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Quiz 2
College English Book 5 Lesson 5-8
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I.
Complete the following words according to the given definitions.
Please give out one synonym for each of the first five words,
while one antonym for each of the last five words. (20 points)
1. _______, _______: join (one thing) completely with another
2. _______, _______: make bad use of
3. _______, _______: put in words
4. _______, _______: not willing to believe
5. _______, _______: be greater in number, power, strength or
amount
6. _______, _______: (of work) servile; lowly
7. _______, _______: acting against; opposed
8. _______, _______: a sense of satisfaction
9. _______, _______: a substance which produces sleep
10. _______, _______: (to sell) in a large number; on a large
scale
II. Explain the following sentences,
and pay attention to the italicized parts. (20 points)
1. It didn’t occur to me for many years that they were as alike
as sisters, separated only by formal education.
2. For since they tend to think of their whiteness as an evenizer,
I’m certain that I would have had to hear her spoken to commonly
as Bertha, and my image of her would have been shattered like
the unmendable Humpty-Dumpty.
3. I hung back in the separate unasked and unanswerable questions.
4. My imagination boggled at the punishment I would deserve
if in fact I did abuse a book of Mrs. Flowers’. Death would
be too kind and brief.
5. So I jammed one whole cake in my mouth and the rough crumbs
scratched the insides of my jaws, and if I hadn’t had to swallow,
it would have been a dream come true.
6. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever
done…” tears of love filled my eyes at my selflessness.
7. For all but the last six, I have done the work—all the tedious
details that make the difference between victory and defeat
on election day—while men reaped the rewards, which is almost
invariably the lot of women in politics.
8. It is women who can bring empathy, tolerance, insight, patience,
and persistence to government—the qualities we naturally have
or have had to develop because of our suppression by men.
9. It (TV) diverts us only to divert, to make the time pass
without pain.
10. Literacy may not be an inalienable human right, but it is
one that the highly literate Founding Fathers might not have
found unreasonable or even unattainable.
III. Point out the rhetorical
devices used in the following sentences. (20 points)
1. _______ If that is not prejudice, what would you call it?
2. _______ If it appealed to you, you could be reading Homer
in the original Greek or Dostoyevsky in Russian.
3. _______ …as though General Sarnoff, or one of the other august
pioneers of video, had bequeathed to us tablets of stone commanding
that nothing in television shall ever require more than a few
moments’ concentration.
4. _______It has become fashionable to think that, like fast
food, fast ideas are the way to get to a fast-moving, impatient
public.
5. _______When blacks finally started to “mention” it, with
sit-ins, boycotts, and freedom rides, Americans were incredulous.
“Who, us?” they asked in injured tones.
6. _________The handsome houses on the street to the college
were not fully awake, but they looked very friendly.
7. ___________The messenger was not long in returning, followed
by a pair of heavy boots that came bumping along the passage
like boxes.
8. ___________People often compare life to a road through the
mountain because both have their ups and downs.
9. ____________________This momentous decree came as a great
beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been
seared in the flame of withering injustice. (point out two)
IV. Reading Comprehension. (40
points)
Read the following writing and then answer the questions.
Vesuvius Erupts
Pliny the Younger
So the letter which you asked me to write on my uncle’s death
has made you eager to hear about the terrors and also the hazards
I had to face when left at Misenum, for I broke off at the beginning
of this part of my story. “Though my mind shrinks from remembering
… I will begin.”
After my uncle’s departure I spent the rest of the day with
my books, as this was my reason for staying behind. Then I took
a bath, dined, and then dozed fitfully for a while. For several
days past there had been earth tremors which were not particularly
alarming because they are frequent in Campania: but that night
the shocks were so violent that everything fell as if it were
not only shaken but overturned. My mother hurried into my room
and found me already getting up to wake her if she were still
asleep. We sat down in the forecourt of the house, between the
buildings and the sea close by. I don’t know whether I should
call this courage or folly on my part (I was only seventeen
at the time) but I called for a volume of Livy and went on reading
as if I had nothing else to do. I even went on with the extracts
I had been making. Up came a friend of my uncle’s who had just
come from Spain to join him. When he saw us sitting there and
me actually reading, he scolded us both—me for my foolhardiness
and my mother for allowing it. Nevertheless, I remained absorbed
in my book.
By now it was dawn (25 August in the year 79), but the light
was still dim and faint. The buildings round us were already
tottering, and the open space we were in was too small for us
not to be in real and imminent danger if the house collapsed.
This finally decided us to leave the town. We were followed
by a panic-stricken mob of people wanting to act on someone
else’s decision in preference to their own ( a point in which
fear looks like prudence), who hurried us on our way by pressing
hard behind in a dense crowd. Once beyond the buildings we stopped,
and there we had some extraordinary experiences which thoroughly
alarmed us. The carriages we had ordered to be brought out began
to run in different directions though the ground was quite level,
and would not remain stationary even when wedged with stones.
We also saw the sea sucked away and apparently forced back by
the earthquake: at any rate it receded from the shore so that
quantities of sea creatures were left stranded on dry sand.
On the landward side a fearful black cloud was rent by forked
and quivering bursts of flame, and parted to reveal great tongues
of fire, like flashes of lightning magnified in size.
At this point my uncle’s friend from Spain spoke up still more
urgently: “If your brother, if your uncle is still alive, he
will want you both to be saved; if he is dead, he would want
you to survive him – so why put off your escape?” We replied
that we would not think of considering our own safety as long
as we were uncertain of his. Without waiting any longer, our
friend rushed off and hurried out of danger as fast as he could.
Soon afterwards the cloud sank down to earth and covered the
sea; it had already blotted out Capri and hidden the promontory
of Misenum from sight. Then my mother implored, entreated, and
commanded me to escape as best I could – a young man might escape,
whereas she was old and slow and could die in peace as long
as she had not been the cause of my death too. I told her I
refused to save myself without her, and grasping her hand forced
her to quicken her pace. She gave in reluctantly, blaming herself
for delaying me. Ashes were already falling, not as yet very
thickly. I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind
us, spreading over the earth like a flood. “Let us leave the
road while we can still see,” I said, “or we shall be knocked
down and trampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind.”
We had scarcely sat down to rest when darkness fell, not the
dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been
put out in a closed room. You could hear the shrieks of women,
the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling
their parents, others their children or their wives, trying
to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own
fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed
for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of
the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and
that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness forevermore.
There were people, too, who added to the real perils by inventing
fictitious dangers: some reported that part of Misenum had collapsed
or another part was on fire, and though their tales were false
they found others to believe them. A gleam of light returned,
but we took this to be a warning of the approaching flames rather
than daylight. However, the flames remained some distance off;
then darkness came on once more and ashes began to fall again,
this time in heavy showers. We rose from time to time and shook
them off, otherwise we should have been buried and crushed beneath
their weight. I could boast that not a groan or cry of fear
escaped me in these perils, had I not derived some poor consolation
in my mortal lot from the belief that the whole world was dying
with me and I with it.
At last the darkness thinned and dispersed into smoke or cloud;
then there was genuine daylight, and the sun actually shone
out, but yellowish as it is during an eclipse. We were terrified
to see everything changed, buried deep in ashes like snowdrifts.
We returned to Misenum where we attended to our physical needs
as best we could, and then spent an anxious night alternating
between hope and fear. Fear predominated, for the earthquakes
went on, and several hysterical individuals made their own and
other people’s calamities seem ludicrous in comparison with
their frightful predictions. But even then, in spite of the
dangers we had been through and were still expecting, my mother
and I had still no intention of leaving until we had new of
my uncle.
Of course these details are not important enough for history,
and you will read them without any idea of recording them; if
they seem scarcely worth even putting in a letter, you have
only yourself to blame for asking them.
Questions:
A. Which sentence most appropriately describes the passage?
(2 points)
1. A vivid description of the terrifying scenes of the Vesuvius
eruption.
2. A sequel to and unfinished story about the eruption of Vesuvius.
3. A truthful record of one of the world’s most famous destructive
upheavals.
4. A personal account of the writer’s first-hand experience
during the frightful events of the Vesuvius eruption.
B. True or false. (8 points)
1. The earth tremors that had lasted several days were not taken
seriously by Pliny and his mother because they did not necessarily
herald a calamitous volcanic eruption.
2. Somewhere in the passage Pliny implies that at the moment
of great panic most people lost their power of judgment and
just followed others blindly.
3. According to Pliny, when gripped by fear of death many people
even lost their faith in the gods.
4. Pliny boasts that not a groan or cry of fear escaped him
because he was wise enough to foretell that he was destined
to survive with the whole world.
C. Paraphrase the following. (12 points)
1. We were followed by a panic-stricken mob of people wanting
to act on someone else’s decision in preference to their own
( a point in which fear looks like prudence), who hurried us
on our way by pressing hard behind in a dense crowd.
2. We replied that we would not think of considering our own
safety as long as we were uncertain of his.
3. There were people, too, who added to the real perils by inventing
fictitious dangers: some reported that part of Misenum had collapsed
or another part was on fire, and though their tales were false
they found others to believe them.
4. I could boast that not a groan or cry of fear escaped me
in these perils, had I not derived some poor consolation in
my mortal lot from the belief that the whole world was dying
with me and I with it.
D. Answer the following questions. (18 points)
1. Why did Pliny and his mother choose to sit in the forecourt
of the house rather than in the house?
2. When did Pliny begin to feel seriously that his safety was
threatened? And when did he begin to feel the real peril of
the situation?
3. Why did Pliny use the word “mob” in Para.3, instead of “crowd”
or “group”? what other words denoting a multitude of people
can you think of ?
4. What details of experience do you think impressed Pliny most
dramatically?
5. Note that Pliny uses different words to denote the sounds
uttered by different people amidst the chaos – “shrieks of women,
wailing of infants, shouting of men”. Is it possible to interchange
them? Think of more words for sound made by human beings.
6. How would you describe Pliny’s performance in the course
of the disaster?
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