1. The examples in second paragraph of the following passage are supporting details for what stated main idea of first paragraph of the passage?

I doubt that my mother or any of my teachers could protect a kid from the wrath of school bureaucrats today. Fearful of violence and drugs, intolerant of dissent or simple nonconformity, public school officials are on the rampage. They’re suspending and expelling even grade school students for making what might be considered, at worst, inappropriate remarks, dressing oddly, or simply expressing political opinions. Efforts to strip students of rights are hardly new, but they have been greatly accelerated in recent months by hysteria about school violence and “terroristic threats.” America’s public schools are becoming increasingly Kafkaesque.

Across the country, the American Civil Liberties Union has received hundreds of complaints about cases like this: In Ohio a third-grader was suspended after writing a fortune cookie message, “You will die an honorable death,” which he submitted for a school project. (A terroristic threat? Or an innocent, well-intentioned remark by a child who watches martial-arts videos?) Eleven high school students in Ohio were suspended for contributing to a gothic-themed Web site. In Virginia a 10th-grader was suspended for dyeing his hair blue. In Missouri, high school junior Dustin Mitchell was suspended and required to perform 42 days of community service with the local police department for offering a flippant opinion on school violence in an Internet chat room (when asked if a tragedy like the Littleton shootings could happen in his school, Mitchell responded “yes”). In Louisiana a 12-year-old boy was suspended and held in juvenile detention for over two weeks after uttering a “threat” in a lunch line: “If you take all the potatoes, I’m gonna get you,” the accused terrorist said.

Work Cited:

Kaminer, Wendy. “The War on High Schools.” The American Prospect. Nov. 2001. Web. <http://www.prospect.org>..

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2. What main idea in the following passage is supported by the following details: “They can no longer simply say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in answer to a question in school. Under law, they are now required to address all school employees as ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am,’ as in ‘yes, sir’ or ‘yes, ma’am’”?

Apparently. Education is becoming militarized. Teachers and administrators give orders, and students are expected to follow them. The Louisiana legislature recently passed a law treating elementary school children like little army recruits. They can no longer simply say “yes” or “no” in answer to a question in school. Under law, they are now required to address all school employees as “sir” or “ma’am,” as in “yes, sir” or “yes, ma’am.”

Work Cited:

Kaminer, Wendy. “The War on High Schools.” The American Prospect. Nov. 2001. Web. <http://www.prospect.org>.

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3. Which of the following sentences is not a supporting detail for the main idea “the feminist objection to pornography is based on our belief that pornography represents hatred of women”?

“Patently offensive,” “prurient interest,” and “hard-core” are indeed words to conjure with. “Contemporary community standards” are what we’re trying to redefine. The feminist objection to pornography is not based on prurience, which the dictionary defines as lustful, itching desire. We are not opposed to sex and desire, with or without the itch, and we certainly believe that explicit sexual material has its place in literature, art, science, and education. Here we part company rather swiftly with old-line conservatives who don’t want sex education in the high schools, for example.

No, the feminist objection to pornography is based on our belief that pornography represents hatred of women, that pornography’s intent is to humiliate, degrade, and dehumanize the female body for the purpose of erotic stimulation and pleasure. We are unalterably opposed to the presentation of the female body being stripped, bound, raped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered in the name of commercial entertainment and free speech.

Work Cited:

Brownmiller, Susan. “Let’s Put Pornography Back in the Closet.” Newsday. 1979. Print.

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4. Read the following passage from “On Dumpster Diving” by Lars Eighner.

Eating safely from the Dumpsters involves three principles: using the senses and common sense to evaluate the condition of the found materials, knowing the Dumpsters of a given area and checking them regularly, and seeking always to answer the question “Why was this discarded?”…

…From time to time one of my companions, aware of the source of my provisions, will ask, “Do you think these crackers are really safe to eat?” For some reason it is most often the crackers they ask about.

This question always makes me angry. Of course I would not offer my companion anything I had doubts about. But more than that I wonder why he cannot evaluate the condition of the crackers for himself. I have no special knowledge and I have been wrong before. Since he knows where the food comes from, it seems to me he ought to assume some of the responsibility for deciding what he will put in his mouth.

Work Cited:

Eighner, Lars. “On Dumpster Diving.” Travels With Lizbeth. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993. 111-125. Print.

Which of the following supporting details extends the main idea--“Eating safely from Dumpsters involves three principles”—in a different direction?

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5. Why does the author “avoid ethnic foods [he] is unfamiliar with”?

I avoid ethnic foods I am unfamiliar with. If I do not know what it is supposed to look like when it is good, I cannot be certain I will be able to tell if it is bad.

Work Cited:

Eighner, Lars. “On Dumpster Diving.” Travels With Lizbeth. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993. 111-125. Print.

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6. What is the main idea of the following passage?

The bank called today and I told them my deposit was in the mail, even though I hadn’t written a check yet. It’d been a rough day. The baby I’m pregnant with decided to do aerobics on my lungs for two hours, our three-year-old daughter painted the living-room couch with lipstick, the IRS put me on hold for an hour, and I was late to a business meeting because I was tired.

I told my client that traffic had been bad. When my partner came home, his haggard face told me his day hadn’t gone any better than mine, so when he asked, “How was your day?” I said, “Oh, fine,” knowing that one more straw might break his back. A friend called and wanted to take me to lunch. I said I was busy. Four lies in the course of a day, none of which I felt the least bit guilty about.

We lie. We all do. We exaggerate, we minimize, we avoid confrontation, we spare people’s feelings, we conveniently forget, we keep secrets, we justify lying to the big-guy institutions. Like most people, I indulge in small falsehoods and still think of myself as an honest person.

Work Cited:

Ericsson, Stephanie. “The Ways We Lie.” The Utne Reader. Nov-Dec. 1992. Web.

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7. Which of the following sentences from the passage below is not a supporting idea for the topic sentence, “Any good liar knows that the way to perpetuate an untruth is to deflect attention from it”?

Any good liar knows that the way to perpetuate an untruth is to deflect attention from it. When Clarence Thomas exploded with accusations that the Senate hearings were a “high-tech lynching,” he simply switched the focus from a highly charged subject to a radioactive subject. Rather than defending himself, he took the offensive and accused the country of racism. It was a brilliant maneuver. Racism is now politically incorrect in official circles — unlike sexual harassment, which still rewards those who can get away with it.

Work Cited:

Ericsson, Stephanie. “The Ways We Lie.” The Utne Reader. Nov-Dec. 1992. Web.

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8. What is the main idea of the passage below?

[T]hat’s the question that will shift us to the next level of our fascination with the place: the idea that we could live there, that Mars could be “terraformed.”

To terraform means to alter a planet’s surface until Earth’s life forms can survive there. It’s a hypothetical discipline at this point, born in science-fiction stories. But in the last 30 years a number of scientists have taken up the concept. Their studies make it clear that the process would be somewhat slower than the cork-popping transformations seen in some recent sci-fi movies; in reality, it would take centuries. But it is an idea that operates within physical reality as we know it. It’s possible to do it.

The recipe is simple. Add nitrogen and oxygen to the atmosphere; pump water to the surface; cook for decades, spicing first with cyanobacteria, then with all the rest of Earth’s plants and animals, adding them in the order they evolved here. Mars is blessed with all the ingredients called for in the recipe; indeed, Mars turns out to be perfect for terraforming. So, because we have all the life forms here at hand, we can try replaying evolution at extreme fast forward.

Work Cited:

Robinson, Kim Stanley. “A Colony in the Sky.” Newsweek. 23 Sept. 1996.

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9. In the following passage, the author compares Earth and Mars. How are they similar, according to the author?

But Mars will never remain just a research site to sharpen Earth management skills. We’ve been fascinated by the red wanderer ever since our days on the savannah, and even if life at the research station proves to be quite ordinary, the videos they send back will show us a magnificent world of volcanoes and canyons, icecaps and sand dunes, wind and weather. These wild new landscapes will also look somewhat familiar, especially in comparison to the bone-white moon. This familiar quality is not just superficial, for Mars does resemble Earth in several important ways—general size, presence of water, length of day, range of temperatures—so many similarities, in fact, that some people are beginning to ask if it might be possible to make Mars even more like Earth than it is now. And that’s the question that will shift us to the next level of our fascination with the place: the idea that we could live there, that Mars could be “terraformed.”

Work Cited:

Robinson, Kim Stanley. “A Colony in the Sky.” Newsweek. 23 Sept. 1996.

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10. Which of the following statements from the passage below is not a supporting detail of the topic sentence, “It goes without saying, then, that language is also a political instrument, means, and proof of power”?

It goes without saying, then, that language is also a political instrument, means, and proof of power. It is the most vivid and crucial key to identity: it reveals the private identity, and connects one with, or divorces one from, the larger, public, or communal identity. There have been, and are, times, and places, when to speak a certain language could be dangerous, even fatal. Or, one may speak the same language, but in such a way that one’s antecedents are revealed, or (one hopes) hidden. This is true in France, and is absolutely true in England: the range (and reign) of accents on that damp little island make England coherent for the English and totally incomprehensible for everyone else. To open your mouth in England is (if I may use black English) to “put your business in the street”: You have confessed your parents, your youth, your school, your salary, your self-esteem, and alas, your future.

Work Cited:

Baldwin, James. “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What is?” The Price of the Ticket. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985. 649-652. Print.

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