Braille Challenge
2014 Preliminary
Varsity
Reading Comprehension – Passage 1
Juneteenth
Use information from the following two stories to answer the questions.
Story 1
1Juneteenth (also called Freedom Day or Emancipation Day), celebrated on June 19, is a holiday that commemorates the emancipation of the last remaining slaves in the USA on June 19, 1865.
2Although the Civil War ended on April 9, 1865 (when Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia), news of the victory of the Union (the north) and the enforcement of the liberation of all slaves did not reach the outlying areas of the USA for months (there was neither radio nor TV, but many cities had telegraph lines; news to outlying areas was spread on horseback, by boat, or via a few railroads). Some of the last of the slaves to be freed were in Galveston, Texas; they were freed on June 19, 1865, when General Gordon Granger and 2,000 Union troops arrived on Galveston Island, Texas, enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation (which had been issued by Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862), freeing the remaining slaves.
3Juneteenth became an official holiday in Texas on Jan. 1, 1980, and is now celebrated in many US states. Texas-style activities often accompany this holiday, including picnics, barbecues, rodeos, pot-lucks, and other informal get-togethers.
Used with permission from Enchantedlearning.com
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Story 2
4Juneteenth is a holiday that is unfamiliar to many Americans, but one that marks an important event in United States history. Its name is a portmanteau word composed of "June" and the second syllable of "nineteenth". (A portmanteau word is a linguistic blend of word parts and meanings from two or more different words. For example, brunch is a portmanteau word made from parts of breakfast and lunch.) It was on June 19, 1865, that General Gordon Granger, speaking in Galveston, Texas, announced the end of slavery in that state and his intention to use troops to enforce the law, if necessary. Specifically, "General Order No. 3" stated:
5The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
6Spontaneous Juneteenth celebrations began in African-American communities in Texas just a year after General Granger's arrival. Modern day observances include community gatherings, a sharing of family artifacts from different periods of history, personal reflection on historical events, and planning for the future.
Questions for “Juneteenth”
1. Why did General Granger bring 2,000 troops with him to Texas?
a. to assist with resettling the freed slaves
b. to enforce Lincoln's proclamation related to slavery
c. to enlist freed slaves in the military
d. to ensure that property was equally distributed between former slave
owners and thefreed slaves
2. In Paragraph 4, we learn that Juneteenth is a portmanteau word. Which word
below also meets the definition of a portmanteau word?
a. butterfly
b. infomercial
c. exploitation
d. biographical
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3. Why is New Year’s Day important in this passage?
a. It is the beginning of a new era.
b. The slaves became emancipated everywhere except in Texas on this
date.
c. Juneteenth was officially declared a state holiday.
d. Juneteenth was officially declared a national holiday.
4. According to General Order #3, emancipation meant that former slaves were
now _____
a. free to travel wherever they liked.
b. entitled to support from the government.
c. employees.
d. property owners.
5. In Paragraph 5, the order proclaims that the slaves will not be supported in
idleness. Whatdoes idleness mean in this context?
a. indolence
b. insubordination
c. sickness
d. subservience
6. The word emancipation appears twice in Paragraph 1. What other word with the
samemeaning could be used in its place to make the wording less redundant?
a. bondage
b. freedom
c. liberation
d. celebration
7. If you were a member of an African-American family participating in a
Juneteenthcelebration, what could you bring to the event that would qualify as
anartifact?
a. a fried chicken dish made from an old family recipe
b. a quilt made by your great-great grandmother when she was a slave
c. an American Girl doll based on a historical character who was freed after
the Civil War
d. a tombstone engraved with the dates of your ancestors' births and deaths
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8. According to Passage 1, why weren't all slaves immediately freed in Texas at
the end ofthe Civil War?
a. TheEmancipation Proclamation specified that slaves would be freed on
June 19th.
b. Emancipation had to be proclaimed in each state by a representative of
the USmilitary before it could become law.
c. Freedmen had to be counted and registered, which was a time-consuming
process.
d. News traveled slowly across the country due to the limitations of existing
communication networks.
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Braille Challenge
2014 Preliminary
Varsity
Reading Comprehension – Passage 2
In the following excerpt from the book, The Country of the Pointed Firs, the narrator is a writer who is working in an empty village schoolhouse for the summer.
At the Schoolhouse Window
By Sarah Orne Jewett
1 One day I reached the schoolhouse very late, owing to attendance upon the funeral of an acquaintance and neighbor, with whose sad decline in health I had been familiar, and whose last days both the doctor and Mrs. Todd had tried in vain to ease. The services had taken place at one o'clock, and now, at quarter past two, I stood at the schoolhouse window, looking down at the procession as it went along the lower road close to the shore. It was a walking funeral, and even at that distance I could recognize most of the mourners as they went their solemn way. Mrs. Begg had been very much respected, and there was a large company of friends following to her grave. She had been brought up on one of the neighboring farms, and each of the few times that I had seen her she professed great dissatisfaction with town life. The people lived too close together for her liking, at the Landing, and she could not get used to the constant sound of the sea. She had lived to lament three seafaring husbands, and her house was decorated with West Indian curiosities, specimens of conch shells and fine coral which they had brought home from their voyages in lumber-laden ships. Mrs. Todd had told me all our neighbor's history. They had been girls together, and, to use her own phrase, had "both seen trouble till they knew the best and worst on 't." I could see the sorrowful, large figure of Mrs. Todd as I stood at the window. She made a break in the procession by walking slowly and keeping the after-part of it back. She held a handkerchief to her eyes, and I knew, with a pang of sympathy, that hers was not affected grief.
2 Beside her, after much difficulty, I recognized the one strange and unrelated person in all the company, an old man who had always been mysterious to me. I could see his thin, bending figure. He wore a narrow, long-tailed coat and walked with a stick, and had the same "cant to leeward" as the wind-bent trees on the height above.
3 This was Captain Littlepage, whom I had seen only once or twice before, sitting pale and old behind a closed window; never out of doors until now. Mrs. Todd always shook her head gravely when I asked a question, and said that he wasn't what he had been once, and seemed to class him with her other secrets. He
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might havebelonged with a simple[1] which grew in a certain slug-haunted corner of the garden,whose use she could never be betrayed into telling me, though I saw her cutting the tops by moonlight once, as if it were a charm, and not a medicine, like the great fading bloodroot leaves.
4 I could see that she was trying to keep pace with the old captain's lighter steps. He looked like an aged grasshopper of some strange human variety. Behind this pair was a short, impatient, little person, who kept the captain's house, and gave it what Mrs. Todd and others believed to be no proper sort of care. She was usually called "that Mari' Harris" in subdued conversation between intimates, but they treated her with anxious civility when they met her face to face.
5 The bay-sheltered islands and the great sea beyond stretched away to the far horizon southward and eastward; the little procession in the foreground looked futile and helpless on the edge of the rocky shore. It was a glorious day early in July, with a clear, high sky; there were no clouds, there was no noise of the sea. The song sparrows sang and sang, as if with joyous knowledge of immortality, and contempt for those who could so pettily concern themselves with death. I stood watching until the funeral procession had crept round a shoulder of the slope below and disappeared from the great landscape as if it had gone into a cave.
6 An hour later I was busy at my work. Now and then a bee blundered in and took me for an enemy; but there was a useful stick upon the teacher's desk, and I rapped to call the bees to order as if they were unruly scholars, or waved them away from their riots over the ink, which I had bought at the Landing store, and discovered to be scented with bergamot, as if to refresh the labors of anxious scribes. One anxious scribe felt very dull that day; a sheep-bell tinkled nearby, and called her wandering wits after it. The sentences failed to catch these lovely summer cadences. For the first time I began to wish for a companion and for news from the outer world, which had been, half unconsciously, forgotten. Watching the funeral gave one a sort of pain. I began to wonder if I ought not to have walked with the rest, instead of hurrying away at the end of the services. Perhaps the Sunday gown I had put on for the occasion was making this disastrous change of feeling, but I had now made myself and my friends remember that I did not really belong to Dunnet Landing.
7 I sighed, and turned to the half-written page again.
A simple is a medicinal plant
Questions for “At the Schoolhouse Window”
1. What details in the story reveal that Mrs. Todd's grief was not affected?
a. She wept easily at funerals, even if she did not know the person.
b. She sobbed uncontrollably in the arms of her childhood friend.
c. She walked slowly and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.
d. She was able to keep up with the mourners, despite her advanced age.
2. Why did the bees enter the schoolhouse?
a. The schoolhouse was empty.
b. The writer’s scented ink attracted them.
c. They had a nest in the schoolhouse.
d. The writer left the door and all the windows open.
3. Why does the narrator have difficulty recognizing Captain Littlepage?
a. She had only seen him sitting lethargically at his window, never outside
walking.
b. She knew he was not a native to Dunnet Landing and was surprised to
see him in theprocession.
c. She was confused because he was not wearing his characteristic sailor's
garb.
d. Mrs. Todd had told her that he was ill, so the narrator didn't expect to see
him amongthe mourners.
4. How does the writer’s perspective shift in Paragraph 5?
a. She raises questions about her own mortality.
b. She begins to analyze her relationships with people in the village.
c. She is struck by the vastness of nature and the insignificance of man.
d. She finds reasons to be cheerful in the beauty of nature.
5. What is one reason the author is having difficulty writing near the end of the
passage?
a. She doesn’t know what to write about.
b. She is writing later in the day than usual.
c. She stands by the window long after the mourners have passed.
d. She regrets having deserted the funeral procession.
6. Why was Mrs. Begg’s life troubled?
a. She couldn’t escape from her neighbors.
b. She was not respected by the people of the village.
c. She had endured much heartbreak over the years.
d. Her last days were painful.
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7. In Paragraph 6, the author laments that “The sentences failed to catch these
lovely summer cadences.” The word cadence has a ______connotation.
a. musical
b. nautical
c. biological
d. scholarly
8. How do the village natives feel about Mari' Harris?
a. They disdain her face-to-face but secretly envy her.
b. They talk to her with formal politeness but secretly admire her.
c. They secretly disdain her but treat her with formal politeness.
d. They are secretly curious about her but never ask her questions.
9. When the writer left after the funeral service, what message did she feel she
conveyed toboth herself and the people in the village?
a. Writing was more important than joining the funeral procession.
b. She did not know the village secrets.
c. She was an outsider.
d. She did not care about the deceased neighbor.
10. How are Captain Littlepage and the "simple" (medicinal plant) alike, according
to the narrator?
a. Both have endured harsh conditions, but survived.
b. Both have secrets that Mrs. Todd will not reveal.
c. Both are tall and thin.
d. Both have magical qualities.
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