When her grandmother’s health began to deteriorate in the
fall of 1994, Mary would make the drive from Washington, DC to Winchester every
few days.
She hated highway driving, finding it ugly and monotonous. She
preferred to take meandering back roads to her grandmother’s hospital. When she
drove through the rocky town of Harpers Ferry, the beauty of the rough waters
churning at the intersection of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers always
captivated her.
Toward the end of her journey, Mary had to get on highway
81. It was here that she discovered a surprising bit of beauty during one of
her trips. Along the median of the highway, there was a long stretch of
wildflowers. They were thin and delicate and purple, and swayed in the wind as
if whispering poems to each other.
The first time she saw the flowers, Mary was seized by an uncontrollable
urge to pull over on the highway and yank a bunch from the soil. She carried
them into her grandmother’s room when she arrived at the hospital and placed
them in a water pitcher by her bed. For a moment her grandmother seemed more
lucid than usual. She thanked Mary for the flowers, commented on their beauty
and asked where she had gotten them. Mary was overjoyed by the ability of the
flowers to wake something up inside her ailing grandmother.
Afterwards, Mary began carrying scissors in the car during
her trips to visit her grandmother. She would quickly glide onto the shoulder,
jump out of the car, and clip a bunch of flowers. Each time Mary placed the
flowers in the pitcher, her grandmother’s eyes would light up and they would
have a splendid conversation.
One morning in late October, Mary got a call that her
grandmother had taken a turn for the worse. Mary was in such a hurry to get to
her grandmother that she sped past her flower spot. She decided to turn around
head several miles back, and cut a bunch. Mary arrived at the hospital to find her
grandmother very weak and unresponsive. She placed flowers in the pitcher and
sat down. She felt a squeeze on her fingers. It was the last conversation they
had.
As used in the beginning of the story, which is the best
definition for ‘captivated’?
The history of the modern world is a
record of highly varied activity, of incessant change, and of astonishing
achievement. The lives of men have, during the last few centuries, increasingly
diversified, their powers have greatly multiplied, their powers have greatly
multiplied, their horizon been enormously enlarged. New interests have arisen
in rich profusion to absorb attention and to provoke exertion. New aspirations
and new emotions have come to move the soul of men. Amid all the bewildering phenomena,
interest, in particular, has stood out in clear and growing pre-eminence, has expressed
itself in a multitude of ways and with an emphasis more and more pronounced,
namely, the determination of the race to gain a larger measure of freedom than
it has ever known before, freedom in the life of the intellect and spirit,
freedom in the realm of government and law, freedom in the sphere of economic
and social relationship. A passion that has prevailed so widely, that has transformed
the world so greatly, and is still transforming it, is one that surely merits
study and abundantly rewards it, its operations constitute the very pith and
marrow of modem history.
Not that this passion was unknown to
the long ages that proceeded the modern periods. The ancient Hebrews, the
ancient Greeks and Roman blazed the was leaving behind them a precious heritage
of accomplishments and suggestions and the men who were responsible for the
Renaissance of the fifteenth century and the Reformation of the sixteen century
contributed their imperishable part to this slow and difficult emancipation of
the human race. But it is in modern times the pace and vigour, the scope and
sweep of this liberal movement have so increased unquestionably as to dominate
the age, particularly the last three centuries that have registered great
triumphs of spirit.
What kinds of freedom have been
mentioned in the passage?
Many people like to eat pizza, but
not everyone knows knows how to make it. Making the perfect pizza can be complicated,
but there are lots of ways for you to make basic version at home.
When you make pizza, you must
begin with the crust. The crust can be hard to make. If you want to make the
crust yourself, you will have to make dough using flour, water, and yeast. You
will have to knead the dough with your hands. If you do not have enough time to
do this, you can use a prepared crust that you buy from the store.
After you have chosen your crust,
you must then add the sauce. Making your own sauce from scratch can take a long
time. You have to buy tomatoes, peel them, and then cook them with spices. If
this sounds like too much work, you can also purchase jarred sauce from the
store. Many jarred sauces taste almost as good as the kind you make at home.
Now that you have your crust and
your sauce, you need to add the cheese. Cheese comes from milk, which comes
from cows. Do you have a cow in your backyard? Do you how to milk the cow? Do
you know how to turn that milk into cheese? If not, you might want to buy
cheese from the grocery store instead of making it yourself. When you have the
crust, sauce, and cheese ready, you can add other toppings. Some people like to
put meat on their pizza, while other people like to add vegetables. Some people
even like to add pineapple! The best part of making a pizza at home is that you
can customize it by adding your own favorite ingredients
As used in paragraph 3, which is
the best synonym for ”purchase”?
In the early 1920's,
settlers came to Alaska looking for gold. They traveled by boat to the coastal
towns of Seward and Knik, and from there by land into the gold fields. The
trail they used to travel inland is known today as the lditarod Trail, one of the
National Historic Trails designated by the congress of the United States. The
Iditarod Trail quickly became a major thoroughfare in Alaska, as the mail and
supplies were carried across this trail. People also used it to get from place
to place, including the priests, ministers, and judges who had to travel
between villages down this trail was via god sled.
Once the gold rush ended, many gold-seekers
went back to where they had come from, and suddenly there was much less travel
on the lditarod Trail. The introduction of the airplane in the late 1920's
meant dog teams were mode of transportation, of course airplane carrying the
mail and supplies, there was less need for land travel in general. The final
blow to the use of the dog teams was the appearance of snowmoniles.
By the mid 1960's most Alasknas didn't even
know the lditarod Trail existed, or that dos teens had played a crucial role in
Alaska's early settlements. Dorothy G.Page, a self-made historian, recognized
how few people knew about the former use of sled dogs as working animals and
about the Iditarod Trail's role in Alaska's colorful history. To she came up
with the idea to have a god sled race over the Iditarod Trail. She presented
her idea to an enthusiastic musher, as dog sled drivers are known, named Joe
Redington, Sr. Soon the pages and the Redintons were working together to
promote the idea of the Iditarod race.
Many people worked to make
the first Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race a reality in 1967. The Aurora Dog
Mushers Club, along with men from the Adult Camp in Sutton, helped clear years
of overgrowth from the first nine miles of the Iditarod Trail. To raise
interest in the race, a $25,000 purse was offered, with Joe Redington donating
one acre of his land to help raise the funds. The short race, approximately 27
miles long, was put on a second time in 1969.
After these first two
successful races, the goal was to lengthen the race a little further to the
ghost town of Iditarod by 1973. However in 1972, the U.S. Army reopened the
trail as a winter exercise, and so in 1973, the decision was made to take the
race all the way to the city of Nome-over 1,000 miles. There were who believed
it could bot be done and that it wad crazy to send a bunch out into vast,
uninhabited Alaskan wilderness. But the race went! 22 mushers finished that
year, and to date over 400 people have completed it.
According to the passage,
the initial Iditarod race