anything more.   As he lay thinking, he saw a spider over his head, making ready to weave her web. He watched her as she toiled slowly and with great care. Six times she tried to throw her frail thread from one beam to another, and six times it fell short.   “Poor thing!” said Bruce: “you, too, know what it is to fail.”   But the spider did not lose hope with the sixth failure. With still more care, she made ready to try for the seventh time. Bruce almost forgot his own troubles as he watched her swing herself out upon the slender line. Would she fail again? No! The thread was carried safely to the beam and fastened there.   “I, too, will try a seventh time!” cried Bruce.   He arose and called his men together. He told them of his plans and sent them out with messages of cheer to his disheartened people. Soon there was an army of brave Scotch-men around him. Another battle was fought, and the King of England was glad to go back into his own country.   I have heard it said, that, after that day, no one by the name of Bruce would ever hurt a spider. The lesson which the little creature had taught the king was never forgotten.In a well-written paragraph of 5–7 sentences, achieve the following: Identify the universal theme of “Bruce and the Spider.” Describe how the theme is universal. Explain how the author developed and delivered the theme to the reader.

(03.02 LC)A claim takes a clear and defendable position on a topic in an argumentative essay.

(01.05 LC)All of the following are elements of an effective introduction except

(01.01 LC)Marcus is revising an essay, and he noticed he used the word “repulsive.” He wants to replace the word with one that is less harsh. He wants to change the word based on its

(01.02 HC)Read the excerpt from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Then answer the question that follows.   I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion. Or, rather, as I didn’t know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.   Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.How does the use of juxtaposition in this excerpt affect the meaning of the passage affect your understanding of the setting?

(02.04 MC)Read the excerpt from the poem “She Sweeps with Many-Colored Brooms” by Emily Dickinson Then answer the question that follows.She sweeps with many-colored brooms,And leaves the shreds behind;Oh, housewife in the evening west,Come back, and dust the pond!You dropped a purple ravelling in,You dropped an amber thread;And now you’ve littered all the EastWith duds of emerald!And still she plies her spotted brooms,And still the aprons fly,Till brooms fade softly into starsAnd then I come away.Which of the following statements best explains the poet’s use of figurative language?

(01.01 MC)Read the excerpt from The Great Gatsby. Then answer the question that follows.And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.Which figurative language device is present in this line?