501 Critical Reading Questions

a. his family.
b. the poor children in his neighborhood.
c. the children who attend rich schools.
d. the author and his brother.
e. the reader and writer.
234.
The passage suggests that the author goes to school
a. in shabby clothing.
b. in a taxi cab.
c. in warm sweaters and shorts.
d. on a bicycle.
e. to become a civil servant.
235.
The word pass as used in line 16 means to
a. move ahead of.
b. go by without stopping.
c. be approved or adopted.
d. utter.
e. come to an end.
236.
The author quotes his school masters saying Ye have no right to raise
your hands to a better class of people so ye don’t (lines 19–20) in order to
a. demonstrate how strict his school masters were.
b. contrast his school to the Christian Brothers’ School and Cres-
cent College.
c. show how his teachers reinforced class lines.
d. prove that the author was meant for greater things.
e. show how people talked.
237.
The passage implies that
a. the author was determined to go to England.
b. the author was determined to be someone who will run the
world.
c. the author often got into fights.
d. the author didn’t understand the idea of class and rank in 
society.
e. one’s class determined one’s future.
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501
Critical Reading Questions
(20)

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Questions 238–242 are based on the following passage.
In this excerpt from Toni Morrison’s 1970 novel The Bluest Eye, Pauline tries
to ease her loneliness by going to the movies.
One winter Pauline discovered she was pregnant. When she told
Cholly, he surprised her by being pleased. [ . . . ] They eased back into
a relationship more like the early days of their marriage, when he
asked if she were tired or wanted him to bring her something from the
store. In this state of ease, Pauline stopped doing day work and
returned to her own housekeeping. But the loneliness in those two
rooms had not gone away. When the winter sun hit the peeling green
paint of the kitchen chairs, when the smoked hocks were boiling in the
pot, when all she could hear was the truck delivering furniture down-
stairs, she thought about back home, about how she had been all alone
most of the time then too, but this lonesomeness was different. Then
she stopped staring at the green chairs, at the delivery truck; she went
to the movies instead. There in the dark her memory was refreshed,
and she succumbed to her earlier dreams. Along with the idea of
romantic love, she was introduced to another—physical beauty. Prob-
ably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both
originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.
238.
Pauline and Cholly live