End of Unit Assessment 3R Quarter 1

Name: Date:

Period: 

English 3R End of Unit Assessment

 

Read the stories and answer the questions. I encourage you to write notes in the margin as you read the texts.

Text 1: excerpt from “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

1 The sexton stood in the porch of Milford meeting-house pulling lustily at the bell-rope.

The old people of the village came stooping along the street. Children with bright faces

tripped merrily beside their parents or mimicked a graver gait in the conscious dignity of

their Sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and

fancied that the Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on week-days. When the

throng had mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton began to toll the bell, keeping

his eye on the Reverend Mr. Hooper’s door. The first glimpse of the clergyman’s figure

was the signal for the bell to cease its summons.

 

2 “But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?” cried the sexton, in

Astonishment.

 

3 All within hearing immediately turned about and beheld the semblance of Mr. Hooper

pacing slowly his meditative way toward the meeting-house. With one accord they

started, expressing more wonder than if some strange minister were coming to dust the

cushions of Mr. Hooper’s pulpit.

 

4 “Are you sure it is our parson?” inquired Goodman Gray of the sexton.

 

5 “Of a certainty it is good Mr. Hooper,” replied the sexton. “He was to have exchanged

pulpits with Parson Shute of Westbury, but Parson Shute sent to excuse himself

yesterday, being to preach a funeral sermon.”

 

6 The cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight. Mr. Hooper, a

gentlemanly person of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due

clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band and brushed the weekly dust

from his Sunday’s garb. There was but one thing remarkable in his appearance. Swathed 

about his forehead and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his

breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil. On a nearer view it seemed to consist of two

folds of crape, which entirely concealed his features except the mouth and chin, but

probably did not intercept his sight further than to give a darkened aspect to all living

and inanimate things. With this gloomy shade before him good Mr. Hooper walked

onward at a slow and quiet pace, stooping somewhat and looking on the ground, as is

customary with abstracted men, yet nodding kindly to those of his parishioners who still

waited on the meeting-house steps. But so wonder-struck were they that his greeting

hardly met with a return.

 

7 “I can’t really feel as if good Mr. Hooper’s face was behind that piece of crape,” said the

Sexton.

 

8 “I don’t like it,” muttered an old woman as she hobbled into the meeting-house. “He has

changed himself into something awful only by hiding his face.”

 

9 “Our parson has gone mad!” cried Goodman Gray, following him across the threshold.

 

10 A rumor of some unaccountable phenomenon had preceded Mr. Hooper into the

meeting-house and set all the congregation astir. Few could refrain from twisting their

heads toward the door; many stood upright and turned directly about; while several

little boys clambered upon the seats, and came down again with a terrible racket. There

was a general bustle, a rustling of the women’s gowns and shuffling of the men’s feet,

greatly at variance with that hushed repose which should attend the entrance of the

minister. But Mr. Hooper appeared not to notice the perturbation of his people. He

entered with an almost noiseless step, bent his head mildly to the pews on each side

and bowed as he passed his oldest parishioner, a white-haired great-grandsire, who

occupied an arm-chair in the centre of the aisle. It was strange to observe how slowly

this venerable man became conscious of something singular in the appearance of his

pastor. He seemed not fully to partake of the prevailing wonder till Mr. Hooper had

ascended the stairs and showed himself in the pulpit, face to face with his congregation

except for the black veil. That mysterious emblem was never once withdrawn. It shook

with his measured breath as he gave out the psalm, it threw its obscurity between him

and the holy page as he read the Scriptures, and while he prayed the veil lay heavily on

his uplifted countenance. Did he seek to hide it from the dread Being whom he was

Addressing?

 

11 Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape that more than one woman of delicate

nerves was forced to leave the meeting-house. Yet perhaps the pale-faced congregation

was almost as fearful a sight to the minister as his black veil to them.

 

Text 2: excerpt from “The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allan Poe

 

1 So far, I had not opened my eyes. I felt that I lay upon my back, unbound. I reached out

my hand, and it fell heavily upon something damp and hard. There I suffered it to

remain for many minutes, while I strove to imagine where and what I could be. I longed,

yet dared not to employ my vision. I dreaded the first glance at objects around me. It

was not that I feared to look upon things horrible, but that I grew aghast lest there

should be nothing to see. At length, with a wild desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed

my eyes. My worst thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night

encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The intensity of the darkness seemed to

oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was intolerably close. I still lay quietly, and made

effort to exercise my reason. I brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and

attempted from that point to deduce my real condition. The sentence had passed; and it

appeared to me that a very long interval of time had since elapsed. Yet not for a

moment did I suppose myself actually dead. Such a supposition, notwithstanding what

we read in fiction, is altogether inconsistent with real existence;—but where and in

what state was I? The condemned to death, I knew, perished usually at the autos-da-fe,

and one of these had been held on the very night of the day of my trial. Had I been

remanded to my dungeon, to await the next sacrifice, which would not take place for

many months? This I at once saw could not be. Victims had been in immediate demand.

Moreover, my dungeon, as well as all the condemned cells at Toledo, had stone floors,

and light was not altogether excluded.

 

2 A fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon my heart, and for a brief

period, I once more relapsed into insensibility. Upon recovering, I at once started to my

feet, trembling convulsively in every fibre. I thrust my arms wildly above and around me

in all directions. I felt nothing; yet dreaded to move a step, lest I should be impeded by

the walls of a tomb. Perspiration burst from every pore, and stood in cold big beads

upon my forehead. The agony of suspense grew at length intolerable, and I cautiously

moved forward, with my arms extended, and my eyes straining from their sockets, in

the hope of catching some faint ray of light. I proceeded for many paces; but still all was

blackness and vacancy. I breathed more freely. It seemed evident that mine was not, at

least, the most hideous of fates.

 

3 And now, as I still continued to step cautiously onward, there came thronging upon my

recollection a thousand vague rumors of the horrors of Toledo. Of the dungeons there

had been strange things narrated—fables I had always deemed them—but yet strange,

and too ghastly to repeat, save in a whisper. Was I left to perish of starvation in this

subterranean world of darkness; or what fate, perhaps even more fearful, awaited me?

That the result would be death, and a death of more than customary bitterness, I knew an extremely harsh system for determining justice and punishment, which often involved torture until a confession was provided. A public ceremony where judgment is made and punishment for a crime announced too well the character of my judges to doubt. The mode and the hour were all that occupied or distracted me.

 

4 My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid obstruction. It was a wall,

seemingly of stone masonry—very smooth, slimy, and cold. I followed it up; stepping

with all the careful distrust with which certain antique narratives had inspired me. This

process, however, afforded me no means of ascertaining the dimensions of my

dungeon; as I might make its circuit, and return to the point whence I set out, without

being aware of the fact; so perfectly uniform seemed the wall. I therefore sought the

knife which had been in my pocket, when led into the inquisitorial chamber; but it was

gone; my clothes had been exchanged for a wrapper of coarse serge. I had thought of

forcing the blade in some minute crevice of the masonry, so as to identify my point of

departure. The difficulty, nevertheless, was but trivial; although, in the disorder of my

fancy, it seemed at first insuperable. I tore a part of the hem from the robe and placed

the fragment at full length, and at right angles to the wall. In groping my way around the

prison, I could not fail to encounter this rag upon completing the circuit. So, at least I

thought: but I had not counted upon the extent of the dungeon, or upon my own

weakness. The ground was moist and slippery. I staggered onward for some time, when

I stumbled and fell. My excessive fatigue induced me to remain prostrate; and sleep

soon overtook me as I lay.

 

5 Upon awaking, and stretching forth an arm, I found beside me a loaf and a pitcher with

water. I was too much exhausted to reflect upon this circumstance, but ate and drank

with avidity. Shortly afterward, I resumed my tour around the prison, and with much toil

came at last upon the fragment of the serge. Up to the period when I fell I had counted

fifty-two paces, and upon resuming my walk, I had counted forty-eight more;—when I

arrived at the rag. There were in all, then, a hundred paces; and, admitting two paces to

the yard, I presumed the dungeon to be fifty yards in circuit. I had met, however, with

many angles in the wall, and thus I could form no guess at the shape of the vault; for

vault I could not help supposing it to be.