Analyzing How Story Elements Interact

Read the passage below, and answer the question.

Once upon a time, there were no rivers and lakes on earth, but only the Eastern Sea, in which lived four dragons: the Long Dragon, the Yellow Dragon, the Black Dragon, and the Pearl Dragon. One day the four dragons flew from the sea into the sky. They soared and dived, playing at hide-and-seek in the clouds.

“Come over here quickly!” the Pearl Dragon cried out suddenly.

“What’s up?” asked the other three, looking down in the direction where the Pearl Dragon pointed.

On the earth they saw many people putting out fruits and cakes, and burning incense sticks. They were praying! A white-haired woman, kneeling on the ground with a thin boy on her back, murmured,

“Please send rain quickly, God of Heaven, to give our children rice to eat.”

For there had been no rain for a long time. The crops withered, the grass turned yellow and fields cracked under the scorching sun.

“How poor the people are!” said the Yellow Dragon. “And they will die if it doesn’t rain soon.”

The Long Dragon nodded. Then he suggested, “Let’s go and beg the Jade Emperor for rain.”

So saying, he leapt into the clouds. The others followed closely and flew towards the Heavenly Palace. Being in charge of all the affairs in heaven, on earth, and in the sea, the Jade Emperor was very powerful. He was not pleased to see the dragons rushing in.

“Why do you come here instead of staying in the sea and behaving yourselves?”

The Long Dragon stepped forward and said, “The crops on earth are withering and dying, Your Majesty. I beg you to send rain down quickly!”

All right. You go back first, I’ll send some rain down tomorrow.” The Jade Emperor pretended to agree while listening to the songs of the fairies.

The four dragons responded, “Thanks, Your Majesty!”

The four dragons went happily back. But ten days passed, and not a drop of rain came down. The people suffered more, some eating bark, some grass roots, some forced to eat white clay when they ran out of bark and grass roots. Seeing all this, the four dragons felt very sorry, for they knew the Jade Emperor only cared about pleasure, and never took the people to heart. They could only rely on themselves to relieve the people of their miseries. But how to do it? Seeing the vast sea, the Long Dragon said that he had an idea.

“What is it? Out with it, quickly!” the other three demanded.

“Look, is there not plenty of water in the sea where we live? We should scoop it up and spray it towards the sky. The water will be like rain drops and come down to save the people and their crops,” said Long Dragon.

“Good idea!” said the others as they clapped their hands.

“But,” said the Long Dragon after thinking a bit, “we will be blamed if the Jade Emperor learns of this.”

“I will do anything to save the people,” the Yellow Dragon said resolutely.

“Then let’s begin. We will never regret it,” said Long Dragon.

The Black Dragon and the Pearl Dragon were not to be outdone. They flew to the sea, scooped up water in their mouths, and then flew back into the sky where they sprayed the water out over the earth. The four dragons flew back and forth, making the sky dark all around. Before long the sea water became rain pouring down from the sky.

“It’s raining! It’s raining! The crops will be saved!” the people cried and leaped with joy.

On the ground the wheat stalks raised their heads and the sorghum stalks straightened up. The god of the sea discovered these events and reported to the Jade Emperor.

“How dare the four dragons bring rain without my permission!” said the Jade Emperor.

The Jade Emperor was enraged, and ordered the heavenly generals and their troops to arrest the four dragons. Being far outnumbered, the four dragons could not defend themselves, and they were soon arrested and brought back to the heavenly palace.

“Go and get four mountains to lay upon them so that they can never escape!” The Jade Emperor ordered the Mountain God.

The Mountain God used his magic power to make four mountains fly there, whistling in the wind from afar, and pressed them down upon the four dragons. lmprisoned as they were, they never regretted their actions. Determined to do good for the people forever, they turned themselves into four rivers, which flowed past high mountains and deep valleys, crossing the land from the west to the east and finally emptying into the sea. And so China’s four great rivers were formed—the Heilongjian (Black Dragon) in the far north, the Huanghe (Yellow River) in central China, the Changjiang (Yangtze, or Long River) farther south, and the Zhujiang (Pearl) in the very far south.

Which difference in attitudes between the Jade Emperor and the dragons influences events later in the story?

• The Jade Emperor is amused by the needs of the people, and the dragons are annoyed.

• The Jade Emperor is angered by the needs of the people, and the dragons are pleased.

• The Jade Emperor is indifferent to the needs of the people, and the dragons are concerned.

• The Jade Emperor is upset about the needs of the people, and the dragons are worried.

Tags

CCSS.RL.1.10

CCSS.RL.2.2

CCSS.RL.3.2

CCSS.RL.K.5

Read the passage below, and answer the question.

Once upon a time, there were no rivers and lakes on earth, but only the Eastern Sea, in which lived four dragons: the Long Dragon, the Yellow Dragon, the Black Dragon, and the Pearl Dragon. One day the four dragons flew from the sea into the sky. They soared and dived, playing at hide-and-seek in the clouds.

“Come over here quickly!” the Pearl Dragon cried out suddenly.

“What’s up?” asked the other three, looking down in the direction where the Pearl Dragon pointed.

On the earth they saw many people putting out fruits and cakes, and burning incense sticks. They were praying! A white-haired woman, kneeling on the ground with a thin boy on her back, murmured,

“Please send rain quickly, God of Heaven, to give our children rice to eat.”

For there had been no rain for a long time. The crops withered, the grass turned yellow and fields cracked under the scorching sun.

“How poor the people are!” said the Yellow Dragon. “And they will die if it doesn’t rain soon.”

The Long Dragon nodded. Then he suggested, “Let’s go and beg the Jade Emperor for rain.”

So saying, he leapt into the clouds. The others followed closely and flew towards the Heavenly Palace. Being in charge of all the affairs in heaven, on earth, and in the sea, the Jade Emperor was very powerful. He was not pleased to see the dragons rushing in.

“Why do you come here instead of staying in the sea and behaving yourselves?”

The Long Dragon stepped forward and said, “The crops on earth are withering and dying, Your Majesty. I beg you to send rain down quickly!”

All right. You go back first, I’ll send some rain down tomorrow.” The Jade Emperor pretended to agree while listening to the songs of the fairies.

The four dragons responded, “Thanks, Your Majesty!”

The four dragons went happily back. But ten days passed, and not a drop of rain came down. The people suffered more, some eating bark, some grass roots, some forced to eat white clay when they ran out of bark and grass roots. Seeing all this, the four dragons felt very sorry, for they knew the Jade Emperor only cared about pleasure, and never took the people to heart. They could only rely on themselves to relieve the people of their miseries. But how to do it? Seeing the vast sea, the Long Dragon said that he had an idea.

“What is it? Out with it, quickly!” the other three demanded.

“Look, is there not plenty of water in the sea where we live? We should scoop it up and spray it towards the sky. The water will be like rain drops and come down to save the people and their crops,” said Long Dragon.

“Good idea!” said the others as they clapped their hands.

“But,” said the Long Dragon after thinking a bit, “we will be blamed if the Jade Emperor learns of this.”

“I will do anything to save the people,” the Yellow Dragon said resolutely.

“Then let’s begin. We will never regret it,” said Long Dragon.

The Black Dragon and the Pearl Dragon were not to be outdone. They flew to the sea, scooped up water in their mouths, and then flew back into the sky where they sprayed the water out over the earth. The four dragons flew back and forth, making the sky dark all around. Before long the sea water became rain pouring down from the sky.

“It’s raining! It’s raining! The crops will be saved!” the people cried and leaped with joy.

On the ground the wheat stalks raised their heads and the sorghum stalks straightened up. The god of the sea discovered these events and reported to the Jade Emperor.

“How dare the four dragons bring rain without my permission!” said the Jade Emperor.

The Jade Emperor was enraged, and ordered the heavenly generals and their troops to arrest the four dragons. Being far outnumbered, the four dragons could not defend themselves, and they were soon arrested and brought back to the heavenly palace.

“Go and get four mountains to lay upon them so that they can never escape!” The Jade Emperor ordered the Mountain God.

The Mountain God used his magic power to make four mountains fly there, whistling in the wind from afar, and pressed them down upon the four dragons. lmprisoned as they were, they never regretted their actions. Determined to do good for the people forever, they turned themselves into four rivers, which flowed past high mountains and deep valleys, crossing the land from the west to the east and finally emptying into the sea. And so China’s four great rivers were formed—the Heilongjian (Black Dragon) in the far north, the Huanghe (Yellow River) in central China, the Changjiang (Yangtze, or Long River) farther south, and the Zhujiang (Pearl) in the very far south.

How does the conflict in paragraphs 4–7 contribute to the dragons’ decisions?

• By giving a description of how a ceremony was performed

• By showing the reasons why the dragons disobeyed the Jade Emperor

• By comparing the peoples’ lifestyle with the lifestyle of the Jade Emperor

• By describing a common scene in a Chinese village

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CCSS.RI.11-12.10

CCSS.RL.11-12.10

CCSS.RL.5.10

CCSS.RL.6.10

CCSS.RL.7.10

Read the passage below, and answer the question.

My first bike got me nowhere, though the shadow I cast as I pedaled raced along my side. The leaves of bird-filled trees stirred a warm breeze and litter scuttled out of the way. Our orange cats looked on from the fence, their tails up like antennas. I opened my mouth, and wind tickled the back of my throat. When I squinted, I could see past the end of the block. My hair flicked like black fire, and I thought I was pretty cool riding up and down the block, age five, in my brother’s hand-me-down shirt.

Going up and down the block was one thing, but taking the first curve, out of sight of Mom and the house, was another. I was scared of riding on Sarah Street. Mom said hungry dogs lived on that street, and red anger lived in their eyes. Their throats were hard with extra bones from biting kids on bikes, she said.

But I took the corner anyway. I didn’t believe Mom. Once she had said that pointing at rainbows caused freckles, and after a rain had moved in and drenched the streets, after the sparrows flitted onto the lawn, a rainbow washed over the junkyard and reached the dark barrels of Coleman pickle. I stood at the window, looking out, amazed and devious, with the devilish horns of my butch haircut standing up. From behind the window, I let my finger slowly uncurl like a bean plant rising from earth. I uncurled it, then curled it back and made a fist. I should remember this day, I told myself.

I pedaled my squeaky bike around the curve onto Sarah Street, but returned immediately. I braked and looked back at where I had gone. My face was hot, my hair sweaty, but nothing scary seemed to happen. The street had looked like our street: parked cars, tall trees, a sprinkler hissing on a lawn, and an old woman bending over her garden. I started again, and again I rode the curve, my eyes open as wide as they could go. After a few circle eights I returned to our street. There ain’t no dogs, I told myself. I began to think that maybe this was like one of those false rainbow warnings.

I turned my bike around and rode a few times in front of our house, just in case Mom was looking for me. I called out, “Hi Mom. I haven’t gone anywhere.” I saw her face in the window, curlers piled high, and she waved a dish towel at me. I waved back, and when she disappeared, I again tore my bike around the curve onto Sarah Street. I was free. The wind flicked my hair and cooled my ears. I did figure eights, rode up the curbs and onto lawns, bumped into trees, and rode over a garden hose a hundred times because I liked the way the water sprang up from the sprinkler after the pressure of my tires. I stopped when I saw a kid my age come down a porch. His machinery for getting around was a tricycle. Big baby, I thought, and said, “You can run over my leg with your trike if you want.” I laid down on the sidewalk, and the kid, with fingers in his mouth, said, “OK.”

He backed up and slowly, like a tank, advanced. I folded my arms behind my head and watched a jay swoop by with what looked like a cracker in its beak, when the tire climbed over my ankle and sparks of pain cut through my skin. I sat up quickly, my eyes flinging tears like a sprinkler.

The boy asked, “Did it hurt?”

“No,” I said, almost crying.

The kid could see that it did. He could see my face strain to hold back a sob, two tears dropping like dimes into the dust. He pedaled away on his bucket of bolts and tossed it on his front lawn. He looked back before climbing the stairs and disappeared into the house.

How does the setting help to develop the plot of the passage?

• It builds a sense of mystery.

• It reveals how a young person pushes boundaries to be more independent.

• It illustrates that playmates can be found almost anywhere.

• It creates an image of how a neighborhood can provide a sense of security.

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CCSS.RL.11-12.3

CCSS.RL.5.3

CCSS.RL.7.3

CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

Read the passage, and answer the question below.

A cold wind sliced through Pearl Street as Phoenix Dance stood by the shoemaker’s window staring at a sign wedged between a pair of black-and-white satin shoes. The sign said, in crudely written letters: Apprentice wanted, inquire within.

As Phoenix’s cloak and her patched brown skirt blew around her, a twinge of excitement shot from her feet to the crown of her head. She could not believe her eyes. The sign had not been there yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that. Nearly every day for the past three months she had stood at this window dreaming of being the shoemaker’s apprentice. Phoenix gazed at the exquisite shoes with their rhinestones and ribbons and rosettes, then touched the scrolling blue lettering painted on the window that said: Percy Snailkips Shoemaker to the Royal Household, by Appointment to Her Majesty, Queen Zandora of the Royal House of Seaborne.

Imagine making shoes for the queen! Phoenix smiled and clapped her hands. Why shouldn’t she be Percy Snailkips’s new apprentice?

A blur of movement rippled behind the glass; two people were coming out of the shop, probably to chase her away as usual. Before they could, Phoenix ran around the corner, down a side street, around another corner, and into the alley until she reached the rubbish can behind the shoemaker’s shop. She took a deep breath and then lifted the lid off the can. The smell of rotting turnips assaulted her nose.

As Phoenix began picking through the garbage, bright treasures shone among the apple peels and soggy tea leaves—six brass beads, two crumpled peacock feathers, and a patch of glue-stained red velvet the size of her palm. Phoenix stuffed them into her cloak pocket. Her hands were cold, like the rest of her. On the island of Faranor, the capital of the archipelago kingdom of Windward, the late winter month of Zephyrus was always cold and wet, with chill winds blowing in from the islands in the Northern Reach. Phoenix had just spied a snippet of tapestry ribbon down deep when a door creaked.

“You!” A boy stuck his blond head out of the shoemaker’s back door. Phoenix knew she should run, but she wanted that bit of ribbon.

“First you go pressing your hands and your snotty nose against the shop window,” the boy said, “every day without fail. Saw you there a minute ago. Now I got to wash it off again. And here you are, snooping in the alley. How many times have I told you to keep clear of the shop? I’ll set the guards on you, I swear I will.”

“Go ahead,” Phoenix said, moving a jar in the rubbish can.

“I’ll see you rot in Five Towers Prison!” the boy exclaimed.

“Kloud’s Thunder, what’s all this racket?” And the shoemaker himself, Percy Snailkips, came to the door. “Why are you letting in all the cold wind, Alfred?” The shoemaker’s brown leather apron bulged over his fat stomach. Beneath the apron, he wore a red shirt and brown pants. The wind ruffled the tufts of hair that fringed the top of his bald head. Phoenix gazed at him with awe. Had his sausage-like fingers really fashioned the delicate, fanciful shoes in the shop window?

“It’s that snot-nosed beggar girl again,” the boy said. “Picking through our trash.”

‘‘I’m no beggar.” Phoenix reached for the tapestry ribbon. ‘‘I’m just looking for little pretties. You don’t want them. You threw them out. I’m not hurting anything.” She seized the ribbon, which was a good three inches long, and backed away. Now she could run.

“What do you want the scraps for?” The shoemaker scratched his head. “Making clothes for your dolly?”

“No!” Phoenix exclaimed. “I’m too old for dolls. I want them same as you, sir, for shoemaking.”

He looked at her battered shoes with holes in the toes.

“For my aunts,” she explained. “They’re street dancers. Best you’ll see in Faranor, too. And they need pretty doodads for their dancing slippers.”

“I see.” The shoemaker nodded. “So, Alfred, it seems we have a fellow shoemaker here. A person worthy of respect.”

In paragraph five, what does the detailed description of the materials Phoenix finds suggest about the characters?

• Phoenix is aware of the materials, while Percy and Alfred are not.

• Phoenix is aware of the materials, while Percy and Alfred are not.

• Phoenix is easily able to locate the materials, while Percy and Alfred have trouble.

• Percy and Alfred view the materials as worthless, while Phoenix thinks they are valuable.

Tags

CCSS.RL.5.1

CCSS.W.5.9A

Read the passage, and answer the question below.

We floated for a while. It was warm in the sunshine, and Tanner took off his shirt. He caught one more fish and let it go. “Bigger,” he said. “But not big enough.”

I looked downstream. Then I took a really good look. “Tanner,” I said, “there’s nothing but rocks up ahead.”

He laughed and shouted, “Get ready for the chute!”

“The what?”

“The chute. River gets narrow for a minute. It’s like a waterslide. No big deal. Just keep going straight.”

I glanced over my shoulder. Tanner had put down his fishing pole and picked up his paddle.

I could hear the roar of water. That scared me a little. “It sounds like Niagara Falls,” I yelled.

“Relax, bro. It’s just a little waterslide.”

Up ahead I could see a steep cliff on one side. On the other side were big black rocks. In the middle was a little opening. I hoped our kayak would fit.

“Keep ‘er straight!” Tanner yelled.

The opening was wider than I’d thought at first. But I couldn’t see anything past it. And the roar got louder and louder.

The nose of the kayak went straight into the opening. Then we were headed down too fast for me to do anything but hold on. We hit a pool at the bottom and shot ahead.

“All right!” Tanner yelled.

I glanced back. The chute didn’t look very high. Or very steep. But I knew better.

“That was awesome,” Tanner said. “Brady and I didn’t get anything like that last year.”

I waited a minute, then asked, “Tanner, didn’t that scare you?”

“Sure,” he said. “That’s why it was fun.”

“Maybe for you,” I said. “I’m no hero.”

He didn’t answer. He was getting out his fishing pole again. A few minutes later he hooked a fish, but it got away. I kept the kayak steady in the current.

“Hey, Ryan,” he said, “that hero stuff—that’s garbage. The only heroes these days are in video games or comic books.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” I looked back at him for a second. “You ran into that burning house and saved that old guy.”

“I just happened to be there. You’d have done the same thing. Later on, they made a big deal about it. But it was no biggie.”

“I probably would have been too scared.”

“You’d have been scared, sure. Everybody gets scared. But that wouldn’t stop you. You do what you have to do.”

“Maybe,” I said. But I didn’t believe it.

We drifted along for a while. It was warm in the sun. Until some icy water splashed on me. Which happened every minute or two.

“We’re coming up on another chute,” Tanner said. He reeled his line, then picked up his paddle. “I think this one is shorter. Maybe a little steeper.”

This time there was no cliff. Just big boulders on both sides of the river. I could hear the water roaring. The sound scared me. Maybe not as much as the first time, but I was still scared.

We did everything right. The kayak was straight, and we were in the middle of the river. I lifted my paddle and braced myself for the slide.

“Hang on, buddy!” Tanner yelled.

Just as we started down, I saw something ahead. A big black log. Right in the middle of the chute. With a jagged end pointed straight at us. And it wasn’t moving. Not at all.

I opened my mouth to yell, but no words came out.

What is the most important way the setting helps develop the relationship between the characters?

• The setting allows the characters to learn new skills together.

• The setting inspires the characters to share an interest in adventure.

• The setting causes the characters to debate the benefits of being in nature.

• The setting allows the characters to share their points of view on courage.

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.3

CCSS.RL.5.3

CCSS.RL.6.3

CCSS.RL.7.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.3