‘RACE AGAINST TIME’ SAMPLE MULTIPLE CHOICE QU’S
1) In paragraph A, the line “Then Honore realized with a sinking heart that the father was conversing on a Bluetooth cellphone...” is an example of:
a) metaphor
b) simile
c) sentence fragment
d) personification
2) The main thesis of this essay is that we are:
a) living life to its fullest
b) working hard to fit everything in
c) forgetting the finer aspects of life
d) in need of more time
3) In paragraph B, the line “…I think things have gone a little too far” is an example of:
a) onomatopoeia
b) alliteration
c) understatement
d) hyperbole
4) The tone of paragraph F is:
a) satirical
b) critical
c) pessimistic
d) humorous
5) In paragraph F the line, “Our knee-jerk reaction is to blame the boss, to blame the BlackBerry.” is an example of::
a) onomatopoeia
b) parallel structure
c) climactic word order
d) periodic sentence
6) In paragraph C, the description of Honore’s ‘eureka moment’ is an example of an example of:
a) onomatopoeia
b) anecdote
c) metaphor
d) satire
7) In paragraph F, the line “Our knee-jerk reaction is to blame the boss, to blame the BlackBerry." is an example of
a) assonance
e) consonance
f) alliteration
g) run-on sentence
8) In paragraph E, the incorporation of Statistics Canada is:
h) an appeal to pathos
i) an appeal to logos
j) an appeal to ethos
k) none of the above
9) In paragraph G, the incorporation of Dan Levitin is an example of:
l) a reference to authority
m) an analogy
n) an anecdote
o) an allusion
10) In paragraph H, the reference to the Old Testament is an example of :
p) analogy
q) allusion
r) reference to authority
s) anecdote
11) In paragraph H, I, J and K the method of development used is:
t) statistics
u) inductive reasoning
v) examples and explanation
w) generalization
12. In paragraph K the line, “…the plethora of high-tech devices clamouring for our attention is hijacking our schedules today.”is an example of:
x) metaphor
y) assonance
z) synecdoche
aa) alliteration
13) In paragraph K, the line “The 24/7 culture has swept away the notion that time has a natural rhythm set by the seasons and phases of human life” is an example of:
bb) simile
cc) assonance
dd) synecdoche
ee) metonymy
14) In paragraph L, the line “And like kids in a candy store, we can't resist the urge to fill every moment.” Is an example of
ff) run-on sentence
gg) sentence fragment
hh) comma splice
ii) understatement
15). In paragraph M the line, “The most dramatic change in how we manage time is multitasking – a term that used to refer to a computer running two programs simultaneously and now is applied to humans trying to do two or more things at once” is an example of:
a) connotation
b) denotation
c) alliterarion
d) consonance
16) In paragraph M, the line “We talk about living in the moment. Now we're three places at once."” is an example of:
a. second person narration
b. first person narration
c. sentence fragment
d. third person narration
17) The incorporation of Piers Steele is used as :
a. anecdote
b. allusion
c. an appeal to pathos
d. a reference to authority
18) In paragraph O, the phrase “Distractions like YouTube” is an example of :
a. alliteration
b. synecdoche
c. allusion
d. hyperbole
19) In paragraph P the line “…what alarms Honoré most is how our mania
for multitasking is affecting our relationships” is an example of:
a. alliteration
b. allusion
c. apostrophe
d. repetition
20)In paragraph Q, the phrase, “frenzied, stressed-out mindset”, is an example of:
a) imagery
b) simile
c) repetition
d) paralle structure
RACE AGAINST TIME
From an article by Marian Scott
A. It was a heartwarming scene: a dad kicking around a soccer ball with his son in the park.
But as Carl Honoré drew closer, he noticed something wrong with the picture: the father
was talking, but the child wasn't paying attention. Then Honoré realized with a sinking
heart that the father was conversing on a Bluetooth cellphone clipped to his ear while
absent-mindedly kicking the ball back to his son.
B. “It's a sad commentary on how we live now,” says Honoré, author of In Praise of Slow, a
manifesto against the breakneck pace of life in the digital age. By treating time like an
empty suitcase to be packed with as many activities as we can possibly stuff in, Honoré
says we're missing out on the moments that give life meaning. The trend even extends to
the bedroom; he points to a recent divorce case in the U.K. in which the husband
complained his wife used to check her BlackBerry during sex. "When you can't kick
around a football with your child or make love without talking on your cellphone, I think
things have gone a little too far," says Honoré, 38, a former journalist from Edmonton
who now lives in London, Ontario.
C. Honoré, a self-confessed former speedaholic, had his eureka moment in an airport lounge
as he read an article about a book of one-minute stories for children. He was calculating
how much time he could save reading these bedtime tales to his young son when he
suddenly realized his whole life had "turned into an exercise in hurry." Taking his cue
from the slow food movement – a movement, formed against fast food restaurants, which
emphasizes social consciousness and celebrating locally grown foods – Honoré started to
kick back a little and started smelling the flowers.
D. It's an example most of us would do well to heed.
E. A Statistics Canada study released earlier this year showed that people who work spend
45 minutes less with their families every day than people did in the '80s. That time is
taken up mostly by work, even though we claim we don't want to sacrifice our family
lives for our careers.
F. But Honoré is no Luddite, bent on halting progress. “While technology provides the tools
for our speeded-up existence,” he says, “we have only ourselves to blame for our state of
digital distress. Our knee-jerk reaction is to blame the boss, to blame the BlackBerry."
But the real problem is not technology; it's how we use it. "When you get to the hub of
the matter, it comes down to our dysfunctional relationship with time. We see time as the
enemy."
G. Humans have always had such an adversarial relationship with time, says Dan Levitin, a
professor of psychology at McGill University who studies how the brain processes time.
H. In pre-industrial societies, life revolved around the seasons and the daily rotation of the
Earth that creates day and night. The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes instructs that
there is "a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a
time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted." People in the ancient world
gauged the time by glancing at the sky. Technological change has been altering time
perception for centuries, Levitin points out.
I. The age of exploration and the industrial revolution transformed our relationship with
time. Sailors needed dependable timepieces in order to navigate on long voyages to the
New World. The advent of rapid transportation (the railway) and rapid communications
(the telegraph) made accurate timekeeping a must. If you had a train to catch or a factory
job starting at 6 a.m., you needed to know the precise time.
J. While industrialization gradually improved living standards, watching the clock also
made life more stressful. “It’s made us more anxious about what we accomplish and
don’t accomplish in a day,” Levitan says. “It’s a very time-bound existence.”
K. Just as train schedules and the working day reset people’s natural rhythm in the
nineteenth century, the plethora of high-tech devices clamouring for our attention is
hijacking our schedules today. Nine-to-five has morphed into 24/7 as global
communications connect us with colleagues and clients in far-flung time zones. The 24/7
culture has swept away the notion that time has a natural rhythm set by the seasons and
phases of human life. Everything is there all the time: video games, e-mail, music, the
Internet.
L. And like kids in a candy store, we can't resist the urge to fill every moment. "The
temptation to cram more and more into every hour is irresistible," says Honoré. “We
never have enough hours in the day because there's so much to get done."
M. The most dramatic change in how we manage time is multitasking – a term that used to
refer to a computer running two programs simultaneously and now is applied to humans
trying to do two or more things at once. "Multitasking has become the default mode for
us," says Honoré. "We talk about living in the moment. Now we're three places at once."
N. While we feel busier when we multitask, we're actually getting less done than if we
focused on only one task, says Piers Steel, an associate business professor at the
University of Calgary who published a ten-year study on procrastination in the
Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association. “Simply
checking our e-mail less often would boost productivity by tens of billions of dollars in
Canada alone,” he estimates.
O. Distractions like YouTube and video games are pushing procrastination to unprecedented
levels, says Steel, who estimates that one person in five – and one in three students –
procrastinates. "We live in a world steeped to the gills in temptation. You have to have a
phenomenal amount of resistance."
P. While lost productivity is a serious concern, what alarms Honoré most is how our mania
for multitasking is affecting our relationships. "We're losing the art of human contact. A
lot of what nourishes relationships is just being there. We’re so often not there, or we're
there physically but not emotionally."
Q. That frenzied, stressed-out mindset is why legions of us are flocking to yoga classes to
re-learn how to live in the moment. Our packed schedules are preventing us from
experiencing life's special moments, says Honoré, like looking for four-leafed clovers or
watching a falling star. The stuff that really matters is the stuff we push to the sidelines