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Unit and Benchmark TestsUnit 2, Test A
27Assessment FileAmerican Literature
Reading ComprehensionDirections Read the following selections and examine the visual representation. Then answer the questions that follow.
Transcendentalism is an intellectual movement that developed in the United States in the nineteenth century. Henry David Thoreau was an important transcendentalist.
from Wild FruitsHenry David Thoreau
Most of us are still related to our native fields as the navigator to undiscovered islands in the sea. We can any afternoon discover a new fruit there which will surprise us by its beauty or sweetness. So long as I saw in my walks one or two kinds of berries whose names I did not know, the proportion of the unknown seemed indefinitely, if not infinitely, great.
As I sail the unexplored sea of Concord, many a dell and swamp and wooded hill is my Ceram and Amboyna. Famous fruits imported from the East or South and sold in our markets—as oranges, lemons, pine-apples, and bananas—do not concern me so much as many an unnoticed wild berry whose beauty annually lends a new charm to some wild walk or which I have found to be palatable to an outdoor taste. We cultivate imported shrubs in our front yards for the beauty of their berries, while at least equally beautiful berries grow unregarded by us in the surrounding fields.
The tropical fruits are for those who dwell within the tropics. Their fairest and sweetest parts cannot be imported. Brought here, they chiefly concern those whose walks are through the marketplace. It is not the orange of Cuba but rather the checkerberry of the neighboring pasture that most delights the eye and the palate of the New England child. For it is not the foreignness or size or nutritive qualities of a fruit that determine its absolute value.
We do not think much of table fruits. They are especially for aldermen and epicures. They do not feed the imagination as these wild fruits do, but it would starve on them. The bitter-sweet of a white-oak acorn which you nibble in a bleak November walk over the tawny earth is more to me than a slice of imported pine-apple. The South may keep her pine-apples, and we will be content with our strawberries, which are, as it were, a pine-apple with “going-a-strawberrying” stirred into them, infinitely enhancing their flavor. What are all the oranges imported into England to the hips and haws in her hedges? She could easily spare the one, but not the other. Ask Wordsworth, or any of her poets who knows, which is the most to him.
The value of these wild fruits is not in the mere possession or eating of them, but in the sight and enjoyment of them. The very derivation of the word “fruit” would suggest this. It is from the Latin fructus, meaning “that which is used or enjoyed.” If it were not so, then going a-berrying and going to market would be nearly synonymous experiences. Of course, it is the spirit in which you do a thing which makes it interesting,
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Unit 2 TEST A
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Assessment FileAmerican Literature
Unit and Benchmark TestsUnit 2, Test A
28
Unit 2, test A COntinUeD
whether it is sweeping a room or pulling turnips. Peaches are unquestionably a very beautiful and palatable fruit, but the gathering of them for the market is not nearly so interesting to the imaginations of men as the gathering of huckleberries for your own use.
A man fits out a ship at a great expense and sends it to the West Indies with a crew of men and boys, and after six months or a year it comes back with a load of pine- apples; now, if no more gets accomplished than the speculator commonly aims at, if it simply turns out what is called a successful venture, I am less interested in this expedition than in some child’s first excursions a-huckleberrying, in which it is introduced into a new world, experiences a new development, though it brings home only a gill of berries in its basket. I know that the newspapers and the politicians declare otherwise—other arrivals are reported and other prices quoted by them—but that does not alter the fact. Then I think that the fruit of the latter’s expedition was finer than that of the former. It was a more fruitful expedition. What the editors and politicians lay so much stress upon is comparatively moonshine.
The value of any experience is measured, of course, not by the amount of money, but the amount of development we get out of it. If a New England boy’s dealings with oranges and pine-apples have had more to do with his development than picking huckleberries or pulling turnips have, then he naturally and rightly thinks more of the former; otherwise not. No, it is not those far-fetched fruits which the speculator imports that concern us chiefly, but rather those which you have fetched yourself in the hold of a basket from some far hill or swamp, journeying all the long afternoon, the first of the season, consigned to your friends at home.
Commonly, the less you get, the happier and the richer you are. The rich man’s son gets cocoa-nuts and the poor man’s pignuts, but the worst of it is that the former never goes a-cocoa-nutting and so never gets the cream of the cocoa-nut, as the latter does the cream of the pignut. That on which commerce seizes is always the very coarsest part of a fruit—the mere bark and rind, in fact, for her hands are very clumsy. This is what fills the holds of ships, is exported and imported, pays duties, and is finally sold in the shops.
It is a grand fact that you cannot make the fairer fruits or parts of fruits matter of commerce; that is, you cannot buy the highest use and enjoyment of them. You cannot buy that pleasure which it yields to him who truly plucks it. You cannot buy a good appetite, even. In short, you may buy a servant or slave, but you cannot buy a friend.
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Unit and Benchmark TestsUnit 2, Test A
29Assessment FileAmerican Literature
Unit 2, test A COntinUeD
In describing the motivations for their experiment in eating only food produced within a hundred-mile radius of their home, journalists Smith and MacKinnon refer to an “ugly statistic”: “the food we eat now typically travels between 1,500 and 3,000 miles from farm to plate. ” Smith speaks in the following excerpt.
from Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating LocallyAlisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon
It was time for a closer look at the ugly statistic about the distances that food now travels from farm to plate. I sat down at my 1950s wooden desk; my office is only two feet from my bed, making it the world’s shortest commute. I phoned Rich Pirog, the food systems program leader for the Leopold Center at Iowa State University, and the man responsible for the statistic. The explanation for long-distance eating, he said, comes down to two familiar words: cheap oil. It might not seem that way when we’re filling up with gas, but even if you ship a tomato from Florida to the Midwest, the transportation costs are only 6.3 percent of the retail price. According to a 2001 study for which Pirog was the lead author, shipping food nationally uses seventeen times more fuel than a regional food system.
Pirog has seen his 1,500-mile statistic reach far and wide through the media. But look more closely, he said. The study only covered fresh produce, not packaged goods that each can contain a laundry list of ingredients from across the continent and around the world. What’s more, the study only measured the distances the foodstuffs had traveled within North America. A more recent Leopold Center examination of a humble container of strawberry yogurt, produced and sold in Iowa from Iowa milk, required endless patience phoning processors and producers, along with a whole new mathematical formula. The “weighted total source distance” turned out to be 2,216 miles—without considering the plastic container, foil, or box. Meanwhile, international imports form a greater and greater part of our daily nourishment. In 1970, Pirog noted, only 21 percent of America’s fresh fruit was imported. By 2001 the figure had nearly doubled. Building on the Leopold Center methodology, new research into the “food miles” traveled by produce and a few simple processed foods is likely more accurate. The public health department of Waterloo, Ontario, puts the typical distance from farm to plate at more like 2,500 miles—the distance from San Francisco to Miami by direct flight, or, more interestingly, from London, England, to Baku, Azerbaijan. In other words, worlds apart.
Pirog confirmed that the number is only increasing. “China wants to be the main produce provider for the world,” he said. The implications are huge. Cheap Chinese labor will produce mountains of “bargain” lettuce to be shipped by freighter around the world. More and more, North American consumers will eat produce from distant places they will never visit, though they might easily have grown the vegetables in their own backyards. In fact, they might be eating that imported produce at exactly the same time that it’s growing just a few miles away. This is called “redundant trade”; consider, for example, the fact that international imports to California peak during that state’s strawberry season.
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Assessment FileAmerican Literature
Unit and Benchmark TestsUnit 2, Test A
30
Unit 2, test A COntinUeD
All that food comes with a hidden price. The economic term for these invisible costs is “externalities,” which The Economist magazine refers to as a form of “market failure.” I had a ready example lodged uncomfortably in my mind. Reading Mark Reisner’s Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, I had learned that California built 1,200 major river dams en route to becoming the world’s number-five agricultural producer. Some California rivers are drained nearly dry by the time they reach the coast—85 percent of all water in the state is used for agricultural purposes. In exchange for this staggering ecological assault, I am able to buy California lettuce year-round. I don’t have to pay for the dams, the wild places given over to reservoirs and farms, and the resulting decimation of species from Chinook salmon to the least Bell’s vireo to all of the plants of the bunchgrass prairies. Furthermore, I don’t chip in on the cost of cleaning water wrecked by the pesticides and herbicides used in intensive industrial farming; the health-care costs of water pollution; the greenhouse gas emissions produced in the manufacture of nitrogen-based fertilizers, which may have been shipped from the other side of the world; or the fossil-fuel emissions, five times greater per mile than those from a cargo truck if the produce came to town by refrigerated jumbo jet, as it increasingly does. The list goes on. By the time you’re eating a salad the backstory is pretty bleak—what economists who calculate externalities call the “true cost” of a product. Meanwhile, down at the grocery store and outside the world of theory, the lettuce stays cheap.
Excerpt from Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon. Copyright © 2007 by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon. Used by permission of Crown
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
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Unit and Benchmark TestsUnit 2, Test A
31Assessment FileAmerican Literature
Unit 2, test A COntinUeD
ComprehensionDirections Answer the following questions about the excerpt from Wild Fruits.
1. The prefix un- means “not.” In line 1, undiscovered most likely means
A. not civilized C. never found
B. without people D. without ships
2. “As long as I still find fruits unknown to me, I feel that I have much, if not everything, to learn” best paraphrases the sentence in which lines?
A. lines 1–2 C. lines 3–5
B. lines 2–3 D. lines 6–7
3. The prefix un- means “not.” In line 6, unexplored most likely means
A. without direction
B. without knowledge
C. unable to see
D. never visited
4. The Latin word annus means “year.” In line 9, annually most likely means
A. always C. once a year
B. once a month D. twice a year
5. The prefix un- means “not.” In line 9, unnoticed most likely means
A. lacking taste
B. without being seen
C. without making a sound
D. never eaten
6. The sentence in which lines shows that the transcendentalists valued our relationship to wild nature?
A. lines 10–12 C. lines 17–18
B. lines 13–14 D. lines 30–32
7. The sentence in which lines best expresses Thoreau’s theme?
A. lines 14–15 C. lines 26–27
B. lines 15–17 D. lines 29–30
8. The sentence in which lines makes a satirical point about imported fruit?
A. lines 14–15 C. lines 25–26
B. lines 17–18 D. lines 29–30
9. The sentence in which lines suggests that the transcendentalists regarded imagination as especially important?
A. lines 25–26 C. lines 32–33
B. lines 29–30 D. lines 43–45
10. “I question whether peaches sold in the market are as delicious as the huckleberries that men pick in the wild” best paraphrases the sentence in which lines?
A. lines 32–33 C. lines 37–40
B. lines 33–36 D. lines 40–43
11. Lines 48–55 reveal the author’s transcendentalist perspective that
A. people who grow up in the same region share the same interests
B. working on a task alone is more useful than having fun with friends
C. a journey far from home can bring both small and large rewards
D. it is more important to grow as a person than to make money
12. Which expresses both transcendentalism and the author’s perspective in the last paragraph?
A. You cannot buy the deepest satisfactions that exist in life.
B. It is more exciting to get something for free than to pay for it.
C. Items that you buy are less important than gifts from friends.
D. Things that cost money never bring pleasure.
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Assessment FileAmerican Literature
Unit and Benchmark TestsUnit 2, Test A
32
Unit 2, test A COntinUeD
ComprehensionDirections Answer the following questions about the excerpt from Plenty.
13. The phrase “ugly statistic” suggests that the authors’ attitude toward the growth of the distance from farm to table is
A. puzzled C. negative
B. enthusiastic D. interested
14. “Gas may seem expensive to motorists, but shipping produce across country adds little to its cost” best paraphrases the sentence in which lines?
A. lines 6–8 C. lines 21–23
B. lines 14–15 D. lines 30–32
15. The word plastic comes from a Greek word, plastikos, which most likely means
A. wild C. molded
B. cheap D. ancient
16. “An example of ‘redundant trade’ is that California imports the most strawberries during its own strawberry season” best paraphrases the sentence in which lines?
A. lines 22–24 C. lines 33–35
B. lines 30–32 D. lines 36–38
17. The Latin word redundare means “overflow.” In line 33, redundant most likely means
A. repetitive C. illegal
B. expensive D. irrigated
18. The sentence “All that food comes with a hidden price” expresses which aspect of this excerpt?
A. satire C. theme
B. tone D. symbolism
19. The prefix in- means “not.” In line 36, invisible most likely means
A. unimportant C. clear
B. hidden D. imaginary
20. Which sentence makes a satirical point about produce consumption?
A. “In 1970, Pirog noted, only 21 percent of America’s fresh fruit was imported.”
B. “Cheap Chinese labor will produce mountains of ‘bargain’ lettuce to be shipped by freighter around the world.”
C. “I had a ready example lodged uncomfortably in my mind.”
D. “In exchange for this staggering ecological assault, I am able to buy California lettuce year-round.”
21. The word fossil comes from a Latin word, fossilis, which most likely means
A. dark C. dug up
B. broken D. attractive
22. What word best describes the tone of this excerpt?
A. humorous C. desperate
B. concerned D. angry
23. Which is the focus of satire in the last paragraph?
A. river dams
B. nitrogen-based fertilizers
C. cheap lettuce
D. greenhouse-gas emissions
24. Which best expresses the author’s perspective in this excerpt?
A. The growth of the global food market has bad environmental effects.
B. International production of food is better for the environment.
C. There should be laws against the importation of food.
D. Without the global food market we would have few environmental problems.
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Unit and Benchmark TestsUnit 2, Test A
33Assessment FileAmerican Literature
Unit 2, test A COntinUeD
ComprehensionDirections Answer the following questions about both selections.
ComprehensionDirections Answer the following questions about the visual representation.
25. Compare the authors’ perspectives in the excerpts from Wild Fruits and Plenty.
A. Both excerpts criticize the importation of food.
B. Both excerpts praise the flavors of local produce.
C. Both excerpts praise the flavors of uncultivated foods.
D. Both excerpts praise the food industry.
26. Compare the themes in the excerpts from Wild Fruits and Plenty.
A. Both excerpts examine the environmental aspect of the market in food.
B. Wild Fruits examines the imaginative aspect of food; Plenty examines the environmental aspect.
C. Both excerpts examine the cultural aspect of the market in food.
D. Wild Fruits examines the economic aspect of food; Plenty examines the social aspect.
27. The images of fruits and vegetables create a feeling of
A. economy
B. luxury
C. abundance
D. labor
28. The image of the truck suggests
A. biofuels
B. small farms
C. water conservation
D. migrant workers
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Assessment FileAmerican Literature
Unit and Benchmark TestsUnit 2, Test A
34
Unit 2, test A COntinUeD
Written ResponseShoRt ReSponSeDirections Write two or three sentences to answer each question on a separate sheet of paper.
29. Paraphrase the sentence in lines 10–12 of Wild Fruits.
30. Paraphrase the sentence in lines 30–32 of Plenty.
extenDeD ReSponSeDirections Write two or more paragraphs to answer this question on a separate sheet of paper.
31. How does Thoreau use transcendentalist ideas about material value and spiritual value to explain what determines the value of a fruit? Use two details from the essay to support your answer.
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Unit and Benchmark TestsUnit 2, Test A
35Assessment FileAmerican Literature
Unit 2, test A COntinUeD
Revising and EditingDirections Read the short story and answer the questions that follow.
(1) Natalie had always dreamed of traveling by train across the country. (2) She thought it would be a thrilling ride. (3) But long trips take planning. (4) She could still see her parents as they planned earlier vacations. (5) She had been just a child then. (6) Everything would be different.
(7) “Mom and Dad, she boldly said, “let’s make reservations for a train trip!”
(8) They acted interested, but Natalie sensed hesitation. (9) “That sounds like fun,” her father replied, doubtfully, “but who will do all the planning?”
(10) Natalie seized the opportunity to display her new adultness. (11) She pulled out her notes and said, “I’m glad you asked! (12) Two trips look great: one runs between Chicago and San Francisco, and the other trip runs between Chicago and Los Angeles.”
(13) Her parents leaned in with some questions. (14) “Are you sure you want to sit up all day and all night on such a long trip?” her mother asked.
(15) Natalie responded to the question. (16) “On all of these trains you can get private rooms, she said, with seats that fold down into beds at night. (17) The roomette accommodates one, and two people can stay in the bedroom. (18) The suite is an accommodation for three people.”
(19) Both her parents looked troubled, each imagining long hours cooped up with their busy, talkative child. (20) “Three of us in close quarters could get a little cramped,” her mother observed.
(21) Natalie offered. “Let’s splurge and book a bedroom for you two and a roomette for me.”
(22) Natalie’s parents still were not persuaded. (23) “Would these small rooms be comfortable?” her mother asked.
(24) “Comfortable enough,” she countered. (25) “Plus, each train has a dining car and a lounge car. (26) You can stretch out, carefree, and watch the world go by.”
(27) Her father said, “OK, let’s make some reservations!” (28) Natalie beamed with pride. (29) This time had been different. (30) It was because she was no longer a child, but grown up and responsible. (31) Natalie had discovered how it feels to be an adult. (32) She liked it.
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Assessment FileAmerican Literature
Unit and Benchmark TestsUnit 2, Test A
36
Unit 2, test A COntinUeD
1. Revising sentence 2 as “She imagined herself as a nineteenth-century pioneer” would improve
A. plot C. setting
B. character D. theme
2. Which sentence contains a flashback?
A. sentence 1 C. sentence 3
B. sentence 2 D. sentence 4
3. Revise sentence 4 using a participial phrase.
A. parents collect travel folders
B. parents poring over travel folders
C. parents view travel folders
D. parents’ travel folders
4. Revising sentence 5 as “Hadn’t she been just a child then?” would introduce¸
A. a rhetorical question
B. an imperative sentence
C. a participial phrase
D. a flash-forward
5. Which transitional word or phrase would clarify sentence 6?
A. Once again C. This time
B. Still D. Besides
6. Revise sentence 7 to punctuate dialogue correctly.
A. “Mom and Dad” she boldly said, “let’s
B. “Mom and Dad, she boldly said, let’s
C. “Mom and Dad,” she boldly said, “let’s
D. Mom and Dad, she boldly said, “let’s
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Unit and Benchmark TestsUnit 2, Test A
37Assessment FileAmerican Literature
Unit 2, test A COntinUeD
7. Revise sentence 13 using a participial phrase.
A. Impressed by her knowledge, her parents
B. To her disappointment, her parents
C. Within seconds, her parents
D. Her parents, always vigilant
8. Revising sentence 15 as “Natalie inwardly laughed at the simple question” would improve
A. plot
B. character
C. setting
D. theme
9. Revise sentence 16 to punctuate dialogue correctly.
A. “On all of these trains you can get private rooms, she said, with seats
B. “On all of these trains you can get private rooms” she said “with seats
C. “On all of these trains you can get private rooms, she said, “with seats
D. “On all of these trains you can get private rooms,” she said, “with seats
10. Which sentence contains a flash-forward?
A. sentence 17 C. sentence 19
B. sentence 18 D. sentence 20
11. Which transitional word or phrase would clarify sentence 27?
A. At last, C. However,
B. Still, D. Nevertheless,
12. Revising sentence 29 to “Hadn’t this time been different?” would introduce
A. an imperative sentence
B. a rhetorical question
C. a participial phrase
D. a flashback
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Assessment FileAmerican Literature
Unit and Benchmark TestsUnit 2, Test A
38
Unit 2, test A COntinUeD
WritingDirections Read the following quotation. Then read the prompt that follows and complete the writing activity.
“In an old house, a mysterious knocking might be heard on the wall, where had formerly been a door-way, now bricked up.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne, idea for a story from The American Notebooks
Prompt: Write a story in which someone has a strange, puzzling experience. You can choose whether or not your story will involve a mysterious setting and an eerie sensation, as Hawthorne’s does. Conclude by providing an explanation for the experience.
Now write your short story. The following reminders will help you.
Reminders•Besureyourwritingdoeswhatthepromptasks.
•Usevividsensorylanguagetocreateanatmosphereofstrangeness.
•Buildsuspenseusingdetailsofsettingandcharacter.
•Keepyourexplanation—theresolutionoftheconflict—inmindasyouwrite.
•Checkforcorrectgrammar,spelling,andpunctuation.
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