"The Story of My Life" (Excerpt #1)
Spotlight on Standard R1.9-10.2: Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of
the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide a summary.
1. Which statement accurately summarizes a key idea in the text?
A. Helen Keller got angry when people treated her differently,
B. Helen Keller often got frustrated when she tried to communicate with people.
C. Helen Keller's illness caused Helen Keller to have emotional outburst and mental distress.
D. Helen Keller could communicate with only one person, and that person was Anne Sullivan.
2. Which emotion does paragraph 8 MOST convey? A. anger B. fear C. desperation D.joy E. confusion
3. Which statement accurately summarizes what Helen Keller believed to be true about Miss Sullivan?
A. Helen Keller believed Miss Sullivan loved her more than her mother did.
B. Helen Keller believed Miss Sullivan was the only one who would ever understand her.
C. Helen Keller's believed Miss Sullivan was perfect in every way.
D. Helen Keller believed Miss Sullivan changed her life.
+
4. How is information presented in the text?
A. Helen Keller describes the medical causes of her illness and the effects it had on her throughout her life.
B. Helen Keller compares and contrasts her life before and after meeting Miss Sullivan,
C. Helen Keller describes her childhood chronologically, building up to the most important day of it.
D. Helen Keller explains how to solve the problem of being blind and deaf.
5. How do paragraphs 7 and 8 contribute to the development of ideas in the text?
A. They show Helen Keller coming of age and blossoming into a mature young woman.
B. They show a turning point in Helen Keller's attitude from one of frustration to one of relief.
C. They show the reader that Helen Keller heard and saw things as if she were in dense fog.
D. They show how Miss Sullivan's life changed dramatically
6. Which detail from the text BEST summarizes the central idea of the text?
A. There was great rejolcing in the family that morning, but no one, not even the doctor, knew that I should never
see or hear again."
B. do not remember when I first realized that I was different from other people; but I knew it before my teacher
came to me
C. "Gradually i got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot that it had ever been different,
until she came-my teacher-who was to set my spirit free."
0.1 moved my lips and gesticulated frantically without result. This made me so angry at times that I kicked and
screamed until I was exhausted."
7. Part A: An actress reading the text aloud for an audio recording would need to convey emotion MOST
STRONGLY in which of these lines, in order to show how emotional Helen Keller felt in that moment?
A. "LightI give me lightl' was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour."
B. "Early one morning, however, the fever left me as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come."
c. am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives which it connects."
D.One brief spring, musical with the song of robin and mocking-bird, one summer rich in fruit and roses, one
autumn of gold and crimson sped by and left their gifts at the feet of an eager, delighted child."