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AP LAL Multiple Choice From George Orwell’s “To Shoot an Elephant”

In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter. No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress. As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than once. In the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. There were several thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans.

All this was perplexing and upsetting. For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better. Theoretically – and secretly, of course – I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British. As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos – all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt. But I could get nothing into perspective. I was young and ill-educated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East. I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it. All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest's guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.

One day something happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism – the real motives for which despotic governments act. Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old 44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem. Various Burmans stopped me on the way and told me about the elephant's doings. It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which had gone "must." It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their attack of "must" is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped. Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours' journey away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town. The Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it. It had already destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock; also it had met the municipal rubbish van and, when the driver jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon it...

...I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant – it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery – and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided. And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought then and I think now that his attack of "must" was already passing off; in which case he would merely wander harmlessly about until the mahout came back and caught him. Moreover, I did not in the least want to shoot him. I decided that I would watch him for a little while to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home.

But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives," and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing – no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.

But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to. (Somehow it always seems worse to kill a large animal.) Besides, there was the beast's owner to be considered. Alive, the elephant was worth at least a hundred pounds; dead, he would only be worth the value of his tusks, five pounds, possibly. But I had got to act quickly. I turned to some experienced-looking Burmans who had been there when we arrived, and asked them how the elephant had been behaving. They all said the same thing: he took no notice of you if you left him alone, but he might charge if you went too close to him.

It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior. If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be safe to leave him until the mahout came back. But also I knew that I was going to do no such thing. I was a poor shot with a rifle and the ground was soft mud into which one would sink at every step. If the elephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller. But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only of the watchful yellow faces behind. For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustn't be frightened in front of "natives"; and so, in general, he isn't frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do...

1. The line “I should have about as much chance as a toad under steamroller,” contains which of the following? A) Simile B) Analogy C) Metaphor D) Symbolization E) Allusion

2. The main purpose of this piece is to A) Educate the reader on how to kill an elephant B) Show the author’s inner moral conflict over whether or not to shoot the elephant C) Portray the racism and tyranny of the British Empire D) Show how power can oppress those who hold it E) Give an example of how a majority can beat a powerful minority through unity

3. The tone of this passage can best be described as

A) Serious B) Sarcastic C) Light-hearted D) Passionate E) Depressing

4. What is the author’s attitude toward the natives?

A) Racist B) Supportive C) Neutral D) Patronizing E) Ambivalent

5. What is the author’s main goal in the passage?

A) To save the elephant from an untimely death B) To kill the elephant C) To not debase his reputation D) To avoid getting killed by the crowd of natives E) To protect the natives from the elephant

6. What main political view does the author express?

A) Imperialistic B) Anti-Idiocratic C) Democratic D) Anti-Imperialist E) Fascist

7. What is the meaning of the word “reduced” in “reduced to a grinning corpse”?

A) Lessened B) Subjected to a worse state C) Taken control of D) Removed oxygen from E) Simplified

8. What is the effect of having the crowd follow the author?

A) Gives the author a reason to miss the elephant, as the crowd could get killed if it charges B) Puts pressure on the author to shoot the elephant C) Gives the author support in his quest D) Distracts the author from his mission E) Scares the author

9. Why would the author object to imperialism?

A) It oppresses the natives B) It leads to the colonists being burdened just as much as the natives C) It could lead to violence and war over land D) It’s economically impractical and bad for the pancreas E) The author wouldn’t object to imperialism because imperialism rocks

From “On Stuttering” by Edward Hoagland Stuttering is like trying to run with loops of rope around your feet. And yet you feel that you do want to run because you may get more words out that way before you trip: an impulse you resist so other people won’t tell you to “calm down” and “relax.” Because they themselves may stammer a little bit when jittery or embarrassed, it’s hard for a real stutterer like me to convince a new acquaintance that we aren’t perpetually in such a nervous state and that it’s quite normal for us to be at the mercy of strangers. Strangers are usually civilized, once the rough and sometimes inadvertently hurtful process of recognizing what is wrong with us is over (that we’re not laughing, hiccuping, coughing, or whatever) and in a way we plumb them for signs of schadenfreude. A stutterer knows who the good guys are in any crowded room, as well as the location of each mocking gleam, and even the St. Francis type, who will wait until he thinks nobody is looking to wipe a fleck of spittle off his face. I’ve stuttered for more than sixty years, and the mysteries of the encumbrance still catch me up: being reminded every morning that it’s engrained in my fiber, although I had forgotten in my dreams. Life can become a matter of measuring the importance of anything you have to say. Is it better to remain a pleasant cipher who ventures nothing in particular but chuckles immoderately at everyone else’s conversation, or instead to subject your several companions to the ordeal of watching you struggle to expel opinions that are either blurred and vitiated, or made to sound too emphatic, by all the huffing and puffing, the facial contortions, tongue biting, blushing, and suffering? “Write it down,” people often said to me in school; indeed I sold my first novel before I left college. Self-confidence can reduce a stutter’s dimension (in that sense you do “outgrow” it)… Adrenaline, when I got mad, operated in a similar fashion, though only momentarily. That is, if somebody made fun of me or treated me cavalierly and a certain threshold was crossed, a spurt of chemistry would suddenly free my mouth and—like Popeye grabbing a can of spinach—I could answer him. Poor Billy Budd didn’t learn this technique (and his example frightened me because of its larger implications). Yet many stutterers develop a snappish temperament, and from not sheer frustration but the fact that being more than ready to “lose one’s temper” (as Billy wasn’t) actually helps. As in jujitsu, you can trap an opponent by employing his strength and cruelty against him; and bad guys aren’t generally smart enough to know that if they wait me out, I’ll bog down helplessly all over again. Overall, however, stuttering is not so predictable. Whether rested or exhausted, fibbing or speaking the Simon-pure truth, and when in the company of chums or people whom I don’t respect, I can be fluent or tied in knots. I learned young to be an attentive listener, both because my empathy for others’ worries was honed by my handicap and because it was in my best interest that they talk a lot. And yet a core in you will hemorrhage if you become a mere assenter. How many opinions can you keep to yourself before you choke on them (and turn into a stick of furniture for everybody else)? So, instead, you measure what’s worth specifying. If you agree with two-thirds of what’s being suggested, is it worth the labor of breathlessly elaborating upon the one-third where you differ?... 10. The main purpose of the first paragraph is to

A) Describe how a stutterer deals with other people B) Talk about how bad life is for someone who stutters C) Explain how those who stutter are different from those who don’t D) Describe stuttering with a bizarre analogy E) Mention coping methods for stutterers

11. It can be inferred through this passage that the author is

A) Nervous B) Cynical C) Frustrated D) Comedic E) Diligent

12. The antecedent for “…the mysteries of the encumbrance still catch me up: being reminded every morning that it’s engrained in my fiber,” is

A) It’s B) Mysteries C) Encumbrance D) Being E) Every

13. Which of the following best restates the meaning of “Self-confidence can reduce a stutter’s dimensions”?

A) Confidence leads to less room for the stutter B) Confidence causes more stuttering C) Being confident can reduce stuttering D) With great confidence comes great responsibility E) Confidence is good

14. What is the effect of the author referring to stutterers in paragraph one rather than just mention his own experiences?

A) It makes the author sound worldly B) It gives the passage a more academic tone C) It detaches the author from his personal experiences D) It describes how life is for other stutteres E) It’s easier to emphasize with stutterers

15. The author’s attitude toward his condition can be described as

A) Joking B) Accustomed C) Gloomy D) Paranoid E) Irritated

16. The main conflict the author goes through is

A) Getting people to respect him despite his speech B) Trying to get rid of his speech impediment C) Building up his self-confidence D) Not becoming angry over people’s reactions E) Figuring out when to talk and when not to

From The Writer’s Presence “Me Talk Pretty One Day”

less than sophisticated.
17. What is the purpose of using italics in “If you have not //meimslsxp// or //lgpdmurct// by this time, then you should not be in this room.”

A) Emphasizes words that the teacher stresses B) Illustrates the author’s confusion over the teacher’s speech C) Shows that the author is a bad listener D) Indicates foreign terms E) Covers up swear words

18. The type of humour found in this passage is mainly

A) Full of horrid puns B) Sick and morbid C) Satirical D) Farcical E) Dry

19. All of the following are examples of figurative language except A) “…causing me to feel not unlike Pa Kettle trapped backstage after a fashion show.” B) “…it’s everybody in the language pool, sink or swim.” C) “I’m not completely in the dark, yet I understood..” D) “…billboards picturing a cartoon stegosaurus sitting in a canoe…” E) “…had front teeth the size of tombstones.”

20. What is the main topic of the passage?

A) The alienation the author feels around more talented people B) The difficulties of learning with a sadist teacher C) The hardship one experiences when adjusting to a new country D) Human stupidity E) The author’s struggle to learn a new language

21. The speaker’s feelings toward his classmates in the beginning can be described as

A) Hateful B) Inferior C) Envious D) Friendly E) Shy

22. The attitude the teacher has toward the class is mainly

A) Stern B) Understanding C) Enigmatic D) Harsh E) Indifferent

23. The subject of the sentence in “I’ve moved to Paris with hopes of learning the language,” is

A) I B) Paris C) Language D) To E) Moved

24. “I thought that everyone loved the mosquito, but here, in front of all the world, you claim to detest it…” is an example of

A) Paradox B) Irony C) Sarcasm D) Hyperbole E) Inverted Syntax

25. What is the function of the first two paragraphs in relation to the rest of the passage?

A) Character and setting introduction B) Attention-grabbing action prologue C) In Media Res beginning D) Backstory E) Uninformational acid trip sequence

@Answer Key