Context clues
The stars are arranged in several small groupings and ______/s.
Hint: The root bene means good. The root ast/aster/astro means star. The root counter means opposite or against. The root hydr/hydro means water.
A. Benefactor
B. Asterism
C. Counterintuitive
D. Hydroelectric
The answer is asterism.
Penelope had sprinted like a cheetah all the way down to the royal dress shop to pick out the perfect dress. As she searched through the racks, each dress seemed to shudder with excitement, waiting to be chosen.
What is the simile in the passage? What does the simile mean?
The simile is "like a cheetah." This means she ran very fast.
What is the meaning of theme?
Theme is the lesson or message.
Find the sentence that tells the reader how American shopping trends (courses) are changing.
1. Because the store focused on just one type of product-toys-it was able to quickly become the most popular destination.
2. If you spent your childhood anywhere from the US to France to Spain, it’s likely that you remember at least one visit to Toys R Us, the massive kid’s toy store.
3. In recent years, many customers stopped shopping at Toys R Us because they were able to find cheaper prices and free shipping online.
4. The store employed 60,000 people worldwide, and 30,000 just in the US.
The answer is option two.
What is the denotation (dictionary definition) of the word distress in the following sentence?
Her face was wet and red, her eyes full of distress.
a. delight
b. negative
c. neutral
d. extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain
The answer is option d.
Water from Niagara Falls in New York provides _____ power to the area and can light up many homes.
Hint: The root bene means good. The root ast/aster/astro means star. The root counter means opposite or against. The root hydr/hydro means water.
A. Dysfunction
B. Counterintuitive
C. Hydroelectric
D. Benefactor
The answer is hydroelectric.
Penelope had sprinted like a cheetah all the way down to the royal dress shop to pick out the perfect dress. As she searched through the racks, each dress seemed to shudder with excitement, waiting to be chosen.
What is an example of personification? What does it mean?
An example of personification is "each dress seemed to shudder with excitement, waiting to be chosen." This means the dresses were appealing to Penelope.
A monkey put his hand into a jar of cookies. He grasped as many as he could possibly hold, but when he tried to pull out his hand, he was prevented from doing so by the neck of the cookie jar. Unwilling to lose the cookies, and yet unable to withdraw his hand, he burst into tears and bitterly lamented his disappointment.
What is the theme of the passage?
The theme of the passage is don't be greedy.
An animal's teeth can tell us a great deal about its diet. For example, carnivores have long teeth that are sharp and pointed. This allows them to tear through the tough flesh of other animals. Meat-eaters with these kinds of teeth include lions, tigers, and wolves. Their knife-life frontal canines are powerful weapons. They help these predators kill, eat, and conquer. Plant-eating herbivores, meanwhile, have teeth for a different purpose. For animals like horses, goats, and sheep, the most prominent teeth are the molars. These back teeth are wide and flat and are used for grinding up leaves, stems and other plant matter. Interestingly, giraffes and humans have the same number of teeth. Each has 32. However, giraffes have no front teeth. Instead, their most important teeth are the molars that are set at the backs of their mouths.
Find evidence to support the inference that giraffes are herbivores.
Giraffes don't have front teeth, so they don't have the right tools to tear into the flesh of animals. Molars, or back teeth, are used by herbivores for chewing. Since giraffes only have molars, they must be herbivores.
What connotation (feeling) does the word grudgingly have in the following sentence?
The homeowner agreed to let it sleep in the basement while Mrs. Lacey grudgingly let Doris feed it table scraps.
a. positive
b. negative
c. neutral
The answer is option b.
How that personage haunted my dreams, I need scarcely tell you. On stormy nights, when the wind shook the four corners of the house, and the surf roared along the cove and up the cliffs, I would see him in a thousand forms, and with a thousand diabolical expressions. Now the leg would be cut off at the knee, now at the hip; now he was a monstrous kind of a creature who had never had but the one leg, and that in the middle of his body. To see him leap and run and pursue me over hedge and ditch was the worst of nightmares. And altogether I paid pretty dear for my monthly fourpenny piece, in the shape of these abominable fancies.
What is the meaning of diabolical?
Diabolical means awful or dreadful.
Moments after the thunder sounded, lightning danced across the sky. What does this example of personification mean?
It means the lightning is moving in a way that might resemble how a dancer moves left and right, etc.
All Victor ever wanted to do with his life was to be a singer. He didn't pay attention in school, and he spent all his time at home listening to music and impersonating his idols. His mother tried to teach him the value of getting an education and having a backup plan. But Victor would respond the same way every time, "Mom, I won't need to know any of that boring old stuff when I'm famous. You'll see." There was one major problem with Victor's plan: he wasn't any good at singing. Victor enjoyed singing so much that he didn't notice the painful look on the faces of those who endured his singing. Some lied to him and said they liked his singing. Other people told him to find something else to do with his life. Victor accused those people of being "jealous haters" and ignored their advice. Soon Victor dropped out of high school to focus on his music career. The years passed and the doors never opened.
What is a theme of the passage?
A theme of the passage is have a back up plan or sometimes you should listen to other's advice.
Find the sentence that provides some evidence that Amazon is doing well in selling toys.
1. Because the store focused on just one type of product-toys-it was able to quickly become the most popular destination.
2. If you spent your childhood anywhere from the US to France to Spain, it’s likely that you remember at least one visit to Toys R Us, the massive kid’s toy store.
3. In recent years, many customers stopped shopping at Toys R Us because they were able to find cheaper prices and free shipping online.
4. The store employed 60,000 people worldwide, and 30,000 just in the US.
The answer is option three.
Which excerpt below does not include details about the setting (where and where the story takes place)?
a. Icicles hung three feet or more from the eaves of houses...
b. In January, a puppy wandered…
c. Mr. Lacey was cleaning his fingernails with his pocketknife.
d. Doris, whose school had been called off because of the snow…
The answer is option c.
To address health worker shortages and plan effectively for the future, more focus needs to be dedicated to the issue of workforce attrition. High levels of attrition lead to a large loss of public resources spent on education and training of health workers. Attrition also contributes to increased workload and worse conditions for the remaining workforce.
What is the meaning of the word attrition?
The meaning of attrition is the reduction of a workforce by employees' leaving and not being replaced.
The snow was a white blanket covering the earth. What does this metaphor mean?
This means the snow is everywhere and covers everything just like a blanket can cover things.
Even though they were sisters, Suzie and June were nothing alike. If Suzie wanted to jump rope, June wanted to play hopscotch. If June wanted to watch soap operas, Suzie wanted to watch talk shows. Tensions rose to the point that the girls could no longer stand one another’s company. It seemed that they had nothing in common, until the day that progress reports went home. On the bus the girls were startled by how upset the other person looked. They realized that they were both failing a subject. Suzie was failing math and June was failing reading. Since both girls wanted to pass their classes, they agreed to help one another. So, after school for the next few weeks, Suzie tutored June in reading and then June tutored Suzie in math. By the time report cards were distributed, Suzie and June were passing all their classes. The girls were delighted, but their mother was happiest of all. Not just because her daughters had passed their classes, but because they learned to be good sisters.
What is the theme of the passage?
The theme of the passage is it's better to work together, everyone can learn something from someone else, or two heads are better than one.
Narwhals live in the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean. They are social animals and travel in groups called pods with about 20 narwhals per pod. A narwhal is a mammal that is related to the whale. Most narwhals have a long, sword-like tusk above their mouths. The tusk is actually a tooth that has gone through the narwhal’s upper lip. This tooth twists as it grows and can grow up to eight feet long. Once broken, it will not grow back.
How do scientists know that narwhals are social animals?
Scientists know that narwhals are social animals because it says they are social animals in the text in the second sentence.
Rosario was enjoying her vacation in the California sun. She was lying on a raft in the ocean. This was perfect, Rosario thought. There was no noise, no children screaming, no horns honking—and there were no papers to grade. All she could hear was the crashing of the waves onto the beach. Rosario sighed and looked around her at the beauty of the ocean. Then she saw something long and gray coming toward her on an approaching wave. She thought, “This could only be one thing!” and started yelling for help. She paddled back to shore as quickly as she could. She made it to the shore in one piece, but she realized that many people were laughing at her.
We can infer that the "thing" was not a...
We can infer that the thing was not a shark.
Roald Dahl was born in 1916 in South Wales to Norwegian parents. Imaginative, restless, and have a voracious appetite for adventure, he was not a great student. His mother offered to pay for him to attend Oxford or Cambridge University when he graduated. But Dahl declined. “No thank you,” he told her. “I want to go straight from school to work for a company that will send me to wonderful faraway places like Africa or China.”
What is the meaning of the word voracious?
The meaning of voracious is an extreme want of something.
I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a handbarrow; a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails; and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards.
What is the type of figurative language being used in this passage?
A. hyperbole (extreme exaggeration)
B. personificiation (making non-human things act human)
C. simile (comparing two things using like or as)
D. imagery (picturing in your mind using your five senses)
The answer is option d.
In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest. "Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?" "I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said Ant, "and recommend you to do the same." "Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; we have got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing everyday corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Then the Grasshopper knew.
What is a theme of the passage?
A theme of the passage is work now and play later.
Two popular Midwestern amusement parks are Six Flags Great America in Illinois and Cedar Point in Ohio. Cedar Point is full of famous roller coasters. Many of them represent an earlier era of entertainment. Its oldest that is still in operation is Blue Streak. It was built by the legendary Philadelphia Toboggan Company. This company actually stopped building coasters decades ago. Interestingly, the park also has a number of buildings on the National Register of Historic places. Great America is also brimming with giant thrilling coasters. However, it was built with three specially-themed children's areas, too. This is a more modern development of park design. Some older parks were renovated to make them more family-friendly parks. Great America was designed this way from the beginning. As such, it's very popular with all ages.
Find evidence to support the inference that Cedar Park is older than Six Flags Great America.
Cedar Point has buildings that are listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, to it must be very old. The writer calls Great America "modern." The park with historic buildings must be older than the "modern" park.
Which of the following is an example of ethos? Ethos is an appeal that convinces the audience of the character or credibility of the persuader.
1. You should definitely get help with your debt, and I say that as somebody with over 30 years of debt counseling experience.
2. If you don’t purchase this life insurance, and something happens to you, how will your family survive?
3. 95 percent of all test-taking students ask for the questions to be read aloud first and because of this perform 25 percent better on their test scores.
4. I need new jeans. Everyone in my class has new jeans. Even Pizza Pauly has new jeans!
Option one is the correct example of ethos.