Set 1 — Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a science passage on vaccines, and Dickinson's “Hope is the thing with feathers.”
True! I had been nervous, very nervous — but why would you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed them. Above all, my sense of hearing was sharp. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.
I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. But his pale blue eye, with a film over it, troubled me. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so, little by little, I made up my mind to take his life and rid myself of the eye forever.
Every night at midnight I quietly opened his door and looked in. For seven nights I did this, but the old man slept, and the eye was closed, so I could not do the work. It was not the man I hated, only his eye.
On the eighth night the old man woke. I stayed perfectly still in the dark. Then I heard a low, dull sound — the beating of his terrified heart. It grew louder and louder, and I feared a neighbor might hear it.
Later, when police came to ask about a cry in the night, I sat calmly above the very spot where I had hidden him. But the beating returned, louder and louder in my ears, until I could bear it no longer and confessed everything.
Pick an answer; Fred coaches you until you get it. Use the “Jump to paragraph” buttons to find your evidence.
A vaccine teaches the body's immune system to fight a disease before the person ever gets sick. It does this by safely showing the immune system a harmless piece or weakened form of a germ.
When the immune system meets this harmless version, it makes special proteins called antibodies and 'remembers' the germ. The person does not get sick, but the body now has a defense ready.
Later, if the real germ enters the body, the immune system recognizes it at once. It produces antibodies quickly and destroys the invader before it can cause serious illness.
When most people in a community are vaccinated, germs have few places to spread. This protection, called herd immunity, also shields those who cannot be vaccinated, such as newborns.
Thanks to vaccines, diseases that once killed millions, like smallpox, have been controlled or even wiped out. Scientists continue to develop new vaccines to protect public health.
Pick an answer; Fred coaches you until you get it. Use the “Jump to paragraph” buttons to find your evidence.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
Pick an answer; Fred coaches you until you get it. Use the “Jump to paragraph” buttons to find your evidence.
Set 2 — a Sherlock Holmes mystery, a passage on sleep, and Poe's “Eldorado.”
A frightened young woman, Helen Stoner, came to Sherlock Holmes at dawn. She trembled as she spoke, and Holmes noticed at once the mud on her sleeve and the half of a return train ticket in her glove.
“You have come in by train this morning, I see,” said Holmes. The woman started in surprise. Holmes explained that the fresh mud spatters could only have come from a jolting cart on the way to the early train.
Helen told a strange tale: her sister had died two years before, gasping about a “speckled band,” and now she herself heard a low whistle each night in the old manor. She feared for her life.
Holmes listened, his sharp eyes missing nothing. “Your case has some very interesting features,” he said quietly. “We must act at once, for the danger, I fear, is real and close at hand.”
By careful observation and logic — not guesses — Holmes had already begun to piece the mystery together, just as he always solved his cases: detail by detail.
Pick an answer; Fred coaches you until you get it. Use the “Jump to paragraph” buttons to find your evidence.
Sleep may look like doing nothing, but the brain and body are surprisingly busy. During sleep, the body repairs tissues, builds bone and muscle, and strengthens the immune system.
The brain is especially active. While you sleep, it sorts through the day's experiences and moves important information into long-term memory. This is one reason students who sleep well tend to learn better.
Sleep happens in cycles. In deep sleep, the body restores itself. In REM sleep, when most dreaming occurs, the brain is nearly as active as when awake, helping with memory and emotion.
Teenagers need about 8 to 10 hours of sleep, more than adults, because their bodies and brains are still developing. Yet many teens get far less, which can hurt mood, focus, and health.
Scientists agree that good sleep is not a luxury but a need, as important as food and exercise for a healthy life.
Pick an answer; Fred coaches you until you get it. Use the “Jump to paragraph” buttons to find your evidence.
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old -
This knight so bold -
And o’er his heart a shadow -
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow -
“Shadow,” said he,
“Where can it be -
This land of Eldorado?”
“Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,”
The shade replied, -
“If you seek for Eldorado!”
Pick an answer; Fred coaches you until you get it. Use the “Jump to paragraph” buttons to find your evidence.
Set 3 — Stevenson's “Treasure Island,” Kipling's “If—,” and a fable/article paired set.
I remember the old seaman as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow. He was a tall, strong man, brown as a nut, with a dirty blue coat and a scar across one cheek.
He would sit by the fire and sing the wild old sea-songs, and after a few drinks he told dark tales of hanging and walking the plank and storms at sea. My mother and I were both afraid of him, yet he paid his way and we let him stay.
He gave me a silver fourpence each month to “keep my eye open for a seafaring man with one leg” and to warn him the moment such a man appeared. The thought of that one-legged sailor haunted my dreams for years.
One stormy night the captain died suddenly, and in his sea-chest we found a packet of papers sealed and wrapped. Inside was a map — the map of an island, marked with a red cross and the words, “bulk of treasure here.”
From that hour our quiet life was over. The map would carry us across the sea toward danger, adventure, and the buried gold of a dead pirate.
Pick an answer; Fred coaches you until you get it. Use the “Jump to paragraph” buttons to find your evidence.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!
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A shepherd boy watched his flock near a village. Bored, he cried out, “Wolf! Wolf!” The villagers ran to help — but there was no wolf, and the boy laughed at their alarm.
He played the trick again, and again the villagers came running, only to be fooled. Each time, they grew more annoyed at the false alarms.
Then one day a wolf truly came. The boy screamed, “Wolf! Wolf!” — but this time no one came, for no one believed him. The wolf scattered the whole flock. A liar is not believed even when he tells the truth.
Trust is like a bank account: every honest action is a deposit, and every lie is a large withdrawal. It takes many deposits to build a balance, but a single big withdrawal can empty it fast.
Psychologists find that once people catch someone in a lie, they begin to doubt that person's other statements too — even true ones. The damage spreads beyond the single lie.
Rebuilding trust takes time, consistency, and proof. Just as the boy in the fable learned, a reputation for honesty is far easier to keep than to repair once it is broken.
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