new york state component retest english component b … · it was the time the party was thrown in...

NEW YORK STATE COMPONENT RETEST

ENGLISH

COMPONENT B MODULE 1

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2009

SCORING KEY

AND RATING GUIDE

Multiple Choice Key

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Component B

(used for 2-point responses that refer to two texts)

Score Point 2

• presents a well-developed paragraph • demonstrates a basic understanding of the texts • establishes an appropriate controlling idea • supports the controlling idea with clear and appropriate details from both texts • uses language that is appropriate • may exhibit errors in conventions that do not hinder comprehension

Score Point 1

• has a controlling idea

or • implies a controlling idea

or • has an unclear controlling idea

AND

• supports the controlling idea with partial and/or overly general information from the texts • uses language that may be imprecise or inappropriate • exhibits errors in conventions that may hinder comprehension

Score Point 0

• is off topic, incoherent, a copy of the task/text, or blank • demonstrates no understanding of the task/text • is a personal response

Component B

(used for 2-point responses that refer only to one text)

Score Point 2

• presents a well-developed paragraph • provides an appropriate explanation of the literary element or technique chosen • supports the explanation with clear and appropriate evidence from the text • uses language that is appropriate • may exhibit errors in conventions that do not hinder comprehension Score Point 1 • provides an explanation of the literary element or • implies an explanation of the literary element or • has an unclear explanation of the literary element AND • supports the explanation with partial and/or overly general information from the text • uses language that may be imprecise or inappropriate • exhibits errors in conventions that may hinder comprehension Score Point 0 • is off topic, incoherent, a copy of the task/text, or blank • demonstrates no understanding of the task/text • is a personal response Note: Since the question specifies choosing one of the authors, if the student responds using both passages, score the portion of the response that would give the student the higher score.

English Component B Retest – Module 1 – May ’09 2

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Directions: Read the passages on the following pages (a short story excerpt and a poem). Write the number of the answer to each multiple-choice question on your answer sheet. Then write your responses to questions 6 and 7 in the space provided on your answer sheet. You may use the margins to take notes as you read.

Passage I

The Price

Every time my fragile Uncle Andres came to the house, someone would always end up arguing with him about the ideas he had concerning his land. This someone would almost always be my father. And because it was my father’s house he would always leave before the argument got too hot and the name calling started. He would exit respectfully with a bow, smoothing his curled-up moustaches. Everyone knew my uncle’s stand was hopeless. He himself must have had glimpses of it.

First of all, the land was too close to the provincial capital city of Tacloban, where lately only cement seemed to grow. Secondly, the Community Board was bent on building a road through this land that ran along San Juanico Bay, and our town, Santander, was blossoming into urbanic stature and it, our town, was beginning to feel its muscles. The President of the country himself had built a bridge dedicated to the first Lady, joining the two islands of Samar and Leyte, his wife’s birthplace.

They didn’t look like brothers at all, my uncle and father. My father was stout, clean-shaven, well-dressed, and streaks of gray hair spread abundantly over his round, light-brown face. My uncle had a curled-up moustache, was always shabbily dressed, with a thin, delicate face covered with scaly skin, and, though several years older than my father, still had his full jet-black hair.

The fact that he always turned around and left just before the argument was at its peak, even though he did it humbly, enraged my father. It somehow offended his integrity, as if my uncle’s over-formal bow patronized,1 or condescended2 to his opposing.

“He knew that I would prove him wrong, that is why he left; that is why he always leaves. He knew he had no show, so he did not want to stay and hear it,” my father would say.

But it seemed to me that every time my uncle spoke he always had a show. He was that kind of character, my uncle. But then, I had not seen his land yet. I did not yet know the conditions, nor the tremendous odds my uncle was up against.

Once, however, my uncle was caught in the middle of an

1 patronized: treated as inferior 2 condescended: to lower oneself to the level of someone considered inferior


argument. It was the time the party was thrown in our house by the parents for their children who were graduating from elementary school, two weeks before final examinations. I was one of them and my father was the host. My uncle had come from his farm near Magellan’s Landing by Carigara Bay on the other side of the island. I suppose partly to congratulate me and partly because we had not seen each other for some time, and I think he had heard the strong rumors that we might be leaving for America.

When I saw that karomata, that one horse cart, I knew it was he. When he arrived, he paid his respects to everyone and then we went to the patio on the back of the house, sitting down on a bench canopied by giant trees of kamagong and narra.

“And how are you, my nephew?” He waved his hat downwards to me. “Sit down.”

Smiling I sat down on a rattan chair opposite him. “Well,” I said not knowing what else to say.

“I have no gift to bring you—” said he. “You are here,” I said. “Well, yes, but isn’t it customary to . . . however, since I

have no gifts, could we have a talk instead?” “About what?” “Oh, about things—perhaps of importance to you, since you

are now graduating.” “Oh,” I said, a bit disappointed. “No, no. It is not advice, my nephew,” he laughed. “I know

you are filled with it by now.” “What, then?” I looked up at him. “What is it?” I could see he was in agony trying to tell me something.

Sitting back, I let him take his time. “My nephew,” he began, “you know you have always had

this, how shall I say it, this heart of a poet . . .” I heard the clatter of feet from inside, the sound of laughter,

and soon, as I half-dreaded, I heard them call my name. The patio door suddenly opened and my father had my hand in his and was dragging me inside.

“The guests have arrived, Amador.” And then I had to mix with the other people because I was supposed to be Salutatorian.

Leaving my uncle to meet the guests, I seemed to have lost all sense of the familiar. I had just begun to feel comfortable with my uncle when my father came in. I passed before a mirror and saw a monster. It seemed that I was looking too close at everything. I saw dead bones in living skin; the love-bird had the snake’s eyes, and shadows were walking people . . .

Before we parted my uncle told me that this time, no matter how heated any argument with my father or anybody else became,

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4 English Component B Retest – Module 1 – May ’09

he would not leave until he was sure I had some notion of that thing he was trying to tell me earlier when we were interrupted. Both of us knew that when once parted that afternoon, we would not easily get the chance to talk alone again in the house. So we watched for each other’s eyes.

A little later in the festivities, my father was asking my uncle Andres to stop delaying to sell his land. “In business,” he said, “timing is of the essence.”

“I refuse,” my uncle kept saying. They spoke to each other from a distance; they always did.

“But why? What good is that land of yours? It is barren, Mano.3 It is fungus-ridden; it is craggy and rocky. It is lifeless and grows nothing and yields nothing. Everyone in the Board already ridicules me about it.”

My father spoke very fluently, the national language, even though they originally spoke a provincial tongue, Visayan Waray. He had already lost the provincial dialect accent. My uncle was the other way. He spoke the national tongue with a thick provincial accent. And I, born in the barrio4 and raised in the cities of Manila and Tacloban, was more familiar with the national tongue. I understood both, however. So did my father and uncle. We simply had to feel for words when talking to my uncle, that’s all.

My father had a better idea, “Why don’t you sell it to the community, Andres? They are going to get it sooner or later. So you can at least have a financial hold and stop being . . . living a wasted life, a vagabond . . . sayang!”5

“I do not beg,” said my uncle, “nor do I sell.” “I know you do not beg; but at least invest in something that

stands fast. Your land is nothing.” “Nothing stands faster than the land.” “But your land is nothing.” “It does not have to be anything. It is everlasting,” my uncle

said, and lowering his voice he added, “and I refuse to sell it.” —Oscar F. Peñaranda

From a collection of interrelated stories called Seasons by the Bay, 2004, Tiboli Publishing, San Francisco, CA., which won the Filipino Literary Global Award for best fiction, 2004.

_____________________________

3 Mano: brother 4 barrio: Spanish-speaking neighborhood 5 sayang: a bum

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Passage II

Hard Questions

Why wildness? Why not mark out the land into neat rectangles squares and cloverleafs? Put on them cubes of varying sizes according to use— dwellings singles/multiples

complexes commercial/industrial.

Bale them together with bands of roads.

Doesn’t that make the land useful? What if a child shall cry “I have never known spring! I have never seen autumn!”

What is that? What if a man shall say “I have never heard silence fraught1 with living in swamp or forest!” What if the eye shall never see marsh birds and muskrats?

What are these? Does not the heart need wildness? Does not the thought need something to rest upon not self-made by man, a bosom not his own?

—Margaret Tsuda

© 2008 Margaret Tsuda. Reprinted by permission of the author.

1 fraught: loaded

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Multiple-Choice Questions

Directions (1–5): Select the best suggested answer to each question and write its number in the space provided on the answer sheet. The questions may help you think about ideas and information you might want to use in your written responses. You may return to these questions any time you wish. Passage I (short story excerpt): Questions 1–3 refer to Passage I. R103X20160082 1 When the two brothers argue, how does the

argument usually end?

(1) Andres wins the argument. (2) Andres respectfully leaves. (3) Andres changes his opinion. (4) Andres disowns his brother.

R103X20360011 2 The description of Tacloban as a city where

“only cement seemed to grow” (line 10) means that the land there is

(1) useless for farming (2) too expensive to cultivate (3) more important than family (4) too far away from the coast

R103X20760033 3 The description of the father and uncle in

lines 17 through 22 is intended to

(1) emphasize the closeness of the family (2) reveal the distrust between the brothers (3) reflect differences in the status of the

brothers (4) suggest that the narrator resembles his

relatives

Passage II (poem): Questions 4–5 refer to Passage II. R103X20860104 4 In lines 5 and 6, what do “cubes of varying

sizes” represent?

(1) offices (2) city blocks (3) people (4) buildings

R103X20360093 5 Which statement best represents the

meaning of the poem?

(1) People are careless about what they do with their time.

(2) Quiet and solitude are important to many people.

(3) Nature allows people to live fuller lives. (4) Not all questions have good answers.


Short-Response Questions

Directions (6–7): Write your responses to questions 6 and 7 in the space provided on the answer sheet. R103X2026012S

6 Write a well-developed paragraph in which you use ideas from both passages to establish a controlling idea about progress. Develop your controlling idea using specific examples and details from each passage.

R103X2036013S

7 Choose a specific literary element (e.g., theme, characterization, structure, point of view, etc.) or literary technique (e.g., symbolism, irony, figurative language, etc.) used by one of the authors and, using specific details from that passage, show how the author uses that element or technique to develop the passage.

Component B - Module 1 - Question # 6

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new york state component retest english component b … · it was the time the party was thrown in...

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