(PLEASE HELP ME)

1. Read these excerpts. The first is from Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, and the second is from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

1. “Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit.”

2. “I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-[centered] interests . . . were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books . . .”

How does each author’s language style affect meaning?

A.

It conveys differences in the maturity and background of each story’s characters.

B.

It helps establish authentic historical settings that make the stories distinctly different.

C.

It reveals unstated information about the main characters, creating a mysterious atmosphere.

D.

It plants each story firmly in a specific time period, establishing each story’s credibility.

2. Read the first paragraph from O. Henry’s story “The Gift of the Magi.”

“One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent *imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.”

[*imputation of parsimony: accusation of stinginess]

Why did the author use this paragraph to open his story?

A.
It produces tension that foreshadows later events in the story.
B.
It slows the pace of the story so events do not proceed too quickly.
C.
It creates a conversational tone, as if someone were telling the story aloud.
D.
It reveals important information about one of the story’s important characters.