Analyzing Layers of Meaning in "Seventeen Syllables" Answers

Read the passage.The man sat in his car, silently preparing for the interview. He reread his notes and practiced how he would answer specific questions. He forgot some of what he wanted to say, which distracted him from his task. He started to ask himself different questions, such as "What if I don’t say the right things?” and "What if I don’t know the answer to a question?” He felt himself start to sweat as these new questions presented themselves. He really needed the job, as his rent was coming due. However, he knew that feeling calm was just as important in an interview as being prepared. He had a few minutes left before his interview time, so he closed his eyes and began to picture a forest scene with a river and tall trees. "I’ve got this,” he reminded himself.

What is the tone of a literary text?

Read the passage."I can’t find it anywhere,” Jo cried. "I really thought it was here,” she said, shoving books and various scraps of paper to the side of the desk."Are you sure?” her mom asked, eyeing Jo from the doorway. "Maybe you took it off before you went swimming yesterday. Maybe we should check on the table downstairs.”"No, I’m positive I left it here. I remember taking it off before I left for basketball practice today,” Jo said, as the tears started to roll down her cheeks. "If I don’t find that ring, Grandma is going to be so upset with me!”

Read the passage.Crunch! The back of Mrs. Miller’s van crumpled slightly and folded into ripples.Jana slowly unfastened her seat belt and stepped out of the car. She thought to herself, "How could I not have seen Mrs. Miller’s van? Out of all the vehicles in this parking lot, I had to back into my Spanish teacher’s?”Mrs. Miller approached Jana in the parking lot. Luckily, she had not been in the van but was just leaving the building."Oh no! Jana, what happened?” asked Mrs. Miller as she stared at the twisted metal on her van."I am so sorry, Mrs. Miller. I promise I didn’t see your van!” pleaded Jana."Well, these things happen sometimes,” answered Mrs. Miller. "I know it was an honest mistake. However, you will need to call your insurance company because I need to have this fixed right away!”

Read the excerpt from "Seventeen Syllables.”Now, how to reach her mother, how to communicate the melancholy song? Rosie knew formal Japanese by fits and starts, her mother had even less English, no French. It was much more possible to say yes, yes.

Read the passage.Amir could not imagine a better day! He had woken up early and enjoyed a tasty breakfast. The sky was a bright blue, and the sun shone brightly. During algebra, Amir found out he had attained the highest score on last Friday’s quiz. Then, at track practice, he set a new personal best in the 100-meter dash.

Read the excerpt from "Morning Rain.”"Is it raining?” Mr. Endo asked, mildly surprised."Certainly, it’s raining.” Sadako turned from the cupboard, where she was stacking dishes. "After all, it’s November already. It’s about time we had some rain, Los Angeles or no Los Angeles.”Then, sharply, she looked at her father, her mouth agape. "Is it raining? You mean you can’t hear that rain?”Mr. Endo shook his head, no.They stared at each other for a moment, father and daughter, he not really seeing her and she as though seeing him for the first time in her life.

Read the excerpt from "Seventeen Syllables.”It was about cats, and Rosie pretended to understand it thoroughly and appreciate it [to] no end, partly because she hesitated to disillusion her mother about the quantity and quality of Japanese she had learned in all the years now that she had been going to Japanese school every Saturday (and Wednesday, too, in the summer). Even so her mother must have been skeptical about the depth of Rosie’s understanding, because she explained afterwards about the kind of poem she was trying to write.

Read the excerpt from "Seventeen Syllables.”One night they went over to see the Hayano family in the neighboring town to the west, an adventure both painful and attractive to Rosie. It was attractive because there were four Hayano girls, all lovely and each one named after a season of the year (Haru, Natsu, Aki, Fuyu), painful because something had been wrong with Mrs. Hayano ever since the birth of her first child. Rosie would sometimes watch Mrs. Hayano, reputed to have been the belle of her native village, making her way about a room, stooped, slowly shuffling, violently trembling (always trembling), and she would be reminded that this woman, in this same condition, had carried and given issue to three babies.

Which word could describe the mood of a text?

Which sentence is an example of indirect characterization?

The quotations are from Sadako’s character in "Morning Rain.”

Read the passage.As the girls approached the abandoned house at the end of the street, their pace slowed. They could see one lone light on through the cracked glass in a window. Why had they decided to take a run this late at night?

Read the excerpt of a conversation between Sadako and her father, Mr. Endo, from "Morning Rain.”"You like the green ones, don’t you, the green ones with kinako?”Sadako nodded with unnecessary vigor. She watched him put on his overcoat and then brought him the umbrella. As he was going out the door, she realized she had not said a word to him since she asked him whether he could hear the rain."Oh, yes,” she said, "get a lot of the green ones, the green ones with kinako!” It was only when the baby cried out a second later that she became aware that she had been shouting at the top of her lungs.

Read the excerpt of a conversation between Sadako and her father, Mr. Endo, from "Morning Rain.”"Sa, I think I’ll visit with the Iwanagas this afternoon. I didn’t see them the last time. Then there’s a movie I want to see at the Fuji-kwan. Don’t expect me for supper. I’ll eat something down in Nihon-machi.”"Okay.” Sadako was rather relieved. Supper times were always uneasy when her father was visiting from San Francisco, where he worked as a gardener for a well-to-do family (it was the same job he had held before the war). She tried her best to keep a pleasant digestible conversation going, but she always ended up tensely, delivering an overly ebullient monologue.