Download Jordan has written this report for a science class

Sample Test English II
Jordan has written this report for a science class. As part of a peer conference, you are
asked to read the report and think about what suggestions you would make. When you
finish reading the report, answer the multiple-choice questions that follow.
Earthquakes
1
In Santa Barbara, California an unusual crackling sound wakened many people
2
early on January 17, 1994. Around 4:30 A.M., the beams of they’re houses began
3
creaking and popping. The frames shuddered, then the floors started to roll gently,
4
like the deck of a boat. These people were feeling the effects of a major earthquake
5
centered near Los Angeles, one hundred miles to the south.
6
What causes earthquakes such as the one that struck Southern California? Like
7
many complicated questions, this one has several answers. Earthquakes have a
8
number of causes, both remote and immediate.
9
Remote causes of earthquakes involve the earth’s deep structure. The earth’s
10 outer crust of dirt and rock is solid but not very thick. It rests on a thicker but much
11 less solid layer the mantle composed of rock heated to the consistency of warm tar.
12 The mantle is not exactly liquid it is far from firm. Heat currents from the earth’s
13
fiery core rise up through the mantle, and it stays in constant, sluggish motion.
14
The earth’s firm crust, in order to acommodate the motion of the mantle, has
15
broken into several large plates. The cracks, or faults, between the plates allows the
16
crust to flex as the mantle moves. Smaller faults within each plate permit further
17
motion. Most of this motion is so gradual that people don’t even feel them.
18
However, in some places, the edges of the faults may be grinding against each other,
19
or one edge may be gradually forced under another. In these areas, the crusts brittle
20
rock layers are under increasing pressure. Friction prevents the rocks in the two
21
edges from sliding smoothly passed one another, and the growing pressure on the
22
rock layers actually forces them to bend.
23
In these rock layers, the more immediate causes of earthquakes come into play.
24
Eventually, the rocks along one edge reached a point at which they can no longer
25
bend. With a sudden jolt, they either snap back into shape or break, just as a sapling
26
might. Then sharp shockwaves travel through the earth’s crust in the surrounding
27
area and are felt as an earthquake. This is what happened near Los Angeles on
28
January 17, 1994.
29
Scientists have already identified most of the earth’s high-pressure zones.
30
Someday, as they learn exactly which kinds of rock lay layered along the faults and
31
exactly how these rocks behave under pressure, they may be able to predict the
32
breaking points of specific rock layers. Until then, scientists can say only that
33
earthquakes will keep striking in fault zones; though no one knows exactly where,
34 when, or with what force.
_____________________________________________________________________
1. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in lines 1-2?
A Delete the comma after Santa Barbara
B Insert a comma after California
C Insert a comma after unusual
D Make no change
2. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in lines 2-3?
A Change beams to beems
B Change A.M. to a.m.
C Change they’re to their
D Make no change
3. What is the best way, if any, to rewrite the sentence in lines 3-4?
A The frames shuddered, the floors started to roll gently, like the deck of a boat.
B The frames shuddering, the floors starting to roll gently, like the deck of a boat.
C The frames shuddered; then the floors started to roll gently, like the deck of a
boat.
D Make no change
4. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in line 6?
A Insert a comma after one
B Change Southern to southern
C Change the question mark to a period
D Make no change
5. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in lines 7-8?
A Delete the comma after causes
B Insert a comma after remote
C Change have to has
D Make no change
6. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in lines 10-11?
A Insert a comma after less
B Insert commas after layer and mantle
C Insert a comma after rock
D Make no change
7. What is the best way, if any, to rewrite sentence 12?
A The mantle is not exactly liquid; however, it is far from firm.
B The mantle is not exactly liquid, however, it is far from firm.
C The mantle is not exactly liquid however, it is far from firm.
D Make no change
8. What is the best way to rewrite the sentence in lines 12-13?
A Heat currents that rise up from the earth’s fiery core through the mantle stays in
constant, sluggish motion.
B Since heat currents that rise up from the earth’s fiery core through the mantle
stay in constant, sluggish motion.
C Heat currents from the earth’s fiery core rise up through the mantle, although it
stays in constant, sluggish motion.
D Because heat currents from the earth’s fiery core rise through the mantle, it
stays in constant, sluggish motion.
9. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in lines 14-15?
A Delete the comma after mantle
B Insert a comma after several
C Change acommodate to accommodate
D Make no change
10. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in lines 15-16?
A Delete the comma after cracks
B Insert a comma after flex
C Change allows to allow
D Make no change
11. What is the best change to make, if any, in the sentence in line 17?
A Insert a comma after gradual
B Delete the apostrophe in don’t
C Change them to it
D Make no change
12. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in lines 18-19?
A Delete the comma after or
B Insert a semi-colon after other
C Change gradually to gradualy
D Make no change
13. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in lines 19-20?
A Change crusts to crust’s
B Change brittle to brittel
C Change are to is
D Make no change
14. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in lines 20-22?
A Change smoothly to smoothely
B Delete the comma after another
C Change passed to past
D Make no change
15. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in lines 24-25?
A Delete the comma after Eventually
B Change reached to reach
C Insert a comma after point
D Make no change
16. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in lines 30-32?
A Change lay to lie
B Change breaking to braking
C Delete the comma after pressure
D Make no change
17. What is the best change, if any, to make in the sentence in lines 32-34?
A Delete the comma after then
B Change the semi-colon after zones to a comma
C Put the semi-colon after where
D Make no change
Read the following selections from Elie Wiesel. Then answer the questions
that follow.
from Night
Following is an excerpt from Night, a nonfiction account of Elie Wiesel’s imprisonment
by the Nazi’s during WWII. The narrative begins soon after Elie, who is sixteen, and his
family are taken prisoner by Nazis and sent by train to an unknown destination.
Toward eleven o’clock, the train began to move. We pressed against the windows.
The convoy was moving slowly. A quarter of an hour later, it slowed down again.
Through the windows we could see barbed wire; we realized this must be the camp.
…Suddenly, we heard terrible screams:
“Jews, look! Look through the window! Flames! Look!”
And as the train stopped, we saw this time that flames were gushing out of a tall
chimney into the black sky…
We looked at the flames in the darkness. There was an abominable odor floating in
the air. Suddenly, our doors opened. Some odd-looking characters, dressed in striped
shirts and black trousers, leapt into the wagon. They held electric torches and
truncheons. They
began to strike out to right and left, shouting:
“Everybody get out! Everyone out of the wagon! Quickly!”
In front of us flames. In the air that smell of burning flesh. It must have been about
midnight. We had arrived – at Birkenau, reception center for Auschwitz.
The cherished items we had brought with us thus far were left behind in the train, and
with them, at last, our illusions.
Every two yards or so an SS man held his Tommy gun trained on us. Hand in hand
we followed the crowd.
An SS noncommissioned officer came to meet us, a truncheon in his hand. He gave
the order:
“Men to the left! Women to the right!”
Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight short, simple
words. Yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother. . . And I did not know
that in that place, at that moment, I was parting from my mother and Tzipora forever. I
went on walking. My father held onto my hand…
The SS officers gave the order:
“Form fives!”
Commotion. At all costs we must keep together…
A second man came up, spitting oaths at us.
“What have you come here for? What are you doing here, eh?”
Someone dared to answer him.
“What do you think? Do you suppose we’ve come here for our own pleasure? Do
you think we asked to come?”
A little more, and the man would have killed him.
“You shut your trap, you filthy swine, or I’ll squash you right now! You’d have done
better to have hanged yourselves where you were than come here. Didn’t you know what
was in store for you at Auschwitz? Haven’t you heard about it? In 1944?”
No, we had not heard. No one had told us. He could not believe his ears. His tone of
voice became increasingly brutal.
“Do you see that chimney over there? See it? Do you see those flames? Over there –
that’s where you’re going to be taken. That’s your grave, over there. Haven’t you
realized it yet? Don’t you understand anything? You’re going to be burned. Frizzled
away. Turned into ashes.”
…We continued our march toward the square. In the middle stood the notorious Dr.
Mengele (a typical SS officer: a cruel face, but not devoid of intelligence, and wearing a
monocle); a conductor’s baton in his hand, he was standing among the other officers.
The baton moved unremittingly, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right…
The baton moved to the left. I took half a step forward. I wanted to see first where
they were sending my father. If he went to the right, I would go after him.
The baton once again pointed to the left for him, too. A weight was lifted from my
heart.
We did not yet know which was the better side, right or left; which road led to prison
and which to the crematory. But for the moment I was happy; I was near my father. Our
procession continued to move slowly forward.
Another prisoner came up to us:
“Satisfied?”
“Yes,” someone said.
“Poor devils, you’re going to the crematory.”
He seemed to be telling the truth. Not far from us, flames were leaping up from a
ditch, gigantic flames. They were burning something. A lorry drew up at the pit and
delivered its load – little children! Babies! Yes, I saw it – saw it with my own eyes –
those children in the flames. (Is it surprising that I could not sleep after that? Sleep
had fled my eyes.)
So this was where we were going. A little farther on was another and larger ditch for
adults.
I pinched my face. Was I still alive? Was I awake? I could not believe it. How
could it be possible for them to burn people, children, and for the world to keep silent?
No, none of this could be true. It was a nightmare.
…Around us, everyone was weeping. Someone began to recite the Kaddish, the
prayer for the dead. I do not know if it has ever happened before, in the long history of
the Jews, that people have recited the prayer for the dead for themselves.
We continued our march. We were gradually drawing closer to the ditch, from which
an infernal heat was rising. Still twenty steps to go. If I wanted to bring about my own
death, this was the moment. Our line had now only fifteen paces to cover. I bit my lips
so that my father would not hear my teeth chattering. Ten steps still. Eight. Seven. We
marched slowly on, as though following a hearse at our own funeral. Four steps more.
Three steps. There it was now, right in front of us, the pit and the flames. I gathered all
that was left of my strength, so that I could break from the ranks and throw myself upon
the barbed wire. In the depths of my heart, I bade farewell to my father, to the whole
universe; and, in spite of myself, the words formed themselves and issued in a whisper
from my lips: Yitgadal veyitkadach shme; raba…May His name be blessed and
magnified …My heart was bursting. The moment had come. I was face to face with the
Angel of Death…
No. Two steps from the pit we were ordered to turn to the left and made to go into the
barracks…
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, which has turned my life
into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that
smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned
into
wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.
A Romanian-born teacher and writer, Wiesel recounts the horrors of his experiences at
the hands of the Nazis at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in his first book, Night.
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, he delivered the following acceptance speech in 1986.
It is with a profound sense of humility that I accept the honor you have chosen to
bestow upon me. I know your choice transcends me. This both frightens and pleases me.
It frightens me because I wonder: do I have the right to represent the multitudes who
have perished? Do I have the right to accept this great honor on their behalf? I do not.
That would be presumptuous. No one may speak for the dead. No one may interpret
their mutilated dreams and visions.
It pleases me because I may say that this honor belongs to all the survivors and their
children, and through us, to the Jewish people with whose destiny I have always
identified.
I remember: it happened yesterday or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered
the kingdom of night. I remember his bewilderment. I remember his anguish. It all
happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar
upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be
sacrificed.
I remember: he asked his father: “Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not
the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the
world
remain silent?
And now the boy is turning to me: “Tell me,” he asks. “What have you done with my
future? What have you done with your life?”
And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have
tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are
accomplices.
And then I explained to him how naïve we were, that the world did know and remain
silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings
endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the
oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
18. When Wiesel says that the prisoners had left behind their illusions, he was probably
referring to –
A their prized personal possessions
B their hopes that they would survive this ordeal together
C the homes they left behind
D their families
19. Wiesel probably feels desperate when the prisoners are split into fives because –
A he is confused by the SS officers
B he is afraid of being taken to the factories
C the other prisoners are taunting him
D he has already been separated from his mother and sister and fears being
separated from his father
20. When the SS officer discovered that the prisoners had not previously heard about
the death camp Auschwitz, he was –
A indifferent
B amused
C incredulous
D sympathetic
21. With his conductor’s baton in his hand, Mengele –
A decided which prisoners went to the crematory and which went
to the barracks
B inflicted horrible injuries on the weaker prisoners
C personally chose victims for his medical experiments
D brutally beat Wiesel’s mother
22. When Wiesel saw that his father was chosen to be in the left line, he –
A left the right line and joined him
B was relieved
C cried because he knew they were headed for the crematory
D shouted curses at Mengele
23. As Wiesel drew nearer to the crematory, he –
A refused to obey the officer’s commands
B discussed attacking the officers with the help of the others near him
C imagined what it would be like to burn to death
D considered hastening his own death by running to the barbed wire
24. Which of the following paragraphs best builds suspense?
(The sentence provided is the first sentence of the
paragraph. Consider the entire paragraph when
answering.)
A “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, which has turned my
life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.”
B “Around us, everyone was weeping.”
C “We continued our march.”
D “Toward eleven o’clock, the train began to move.”
25. The sight that most horrified Wiesel his first day at the camp was –
A the train pulling away from Auschwitz
B Mengele with his conductor’s baton
C the SS officers with their Tommy guns
D the children burning in the ditch
26. The purpose of Wiesel’s speech was to -the audience.
A compliment
B persuade
C inform
D impress
27. In both selections, Wiesel refers to all but -A Mengele’s cruelty
B the crematory
C the train which took him and his family to Auschwitz
D the suffering of the Jews
28. In these selections, Wiesel deals with all but –
A the importance of remembering
B the attempt to destroy a culture
C the horror of death camps
D revenge against the Nazis
Answer the following questions in complete sentences. Support your answers with
evidence from the reading selections. 3-5 sentences should be sufficient.
29. In both selections, Wiesel refers to night:
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, which has turned my life
into one long night…”
“A young Jewish boy discovered the kingdom of night.”
What do you think night is a symbol of?
30. In his speech, Wiesel says, “Because if we forget, we are guilty, we
are accomplices. . . Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Do you
agree with these statements?
Why or why not?
ANSWERS
1. B
2. C
3. C
4. B
5. D
6. B
7. A
8. D
9. C
10. C
11. C
12. D
13. A
14. C
15. B
16. A
17. B
18. B
19. D
20. C
21. A
22. B
23. D
24. C
25. D
26. B
27. A
28. D
29. Will vary
30. Will vary