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NAME
CLASS
SELECTION TEST
DATE
Student Edition page 47
The Pedestrian
SCORE
LITERARY RESPONSE AND ANALYSIS
Ray Bradbury
COMPREHENSION (40 points; 4 points each)
On the line provided, write the letter of the best answer to each of the following items.
______ 1. Problems begin for Leonard Mead one evening when he —
A has an argument with his wife
B goes out for a walk
C picks up a stray cat
D runs from the police
______ 2. Why is there only one police car left in the city?
F
Criminals have taken over the city and abolished the police.
G The one police car is so heavily armed that it can handle many crimes at once.
H There is almost no crime anymore in the city where Mead lives.
J
No one wants to be a police officer anymore in Mead’s city.
______ 3. Something that everyone else in Mead’s city enjoys that he does not is —
A watching television
B taking walks
C reading books
D laughter
______ 4. Which of the following statements about Mead is false?
He has walked the streets alone every night for years.
G He is happily married and has two children.
H He wears sneakers so that the dogs won’t hear him.
J
His house is the only brightly lit house in the neighborhood.
______ 5. Why does Mead agree that writing is not a profession?
A Writers do not need a professional license.
B Writers are not needed for television shows.
C Mead no longer earns a living from writing.
D Mead doesn’t consider writing to be important.
______ 6. Why is there no one in the police car?
F
Mead only imagines the car.
G The lights are too bright to see anyone inside it.
H The police are hidden nearby.
J
24
The car is completely computerized.
Holt Assessment: Literature, Reading, and Vocabulary
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
F
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______ 7. The police probably consider all the following behaviors to be regressive except —
A walking at night
B being single
C seeking fresh air outside
D owning a viewing screen
______ 8. Which of the following statements best expresses the main idea of “The Pedestrian”?
F
People should be aware of police brutality.
G Writers will be unemployed in the future.
H Technology deadens feelings and life in people.
J
The future will be better for all humans.
______ 9. Why does Mead claim he should not be arrested?
A His wife can give him an alibi.
B He has not committed a crime.
C The police have confused him with someone else.
D He has important business at home.
______ 10. The police car takes Mead to a place where he will be —
F
kept in jail without a trial
G tortured without mercy
H given a choice of prison or exile
J
given psychiatric treatment
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
LITERARY FOCUS (20 points; 5 points each)
On the line provided, write the letter of the best answer to each of the following items.
______ 11. The setting of “The Pedestrian” is a city —
A resembling Los Angeles in 2053
B resembling New York in 2003
C in the Midwest in 2103
D on Mars in 2103
______ 12. In the opening paragraph, Mead peers “down long moonlit avenues of sidewalk.” As
the story proceeds, the emotion of the description shifts from —
F
dreary to encouraging
G innocently friendly to suddenly scary
H oddly familiar to definitely chilling
J
The Pedestrian
bleak to bland
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______ 13. What kind of mood or atmosphere does the setting suggest?
A Cheerful and optimistic
B Extremely terrifying
C Eerie and surreal
D Private and serene
______ 14. If the story were set in France instead of the United States, which of the following
factors would result?
F
American readers would not so easily identify the story with their own country.
G The story would not be written in English.
H The whole plot would have to be scrapped and rewritten.
J
The police would not be nasty to Mead.
VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT (20 points; 4 points each)
On the lines provided, write the Vocabulary word that has the opposite meaning
of the italicized word or phrase in each of the following sentences.
ebbing
regressive
manifest
intermittent
antiseptic
15. The sounds of gunfire came in regular bursts from the televisions.
16. Mead’s dislike of television is kept hidden in the story.
17. Mead’s good humor was growing greater as he continued to be
questioned.
19. The dirty police car ordered Mead to get inside.
CONSTRUCTED RESPONSE (20 points)
20. Stories can mean different things to different readers. On a separate sheet
of paper, state a meaning you find in “The Pedestrian,” and then discuss
how the story’s setting is relevant to that meaning.
26
Holt Assessment: Literature, Reading, and Vocabulary
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
18. In the futuristic culture portrayed in the story, having no television
is considered to be forward thinking.
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Answer Key
Double Daddy
Constructed Response
by Penny Parker
20. Students’ responses will vary. A sample
response follows:
Diary of a Mad Blender
The premature birth and death of the
narrator’s sister is something that happened before the narrator was born. The
author places the event at the end of the
long flashback that narrates the experiences
of the Flying Avalons and the disaster that
ended their career. The preceding event is
the disaster, which the mother survives
with burns; the subsequent event is the
mother’s meeting and relationship with the
narrator’s father. Because the mother was
in a hospital after she lost the baby, she met
the narrator’s father; thus, it’s possible that
the narrator owes her life to the death of
her older sister.
by Sue Shellenbarger
The Child’s View of Working
Parents
by Cora Daniels
Selection Test, page 18
Comprehension
1. B
2. H
3. D
4. J
5. A
Vocabulary Development
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
autonomy
poignant
phenomenon
The Pedestrian
integrate
by Ray Bradbury
Selection Test, page 24
colleague
The Leap
Comprehension
by Louise Erdrich
Selection Test, page 20
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
Comprehension
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
B
H
A
J
C
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
H
A
B
H
A
G
C
G
Literary Focus
D
11. A
12. H
F
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
J
D
H
B
J
13. C
14. F
Vocabulary Development
Literary Focus
11. C
12. H
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
13. D
14. G
Vocabulary Development
15. D
18. G
16. F
19. D
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
intermittent
manifest
ebbing
regressive
antiseptic
17. B
Answer Key
291
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Answer Key
20. Students’ responses will vary. A sample
response follows:
The meaning I get from “The
Pedestrian” is that it’s dangerous to be a
free-thinking individual in a technological
society. Bradbury’s picture of 2053 society
is conveyed largely through setting. The
congestion of the streets in the daytime is
contrasted with their emptiness at night,
the eerie silence of residential streets, and
the ghostly gray flickering light from innumerable television sets in innumerable
blank houses.
Mead’s freedom of thought, meanwhile, is also reflected largely through setting. He walks on the street instead of
remaining hidden in his house. He
breathes fresh air instead of air-conditioned
air. He views the landscape firsthand
instead of on an electronic screen. His
desire to be in a setting of his own free
choice—a setting that gives him personal
joy—is something the mechanized
guardians of his society find dangerous. So
they whisk him away from that setting and
place him in the officially approved but
certainly destructive setting of the
Psychiatric Center for Research on
Regressive Tendencies.
Collection 1 Summative Test,
page 27
Vocabulary Skills
1. B
2. F
3. D
292
Making Predictions
11. Students’ responses may vary. A sample
response follows:
The father protects his sons; the sons
may return the favor. As the father is getting older, perhaps the sons will save his
life in turn by rushing him to a hospital if
he falls ill.
Analyzing Cause and Effect
12. Students’ responses may vary. A sample
response follows:
They are silent because they are overwhelmed and stunned by what they see
and by the memory of what they have just
experienced. This inference is based on the
fact that the storm was a shock that almost
caused the boys to panic. In fact, they were
silent previously when they huddled
around the wagon in fear. The sight of the
ice on the roads, the broken windshields,
and the memory of the storm must have
affected them deeply.
Determining an Author’s Purpose
13. Students’ responses may vary. A sample
response follows:
The writer wants the reader to know
that a father’s love for his children is
strong, regardless of whether he is rich
or poor.
Literary Focus: Constructed Response
4. H
5. B
Comprehension
6. H
7. C
8. J
Reading Skills and Strategies:
Constructed Response
9. A
10. F
14. Students’ responses may vary. A sample
response follows:
One of the father’s traits that dominates
the entire plot is his devotion to his family.
If this trait were not so extreme—if it were
only moderate—he would not pull the
wagon to the garbage dump every
Saturday, and thus the story would not
even get started. This trait is shown not
only in these physical actions but also in
the encouraging things he says to his sons
when they are hiding from the hailstorm.
Holt Assessment: Literature, Reading, and Vocabulary
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
Constructed Response