SHARKS' TEETH Langston Carter

The day we found the sharks' teeth was foggy and cool. Moisture hung in the air so thick you could almost see it sparkling in the dim sunlight. There were days, early in the summer like this one, where it seemed there was more water in the air than in the bay. We had beached the boat and stepped out on the recently cleared spit of land. The ground had a light dusting of white sand over an under layer of dried black mud. It looked like a recently frosted chocolate cake, though the frosting was spread a bit thin for my taste. The ground was solid, but we knew from experience that it was full of fiddler crab holes, and would be underwater at the first super-high tide. Mysteriously, to us anyway, someone wanted to build a house there.

We often came to these spots to look for artifacts. Our beach, our summer home, had been a fishing camp for as long as anyone living could remember. The oldest stories told of travelers coming down to the edge of the sea, lining up to fill their wagon beds with salted fish to take back home. Old decaying cabins still lined the beach. Rotting nets, hung out to dry in the last century, decorated their weathered walls. Their broken faces spun stories in our minds. The fishermen who, tanned and wrinkled from sun and salt, hauled their nets full of splashing mullet in to cheers from the waiting crowds. The bounty of the sea lightened everyone's hearts, and the smell of roasting fish filled the damp air. Women fanned themselves from wagon seats. Children splashed in the shallow edges of the bay. It was a scene we had acted out as youngsters, building an imaginary bridge to a life we would never fully know.

Read this sentence from the text:

Old decaying cabins still lined the beach.

What is the main effect of the word decaying in this sentence?

It suggests a dislike of the cabins.
It suggests a fearful community.
It suggests a lack of life.
It suggests something horrible happened.

In another country by ernest hemingway (excerpts) excerpt 1 "in the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more. it was cold in the fall in milan and the dark came very early. then the electric lights came on, and it was pleasant along the streets looking in the windows. there was much game hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered in the fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. the deer hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the wind and the wind turned their feathers. it was a cold fall and the wind came down from the mountains." excerpt 2 "the people hated us because we were officers, and from a wine-shop someone called out, "a basso gli ufficiali! " as we passed. another boy who walked with us sometimes and made us five wore a black silk handkerchief across his face because he had no nose then and his face was to be rebuilt. he had gone out to the front from the military academy and been wounded within an hour after he had gone into the front line for the first time. they rebuilt his face, but he came from a very old family and they could never get the nose exactly right. he went to south america and worked in a bank. but this was a long time ago, and then we did not any of us know how it was going to be afterward. we only knew then that there was always the war, but that we were not going to it any more." 19 select the correct answer. what important fact about the wounded soldiers is reflected by the repetition of the bolded sentences in the excerpts from "in another country" by ernest hemingway? a. it establishes the irony that, although the wounded soldiers have physically left the warfront, the war continues to haunt them psychologically. b. it shows the gradual loss of hope and growing depression of the wounded soldiers and their need for distractions. c. it establishes the wounded soldiers’ determination to shun war and disobey military commands to return to the front after they recover. d. it shows the wounded soldiers’ sadness and disappointment at the lack of gratitude from the people they risked their lives to protect. e. it shows the wounded soldiers’ belief that the war would never end, even as thousands of soldiers were killed or wounded and sent to hospitals. reset next