PARCC Test Practice: Realistic Fiction/Non-Fiction
Directions: Read the following excerpt from John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley and answer the questions that follow.
1) The next passage in my journey is a love affair. I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love, and it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.
2) Once, when I raptured in a violet glow given off by the Queen of the World, my father asked me why, and I thought he was crazy not to see. Of course I know now she was a mouse-haired, freckle-nosed, scabby-kneed little girl with a voice like a bat and the loving kindness of a gila monster, but then she lighted up the landscape and me.
3) It seems to me that Montana is a great splash of grandeur. The scale is huge but not overpowering. The land is rich with grass and color, and the mountains are the kind I would create if mountains were ever put on my agenda.
4) Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans. Here for the first time I heard a definite regional accent unaffected by TV-ese, a slow-paced warm speech.
5) It seemed to me that the frantic bustle of America was not in Montana. Its people did not seem afraid of shadows in a John Birch Society sense. The calm of the mountains and the rolling grasslands had got into the inhabitants.
6) It was hunting season when I drove through the state. The men I talked to seemed to me not moved to a riot of seasonal slaughter but simply to be going out to kill edible meat.
7) Again my attitude may be informed by love, but it seemed to me that the towns were places to live in rather than nervous hives. People had time to pause in their occupations to undertake the passing art of neighborliness.
8) I found I did not rush through the towns to get them over with. I even found things I had to buy to make myself linger. In Billings I bought a hat, in Livingston a jacket, in Butte a rifle I didn’t particularly need, a Remington bolt-action .22, secondhand but in beautiful condition.
9) Then I found a telescope sight I had to have, and waited while it was mounted on the rifle, and in the process got to know everyone in the shop and any customers who entered.
10) With the gun in a vise and the bolt out, we zeroed the new sight on a chimney three blocks away, and later when I got to shooting the little gun I found no reason to change it.
11) I spent a good part of a morning at this, mostly because I wanted to stay. But I see that, as usual, love is inarticulate. Montana has a spell on me. It is grandeur and warmth.
12) If Montana had a seacoast, or if I could live away from the sea, I would instantly move there and petition for admission. Of all the states it is my favorite and my love.
Part A: Multiple Choice
1) What is the meaning of the word grandeur as it is used in paragraph 3 of Travels with Charley?
a. To have dignity in oneself.
b. To have unrealistic feelings towards a person, object, or thing.
c. When something beautiful falls into a state of ruin.
d. Something that is grand or magnificent.
______(type your answer here)
2) Which of the following paragraphs best describes the narrator’s attitude towards Montana?
a. “The next passage in my journey is a love affair. I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love, and it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.” (Paragraph 1)
b. “It was hunting season when I drove through the state. The men I talked to seemed to me not moved to a riot of seasonal slaughter but simply to be going out to kill edible meat.” (Paragraph 6)
c. “With the gun in a vise and the bolt out, we zeroed the new sight on a chimney three blocks away, and later when I got to shooting the little gun I found no reason to change it.” (Paragraph 10)
d. “Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans. Here for the first time I heard a definite regional accent unaffected by TV-ese, a slow-paced warm speech.” (Paragraph 4)
______(type your answer here)
3) How do the phrases “I am in love with Montana” (Paragraph 1) and “the towns were places to live in rather than nervous hives” (Paragraph 7) contribute to the tone of the passage?
a. They call attention to the narrator’s desire to leave Montana.
b. They emphasize the narrator’s growing sense of disgust for country life.
c. They highlight the narrator’s strong sense of love for Montana and his affinity for small town life.
d. They reflect the narrator’s desire to return to a big city environment.
______(type your answer here)
4) Based on what the narrator says in paragraph 5: “It seemed to me that the frantic bustle of America was not in Montana” what is the narrator’s opinion of Montana as compared to the rest of the United States?
a. Montana is underdeveloped and less interesting than other states.
b. Montana does not have the constant activity of highly populated urban areas like New York City.
c. Montana may be beautiful, but its lack of cities and small towns make it unremarkable for the narrator.
d. None of the above.
______(type your answer here)
Part B: Open-ended Response
Directions: Look through the excerpt again and highlight/bold three passages you believe best express the narrator’s attitude toward Montana. Then, write why you chose these passages and describe the narrator’s attitude. Is it positive or negative?