I was taking a stand by refusing to decorate with angels and saints, and by disdaining everything my parents loved. My mother put the picture up in the hallway, right in front of my bedroom door so that I'd have to see it coming in and out. It came to be a symbol for me of our relationship in those days.Which of the narrator's main character traits does the passage most clearly develop?A.Her attempts to connect more with her parentsB.Her devotion to her religionC.Her unfamiliarity with her parents' cultural normsD.Her struggle to exert her independence

That horrible mistake of a dress was in the back of my closet. My mother had insisted we buy it when I had won a certificate for an essay I had written in English class: "Brave New World For Women." Sister Mary Joseph had been one of the judges. My mother had bought me a party dress to wear to school that day. I had worn it into the girls' lavatory, where I had promptly changed to a plain black skirt and white blouse.Which of the main character's traits does the passage most clearly reveal?A.Her refusal to give in to expectationsB.Her rejection of her religious heritageC.Her hidden talent for musicD.Her distaste for Sister Mary Joseph

I knew how to act and the right things to say, but I felt like a phony. I really cared about Lilly and I wanted her parents to like me, but this world was so different from mine. I wasn't comfortable in these clothes or around their friends. I felt like they could see right through me — like they knew where I came from and who my parents were. I decided to reveal my insecurities to Lilly, and she quickly put my mind at ease. She explained how much her family admired me and wanted to me to be a part of them.Which statement describes the aesthetic impact the author most likely intends the resolution to have on the reader?A.The author wants readers to consider the purpose of family conflicts.B.The author wants readers to feel disappointment and sadness.C.The author wants readers to gain a sense of relief and satisfaction.D.The author wants readers to question the reliability of the narrator.SUBMITarrow_backPREVIOUS

Read the following passage:I do think my parents grew to love one another, in a way. Their marriage was not their choice, so they couldn't understand why I would choose to marry Maria. She was not the same religion or social standing in their eyes, so where was the appeal? The value they placed on love was far below that of tradition, so I felt it was useless to try to explain.Which best explains how this passage develops the narrator's external conflict?A.It illustrates the narrator's struggle to embrace his own heritage.B.It implies that the narrator's parents did not always have a deep, true love for each other.C.It explores the root of the narrator's disagreement with his parents.D.It foreshadows the problems that Maria will encounter with the narrator's parents.SUBMITarrow_backPREVIOUS

In the following passage, the narrator reflects on his mother's character. Select the best evidence to support the statement "Photographs of the narrator's mother don't reflect her personality as he knew it." There may be more than one correct choice.She liked to make me laugh by calling herself an Okie even though she was as glossy and nervy and stylish as a racehorse. That exotic character unfortunately comes out a little too stark and unforgiving in photographs—her freckles covered with makeup, her hair pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck like some nobleman in The Tale of Genji—and what doesn't come across at all is her warmth, her merry, unpredictable quality, which is what I loved about her most. It's clear, from the stillness she emanates in pictures, how much she mistrusted the camera; she gives off a watchful, tigerish air of steeling herself against attack.

The writer recalls his Grandmother as short, healthy and slightly bent. Her hairs were silver in colour and were scattered messily on her wrinkled face. She used to walk around the whole house in white clothes. She kept her one hand resting on her waist and the other hand was telling the beads of her rosary.The writer thinks of her as not very pretty but constantly beautiful all the time. He compares her calm face with the winter landscape. During their lengthy stay in the village, Grandmother woke him up from the bed in the early morning, plastered his wooden slate, organized his breakfast, and sent him to the school. The temple was connected to the school. She sat inside and studied the sacred texts while the children learned the alphabet.On their way back to the home she used to give the stale chapattis to the street dogs. A turning point in their beautiful relationship arrived when they went to live in a city. Despite the fact that they shared a room, their relationship started to grow apart. Now, the writer used to go to the city school on a school bus and studied subjects like English, Physics, mathematics and many more subjects that his grandmother could not understand at all.His grandmother could no longer go to school with him to send him. She felt upset that there was no teaching about God and scriptures at the city school. Instead, he was given music lessons, but she said nothing. She thought music was dreadful. It was just good for prostitutes and beggars, according to her. It was not intended for gentlemen.When the writer went to a university, he got a separate room in his house. The common link of the relationship between the grandson and the grandmother was broken now. Grandmother rarely talked to anyone in the house now. The writer’s grandmother quietly accepted her loneliness. She was constantly occupied with her spinning wheel and reciting prayers and she hardly ever spoke to anyone. She took a break in the afternoon. Her daily routine consisted of breaking bread into pieces and giving it to the birds. The birds would perch on her legs, head, and even her shoulders.When the writer was leaving on a trip abroad for his further studies, his grandmother did not get disturbed at all. Rather she went to the train station to say goodbye, but she didn’t say anything and merely kissed his forehead. Her lips were moving in prayer, her thoughts were consumed by prayer and her fingers were busy reciting the storey of the beads on her rosary. Seeing her grandmother at this old age, the writer was thinking that it might be his last meeting with his grandmother. But when he came back home after a duration of 5 years, his grandmother was there to welcome him back and he saw her celebrate his return.The next morning after the return of his grandson she got ill. Although the doctor told them that it was a slight fever and would go away very soon, still she could foresee that her time to leave this world was near. She did not want to waste her time talking to someone. Her fingers were busy reciting the storey of the beads on her rosary.She went to her bed praying and telling the beads till her lips stopped moving and the rosary fell down from her lifeless hand. Her body was discovered on the floor, wrapped in a red shawl after she died. To grieve her death, thousands of sparrows flew in and sat dispersed around her body. All the sparrows flew away without making any noise when the dead body of the old lady was carried away for the last rites.