Read the following passage and then determine whether the items that follow incorporate the quotation smoothly and accurately in MLA style. If the source is incorporated into the writer’s sentence appropriately, click “OK.” If the quotation is inaccurately or poorly incorporated into the sentence, click “Unacceptable.”
Click Submit after each question to see feedback and to record your answer. If your instructor has assigned this exercise set, you must answer every question before your answers will be submitted to the gradebook.
ORIGINAL SOURCE
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—
From page 69 of the novel 1984 by George Orwell (Signet, 1990).
1 of 10
Orwell notes in 1984 that the real horror of life under Party dominance is that “[n]ot merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy” (69). There is no objective truth, only the truth as the Party recognizes it.
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2 of 10
Totalitarian societies frequently aim to prevent people from thinking for themselves. “The heresy of heresies was common sense” (Orwell 69). Instead of relying on their own store of knowledge, the people are manipulated into believing what is patently untrue.
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3 of 10
The Party tries to dominate the minds of 1984’s characters, telling everyone what to think and what to believe. As Orwell points out, “what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right” (69).
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4 of 10
Orwell’s harrowing totalitarian state in 1984 tells the people under its rule “that two and two [make] five” (69).
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5 of 10
Orwell’s 1984 asks tough questions about how much reality can be manipulated. Is it true, the main character wonders, “that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—
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6 of 10
In 1984, Orwell explains that the Party in the book’s totalitarian society rejects “the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy” (69). An alternate reality—
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7 of 10
As Orwell explains in 1984, the most terrible thing about the Party insisting that two plus two equals five would not be “that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right” (69). Death, then, strikes the characters in this society as preferable to the complete destruction of what was once known as reality.
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8 of 10
Orwell’s 1984 forces a character to deal with the disturbing question of whether anything can be real “If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable” (69).
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9 of 10
Orwell describes the main character in 1984 as hopelessly waiting for “the Party [to] announce that two and two made five” while knowing that he will have no choice but to acquiesce (69).
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10 of 10
Fear of a fate worse than death motivates Orwell’s main character in 1984. He dreads the uncertainty of wondering whether “two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable?” (69).
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