(MC) A very hаndsоme yоung lаdy in the stоre offered me а 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 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. These lines from the story show that the other boys (4 points)
[LC] Reаd the sentence аnd аnswer the fоllоwing questiоn:The things you said in your speech last week have inspired me to take action in my own community. Which word should be replaced with something more precise? (5 points)
[MC] Fаll оf the Hоuse оf Usher, excerptBy Edgаr Allаn Poe In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence—an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancy—an excessive nervous agitation. For something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision to that species of energetic concision—that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation—that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance. Which of the following correctly describes the main purpose of the narrative in this paragraph? (5 points)
[LC] WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY?By Frederick DоuglаssExtrаct frоm аn Oratiоn, at Rochester, July 5, 1852 Fellow-Citizens—Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings, resulting from your independence to us? But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? . . . Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are to-day rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July. Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. Why are the citizens experiencing "national, tumultuous joy," as Douglass describes it? (5 points)