Semester Exam

Key Terms

Context Clues	These are in the text surrounding a word and give hints for the meaning of the word	Conclusion	when you use pieces of information on a subject to base your opinion or make a decision
Denotation	the literal definition of a word	Inference	taking something that you read and putting it together with something that you already know to make sense of what you read
Figurative	A language that goes beyond the literal meanings of words to create special effects or feelings	Chronological Order	arrangement of events in the order in which they occur.
Tone	the attitude that an author takes toward the audience, the subject, or a character.	Directions	instructions that tell how to do something.
Dash	small horizontal mark is used to set off part of a sentence	Event	anything that happens to or is done by a character in a story.
Hyphen	the small horizontal line used to set off parts of sentences or to create compounds	Explicit Directions	Directions that are clearly stated
Homonym	the word that has multiple meanings and is spelled in the same way for both purposes.	Fact	a statement that can be proved to be true or false
Homophones	words that are pronounced the same, but have different meanings	Informational Text	type of real-world writing that presents material that is necessary or valuable to the reader.
Central	the critical point made in a passage	Opinion	expression of an author's personal belief.
Summarize	To restate briefly	Question And Answer	way to organize a paragraph or composition in which the author states an issue and then proposes a solution for it
Theme	the message, usually about life or society, that an author wishes to convey through a literary work	Sequence	group of steps or events that are in order
Main Idea	the most fundamental idea of a reading passage or presentation.	Dictionary	a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words, with the information given for each word, usually including meaning, pronunciation, and etymology
Literary Elements	components used together to create a fictional work	Reference	source used to find information
Setting	time and place in which a literary work happens	Usage	way words and phrases are utilized correctly in written or spoken language.
Short Story	brief work of fiction	Compare And Contrast	method of examining similarities and differences between two or more objects in a piece of work.
Plot	the literary element that describes the structure of a story	Media	primary means of mass communication
Rising Action	Events leading up to the climax	Synthesize	form (an idea, opinion, conclusion, etc.) by combining parts or elements; to collect information on a topic to summarize, analyze, AND interpret it.
Climax	Most exciting moment of the story	Claim	something which might or might not be accurate. It must be argued
Falling Action	Events after the climax, leading to the resolution	Persuasive Text	type of text attempts to convince a reader to adopt a particular opinion or course of action.
Resolution	part of the plot where the conflict is ended	Thesis	main point or central idea that a writer states and then endeavors to prove
Exposition	beginning of a work that provides necessary background information about the characters and their circumstances	Nonfiction	writing that tells about real people, places, and events
Conflict	the main problem in a literary work	Fiction	A story that is not true or is made up
Structure	The way a piece of writing is organized	author's purpose	The reason the author has for writing. ( Inform, persuade, express, & entertain)
Citation	notation of a source used for a paper	author's point of view	How the author feels about the subject, he or she is writing about

---

Key Passages

Usage and References

Cancer

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Cancer (Page: 209)

Can' cer (?), n. [L. cancer, cancri, crab, ulcer, a sign of the zodiac; akin to Gr. , Skr. karkaa crab, and prob. Skr. karkara hard, the crab being named from its hard shell. Cf. Canner, Chancre.]

1. (Zoöl.) A genus of decapod Crustacea, including some of the most common shore crabs of Europe and North America, as the rock crab, Jonah crab, etc. See Crab.

2. (Astron.) (a) The fourth of the twelve signs of the zodiac. The first point is the northern limit of the sun's course in summer; hence, the sign of the summer solstice. See Tropic. (b) A northern constellation between Gemini and Leo.

3. (Med.) Formerly, any malignant growth, esp. one attended with great pain and ulceration, with cachexia and progressive emaciation. It was so called, perhaps, from the great veins which surround it, compared by the ancients to the claws of a crab. The term it now restricted to such a growth made up of aggregations of epithelial cells, either without support or embedded in the meshes of a trabecular framework. &hand; Four kinds of cancers are recognized: (1) Epithelial cancer, or Epithelioma, in which there is no trabecular framework. See Epithelioma. (2) Scirrhous cancer, or Hard cancer, in which the framework predominates, and the tumor is of hard consistence and slow growth. (3) Encephaloid, Medullary, or Soft cancer, in which the cellular element predominates, and the tumor is soft, grows rapidy, and often ulcerates. (4) Colloid cancer, in which the cancerous structure becomes gelatinous. The last three varieties are also called carcinoma. Cancer cells, cells once believed to be peculiar to cancers, but now know to be epithelial cells differing in no respect from those found elsewhere in the body, and distinguished only by peculiarity of location and grouping. -- Cancer root (Bot.), the name of several low plants, mostly parasitic on roots, as the beech drops, the squawroot, etc. -- Tropic of Cancer. See Tropic.

---

Nonfiction

W. E. B. Du Bois

Jon Reese

1 An outstanding critic, editor, scholar, author, and civil rights leader, W. E. B. Du Bois is certainly among the most influential blacks of the twentieth century. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on February 23, 1868, Du Bois received a bachelor's degree from Fisk University and went on to earn a second bachelor's, as well as a Ph.D., from Harvard. He was for a time professor of Latin and Greek at Wilberforce and the University of Pennsylvania, and also served as a professor of economics and history at Atlanta University.

2 One of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909, Du Bois served as that organization's director of publications and editor of Crisis magazine until 1934. In 1944, he returned from Atlanta University to become head of the NAACP's special research department, a post he held until 1948. Dr. Du Bois emigrated to Africa in 1961, and became editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia Africana, an enormous publishing venture which had been planned by Kwame Nkrumah, since then deposed as president of Ghana. Du Bois died in Ghana on August 27, 1963, at the age of 95.

3 Du Bois wrote numerous books, and it is this enormous literary output on such a wide variety of themes which offers the most convincing testimony to Du Bois's lifetime position that it was vital for blacks to cultivate their own aesthetic and cultural values even as they made valuable strides toward social emancipation. In this he was opposed by Booker T. Washington, who felt that black people should concentrate on developing technical and mechanical skills before all else.

4 Du Bois was one of the first male civil rights leaders to recognize the problems of gender discrimination. He was among the first men to understand the unique problems of black women, and to value their contributions. He supported the women's suffrage movement and strove to integrate this mostly white struggle for the right to participate in elections. He encouraged many black female writers, artists, poets, and novelists, featuring their works in Crisis and sometimes providing personal financial assistance to them. Several of his novels feature women as prominently as men, an unusual approach for any author of his day. Du Bois spent his life working not just for the equality of all men, but for the equality of all people.

---

Fiction

Basketball Blues

Raquel Lindell

Looking at the hard, plaster cast that extended from her hand to her shoulder, Jillian groaned for the billionth time. She couldn't believe that—in a split second—she had broken her arm in two places and had ruined her chances of becoming the leading scorer on the girls' varsity basketball team. She thought back to the moment that had led to her current situation. What seemed at the time as a snappy solution quickly snowballed into a catastrophe.

Jillian sat on her bedroom floor organizing notebooks, folders, and textbooks. She had designated a color to each class—yellow for Accelerated Geometry, green for Chemistry I, orange for American Government, and so on. Jillian always joked that she was only good at two things: organization and basketball. Jillian's mother even teased her daughter about the military precision with which she performed everyday tasks such as making her bed and ironing her clothes. "A place for everything and everything in its place," Jillian always said. In her bedroom, that meant books on the bookshelf, clothes in the closet, and blankets neatly tucked beneath the corners of her mattress. On the basketball court, that meant Jillian poised to make a free throw or a three-pointer at the buzzer.

Jillian glanced at the clock and realized that she would have to hurry to meet her best friend, Vanessa, at the park. She stacked the rainbow of books on her desk and grabbed her sneakers. Suddenly, a light bulb above Jillian flickered a few times and went dark. Jillian checked the clock again and decided that she had to time to change the bulb before she left. She grabbed a new bulb and rolled her desk chair under the light. She unscrewed the old bulb and replaced it with a new one. As she was about to step down, the chair rolled ever so slightly and Jillian lost her balance. She collapsed to the floor with a loud thud, the full weight of her body landing on her right arm. She lay there, whimpering in pain, as her mother raced to her rescue. Four hours, five X-rays, and one heavy plaster cast later, Jillian returned to her house discouraged, disappointed, and disheartened.

Jillian sighed as she picked up the phone. She did not want to make this call. The line rang several times before Jillian's basketball coach, Coach Muenster, answered. Jillian explained the situation and informed Coach that between healing time and physical therapy, she would be unable to play for the entire season. Coach tried to sound supportive and encouraging, but Jillian knew that in her mind she was already reworking the entire offense of the team without one of her star athletes. Nonetheless, she invited Jillian to attend practices to lend moral support to the team.

The following Monday, Jillian changed into her practice uniform and took her place on the wooden bench. Jillian couldn't help but feel jealous when the girls took to the court without her. As she sat there, however, she became engrossed in the girls' movements—a bobbled pass here, a missed block there, an incredible steal. She quickly created a chart, jotting notes about each of her teammates' passes, points, free throws, fouls, and so on in the blocks. Jillian was so focused that she didn't notice Coach Muenster studying the impressive notes over her shoulder.

At the end of practice, when the team huddled for a pep talk, Coach Muenster made a surprise announcement: "I think it's obvious to everyone that Jillian will be out for the season," she said, pointing to Jillian's cast, "but that doesn't mean that she can't be a pivotal part of this team. Until she regains full use of her arm, Jillian will assist me as team manager." She turned to Jillian. "Jillian, let's hear some of those notes."

---

Persuasive Text

Video Games—Play On

Zachary Felton

1 Video games pull players into worlds they could never imagine. In these worlds, players become top athletes, animated characters, alien commanders, and so on. So, if video games use so much imagination, why do people look down on them? News reports today often talk about the bad effects of video games. For example, some blame video games for making children more violent. Others blame them for causing children to sit in front of the television, instead of getting exercise. While such claims may hold some truth, not all video games are bad. In fact, some actually have great benefits.

2 Playing video games on every platform, from large computer displays to handheld devices or even cell phones, improves thinking skills, reaction time, and hand-eye coordination.

3 Research has shown that playing video games is good for players' minds. Video games improve players' thinking skills. A researcher from one study said, "It's difficult to find kids who earn poor grades but who do well in video games." Video games challenge players to recognize patterns and think to survive in the game. Players must use their brains to plan their next move to avoid losing the game.

4 Even simple games seem to boost brainpower. For example, the goal of one popular game is to arrange falling blocks into a solid wall. When the game begins, the blocks drop at a slow pace, giving the player plenty of time to put them in the correct place. As the player gets better at arranging the blocks, the game starts dropping them at a faster rate. The player must speed up his or her thinking to reach the next level of the game.

5 Video games help to improve players' reaction time. Reaction time is the time it takes for a person's body to respond to something. It is important in many sports and day-to-day activities. For example, suppose your mom makes you a cup of hot chocolate. You touch the hot cup and pull your hand away quickly. That is reaction time—the time it takes your mind to tell your hand to pull away from the hot cup. Because video games move at such a fast pace, people who play them improve their reaction times. In video games involving car races, for example, players face obstacles as they speed toward the finish line. Players must rely on reaction time to avoid hitting anything so they can make it to the end.

6 Video games also help hand-eye coordination. This coordination involves turning what our eyes see into physical responses, such as guessing where a ball will fall so we can catch it. People with unusually high hand-eye coordination can go into professions where using their hands is important. A recent study of surgeons found that doctors who played video games were a lot faster at performing difficult operations. In addition, surgeons who played video games made fewer mistakes in operations than those surgeons who did not play video games.

7 Many people are starting to take notice of the benefits of video games. For example, educational computer games are becoming more common in schools as teaching tools. Teachers have found that students enjoy learning through video games. They find the games both fun and educational. This has led to the rise in "edu-tainment," or using educational video games in the classroom to make learning fun. In addition, the U.S. military is now using video games to prepare soldiers for the decision-making skills they will need during combat.

8 On average, children spend one hour per day playing in video game worlds. It is good to know that this time will help them in the future.