EngII Formative 2.1B
Some questions (c) 2012 by NWEA.
Page 2
GO ON
excerpted from Cornerstone of Civil Rights
by Julian E. Miranda
Characters
NARRATOR
TOM KENT, Chairman of the House of Burgesses
JOHN FLETCHER, Burgess
JAMES BAKER, Burgess
OTHER BURGESSES, extras
THREE SOLDIERS
JAN, Polish colonist
STEFAN, Polish colonist
THEODORE, Polish colonist
HEDI, Polish colonist
PETER, Polish colonist
NINA, Polish colonist
ANNA, German colonist
FRANZ, German colonist
MARCO, Venetian colonist
STELLA, Venetian colonist
OTHER COLONISTS, extras
SIR GEORGE YEARDLEY, Governor of Virginia
TIME: 1619
SETTING: Meeting room of the Virginia House of Burgesses,* in Jamestown. A lectern
is upright and chairs for the Burgesses face it at an angle down left.
AT RISE: TOM KENT is standing at lectern, addressing assembly. JOHN FLETCHER
Page 3
GO ON
and JAMES BAKER sit in front row, with OTHER BURGESSES filling in chairs behind
them. THREE SOLDIERS guard the door.
NARRATOR: We are in a meeting room of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the first representative
assembly in America. Let’s watch and listen.
TOM KENT: Well, gentlemen, English law and liberty have come to Jamestown. The London company has
issued instructions to our new Governor, Sir George Yeardley, that we shall have a voice in our own
governance.
JOHN FLETCHER: What does that mean?
KENT: It means that the rights of men under English law in the Mother Country will now be available to
Englishmen here. It also means that we may elect a representative assembly to make laws.
JAMES BAKER: Who will elect this assembly? Who will be allowed to vote?
KENT: All free Englishmen, seventeen years of age and upward. Those are the requirements—to be English
and a man.
ALL (Ad lib): Hurrah! Long live King James! Long live freedom for all Englishmen! (Etc. KENT bangs
gavel for silence.)
KENT: Well, gentlemen, it is my suggestion that we adjourn for today and celebrate our new freedom.
(There is a commotion offstage. Shouting is heard. Then JAN, STEFAN, and PETER
appear in doorway.)
JAN: What about us?
STEFAN: We, too, wish to have a voice in government!
1ST SOLDIER (Stepping forward and barring their way): You cannot come in. This is a closed
session.
PETER: We must have a say in the laws that govern us!
2ND SOLDIER (Firmly): You are not Englishmen—and only Englishmen have the right to participate in
this assembly. You must leave. (SOLDIERS push JAN, STEFAN, and PETER out.)
Page 4
GO ON
FLETCHER (Shaking his head): Those troublesome foreigners again—those colonists from Poland, Italy, and
Germany.
BAKER (Incensed): Are they not satisfied to be allowed to come and live here and work with us? This is
an English settlement!
FLETCHER: This is a great piece of insolence.
BURGESSES (Ad lib): Yes, such insolence! What are they thinking? So unreasonable. (Etc. Suddenly,
JAN, STEFAN, THEODORE, PETER, ANNA, FRANZ, MARCO, HEDI, NINA, STELLA
and OTHER COLONISTS burst into room, carrying tools. SOLDIERS try to restrain
them.)
3RD SOLDIER: Stand back! Disperse!
KENT (Loudly, to crowd): What right have you to break into this meeting? (JAN steps forward and
crowd grows quiet.)
JAN (Proudly): I have the same right as any other man in Jamestown. Indeed, my rights are greater—for I
have worked harder and have been here longer than most of you. I came from Poland on one of the first ships.
HEDI: We are not Englishmen, but we work hard. We are shipbuilders, carpenters, sailmakers. We are an
important part of this settlement.
STEFAN: Captain John Smith himself told me he would rather have a few such as we than a hundred lazy,
indolent gentlemen who make nothing but trouble. Yet any idler may have rights I do not possess because he is
from England and I am from Poland.
KENT (Hotly): How dare you come here and make demands upon us and criticize those who are better than
you!
THEODORE (Loudly): We make demands because we do the work of the colony.
PETER: Our contributions to this settlement are great, and we should have a say in how it is run.
FLETCHER (Sarcastically): The next thing you know, the Germans and the Italians and the indentured
servants will be looking for a vote.
Page 5
GO ON
FRANZ (Proudly): Yes! I am Franz, a German, and I am here with my Polish and Italian friends. The Swiss
are with us, too. We all work and struggle here. It is not just Englishmen who have built Jamestown. The
Venetians who are here make glass; those who make tar and pitch, those who build houses, have rights. A man
should be judged for himself and his gift to this settlement, not by his nation.
ANNA: I am Anna, Franz’s wife. I did not come to Jamestown to be the wife of a man who will be ruled by
others merely because he is from a different country than they.
KENT (Matter­of­factly): The London merchants and the King have agreed that only Englishmen shall
have the right to vote in Jamestown. No others!
MARCO (Angrily): I am a glassmaker from Venice. It was because of John and Sebastian Cabot, Italians
like me, that King James has some claim to this land. Did not we Venetians plant our own flag together with the
English flag on these shores? Without other Italians—Columbus, the Cabots and Amerigo Vespucci—would any
of you be here?
KENT (Annoyed): Soldiers, get these men out!
BAKER: Yes, call up the militia and get these men out! (There is movement and angry shouting
among BURGESSES. SOLDIERS advance on COLONISTS.)
STEFAN (Hotly): Very well, then! Very well! If we cannot vote, we will not work. From this time forth we
will lay down our tools! Let us see how well you do with only men of your own nationality. No vote—no work!
BURGESSES (Ad lib): Vote, indeed! How dare they! Foreigners! (SOLDIERS try to crowd
COLONISTS out.)
THEODORE (Shouting over noise): Build your own ships and make your own tar!
MARCO: Make your own glass!
FRANZ: Ja! Ja! Build your own houses.
COLONISTS (Ad lib): No vote, no work! Freedom now! (Etc. They exit, muttering angrily.
BURGESSES speak together in groups excitedly. YEARDLEY enters.)
FLETCHER (Seeing him; relieved): Thank heavens! Here comes Governor Yeardley. (Others quiet
down. Bowing) Welcome, Your Excellency.
Page 6
GO ON
YEARDLEY: Thank you. (Going to lectern; seriously) I have heard what has been going on.
BAKER: Those impudent and ungrateful foreigners!
KENT: We’ll soon have them on their knees!
YEARDLEY (Holding up his hands for quiet): Wait a moment. Let us think about this. Perhaps what
they have asked is reasonable.
KENT (Appalled): Reasonable? Did we found this colony for others? It is English!
1ST BURGESS: Let me speak! (Rising; with heartfelt conviction) Can anyone say that so new a
land as this belongs to any one people? To begin with, it truly belongs to the people of John Rolfe’s wife,
Pocahontas. It was Columbus who brought back news to Europe of a New World. Was he English? No, he was
an Italian, sailing under the Spanish flag, with ships manned by men of many races—Spaniards, black men, who
knows who else. His charts were the work of Hebrews, Arabs, Greeks—learned men of the whole world.
Indeed, it was Italians John and Sebastian Cabot who planted our flag here. As for these workers from many
lands, one of them even saved the life of Captain John Smith. All have worked and fought bravely.
YEARDLEY (Nodding): This man speaks well! Jamestown cannot prosper without labor. These workers
are our very lifeblood. (Pauses, looks around room, then continues seriously) I will send a petition
back, if you are in agreement, to ask the King and the London merchants to allow all settlers here to have a
vote.
*Burgesses: members of the Parliament or legislature
Excerpted from “Cornerstone of Civil Rights” by Julian E. Miranda, from Great American Events on
Stage, copyright © 1996 by Plays. Reprinted by permission of Plays Magazine.
Page 7
GO ON
1
What is the meaning of the word
3
Read the sentences.
indolent as used in this excerpt?
(There is a commotion offstage.
STEFAN: Captain John Smith himself
Shouting is heard.) told me he would rather have a few
such as we than a hundred lazy,
The word commotion conveys a
indolent gentlemen who make nothing
sense of motion that is
but trouble.
A
concealed.
B
disorderly.
C
natural.
A
careless
B
clumsy
C
ignorant
D false.
D sluggish
4
2
Read the sentences.
Read this excerpt from the scene.
His charts were the work of Hebrews,
Arabs, Greeks—learned men of the
. . . Those impudent and ungrateful
whole world. foreigners!
The phrase learned men of the
. . . We’ll soon have them on their
whole world most specifically
knees!
refers to the
F
What is the meaning of the word
impudent?
F
uncertain
G disguised
beliefs of ancient peoples.
G intelligence of ancient peoples.
H prosperity of ancient peoples.
J
politics of ancient peoples.
H unfortunate
J
disrespectful
Page 8
GO ON
Brains and Brawn, One and the Same
by Nicholas Wade
New York Times, 1/25/04
1
If you hit the weights at the gym with iron regularity, your arms may get to look a little more impressive.
The right kind of training, it now appears, can do much the same for the brain, though unfortunately the
enlargement can be shown off only to observers with magnetic resonance imaging* machines.
2
In a study conducted by Dr. Arne May and colleagues at the University of Regensburg in
Germany, people who spent three months learning to juggle showed enlargement of certain areas in
the cerebral cortex, the thin sheet of nerve cells on the brain’s surface where most higher thought processes
seem to be handled. They were then asked to quit juggling completely, and three months later the enlarged
areas of the cortex had started to shrink.
3
The finding, which was reported in the current issue of the journal Nature, is similar to one in a
study of London cab drivers four years ago. Unlike their colleagues in New York, London cabbies
must memorize the entirety of their city’s streets. If some Sunday morning in London you should see
a group of men on bicycles, maps balanced on the handle­bars, those are apprentice cabbies, acquiring “the
knowledge,” as the two­year memorization of London’s many small, winding streets is called. The 2000
study, also done with MRI scanners, found a change in the shape of the cabbies’ hippocampus, the brain
module where new memories of place are stored.
4
Both studies show how malleable the brain is under training, a finding already hinted at by the
brain’s own internal representation, or mapping, of body parts. In monkeys trained to use their fingertips
for some task, the areas of the brain devoted to mapping the fingertips will enlarge, suggesting that
the brain’s various maps of the body are “plastic,” in the parlance** of neurology, not hard­wired.
Page 9
GO ON
5
The MRI scans of jugglers and cabbies showed an enlargement of the gray matter, the brain areas
rich in neurons, as opposed to the white matter, which consists mostly of the biological wiring that connects
neurons. The scanning machines, however, cannot see down to the level of individual neurons, so it is
unclear what is causing the enlargement. Whether new neurons are ever generated in the adult brain has
been a matter of fierce contention,*** the present consensus being that new neurons are created in the hippocampus and olfactory bulb but nowhere else.
6
Dr. May said the enlargement in the jugglers’ cortex could be caused by new cells, whether created
at the site or recruited from other areas, or by new interconnections. He favors the interconnection idea, he
said via e­mail. Pasko Rakic, a brain expert at Yale University, said the study was interesting and confirmed
that the brain is not structurally static, but no conclusion can be drawn as to what may be going on at the
cell level.
7
The brain has about 100 billion neurons, each of which makes on average 1,000 connections with others,
for some 100 trillion interconnections in all, none of them color coded. Learning to juggle, or navigate
London streets, must involve a horrendous rewiring job, but the brain’s electricians seem to know what they
are doing, and no doubt it is good to keep them exercised.
*magnetic resonance imaging: an electronic process that creates images of specific atoms and molecular
structures **parlance: manner of speaking ***contention: discussion, argument
“Brains and Brawn, One and the Same” by Nicholas Wade, from The New York Times, copyright © 2004 by
New York Times. Reprinted by permission of New York Times.
excerpted from How MRI Works: The Basic Idea
by Todd A. Gould
If you have ever seen an MRI machine, you know that the basic design used in most is a giant cube. The cube
in a typical system might be 7 feet tall by 7 feet wide by 10 feet long (2 m by 2 m by 3 m), although new models
are rapidly shrinking. There is a horizontal tube**** running through a magnet from front to back. The patient,
lying on his or her back, slides into the bore on a special table. Whether or not the patient goes in head first or
feet first, as well as how far in the magnet they will go, is determined by the type of exam to be performed.
MRI scanners vary in size and shape, and newer models have some degree of openness around the sides, but
the basic design is the same. Once the body part to be scanned is in the exact center of the magnetic field, the
scan can begin.
In conjunction with radio wave pulses of energy, the MRI scanner can pick out a very small point inside the
patient’s body and ask it, essentially, “What type of tissue are you?” The point might be a cube that is half a
millimeter on each side. The MRI system goes through the patient’s body point by point, building up a 2­D or 3­
D map of tissue types. It then integrates all of this information together to create 2­D images or 3­D models.
Page 10
GO ON
MRI provides an unparalleled view inside the human body. The level of detail we can see is extraordinary
compared with any other imaging modality. MRI is the method of choice for the diagnosis of many types of
injuries and conditions because of the incredible ability to tailor the exam to the particular medical question being
asked. ****horizontal tube: this tube is known as the bore of the magnet
“How MRI Works: The Basic Idea” by Todd A. Gould, from HowStuffWorks.com, copyright © 2004 by How
Stuff Works, Inc. Used by permission.
Page 11
GO ON
5
Read the sentence from
7
Read this excerpt from Paragraph
Paragraph 1 of “Brains and Brawn,
4 of “Brains and Brawn, One and
One and the Same.”
the Same.”
If you hit the weights at the gym with
In monkeys trained to use their
iron regularity, your arms may get to
fingertips for some task, the areas of
look a little more impressive.
the brain devoted to mapping the
fingertips will enlarge, suggesting that
The word iron is used to convey a
the brain’s various maps of the body
sense of
are “plastic,” . . . not hard­wired.
A
power.
B
inflexibility.
C
unpredictability.
D enthusiasm.
The author uses the word plastic
to suggest that the brain’s various
maps are
A
flexible.
B
replaceable.
C
reproducible.
D transparent.
6
Read the sentence.
Learning to juggle, or navigate London
streets, must involve a horrendous
rewiring job, but the brain’s
electricians seem to know what they
are doing, . . .
The word horrendous is used to
suggest something that is
F
dangerous.
G complex.
H expensive.
J
rare.
Page 12
GO ON
8
What does the word module mean
10
Read these sentences from “How
as used in this excerpt?
MRI Works: The Basic Idea.”
The 2000 study, also done with MRI
MRI provides an unparalleled view
scanners, found a change in the shape
inside the human body. The level of
of the cabbies’ hippocampus, the brain
detail we can see is extraordinary
module where new memories of place
compared with any other imaging
are stored.
modality.
F
What does modality mean in
command
these sentences?
G feature
F
H section
J
method
G solution
width
H theory
J
9
understanding
In this sentence, what does
consensus mean?
Whether new neurons are ever
generated in the adult brain has been
a matter of fierce contention, the
present consensus being that new
neurons are created in the
hippocampus and olfactory bulb but
nowhere else.
A
proven fact
B
individual theory
C
general agreement
D difference of opinion
Page 13
BE SURE YOU HAVE RECORDED ALL OF YOUR ANSWERS
ON YOUR ANSWER DOCUMENT
STOP