Tuning Out Television

Marcus has been reading about a national program that encourages people to turn off the television for a
full week. He was intrigued by the idea and wrote the following letter to his school newspaper.

Dear Editor,

I am writing to you as a concerned citizen of the student body, the nation, and—even more
widely—the world.
There is an insidious enemy in our midst. It lurks right in our very homes. In fact, it lives in
multiple rooms in our households. Even worse, we've invited the enemy in. We've even paid
money to bring it into our lives.
The enemy is television. Sure, it's fun. It's entertaining. And it's hard to imagine our lives
without it.
But its very charm is part of the problem. We're entranced by it. There it sits, warmly lit and
beckoning with its moving images and inviting voices and music.
The minute we succumb to its wiles, it attacks our motivation and our creativity. It gobbles
and swallows up our time and energy in enormous gulps.
Did you know that according to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average time per year that each
American spends watching television is more than 4 hours each day? That translates into 28
hours per week, which is more than many part-time jobs. In larger terms, that means 2 months
of nonstop TV-watching per year. In a 65-year life span, that is 9 years under the enemy's spell.
As a collective, the number of hours of television watched annually by Americans equals 250
billion. Astounding, the effect the enemy has on us. We don't ever get that time back.
Sure, television can certainly be educational and informative. However, there are so many
other options now for news—from the old-school, trusty newspapers (like this one), to the high-
tech, instant access to the Internet. Besides, are those 4+ hours per day spent in front of PBS and
CNN? I don't think so.
But we can fight the enemy—especially if we band together. I'm not proposing to abolish
television altogether. That's not really realistic.
As an avid addict to all kinds of action-packed dramas like 24 and CSI, it would be
hypocritical of me to say it's acceptable for me to watch but not you or anyone else.
So I propose to banish the enemy for just a week. As a student body, let's take a stand. Let's
organize and commit to trying to fight the enemy with the rest of the nation by observing "Turn
Off Television Week."
Perhaps we could organize activities to help stoke people's imaginations with alternatives to
television. Remember books—glorious books? Such a wealth of information at our fingertips,
ready to pick up and take with us anywhere. No electricity needed, no plugs or glazed-over
eyes as a side effect. Maybe a book exchange, field trips to museums, or talking to one another
instead of flipping the channels. What if we tuned in to each other and our community instead
of the enemy box?
I hope you, as the newspaper editor, will help join the fight against the enemy that is TV—
even if it's only for one week. That's a start.

Sincerely,
Marcus Bradshaw

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1. Read these sentences from the essay.

Remember books—glorious books? Such a wealth of information at our fingertips, ready to pick
up and take with us anywhere.

The word "wealth" suggests that the information in books is

A. plentiful.
B. valuable.
C. expensive.
D. portable.

2. What does "insidious" mean in this essay?

A. deceitful
B. surprising
C. harmless
D. inside

3. What best describes the way the author ends the essay?

A. by telling a short story

B. with a personal attack
C. with a call to action
D. by threatening the editor

4. From what perspective does the author write this essay?

A. balanced
B. concerned
C. hypocritical
D. neutral

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5. What can the reader conclude about Marcus?

A. Marcus is shy and nervous about making his voice heard.

B. Marcus thinks the television has a negative effect on people.
C. Marcus wishes many more people would watch television.
D. Marcus does not see or understand any other perspectives.

6. How does the author engage the reader at the beginning of the essay?

A. by personifying the issue as an enemy

B. by describing the issue with an example
C. by giving surprising statistics as support
D. by appealing to only a specific audience

7. What is the purpose of this essay?

A. to persuade people to fight a battle against news stations

B. to get a letter to the editor printed in the school newspaper
C. to convince people to spend a week without television
D. to show how important writing and reading books are

Justice for All?

Saboteurs?

Prejudice against Asian immigrants had been longstanding on the West Coast. However, it
increased when World War II broke out following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Within a
few weeks, the demand spread that Japanese Americans, both naturalized citizens and those
born in the United States, be removed from the West Coast. The belief was that they might be
"saboteurs" or "spies." It made no difference that there was no proof that even one was a threat
to the United States.

Relocation Orders

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the
Secretary of War to designate parts of the country as "military areas." Any and all persons could
be excluded, and travel restrictions might be imposed. A few weeks later, General John L.

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DeWitt, Western Defense Command leader, made the entire Pacific coast a military area
because of its vulnerability to attack.
Curfews were established, and Japanese Americans were at first prohibited from leaving the
area. And then they were prohibited from being in the area. The only way Japanese Americans
could follow these contradictory orders was to "evacuate" to relocation centers.
In the relocation program, 110,000 men, women, and children were sent to what were in
essence prison camps. This program was the most serious invasion of individual rights by the
federal government in the nation's history. The entire operation operated on the racist belief
that anyone of Japanese ancestry was a traitor.

Court Cases

In wartime, the old saying goes, law is silent. The Supreme Court, which had only recently
begun to play a stronger role in protecting minority rights, did not want interfere with what the
administration considered necessary. Three cases testing the constitutionality of the evacuation
orders were heard by the Court. In the first case, Hirabayashi v. United States (1943), the Court
upheld the curfew, but avoided ruling on the wider implications of relocation.
In the second case, Korematsu v. United States, the Court could no longer ignore whether loyal
citizens could be relocated to detention camps solely based on their race. A majority of the
Court agreed with Justice Black's view that military necessity justified the relocation. However,
three members of the Court, Frank Murphy, Owen J. Roberts, and Robert H. Jackson, dissented.
On the same day, the Court unanimously authorized a writ of habeas corpus for Mitsuye
Endo, a citizen whose loyalty had been clearly established. The Court's rulings
in Hirabayashi and Korematsu were criticized by many civil libertarians and scholars from the
start. There has been a general condemnation of them ever since.

Justice in the 'Court of History'

After the war ended, the internment haunted the nation's conscience. In 1948, Congress took
the first step in making amends. It enacted the Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act to
provide some compensation to those who had lost homes and businesses. In 1980, Congress
again opened the internment issue. This time, witnesses testified, many of them for the first
time, of the hardships and trauma they had suffered. The resulting report, which was called
Personal Justice Denied (1983), condemned the removal as unjustified. The report also
concluded that the Supreme Court decisions had been "overruled in the court of history."

8. According to the following thesaurus entry, what best describes the antonym forrelocation?

Main Entry: transfer

Part of Speech: noun
Definition: possession change
Synonyms: alteration, assignment, conduction, convection,
deportation, displacement, move, relegation, relocation,
removal, shift, substitution, transference, translation,
transmission, transmittal, transposition, variation

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 Antonyms: hold, keeping
A. keeping
B. possession
C. transmission
D. transfer

9. What best describes the author's perspective?

A. The author is informative but biased occasionally.

B. The author is clearly biased against Japanese Americans.
C. The author is mostly neutral and unconcerned about history.
D. The author is biased toward justifying the relocation camps.

10. What best summarizes the first paragraph?

A. The United States had a prejudiced past during World War II.
B. The United States treated Japanese Americans with respect.
C. The United States protected Pearl Harbor from credible threats.
D. The United States had a long history of fairness and tolerance.

11. Based on the first paragraph, what can the reader conclude?

A. Asian immigrants had always been treated fairly on the West Coast.
B. Demand decreased for Japanese Americans to be removed from the West Coast.
C. Naturalized citizens of Japanese descent were not considered "saboteurs."
D. Americans did not trust the Japanese after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

12. What does the word saboteurs mean in this passage?

A. Americans
B. spies
C. foreigners
D. citizens

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13. What is the main idea of the passage?

A. Congress should support monetary compensation for Japanese Americans who

were interned.
B. The Supreme Court can make decisions that reverse shameful decisions made in
U.S. history.
C. World War II resulted in over 100,000 Japanese Americans being interned in the U.S.
D. Two court cases resulted in reversing the relocation of over 100,000 Japanese
Americans in the United States.

14. According to the following dictionary entry, what is the origin of the phrase habeas corpus?

ha·be·as cor·pus
–noun Law.
a writ requiring a person to be brought before a judge or court, esp. for investigation of a
restraint of the person's liberty, used as a protection against illegal imprisonment.

[Origin: < L: lit., have the body (first words of writ), equiv. to habeās 2nd sing. pres. subj. (with
impv. force) of habére to have + corpus body]

A. illegal imprisonment
B. have the body
C. judge or court
D. personal liberty

15. What is the word root of prejudice?

A. pre
B. before
C. judge
D. dice

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16. Which genre best describes this passage?

A. fiction
B. persuasion
C. editorial
D. nonfiction

17. Which sentence uses correct parallel structure?

A. The class will learn knitting, quilting, and how to sew a garment.
B. Enrique promises to arrive on time and to work with a smile.
C. Be sure to bring water, a hat, and bring plenty of sun block.
D. Mom bakes a cake, buys a present, and can hang up decorations.

18. Which sentence uses affect or effect correctly?

A. Jeremy's injury will affect the outcome of the game.

B. The weather will not effect me if I stay indoors.
C. A good persuasive essay can effect the reader's opinion.
D. Your protest has no affect on my final decision.

19. Which sentence uses correct subject-verb agreement?

A. The audience have laughed at all your jokes.

B. One of the books is about the history of Japan.
C. He don't have to stay late after school today.
D. Each one of the cheerleaders get a new uniform.

20.

When Stacy saw Patty she said Did you hear about that house fire on Garland Street?

What is the correct way to punctuate the sentence above?

A. "When Stacy saw Patty, she said, Did you hear about that house fire on Garland

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 Street?"
B. When Stacy saw Patty, "she said, Did you hear about that house fire on Garland
Street"?
C. When Stacy saw Patty, she said, Did you hear about that house fire on "Garland
Street?"
D. When Stacy saw Patty, she said, "Did you hear about that house fire on Garland
Street?"

21. Which word in this sentence needs to be capitalized?

The juniors at my high school have to take a history class and write a report about the Louisiana
purchase.
A. purchase
B. juniors
C. history
D. report

Mending Wall
by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:

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 There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

22. What is the theme of this poem?

A. Differences can be overcome with hard work.

B. Good neighbors assist each other in tasks.
C. Borders can add security and interaction.
D. Barriers can both protect and isolate.

23. What does the poet mean in the following line from the poem?

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

A. He wants to emphasize two similar views.

B. He wants to show how people are like trees.
C. He wants to tell the reader that he is right.
D. He wants to contrast two different views.

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24. From the speaker's reaction to the wall, the reader can conclude that

A. he is unhappy with having a wall.

B. he is confused that the wall needs mending.
C. he is satisfied by repairing the wall.
D. he is calm when faced with problems.

25. Why does the speaker repeat the following two lines?

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

"Good fences make good neighbors."

A. to remind the reader of similar perspectives

B. to highlight different perspectives
C. to refocus the poem on the neighbor's conflict
D. to create a clear, consistent rhythm

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