Answer:
English 9 Practice Final B
DIRECTIONS: Read and T4 the two selections and the viewing and representing piece. Then,
answer the questions that follow.
“Slim” by Carol Cullar
Shamrock, Texas, in August of 1937
The rolling prairie stretched from the Rockies to the Ozarks across a thousand miles of gently rolling hills cut by dry river beds and small farms plowed higgledy-piggledy and sown with acres of wheat—millions of acres of wheat planted to answer the government’s cry during World War I. Slow to convert, some of the farmers were switching to cotton and corn, but too few had gone to modern agricultural methods. Spirits reeled from the War, the Influenza of 1918–19, the Crash. When the market collapsed, they lost money, then equipment, their farms,
and heart. As if unsatisfied with the havoc wreaked, Nature unleashed The Drought and aimed it like some great magnifying lens focused incessantly on the western farmland of Oklahoma. Fickle rains fell, only to be sucked away by the burning
air. Elsewhere, entire sections flash-flooded away for want of contour plowing. The atmosphere became a destructive engine powering itself on heated updrafts, pulling erosive ground-winds into its maw, along with the topsoil, then the subsoil, and the hopes of all those tied to the land. Thousands quit when the dust storms began to rage; some went insane as the dust-laden, ionized wind scoured every crevice and
left nowhere to hide, nowhere to run except away—to California, to South Texas, battered tin dipper in her hand and with a deft flick of the wrist splashed what was left of her drink over the top portion of the flour sack stitched there. The cascading droplets wet the thin fabric, and a breeze blew the cooler air over her. She closed her eyes and
breathed.
“Hey!” The startled voice was deep and unfamiliar and cme from the glaring haze on the other side of the screen.
“Oh! I’m so sorry! Let me get a towel!” Bessie pushed the screen past its buffer catch and opened it wide. A hobo stood on the stoop, his cap in hand; he mopped his forehead with a red bandanna.
“You didn’t get me very wet!” After his first quick glance upward, he fixed his gaze respectfully on the yellow tom that came to swish about her ankles.
Bessie searched the high-buttoned front of his fade
Step-by-step explanation: