5 Steps to a 5: 500 AP English Literature Questions to Know by Test Day by Shveta Verma Miller

Author:Shveta Verma Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2: 20th-Century/Contemporary Prose

Passage 15. Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

153. (C) The verbs describe the actions that “held a simple kind of adventure” (2) for the narrator. Serving customers in a store may not seem like a typical adventure, but the narrator uses precise verbs to portray the careful and judicious process she uses to prepare the customers’ orders. The adventure is then described to be the slight risk of accidentally making an error “in the Store’s favor,” which would lead to her “quietly but persistently” (9) punishing herself. By listing each action she takes, the narrator presents an image of a deliberate process. Choice D is incorrect because the narrator does perceive the process as part of an adventure. Choice A is incorrect because the intention of these specific verbs is not to convince the reader that the actions are truthful, but to convey the careful and risky process of accurately preparing customers’ orders.

154. (E) The process of accurately preparing a customer’s order is described as “a simple kind of adventure” (2). The rest of the paragraph suggests the adventure lies in the slight risk of accidentally making an error “in the Store’s favor” (7). Her careful measuring might lead to appreciation and admiration from the customers, or reprimands—which would lead to her “quietly but persistently” (9) punishing herself.

155. (A) The narrator takes such great care to accurately measure the customers’ orders and earn their appreciation and admiration (see question 153). When her efforts lead to mistakes in the Store’s favor, she punishes herself for her lack of judgment by denying herself her most cherished treats. She elaborates on her choice of punishment in the third paragraph by explaining exactly how “sacred” (20) the sweet pineapple treat was to her, which suggests she chose punishments that were uniquely suited to her alone. These punishments may be overly severe (D), but the intention is to describe them as appropriately chosen by the narrator to suit her purpose.

156. (C) The second paragraph focuses on the narrator’s “self-imposed” (9) fines for her miscalculations in the Store. To make the fines particularly effective, she denies herself her most coveted sweets: “silver-wrapped Kisses” (10) and canned pineapples, an obsession that nearly drove her “mad” (12). The third paragraph, in this context, elaborates on her madness by describing how much she relishes the treat on Christmas and her temptation to steal a can. Choice E is wrong because she admits that she doesn’t steal because she is afraid of getting caught (“I am certain . . .”) (21–23). She is being honest here, but not because she’s admitting she “wouldn’t allow” (20) herself to steal.

157. (E) The narrator elaborates on the pineapple-induced madness mentioned in the second paragraph by describing (in the third paragraph) how much she relishes the treat on Christmas. She would “like to think that [her] desire for pineapples was so sacred that” (19–20) she wouldn’t steal a can, but she admits that it was probably the risk of getting caught that stopped her.

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