Melissa+Yang+and+Alex+Wahl

The following passage in an excerpt taken from Stephen Carter's, //The Insufficiency of Honesty.// **THE INSUFFICIENCY OF HONESTY** **Stephen L. Carter** A couple of years ago I began a university com­mencement address by telling the audience that I was going to talk about integrity. The crowd broke into applause. Applause! Just because they had heard the word "integrity;" that's how starved for it they were. They had no idea how I was using the word, or what I was going to say about integrity, or, indeed, whether I was for it or against it. But they knew they liked the idea of talking about it. Very well, let us consider this word "integrity." Integrity is like the weather: everybody talks about it but nobody knows what to do about it. Integrity is that stuff that we always want more of. Some say that we need to return to the good old days when we had a lot more of it. Others say that we as a nation have never really had enough of it. Hardly anybody stops to explain exactly what we mean by it, or how we know it is a good thing, or why everybody needs to have the same amount of it. Indeed, the only trouble with integrity is that everybody who uses the word seems to mean something slightly different. For instance, when I refer to integrity, do I mean simply "honesty"? The answer is no; although honesty is a virtue of importance, it is a different virtue from integrity. Let us, for simplicity, think of honesty as not lying; and let us further accept Sissela Bok's definition of a lie: "any intentionally deceptive message which //is stated."// Plainly, one cannot have integrity without being honest (although, as we shall see, the matter gets complicated), but one can certainly be honest and yet have little integrity. When I refer to integrity, I have something very specific in mind. Integrity, as I will use the term, requires three steps: discerning what is right and what is wrong; acting on what you have discerned, even at personal cost; and saying open­ly that you are acting on your understanding of right and wrong. The first criterion captures the idea that integrity requires a degree of moral reflectiveness. The second brings in the ideal of a person of integrity as steadfast, a quality that includes keeping one's commitments. The third reminds us that a person of integrity can be trusted. The first point to understand about the difference between honesty and integrity is that a person may be entirely honest without ever engaging in the hard work of discernment that integrity requires: she may tell us quite truthfully what she believes without ever taking the time to figure out whether what she believes is good and right and true. The problem may be as simple as someone's foolishly saying something that hurts a friend's feelings; a few moments of thought would have revealed the likelihood of the hurt and the lack of necessity for the comment. Or the problem may be more complex, as when a man who was raised from birth in a society that preaches racism states his belief in one race's inferiority as a fact, without ever really considering that perhaps this deeply held view is wrong. Certainly the racist is being honest - he is telling us what he actually thinks - but his honesty does not add up to integrity.

1. Which of the following literary device is used in line 5?  a. simile  b. metaphor  c. personification  d. onomatopoeia  e. alliteration

2. The tone of this passage is best described as...  a. sarcastic <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> b. contemptuous <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> c. fanciful <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> d. objective <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> e. subjective

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">3. The subject in lines 11-12 is... <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> a. that there is no correlation between honesty and importance <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> b. that honesty and integrity have to do with importance <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> c. that there is an inequality between honesty and integrity <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> d. that importance and integrity are the same <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> e. that honesty and integrity are the same

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">4. This passage is about... <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> a. what people think integrity is <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> b. the meaning of honesty <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> c. why integrity is better than honesty <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> d. the true meaning of integrity <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> e. honesty being negative

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">5. According to the passage, a better understanding of integrity is needed in all of these examples EXCEPT... <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">a. lines 2-4 <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">b. lines 5-6 <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">c. lines 9-10 <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">d. lines 11-12 <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">e. lines 16-20

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">6. The primary comparison in this passage is between... <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">a. integrity and the truth <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">b. honesty and integrity <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">c. the real meaning of honesty and the falsely believed meaning of honesty <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">d. honesty and the truth <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">e. the real meaning of integrity and the falsely believed meaning of integrity

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">7. The phrase on lines 16-20 functions primarily to... <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">a. describe the improper definition of integrity <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">b. describe what is right and what is wrong <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">c. describe the proper definition of integrity <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">d. describes the degree of moral reflectiveness <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">e. describes the qualities a person needs

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">8. The speaker's attitude towards integrity is best described as... <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">a. that the speaker really cares about the definition of honesty <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">b. that the speaker really cares about informing people of the proper definition of integrity <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">c. that the speaker could care less about the difference between honesty and integrity <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">d. that the speaker could care less about the definition of integrity <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">e. that the speaker is too concerned with what other people think integrity means

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Answer Key <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">1. The answer is a. simile. Line 5 states “Integrity is like the weather”.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">2. The answer is e. subjective. The passage is influenced by the author's personal views and opinions about integrity.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">3. The answer is c. that there is an inequality between honesty and integrity. Honesty and integrity are not the same because “honesty is a virtue of importance” which “is a different virtue from integrity.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">4. The answer is d. the true meaning of integrity. Although the author brings up honesty, and what people perceive integrity to be, it is to explain what integrity is.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">5. The answer is e. lines 16-20. Lines 16-20 only describes the definition of what integrity is. It fails to discuss why people should have a better understanding of integrity.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">6. The answer is c. honesty and integrity. Throughout the passage, the author refers back to the differences between honesty and integrity when explaining what integrity is.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">7. The answer is c. to describe the proper definition of integrity. The passage gives the author's three part definition to integrity in these lines (16-20).

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">8. The answer is b. that the speaker really cares about informing people of the proper definition of integrity. The speaker brings up what the wrongly perceived definition of integrity is in order to explain the correct meaning of integrity throughout the passage.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The following passage is an excerpt taken from George Orwell's, //Shooting an Elephant.//

** SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT ** **George Orwell** 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.

1. The tone of this passage is best described as: a. Philosophical, contemptuous b. Conflicted, indecisive c. Caustic, Sulking d. Condescending, Incredulous e. Thoughtful, Resigned

2. What is the function of the “sea of yellow faces” introduced in line 2? a. to help the author if the elephant charges b. to laugh at and taunt the author c. to advise the author on the elephants behavior d. to show the author where the elephant was e. to pressure the author into shooting the elephant

3. The passage is about: a. Contrasting the authors views to that of the Burmese b. Displaying thee white mans dominance in the east c. The author shooting an elephant d. The effects of a crowd of the author’s decision to shoot the elephant e. The moral side effects of killing an animal

4. The speaker’s attitude toward the elephant is best described as one of: a. Compassion b. Hatred c. Disgust d. Respect e. Admiration

5. Which of the following literary devices is used in line 7? a. Metaphor b. Simile c. Personification d. Hyperbole e. Alliteration

6. In lines 6-10, the author asserts all of the following except that: a. He must shoot the elephant b. Two thousand people were watching him c. He is no more than a puppet of the native people d. The pressure of the crowd willing him forward e. The realization of the white mans futility in the east

7. What is the function of the word magical in “ They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching”? a. To show the immense power of the gun b. To emphasize power the rifle has over the crowd and the fate of the elephant c. To connect the rifle to the trick motioned earlier by the speaker d. To display the rifles high value e. To foreshadow the shooting of the elephant

8. The main idea of this passage is best shown in: a. “ And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all.” b. “ And my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.” c. “ It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him” d. “ He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it” e. “ but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind.”

Answer Key 1. Answer: B. The author is conflicted and indecisive about shooting the elephant.

2. Answer E: the answer is e because the “sea of yellow faces” has the function of a puppet master with the author being the puppet. They are controlling him to shoot the elephant. The author does because of his fear of their response if he doesn’t.

3. Answer D: the passage is about the author thinking how he now must shoot the elephant due to the crowd that has followed him.

4. Answer D: Both d, and e, sound like they could work however the speaker seems to have more respect for the elephant, which is why he wishes not to shoot it.

5. Answer A: The metaphor is “ but in reality I was only an absurd puppet”

6. Answer C. The mention of puppet comes later in the passage

7. Answer B: The use of magical in context helps to display the power the rifle has and how only with the rifle does the speaker have the natives respect and attention.

8. Answer E: The main idea of the passage revolves around the pressure of the crowd on the authors decision to shoot the elephant and this is best demonstrated in e.