Collection [#]

Name Class Date

Unit 6: Collection 17

Selection TestREADING AND LITERATURE

Straw into Gold Sandra Cisneros

Comprehension Circle the letter of the best answer to each of the following items.

1.Why had Cisneros never made a corn tortilla before she lived in France?

A)She disliked corn tortillas and always ate bread and lentils instead.

B)Her sisters had always done the cooking as she was growing up.

C)Her well-to-do family had always employed a cook.

D)Her mother’s family was from a different part of Mexico than her father’s family.

2.Why does Cisneros compare the challenge of making tortillas to writing a critical essay for her MFA exam?

A)Many people helped her make tortillas and helped her write her essay.

B)She could make tortillas and write essays intuitively.

C)She did not know the processes required to make tortillas or to write an essay.

D)She learned how to make tortillas and how to write a critical essay after she left home.

3.When Cisneros feels nostalgia for home, she imagines—

A)her grandparent’s home in Mexico

B)a house on Mango Street in Chicago

C)an artists’ colony in Aix-en-Provence

D)San Antonio, Texas, near the Alamo

4.Cisneros’s attitude toward her parents’ efforts to raise her and her brothers can best be described as—

A)admiring

B)resentful

C)bitter

D)cynical

Unit 6: Collection 17, Selection Test continued

5.What is the main idea of this essay?

A)The author’s experiences shaped her personality and writing.

B)Traveling throughout the world has not changed the author.

C)The author is a gifted writer to whom everything has come easily.

D)Texas and Mexico are geographically and culturally similar.

Vocabulary Development On the line provided, write the vocabulary word that best completes each sentence.

prestigious

intuitively

flourished

ventured

taboo

6.When Cisneros was a child, it was ____________________, or forbidden, for unmarried women to live on their own.

7.Cisneros, however, knew ____________________ without conscious reasoning that she had to move out.

8.She took great risks when she ____________________ all the way to Europe.

9.Cisneros ____________________ and prospered in her new life.

10.Her writing was a great success, and she won many ____________________ awards.

Vocabulary Skill Match the word origin on the left with the vocabulary word on the right.

11.French, nostalgie, severe homesickness

12.French, nomade, wandering in search of pasture

13.Latin, florere, flower

14.Latin, subsistere, to support

15.Latin, intuitus, to look at

A)nomadic

B)intuitively

C)subsisting

D)nostalgia

E)flourished

Literary Focus Circle the letter of the best answer to each of the following items.

16.An allusion is best described as—

A)a comparison of two unlike objects

B)writing that contains conflict

C)an event or character that stands in for another event or character

D)a reference to a component of culture

Unit 6: Collection 17, Selection Test continued

17.The title of this essay is an allusion to the fairy tale—

A)“The Little Mermaid”

B)“Rumpelstiltskin”

C)“Snow White”

D)“Cinderella”

18.What does the gold in the title represent?

A)The literature Cisneros produced

B)Cisneros’s mother’s gardening skills

C)Cisneros’s cooking ability

D)Cisneros’s school record

Reading Focus Circle the letter of the best answer to each of the following items.

19.Cisneros most likely became a writer because—

A)she earned excellent grades in her literature classes

B)her father and mother encouraged her to be an artist

C)she wanted to write stories about the people she knew and the places she had been.

D)she wanted her readers to know what it was like to grow up in poverty

20.Looking back at her childhood, Cisneros believes that she was—

A)a serious, competitive student

B)very athletic

C)a rumpled, skinny, awkward girl

D)a popular, sociable girl

Constructed Response (5 points)

21.In “Straw into Gold,” Cisneros mentions many things she draws upon as subjects for her writing. What do these things have in common? Why do you think she chooses these things over others? On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph that explains your answer. Support your ideas with details from the selection.

HINT: The beginning of your paragraph should restate the questions. A possible start might be – “Cisneros draws upon many things as subjects for her writing. Some of these subjects are.......”

Be sure to answer why she might choose those subjects. Explain why by using specific examples. Copy examples word-for-word from the passage and use quotation marks. Then say how those examples explain your answer.

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150Unit 6 Resources