Please do not write on the test
Please read “One of These Days” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and answer the questions that follow.
“One of These Days”
Monday dawned warm and rainless. Aurelio Escovar, a dentist without a degree, and a very early riser, opened his office at six. He took some false teeth, still mounted in their plaster mold, out of the glass case and put on the table a fistful of instruments which he arranged in size order, as if they were on display. He wore a collarless striped shirt, closed at the neck with a golden stud, and pants held up by suspenders. He was erect and skinny, with a look that rarely corresponded to the situation, the way deaf people have of looking.
When he had things arranged on the table, he pulled the drill toward the dental chair and sat down to polish the false teeth. He seemed not to be thinking about what he was doing, but worked steadily, pumping the drill with his feet, even when he didn't need it.
After eight he stopped for a while to look at the sky through the window, and he saw two pensive buzzards who were drying themselves in the sun on the ridgepole of the house next door. He went on working with the idea that before lunch it would rain again. The shrill voice of his eleven year-old son interrupted his concentration.
"Papa."
"What?"
"The Mayor wants to know if you'll pull his tooth."
"Tell him I'm not here."
He was polishing a gold tooth. He held it at arm's length, and examined it with his eyes half closed. His son shouted again from the little waiting room.
"He says you are, too, because he can hear you."
The dentist kept examining the tooth. Only when he had put it on the table with the finished work did he say:
"So much the better."
He operated the drill again. He took several pieces of a bridge out of a cardboard box where he kept the things he still had to do and began to polish the gold.
"Papa."
"What?"
He still hadn't changed his expression.
"He says if you don't take out his tooth, he'll shoot you."
Without hurrying, with an extremely tranquil movement, he stopped pedaling the drill, pushed it away from the chair, and pulled the lower drawer of the table all the way out. There was a revolver. "O.K.," he said. "Tell him to come and shoot me."
He rolled the chair over opposite the door, his hand resting on the edge of the drawer. The Mayor appeared at the door. He had shaved the left side of his face, but the other side, swollen and in pain, had a five-day-old beard. The dentist saw many nights of desperation in his dull eyes. He closed the drawer with his fingertips and said softly:
"Sit down."
"Good morning," said the Mayor.
"Morning," said the dentist.
While the instruments were boiling, the Mayor leaned his skull on the headrest of the chair and felt better. His breath was icy. It was a poor office: an old wooden chair, the pedal drill, a glass case with ceramic bottles. Opposite the chair was a window with a shoulder-high cloth curtain. When he felt the dentist approach, the Mayor braced his heels and opened his mouth.
Aurelio Escovar turned his head toward the light. After inspecting the infected tooth, he closed the Mayor's jaw with a cautious pressure of his fingers.
"It has to be without anesthesia," he said.
"Why?"
"Because you have an abscess."
The Mayor looked him in the eye. "All right," he said, and tried to smile. The dentist did not return the smile. He brought the basin of sterilized instruments to the worktable and took them out of the water with a pair of cold tweezers, still without hurrying. Then he pushed the spittoon with the tip of his shoe, and went to wash his hands in the washbasin. He did all this without looking at the Mayor. But the Mayor didn't take his eyes off him.
It was a lower wisdom tooth. The dentist spread his feet and grasped the tooth with the hot forceps. The Mayor seized the arms of the chair, braced his feet with all his strength, and felt an icy void in his kidneys, but didn't make a sound. The dentist moved only his wrist. Without rancor, rather with a bitter tenderness, he said:
"Now you'll pay for our twenty dead men."
The Mayor felt the crunch of bones in his jaw, and his eyes filled with tears. But he didn't breathe until he felt the tooth come out. Then he saw it through his tears. It seemed so foreign to his pain that he failed to understand his torture of the five previous nights.
Bent over the spittoon, sweating, panting, he unbuttoned his tunic and reached for the handkerchief in his pants pocket. The dentist gave him a clean cloth.
"Dry your tears," he said.
The Mayor did. He was trembling. While the dentist washed his hands, he saw the crumbling ceiling and a dusty spider web with spider's eggs and dead insects. The dentist returned, drying his hands. "Go to bed," he said, "and gargle with salt water." The Mayor stood up, said goodbye with a casual military salute, and walked toward the door, stretching his legs, without buttoning up his tunic.
"Send the bill," he said.
"To you or the town?"
The Mayor didn't look at him. He closed the door and said through the screen:
"It's the same damn thing."
- Based on the last sentence in paragraph 1, Escovar’s physical description leads you to conclude that…
a)He is disabled.
b)His emotions are likely hard to read.
c)He is callous
d)He is apathetic.
- Auerlio Escovar is described as “a dentist without a degree.” The fact that the Mayor demands to see him indicates that he is…
a)Desperate
b)Foolish
c)Optimistic
d)Humble
- After completing the story, one might see that the “pensive buzzards” in paragraph 3 foreshadow that…
a)The Mayor is coming to harm the dentist.
b)The main characters are also pensive.
c)There has been death in the city.
d)The city is unclean.
- In paragraph 18, the reader can infer that the Mayor only shaved the left side of his face because…
a)He was stressed and forgetful.
b)It indicates his incompetence.
c)His razor broke.
d)The infection was located on the right side of his jaw.
- In paragraphs 17-18, why did the dentist put his revolver away upon seeing the Mayor?
a)The dentist realized that the Mayor made an empty threat out of his desperation.
b)The dentistwas not mad anymore.
c)The dentist felt remorse.
d)The dentist feared the Mayor.
- After finishing the story, the reader can infer that the dentist operated without anesthetic because…
a)The abscess really did prohibit it.
b)He wanted vengeance against the Mayor.
c)He didn’t have the qualifications to use anesthesia.
d)He is sadistic.
- Because “the Mayor didn’t take his eyes off [the dentist],” we can infer that…
a)He felt nervous and distrustful
b)He admired the dentist’s skill
c)He is a good listener
d)He felt hatred towards him
- The “icy void in [the Mayor’s] kidneys” (paragraph 28) indicates…
a)the spread of the infection to his kidneys
b)his fearful anticipation of pain
c)his soullessness
d)his hatred for the dentist
- Based on context clues, one can infer that “rancor” means…
a)screaming
b)a specific type of dental forceps
c)malice or spite
d)care
- “Bitter tenderness” is an example of…
a)onomatopoeia
b)metaphor
c)alliteration
d)oxymoron
- Why does the dentist say, “Now you’ll pay for our twenty dead men”?
a)He is suffering from post-traumatic stress and envisioning the Mayor as the enemy.
b)He blames the Mayor for the deaths of men in their town and feels as though the pain he receives will be a form of retribution.
c)The mayor is demanding compensation for the men he has killed.
d)He is schizophrenic.
- In the context of the story, the dentist telling the Mayor to “dry [his] tears” shows that at this time the dentist is…
a)loving
b)cold and formal
c)remorseful
d)devastated
- The imagery of the “crumbling ceiling” and the “dusty spider web with spider’s eggs and dead insects” lends to the ______tone of the story.
a)furious
b)hopeless
c)happy
d)rustic
- Explain the following exchange:
a)The Mayor has been corrupted by his power and feels as though he owns and controls the town.
b)The Mayor feels as though he is a representative of his town.
c)The Mayor holds the town financially responsible for his pain.
d)The Mayor is in so much pain that he doesn’t care where the bill is sent.
Never Forget a Face!
by Christy Sloan
CHARACTERS: Erica, high school student
Carl, Erica’s older brother
SETTING: Small town in Minnesota, spring to summer.
Scene 1
Setting: Family kitchen, view of garden plot from door with late spring growth.
ERICA [Sound of door closing; enters holding garden gloves and a garden tool]: I think I’m
losing the fight again this year, Carl.
CARL [sitting at table with laptop computer]: Are you fighting with anyone I know?
ERICA [sits dejectedly]: Just birds, mostly crows. Last year, they ate half of all of the
corn I had in my garden. This spring I planted corn, melons, and tomatoes to
sell at the Farmers Market, and I don’t want it to be just crow food!
CARL: That’s industrious. I noticed your expanded garden, but why all the hard
work?
ERICA: I need to raise money for a class trip to Washington, D.C., next fall.
[From outside: Caw! Caw! Caw!]
ERICA: Do you hear that, Carl? They’re planning to be my guests all summer long,
feasting on my fruits and vegetables. [Caw! Caw!] And whoever said crows
were songbirds really had a tin ear! They certainly have volume to spare,
but they can’t carry a tune at all. Their noise is so completely disagreeable.
Crows, songbirds? [emphatically] No way!
CARL [laughs]: It’s a scientific classification and not really a description of their
musical talents. Calling them songbirds just means they have specialized
vocal organs. [pause] Erica, since I don’t go back to college until fall, I’ll
volunteer to help with your garden.
ERICA: Great! The first thing we need to do is to figure out how to protect my
garden from those freeloading birds. Let’s see if we can find any solutions on
the Internet. [Heads together over computer, keys tapping, and then: Caw! Caw!
Caw!] Those crows are mocking me! [Looks out back door.] You feathered pests
will not have the last word!
Scene 2
Setting: Twilight in a small clearing at the edge of woods; sign saying Glacier Park.
CARL [In Abe Lincoln mask with metal pot and spoon in hand]: Do you think this will
work?
ERICA [In Amelia Earhart mask with large cowbell in hand]: Well, what we learned about
a crow’s memory in the research article we found makes me think our plan
will succeed. We just have to keep these masks on until we leave the woods
so the crows see only Amelia and Abe and not our faces. I found the crows’
nests on Twisted Oak Trail when I explored yesterday, so just
follow me.
[Characters exit stage as distant calls of woodland birds are heard—finches, cardinals, crows.
Soon, a racket is heard offstage as Carl bangs the spoon against the pot and Erica rings the
cowbell loudly; both characters scream and yell.]
Scene 3
Setting: Late summer, inside kitchen, cornstalks with ears of corn seen through window.
CARL: The Abe and Amelia masks sure did the job for you this summer, Erica.
ERICA: It’s too bad you were at your summer job when I set up the scarecrows with
the two masks. You should have heard the crows! After our trip to their nests
in Glacier Park, they were disturbed to see the same two “faces” standing
guard in the garden. The crows were raucous and scolding from the treetops,
but didn’t have the courage to glide down into the garden to eat anything.
CARL: You have a soft heart, though, Erica. I know you take a detour to Glacier Park
after each Saturday morning Farmers Market to drop off a few garden gifts
near their nests.
ERICA: I do, but I wear my face, not Amelia Earhart’s face! The crows never scold me
like they do the Amelia and Abe scarecrows. [Both laugh as curtain closes]
THE END
- Based on her dialogue and actions, which description BEST fits Erica?
a. Erica is easily discouraged and relies totally on her brother’s assistance.
b. Erica respects the rights of wildlife but is determined to have a successful garden.
c. Erica loves good music and dislikes the crows because of their noisy behavior.
d. Erica is someone who acts hastily without considering consequences
- Based on context clues, you can determine that the word raucous means
a. agreeably mellow but insistent.
b. loud, chiming musical notes.
c. loud, harsh, and disorderly.
d. rhythmic, blending notes.
- What events are implied between Scenes 1 and 2?
a. Erica and Carl found information on-line and from that created a plan to keep the crows out of Erica’s garden.
b. The setting moved from spring to summer and Erica lost hope because many of her plants were eaten by crows.
c. Erica became angrier with the crows, so she bought masks to disguise herself and Carl from park rangers when they went to hunt the crows.
d. Erica decided that she might lose less of her garden if she went to the park where the crows’ nests were and fed them.
- In the play, the author engages and encourages the reader to make inferences by
a. leaving out direct explanations of some of the events that occur between the scenes in the play.
b. explaining the relationship between Erica and Carl but leaving out any mention of their parents.
c. having Erica describe what happened to her garden last summer and explain her summer plans.
d. including numerous stage directions for Erica and Carl to follow throughout the play.
- Which statement BEST reflects the author’s perspective in the play?
- A big project requires planning and the help of friends who are good at problem solving.
- Brothers and sisters can work cooperatively, only if one of them is not emotionally involved in a project.
- Teens are highly motivated to solve problems when they are involved in projects that earn money.
- People should solve problems involving wildlife without resorting to harming the animals whenever possible.
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- How does the reader learn about the masks?
- The Scene 2 setting introduces the masks.
- Stage directions in Scene 2 introduce the masks.
- Scene 1 hints at the need for the masks.
- Scene 3 dialogue introduces the masks.
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- Based on context clues, when Erica refers to someone having a “tin ear,” she means a person who
- listens to the crows using an old-fashioned hearing aid.
- wears a tin funnel to better hear bird calls and songs.
- is insensitive to sound and unable to hear and enjoy music.
- likes only music that comes from metal instruments.