Examen de práctica de Lenguaje (RLA) del GED 5

To: All Employees, Harbor View Regional Medical Center From: Denise Albright, Vice President of Human Resources Date: August 4 Subject: New Commute and Housing Assistance Program

(1) Over the past two years, more than half of the employees who left Harbor View told us in exit interviews that the main reason was not pay or workload. It was the drive. Rents near the medical center have risen faster than wages, so many of you now live 20 or 30 miles away, and our staff survey found that the average one-way commute has grown to 52 minutes. Long commutes are more than an inconvenience. They cost you money and sleep, and they cost the hospital experienced nurses, technicians and support staff whom we cannot easily replace.

(2) To respond, Harbor View will launch an 18-month Commute and Housing Assistance Program on October 1. The program has four parts. You may take part in any or all of them.

(3) Transit passes. The hospital will pay 75 percent of the cost of a monthly regional transit pass, up to $90 per month. Passes are loaded onto your employee badge, which will also work as your fare card on all Metro Link trains and county buses. Night-shift employees should note that the hospital shuttle to Riverside Station will now run every 20 minutes between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., when trains run less often.

(4) Vanpools. For employees who live where trains and buses do not reach, the hospital will lease 12-passenger vans for groups of at least six coworkers who share a schedule. Riders pay $40 per month, and the volunteer driver rides free. Vanpools will be organized by ZIP code and shift. Sign up on the HR portal, and our commute coordinator will match you with a group.

(5) Parking. Beginning October 1, the monthly parking permit will be replaced by a daily rate of $4, charged only on days you park. Employees who give up parking entirely will receive an extra $50 in their paycheck each month. I know some of you are frustrated by this change, especially those of you who have no realistic alternative to driving. That is why the daily rate is capped at $60 per month, which is less than the current permit price of $72. Employees who drive every day will pay less than they do today, and those who drive less often will save even more.

(6) Housing help. Employees who want to move closer to work can apply for up to $2,000 toward a security deposit and first month's rent. The money is a forgivable loan: one twenty-fourth of the amount is forgiven for each month you remain employed at Harbor View, so after two years you owe nothing. If you leave earlier, you repay only the portion that has not yet been forgiven. To qualify, you must (a) have worked at Harbor View for at least six months, (b) earn less than $65,000 per year, and (c) move to an address within five miles of the hospital or within one-half mile of a Metro Link station. Funds are limited to 150 loans in the first year and will be awarded in the order that complete applications are received.

(7) We will judge the program by three numbers: the share of new employees who leave within their first two years, the average commute time reported in our annual staff survey, and the number of open positions on our nursing units. If these numbers do not improve by the end of the 18 months, we will redesign or end the program.

(8) Information sessions will be held in the main auditorium on September 9 at 7:30 a.m. and again at 7:30 p.m. so that employees on every shift can attend. Applications for vanpools and housing help open on September 15. Questions may be sent to the commute coordinator at extension 4410.

To: All Employees, Harbor View Regional Medical Center From: Denise Albright, Vice President of Human Resources Date: August 4 Subject: New Commute and Housing Assistance Program

(1) Over the past two years, more than half of the employees who left Harbor View told us in exit interviews that the main reason was not pay or workload. It was the drive. Rents near the medical center have risen faster than wages, so many of you now live 20 or 30 miles away, and our staff survey found that the average one-way commute has grown to 52 minutes. Long commutes are more than an inconvenience. They cost you money and sleep, and they cost the hospital experienced nurses, technicians and support staff whom we cannot easily replace.

(2) To respond, Harbor View will launch an 18-month Commute and Housing Assistance Program on October 1. The program has four parts. You may take part in any or all of them.

(3) Transit passes. The hospital will pay 75 percent of the cost of a monthly regional transit pass, up to $90 per month. Passes are loaded onto your employee badge, which will also work as your fare card on all Metro Link trains and county buses. Night-shift employees should note that the hospital shuttle to Riverside Station will now run every 20 minutes between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., when trains run less often.

(4) Vanpools. For employees who live where trains and buses do not reach, the hospital will lease 12-passenger vans for groups of at least six coworkers who share a schedule. Riders pay $40 per month, and the volunteer driver rides free. Vanpools will be organized by ZIP code and shift. Sign up on the HR portal, and our commute coordinator will match you with a group.

(5) Parking. Beginning October 1, the monthly parking permit will be replaced by a daily rate of $4, charged only on days you park. Employees who give up parking entirely will receive an extra $50 in their paycheck each month. I know some of you are frustrated by this change, especially those of you who have no realistic alternative to driving. That is why the daily rate is capped at $60 per month, which is less than the current permit price of $72. Employees who drive every day will pay less than they do today, and those who drive less often will save even more.

(6) Housing help. Employees who want to move closer to work can apply for up to $2,000 toward a security deposit and first month's rent. The money is a forgivable loan: one twenty-fourth of the amount is forgiven for each month you remain employed at Harbor View, so after two years you owe nothing. If you leave earlier, you repay only the portion that has not yet been forgiven. To qualify, you must (a) have worked at Harbor View for at least six months, (b) earn less than $65,000 per year, and (c) move to an address within five miles of the hospital or within one-half mile of a Metro Link station. Funds are limited to 150 loans in the first year and will be awarded in the order that complete applications are received.

(7) We will judge the program by three numbers: the share of new employees who leave within their first two years, the average commute time reported in our annual staff survey, and the number of open positions on our nursing units. If these numbers do not improve by the end of the 18 months, we will redesign or end the program.

(8) Information sessions will be held in the main auditorium on September 9 at 7:30 a.m. and again at 7:30 p.m. so that employees on every shift can attend. Applications for vanpools and housing help open on September 15. Questions may be sent to the commute coordinator at extension 4410.

To: All Employees, Harbor View Regional Medical Center From: Denise Albright, Vice President of Human Resources Date: August 4 Subject: New Commute and Housing Assistance Program

(1) Over the past two years, more than half of the employees who left Harbor View told us in exit interviews that the main reason was not pay or workload. It was the drive. Rents near the medical center have risen faster than wages, so many of you now live 20 or 30 miles away, and our staff survey found that the average one-way commute has grown to 52 minutes. Long commutes are more than an inconvenience. They cost you money and sleep, and they cost the hospital experienced nurses, technicians and support staff whom we cannot easily replace.

(2) To respond, Harbor View will launch an 18-month Commute and Housing Assistance Program on October 1. The program has four parts. You may take part in any or all of them.

(3) Transit passes. The hospital will pay 75 percent of the cost of a monthly regional transit pass, up to $90 per month. Passes are loaded onto your employee badge, which will also work as your fare card on all Metro Link trains and county buses. Night-shift employees should note that the hospital shuttle to Riverside Station will now run every 20 minutes between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., when trains run less often.

(4) Vanpools. For employees who live where trains and buses do not reach, the hospital will lease 12-passenger vans for groups of at least six coworkers who share a schedule. Riders pay $40 per month, and the volunteer driver rides free. Vanpools will be organized by ZIP code and shift. Sign up on the HR portal, and our commute coordinator will match you with a group.

(5) Parking. Beginning October 1, the monthly parking permit will be replaced by a daily rate of $4, charged only on days you park. Employees who give up parking entirely will receive an extra $50 in their paycheck each month. I know some of you are frustrated by this change, especially those of you who have no realistic alternative to driving. That is why the daily rate is capped at $60 per month, which is less than the current permit price of $72. Employees who drive every day will pay less than they do today, and those who drive less often will save even more.

(6) Housing help. Employees who want to move closer to work can apply for up to $2,000 toward a security deposit and first month's rent. The money is a forgivable loan: one twenty-fourth of the amount is forgiven for each month you remain employed at Harbor View, so after two years you owe nothing. If you leave earlier, you repay only the portion that has not yet been forgiven. To qualify, you must (a) have worked at Harbor View for at least six months, (b) earn less than $65,000 per year, and (c) move to an address within five miles of the hospital or within one-half mile of a Metro Link station. Funds are limited to 150 loans in the first year and will be awarded in the order that complete applications are received.

(7) We will judge the program by three numbers: the share of new employees who leave within their first two years, the average commute time reported in our annual staff survey, and the number of open positions on our nursing units. If these numbers do not improve by the end of the 18 months, we will redesign or end the program.

(8) Information sessions will be held in the main auditorium on September 9 at 7:30 a.m. and again at 7:30 p.m. so that employees on every shift can attend. Applications for vanpools and housing help open on September 15. Questions may be sent to the commute coordinator at extension 4410.

To: All Employees, Harbor View Regional Medical Center From: Denise Albright, Vice President of Human Resources Date: August 4 Subject: New Commute and Housing Assistance Program

(1) Over the past two years, more than half of the employees who left Harbor View told us in exit interviews that the main reason was not pay or workload. It was the drive. Rents near the medical center have risen faster than wages, so many of you now live 20 or 30 miles away, and our staff survey found that the average one-way commute has grown to 52 minutes. Long commutes are more than an inconvenience. They cost you money and sleep, and they cost the hospital experienced nurses, technicians and support staff whom we cannot easily replace.

(2) To respond, Harbor View will launch an 18-month Commute and Housing Assistance Program on October 1. The program has four parts. You may take part in any or all of them.

(3) Transit passes. The hospital will pay 75 percent of the cost of a monthly regional transit pass, up to $90 per month. Passes are loaded onto your employee badge, which will also work as your fare card on all Metro Link trains and county buses. Night-shift employees should note that the hospital shuttle to Riverside Station will now run every 20 minutes between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., when trains run less often.

(4) Vanpools. For employees who live where trains and buses do not reach, the hospital will lease 12-passenger vans for groups of at least six coworkers who share a schedule. Riders pay $40 per month, and the volunteer driver rides free. Vanpools will be organized by ZIP code and shift. Sign up on the HR portal, and our commute coordinator will match you with a group.

(5) Parking. Beginning October 1, the monthly parking permit will be replaced by a daily rate of $4, charged only on days you park. Employees who give up parking entirely will receive an extra $50 in their paycheck each month. I know some of you are frustrated by this change, especially those of you who have no realistic alternative to driving. That is why the daily rate is capped at $60 per month, which is less than the current permit price of $72. Employees who drive every day will pay less than they do today, and those who drive less often will save even more.

(6) Housing help. Employees who want to move closer to work can apply for up to $2,000 toward a security deposit and first month's rent. The money is a forgivable loan: one twenty-fourth of the amount is forgiven for each month you remain employed at Harbor View, so after two years you owe nothing. If you leave earlier, you repay only the portion that has not yet been forgiven. To qualify, you must (a) have worked at Harbor View for at least six months, (b) earn less than $65,000 per year, and (c) move to an address within five miles of the hospital or within one-half mile of a Metro Link station. Funds are limited to 150 loans in the first year and will be awarded in the order that complete applications are received.

(7) We will judge the program by three numbers: the share of new employees who leave within their first two years, the average commute time reported in our annual staff survey, and the number of open positions on our nursing units. If these numbers do not improve by the end of the 18 months, we will redesign or end the program.

(8) Information sessions will be held in the main auditorium on September 9 at 7:30 a.m. and again at 7:30 p.m. so that employees on every shift can attend. Applications for vanpools and housing help open on September 15. Questions may be sent to the commute coordinator at extension 4410.

To: All Employees, Harbor View Regional Medical Center From: Denise Albright, Vice President of Human Resources Date: August 4 Subject: New Commute and Housing Assistance Program

(1) Over the past two years, more than half of the employees who left Harbor View told us in exit interviews that the main reason was not pay or workload. It was the drive. Rents near the medical center have risen faster than wages, so many of you now live 20 or 30 miles away, and our staff survey found that the average one-way commute has grown to 52 minutes. Long commutes are more than an inconvenience. They cost you money and sleep, and they cost the hospital experienced nurses, technicians and support staff whom we cannot easily replace.

(2) To respond, Harbor View will launch an 18-month Commute and Housing Assistance Program on October 1. The program has four parts. You may take part in any or all of them.

(3) Transit passes. The hospital will pay 75 percent of the cost of a monthly regional transit pass, up to $90 per month. Passes are loaded onto your employee badge, which will also work as your fare card on all Metro Link trains and county buses. Night-shift employees should note that the hospital shuttle to Riverside Station will now run every 20 minutes between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., when trains run less often.

(4) Vanpools. For employees who live where trains and buses do not reach, the hospital will lease 12-passenger vans for groups of at least six coworkers who share a schedule. Riders pay $40 per month, and the volunteer driver rides free. Vanpools will be organized by ZIP code and shift. Sign up on the HR portal, and our commute coordinator will match you with a group.

(5) Parking. Beginning October 1, the monthly parking permit will be replaced by a daily rate of $4, charged only on days you park. Employees who give up parking entirely will receive an extra $50 in their paycheck each month. I know some of you are frustrated by this change, especially those of you who have no realistic alternative to driving. That is why the daily rate is capped at $60 per month, which is less than the current permit price of $72. Employees who drive every day will pay less than they do today, and those who drive less often will save even more.

(6) Housing help. Employees who want to move closer to work can apply for up to $2,000 toward a security deposit and first month's rent. The money is a forgivable loan: one twenty-fourth of the amount is forgiven for each month you remain employed at Harbor View, so after two years you owe nothing. If you leave earlier, you repay only the portion that has not yet been forgiven. To qualify, you must (a) have worked at Harbor View for at least six months, (b) earn less than $65,000 per year, and (c) move to an address within five miles of the hospital or within one-half mile of a Metro Link station. Funds are limited to 150 loans in the first year and will be awarded in the order that complete applications are received.

(7) We will judge the program by three numbers: the share of new employees who leave within their first two years, the average commute time reported in our annual staff survey, and the number of open positions on our nursing units. If these numbers do not improve by the end of the 18 months, we will redesign or end the program.

(8) Information sessions will be held in the main auditorium on September 9 at 7:30 a.m. and again at 7:30 p.m. so that employees on every shift can attend. Applications for vanpools and housing help open on September 15. Questions may be sent to the commute coordinator at extension 4410.

Read the short story. Then answer the questions.

(1) The key machine at Dorner's Hardware sat at the end of the long front counter, under a hand-lettered sign that read KEYS CUT WHILE YOU WAIT. On her first morning, Nadia Reyes, seventeen, stood beside it in a red apron that still had the fold lines from its package and waited to be told what to do.

(2) "You don't touch that," said Mr. Pruitt. He had worked the counter for thirty-one years, a fact he mentioned twice before ten o'clock. "Not this week. This week, you watch."

(3) So she watched. She watched him slide a customer's key into the left-hand clamp and a blank into the right, line them up against the metal stop, and lower the cutting wheel with one slow pull, the way someone might close a door on a sleeping baby. Brass dust curled out like pencil shavings. Afterward he ran the new key across a wire brush, held it up to the window, and squinted at it as if it had told him a lie.

(4) "Why do you look at it like that?" Nadia asked on the third day.

(5) "Because it's going to open somebody's front door," he said, "or it isn't."

(6) She thought this was the sort of thing old men said to make ordinary work sound important. Her friends had jobs at the mall, where they folded sweaters and got discounts. Nadia had taken this one because the store was on the 14 bus line and paid fifty cents more an hour. She had not expected to spend her afternoons sorting wall anchors into bins while a man who smelled of machine oil hummed songs she did not know.

(7) On Friday he went to lunch and left her at the counter alone. "Anybody wants a key, tell them twenty minutes," he said.

(8) The woman who came in at 12:15 had a toddler on her hip and a single key on a shoelace. She needed a copy for her babysitter, she said, and she needed it now, because her shift started at one. Nadia looked at the machine. She had watched it work perhaps forty times. She told herself that watching was a kind of practice.

(9) She found a blank on the pegboard that matched the key's shape, clamped both keys, and pulled the wheel down. Brass dust curled. The copy came out bright and sharp, and she brushed it the way he did and held it up to the window. It looked exactly like the original. The woman paid three dollars and hurried out, the toddler waving.

(10) Mr. Pruitt came back at 12:40 and noticed the brass dust before he had taken off his coat. He said nothing. He went to the machine, brushed the shavings into his palm, and looked at them for a long moment. Then he looked at the pegboard, at the hook where the blanks she had used were hanging, and counted them with one finger.

(11) "Which one did you use?"

(12) She showed him. He took a blank from that hook, then pulled a second blank from a drawer beneath the counter, one with the same outline but a slightly deeper groove along its side, and set the two next to each other on the counter.

(13) "Same face," he said. "Different spine. Hers'll go into the lock. Might even turn. And one morning when the babysitter's in a hurry, it'll stick halfway and snap off inside, and that lady'll be paying a locksmith ninety dollars to get it out."

(14) Nadia felt the heat rise in her neck. "I didn't know."

(15) "No," he agreed. "That's what the watching is for."

(16) He did not tell her what to do next, and she understood, slowly, that he was waiting to see whether she would ask. The receipt had a phone number on it. She called. The woman did not answer, so Nadia left a message, stumbling over the words, saying that the key might be faulty and that the store would make a new one for free. It took her two tries to say it without her voice shaking.

(17) The woman came back at 5:30, still in her work uniform, scrubs printed with cartoon bears, and without the toddler. She was not angry, exactly; she was tired, and she had clearly expected to be made more tired. Mr. Pruitt stood beside the machine with his arms crossed. He did not step in. Nadia cut the new key on the correct blank, slowly, with one long pull, and held it up to the window until she was sure.

(18) When the woman had gone, Mr. Pruitt took a key off his own ring, a worn one with the brass rubbed nearly white, and set it on the counter.

(19) "Back door," he said. "I open at seven on Saturdays. My knees don't like seven anymore."

(20) Nadia looked at the key. Then she found the right blank, checked the groove along its side twice, and fitted both into the clamps. Outside, the 14 bus sighed at the curb and pulled away without her, and she let it go.

Read the short story. Then answer the questions.

(1) The key machine at Dorner's Hardware sat at the end of the long front counter, under a hand-lettered sign that read KEYS CUT WHILE YOU WAIT. On her first morning, Nadia Reyes, seventeen, stood beside it in a red apron that still had the fold lines from its package and waited to be told what to do.

(2) "You don't touch that," said Mr. Pruitt. He had worked the counter for thirty-one years, a fact he mentioned twice before ten o'clock. "Not this week. This week, you watch."

(3) So she watched. She watched him slide a customer's key into the left-hand clamp and a blank into the right, line them up against the metal stop, and lower the cutting wheel with one slow pull, the way someone might close a door on a sleeping baby. Brass dust curled out like pencil shavings. Afterward he ran the new key across a wire brush, held it up to the window, and squinted at it as if it had told him a lie.

(4) "Why do you look at it like that?" Nadia asked on the third day.

(5) "Because it's going to open somebody's front door," he said, "or it isn't."

(6) She thought this was the sort of thing old men said to make ordinary work sound important. Her friends had jobs at the mall, where they folded sweaters and got discounts. Nadia had taken this one because the store was on the 14 bus line and paid fifty cents more an hour. She had not expected to spend her afternoons sorting wall anchors into bins while a man who smelled of machine oil hummed songs she did not know.

(7) On Friday he went to lunch and left her at the counter alone. "Anybody wants a key, tell them twenty minutes," he said.

(8) The woman who came in at 12:15 had a toddler on her hip and a single key on a shoelace. She needed a copy for her babysitter, she said, and she needed it now, because her shift started at one. Nadia looked at the machine. She had watched it work perhaps forty times. She told herself that watching was a kind of practice.

(9) She found a blank on the pegboard that matched the key's shape, clamped both keys, and pulled the wheel down. Brass dust curled. The copy came out bright and sharp, and she brushed it the way he did and held it up to the window. It looked exactly like the original. The woman paid three dollars and hurried out, the toddler waving.

(10) Mr. Pruitt came back at 12:40 and noticed the brass dust before he had taken off his coat. He said nothing. He went to the machine, brushed the shavings into his palm, and looked at them for a long moment. Then he looked at the pegboard, at the hook where the blanks she had used were hanging, and counted them with one finger.

(11) "Which one did you use?"

(12) She showed him. He took a blank from that hook, then pulled a second blank from a drawer beneath the counter, one with the same outline but a slightly deeper groove along its side, and set the two next to each other on the counter.

(13) "Same face," he said. "Different spine. Hers'll go into the lock. Might even turn. And one morning when the babysitter's in a hurry, it'll stick halfway and snap off inside, and that lady'll be paying a locksmith ninety dollars to get it out."

(14) Nadia felt the heat rise in her neck. "I didn't know."

(15) "No," he agreed. "That's what the watching is for."

(16) He did not tell her what to do next, and she understood, slowly, that he was waiting to see whether she would ask. The receipt had a phone number on it. She called. The woman did not answer, so Nadia left a message, stumbling over the words, saying that the key might be faulty and that the store would make a new one for free. It took her two tries to say it without her voice shaking.

(17) The woman came back at 5:30, still in her work uniform, scrubs printed with cartoon bears, and without the toddler. She was not angry, exactly; she was tired, and she had clearly expected to be made more tired. Mr. Pruitt stood beside the machine with his arms crossed. He did not step in. Nadia cut the new key on the correct blank, slowly, with one long pull, and held it up to the window until she was sure.

(18) When the woman had gone, Mr. Pruitt took a key off his own ring, a worn one with the brass rubbed nearly white, and set it on the counter.

(19) "Back door," he said. "I open at seven on Saturdays. My knees don't like seven anymore."

(20) Nadia looked at the key. Then she found the right blank, checked the groove along its side twice, and fitted both into the clamps. Outside, the 14 bus sighed at the curb and pulled away without her, and she let it go.

Read the short story. Then answer the questions.

(1) The key machine at Dorner's Hardware sat at the end of the long front counter, under a hand-lettered sign that read KEYS CUT WHILE YOU WAIT. On her first morning, Nadia Reyes, seventeen, stood beside it in a red apron that still had the fold lines from its package and waited to be told what to do.

(2) "You don't touch that," said Mr. Pruitt. He had worked the counter for thirty-one years, a fact he mentioned twice before ten o'clock. "Not this week. This week, you watch."

(3) So she watched. She watched him slide a customer's key into the left-hand clamp and a blank into the right, line them up against the metal stop, and lower the cutting wheel with one slow pull, the way someone might close a door on a sleeping baby. Brass dust curled out like pencil shavings. Afterward he ran the new key across a wire brush, held it up to the window, and squinted at it as if it had told him a lie.

(4) "Why do you look at it like that?" Nadia asked on the third day.

(5) "Because it's going to open somebody's front door," he said, "or it isn't."

(6) She thought this was the sort of thing old men said to make ordinary work sound important. Her friends had jobs at the mall, where they folded sweaters and got discounts. Nadia had taken this one because the store was on the 14 bus line and paid fifty cents more an hour. She had not expected to spend her afternoons sorting wall anchors into bins while a man who smelled of machine oil hummed songs she did not know.

(7) On Friday he went to lunch and left her at the counter alone. "Anybody wants a key, tell them twenty minutes," he said.

(8) The woman who came in at 12:15 had a toddler on her hip and a single key on a shoelace. She needed a copy for her babysitter, she said, and she needed it now, because her shift started at one. Nadia looked at the machine. She had watched it work perhaps forty times. She told herself that watching was a kind of practice.

(9) She found a blank on the pegboard that matched the key's shape, clamped both keys, and pulled the wheel down. Brass dust curled. The copy came out bright and sharp, and she brushed it the way he did and held it up to the window. It looked exactly like the original. The woman paid three dollars and hurried out, the toddler waving.

(10) Mr. Pruitt came back at 12:40 and noticed the brass dust before he had taken off his coat. He said nothing. He went to the machine, brushed the shavings into his palm, and looked at them for a long moment. Then he looked at the pegboard, at the hook where the blanks she had used were hanging, and counted them with one finger.

(11) "Which one did you use?"

(12) She showed him. He took a blank from that hook, then pulled a second blank from a drawer beneath the counter, one with the same outline but a slightly deeper groove along its side, and set the two next to each other on the counter.

(13) "Same face," he said. "Different spine. Hers'll go into the lock. Might even turn. And one morning when the babysitter's in a hurry, it'll stick halfway and snap off inside, and that lady'll be paying a locksmith ninety dollars to get it out."

(14) Nadia felt the heat rise in her neck. "I didn't know."

(15) "No," he agreed. "That's what the watching is for."

(16) He did not tell her what to do next, and she understood, slowly, that he was waiting to see whether she would ask. The receipt had a phone number on it. She called. The woman did not answer, so Nadia left a message, stumbling over the words, saying that the key might be faulty and that the store would make a new one for free. It took her two tries to say it without her voice shaking.

(17) The woman came back at 5:30, still in her work uniform, scrubs printed with cartoon bears, and without the toddler. She was not angry, exactly; she was tired, and she had clearly expected to be made more tired. Mr. Pruitt stood beside the machine with his arms crossed. He did not step in. Nadia cut the new key on the correct blank, slowly, with one long pull, and held it up to the window until she was sure.

(18) When the woman had gone, Mr. Pruitt took a key off his own ring, a worn one with the brass rubbed nearly white, and set it on the counter.

(19) "Back door," he said. "I open at seven on Saturdays. My knees don't like seven anymore."

(20) Nadia looked at the key. Then she found the right blank, checked the groove along its side twice, and fitted both into the clamps. Outside, the 14 bus sighed at the curb and pulled away without her, and she let it go.

Read the short story. Then answer the questions.

(1) The key machine at Dorner's Hardware sat at the end of the long front counter, under a hand-lettered sign that read KEYS CUT WHILE YOU WAIT. On her first morning, Nadia Reyes, seventeen, stood beside it in a red apron that still had the fold lines from its package and waited to be told what to do.

(2) "You don't touch that," said Mr. Pruitt. He had worked the counter for thirty-one years, a fact he mentioned twice before ten o'clock. "Not this week. This week, you watch."

(3) So she watched. She watched him slide a customer's key into the left-hand clamp and a blank into the right, line them up against the metal stop, and lower the cutting wheel with one slow pull, the way someone might close a door on a sleeping baby. Brass dust curled out like pencil shavings. Afterward he ran the new key across a wire brush, held it up to the window, and squinted at it as if it had told him a lie.

(4) "Why do you look at it like that?" Nadia asked on the third day.

(5) "Because it's going to open somebody's front door," he said, "or it isn't."

(6) She thought this was the sort of thing old men said to make ordinary work sound important. Her friends had jobs at the mall, where they folded sweaters and got discounts. Nadia had taken this one because the store was on the 14 bus line and paid fifty cents more an hour. She had not expected to spend her afternoons sorting wall anchors into bins while a man who smelled of machine oil hummed songs she did not know.

(7) On Friday he went to lunch and left her at the counter alone. "Anybody wants a key, tell them twenty minutes," he said.

(8) The woman who came in at 12:15 had a toddler on her hip and a single key on a shoelace. She needed a copy for her babysitter, she said, and she needed it now, because her shift started at one. Nadia looked at the machine. She had watched it work perhaps forty times. She told herself that watching was a kind of practice.

(9) She found a blank on the pegboard that matched the key's shape, clamped both keys, and pulled the wheel down. Brass dust curled. The copy came out bright and sharp, and she brushed it the way he did and held it up to the window. It looked exactly like the original. The woman paid three dollars and hurried out, the toddler waving.

(10) Mr. Pruitt came back at 12:40 and noticed the brass dust before he had taken off his coat. He said nothing. He went to the machine, brushed the shavings into his palm, and looked at them for a long moment. Then he looked at the pegboard, at the hook where the blanks she had used were hanging, and counted them with one finger.

(11) "Which one did you use?"

(12) She showed him. He took a blank from that hook, then pulled a second blank from a drawer beneath the counter, one with the same outline but a slightly deeper groove along its side, and set the two next to each other on the counter.

(13) "Same face," he said. "Different spine. Hers'll go into the lock. Might even turn. And one morning when the babysitter's in a hurry, it'll stick halfway and snap off inside, and that lady'll be paying a locksmith ninety dollars to get it out."

(14) Nadia felt the heat rise in her neck. "I didn't know."

(15) "No," he agreed. "That's what the watching is for."

(16) He did not tell her what to do next, and she understood, slowly, that he was waiting to see whether she would ask. The receipt had a phone number on it. She called. The woman did not answer, so Nadia left a message, stumbling over the words, saying that the key might be faulty and that the store would make a new one for free. It took her two tries to say it without her voice shaking.

(17) The woman came back at 5:30, still in her work uniform, scrubs printed with cartoon bears, and without the toddler. She was not angry, exactly; she was tired, and she had clearly expected to be made more tired. Mr. Pruitt stood beside the machine with his arms crossed. He did not step in. Nadia cut the new key on the correct blank, slowly, with one long pull, and held it up to the window until she was sure.

(18) When the woman had gone, Mr. Pruitt took a key off his own ring, a worn one with the brass rubbed nearly white, and set it on the counter.

(19) "Back door," he said. "I open at seven on Saturdays. My knees don't like seven anymore."

(20) Nadia looked at the key. Then she found the right blank, checked the groove along its side twice, and fitted both into the clamps. Outside, the 14 bus sighed at the curb and pulled away without her, and she let it go.

Read the short story. Then answer the questions.

(1) The key machine at Dorner's Hardware sat at the end of the long front counter, under a hand-lettered sign that read KEYS CUT WHILE YOU WAIT. On her first morning, Nadia Reyes, seventeen, stood beside it in a red apron that still had the fold lines from its package and waited to be told what to do.

(2) "You don't touch that," said Mr. Pruitt. He had worked the counter for thirty-one years, a fact he mentioned twice before ten o'clock. "Not this week. This week, you watch."

(3) So she watched. She watched him slide a customer's key into the left-hand clamp and a blank into the right, line them up against the metal stop, and lower the cutting wheel with one slow pull, the way someone might close a door on a sleeping baby. Brass dust curled out like pencil shavings. Afterward he ran the new key across a wire brush, held it up to the window, and squinted at it as if it had told him a lie.

(4) "Why do you look at it like that?" Nadia asked on the third day.

(5) "Because it's going to open somebody's front door," he said, "or it isn't."

(6) She thought this was the sort of thing old men said to make ordinary work sound important. Her friends had jobs at the mall, where they folded sweaters and got discounts. Nadia had taken this one because the store was on the 14 bus line and paid fifty cents more an hour. She had not expected to spend her afternoons sorting wall anchors into bins while a man who smelled of machine oil hummed songs she did not know.

(7) On Friday he went to lunch and left her at the counter alone. "Anybody wants a key, tell them twenty minutes," he said.

(8) The woman who came in at 12:15 had a toddler on her hip and a single key on a shoelace. She needed a copy for her babysitter, she said, and she needed it now, because her shift started at one. Nadia looked at the machine. She had watched it work perhaps forty times. She told herself that watching was a kind of practice.

(9) She found a blank on the pegboard that matched the key's shape, clamped both keys, and pulled the wheel down. Brass dust curled. The copy came out bright and sharp, and she brushed it the way he did and held it up to the window. It looked exactly like the original. The woman paid three dollars and hurried out, the toddler waving.

(10) Mr. Pruitt came back at 12:40 and noticed the brass dust before he had taken off his coat. He said nothing. He went to the machine, brushed the shavings into his palm, and looked at them for a long moment. Then he looked at the pegboard, at the hook where the blanks she had used were hanging, and counted them with one finger.

(11) "Which one did you use?"

(12) She showed him. He took a blank from that hook, then pulled a second blank from a drawer beneath the counter, one with the same outline but a slightly deeper groove along its side, and set the two next to each other on the counter.

(13) "Same face," he said. "Different spine. Hers'll go into the lock. Might even turn. And one morning when the babysitter's in a hurry, it'll stick halfway and snap off inside, and that lady'll be paying a locksmith ninety dollars to get it out."

(14) Nadia felt the heat rise in her neck. "I didn't know."

(15) "No," he agreed. "That's what the watching is for."

(16) He did not tell her what to do next, and she understood, slowly, that he was waiting to see whether she would ask. The receipt had a phone number on it. She called. The woman did not answer, so Nadia left a message, stumbling over the words, saying that the key might be faulty and that the store would make a new one for free. It took her two tries to say it without her voice shaking.

(17) The woman came back at 5:30, still in her work uniform, scrubs printed with cartoon bears, and without the toddler. She was not angry, exactly; she was tired, and she had clearly expected to be made more tired. Mr. Pruitt stood beside the machine with his arms crossed. He did not step in. Nadia cut the new key on the correct blank, slowly, with one long pull, and held it up to the window until she was sure.

(18) When the woman had gone, Mr. Pruitt took a key off his own ring, a worn one with the brass rubbed nearly white, and set it on the counter.

(19) "Back door," he said. "I open at seven on Saturdays. My knees don't like seven anymore."

(20) Nadia looked at the key. Then she found the right blank, checked the groove along its side twice, and fitted both into the clamps. Outside, the 14 bus sighed at the curb and pulled away without her, and she let it go.

Read the short story. Then answer the questions.

(1) The key machine at Dorner's Hardware sat at the end of the long front counter, under a hand-lettered sign that read KEYS CUT WHILE YOU WAIT. On her first morning, Nadia Reyes, seventeen, stood beside it in a red apron that still had the fold lines from its package and waited to be told what to do.

(2) "You don't touch that," said Mr. Pruitt. He had worked the counter for thirty-one years, a fact he mentioned twice before ten o'clock. "Not this week. This week, you watch."

(3) So she watched. She watched him slide a customer's key into the left-hand clamp and a blank into the right, line them up against the metal stop, and lower the cutting wheel with one slow pull, the way someone might close a door on a sleeping baby. Brass dust curled out like pencil shavings. Afterward he ran the new key across a wire brush, held it up to the window, and squinted at it as if it had told him a lie.

(4) "Why do you look at it like that?" Nadia asked on the third day.

(5) "Because it's going to open somebody's front door," he said, "or it isn't."

(6) She thought this was the sort of thing old men said to make ordinary work sound important. Her friends had jobs at the mall, where they folded sweaters and got discounts. Nadia had taken this one because the store was on the 14 bus line and paid fifty cents more an hour. She had not expected to spend her afternoons sorting wall anchors into bins while a man who smelled of machine oil hummed songs she did not know.

(7) On Friday he went to lunch and left her at the counter alone. "Anybody wants a key, tell them twenty minutes," he said.

(8) The woman who came in at 12:15 had a toddler on her hip and a single key on a shoelace. She needed a copy for her babysitter, she said, and she needed it now, because her shift started at one. Nadia looked at the machine. She had watched it work perhaps forty times. She told herself that watching was a kind of practice.

(9) She found a blank on the pegboard that matched the key's shape, clamped both keys, and pulled the wheel down. Brass dust curled. The copy came out bright and sharp, and she brushed it the way he did and held it up to the window. It looked exactly like the original. The woman paid three dollars and hurried out, the toddler waving.

(10) Mr. Pruitt came back at 12:40 and noticed the brass dust before he had taken off his coat. He said nothing. He went to the machine, brushed the shavings into his palm, and looked at them for a long moment. Then he looked at the pegboard, at the hook where the blanks she had used were hanging, and counted them with one finger.

(11) "Which one did you use?"

(12) She showed him. He took a blank from that hook, then pulled a second blank from a drawer beneath the counter, one with the same outline but a slightly deeper groove along its side, and set the two next to each other on the counter.

(13) "Same face," he said. "Different spine. Hers'll go into the lock. Might even turn. And one morning when the babysitter's in a hurry, it'll stick halfway and snap off inside, and that lady'll be paying a locksmith ninety dollars to get it out."

(14) Nadia felt the heat rise in her neck. "I didn't know."

(15) "No," he agreed. "That's what the watching is for."

(16) He did not tell her what to do next, and she understood, slowly, that he was waiting to see whether she would ask. The receipt had a phone number on it. She called. The woman did not answer, so Nadia left a message, stumbling over the words, saying that the key might be faulty and that the store would make a new one for free. It took her two tries to say it without her voice shaking.

(17) The woman came back at 5:30, still in her work uniform, scrubs printed with cartoon bears, and without the toddler. She was not angry, exactly; she was tired, and she had clearly expected to be made more tired. Mr. Pruitt stood beside the machine with his arms crossed. He did not step in. Nadia cut the new key on the correct blank, slowly, with one long pull, and held it up to the window until she was sure.

(18) When the woman had gone, Mr. Pruitt took a key off his own ring, a worn one with the brass rubbed nearly white, and set it on the counter.

(19) "Back door," he said. "I open at seven on Saturdays. My knees don't like seven anymore."

(20) Nadia looked at the key. Then she found the right blank, checked the groove along its side twice, and fitted both into the clamps. Outside, the 14 bus sighed at the curb and pulled away without her, and she let it go.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave this speech on January 20, 1937, at the start of his second term. The country was recovering from the worst years of the Great Depression, which had begun in 1929. In the excerpt below, Roosevelt looks back at the progress made since he first took office on March 4, 1933, and describes the challenge ahead. Paragraph numbers have been added, and some paragraphs of the speech have been left out.

(1) Shall we pause now and turn our back upon the road that lies ahead? Shall we call this the promised land? Or, shall we continue on our way? For "each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth."

(2) Many voices are heard as we face a great decision. Comfort says, "Tarry a while." Opportunism says, "This is a good spot." Timidity asks, "How difficult is the road ahead?"

(3) True, we have come far from the days of stagnation and despair. Vitality has been preserved. Courage and confidence have been restored. Mental and moral horizons have been extended.

(4) But our present gains were won under the pressure of more than ordinary circumstances. Advance became imperative under the goad of fear and suffering. The times were on the side of progress.

(5) To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose.

(6) Let us ask again: Have we reached the goal of our vision of that fourth day of March 1933? Have we found our happy valley?

(7) I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of natural resources. Its hundred and thirty million people are at peace among themselves; they are making their country a good neighbor among the nations. I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far above the level of mere subsistence.

(8) But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.

(9) I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

(10) I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

(11) I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

(12) I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

(13) I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

(14) It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

(15) If I know aught of the spirit and purpose of our Nation, we will not listen to Comfort, Opportunism, and Timidity. We will carry on.

(16) Overwhelmingly, we of the Republic are men and women of good will; men and women who have more than warm hearts of dedication; men and women who have cool heads and willing hands of practical purpose as well. They will insist that every agency of popular government use effective instruments to carry out their will.

(17) Government is competent when all who compose it work as trustees for the whole people. It can make constant progress when it keeps abreast of all the facts. It can obtain justified support and legitimate criticism when the people receive true information of all that government does.

(18) If I know aught of the will of our people, they will demand that these conditions of effective government shall be created and maintained. They will demand a nation uncorrupted by cancers of injustice and, therefore, strong among the nations in its example of the will to peace.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave this speech on January 20, 1937, at the start of his second term. The country was recovering from the worst years of the Great Depression, which had begun in 1929. In the excerpt below, Roosevelt looks back at the progress made since he first took office on March 4, 1933, and describes the challenge ahead. Paragraph numbers have been added, and some paragraphs of the speech have been left out.

(1) Shall we pause now and turn our back upon the road that lies ahead? Shall we call this the promised land? Or, shall we continue on our way? For "each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth."

(2) Many voices are heard as we face a great decision. Comfort says, "Tarry a while." Opportunism says, "This is a good spot." Timidity asks, "How difficult is the road ahead?"

(3) True, we have come far from the days of stagnation and despair. Vitality has been preserved. Courage and confidence have been restored. Mental and moral horizons have been extended.

(4) But our present gains were won under the pressure of more than ordinary circumstances. Advance became imperative under the goad of fear and suffering. The times were on the side of progress.

(5) To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose.

(6) Let us ask again: Have we reached the goal of our vision of that fourth day of March 1933? Have we found our happy valley?

(7) I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of natural resources. Its hundred and thirty million people are at peace among themselves; they are making their country a good neighbor among the nations. I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far above the level of mere subsistence.

(8) But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.

(9) I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

(10) I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

(11) I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

(12) I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

(13) I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

(14) It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

(15) If I know aught of the spirit and purpose of our Nation, we will not listen to Comfort, Opportunism, and Timidity. We will carry on.

(16) Overwhelmingly, we of the Republic are men and women of good will; men and women who have more than warm hearts of dedication; men and women who have cool heads and willing hands of practical purpose as well. They will insist that every agency of popular government use effective instruments to carry out their will.

(17) Government is competent when all who compose it work as trustees for the whole people. It can make constant progress when it keeps abreast of all the facts. It can obtain justified support and legitimate criticism when the people receive true information of all that government does.

(18) If I know aught of the will of our people, they will demand that these conditions of effective government shall be created and maintained. They will demand a nation uncorrupted by cancers of injustice and, therefore, strong among the nations in its example of the will to peace.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave this speech on January 20, 1937, at the start of his second term. The country was recovering from the worst years of the Great Depression, which had begun in 1929. In the excerpt below, Roosevelt looks back at the progress made since he first took office on March 4, 1933, and describes the challenge ahead. Paragraph numbers have been added, and some paragraphs of the speech have been left out.

(1) Shall we pause now and turn our back upon the road that lies ahead? Shall we call this the promised land? Or, shall we continue on our way? For "each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth."

(2) Many voices are heard as we face a great decision. Comfort says, "Tarry a while." Opportunism says, "This is a good spot." Timidity asks, "How difficult is the road ahead?"

(3) True, we have come far from the days of stagnation and despair. Vitality has been preserved. Courage and confidence have been restored. Mental and moral horizons have been extended.

(4) But our present gains were won under the pressure of more than ordinary circumstances. Advance became imperative under the goad of fear and suffering. The times were on the side of progress.

(5) To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose.

(6) Let us ask again: Have we reached the goal of our vision of that fourth day of March 1933? Have we found our happy valley?

(7) I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of natural resources. Its hundred and thirty million people are at peace among themselves; they are making their country a good neighbor among the nations. I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far above the level of mere subsistence.

(8) But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.

(9) I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

(10) I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

(11) I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

(12) I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

(13) I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

(14) It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

(15) If I know aught of the spirit and purpose of our Nation, we will not listen to Comfort, Opportunism, and Timidity. We will carry on.

(16) Overwhelmingly, we of the Republic are men and women of good will; men and women who have more than warm hearts of dedication; men and women who have cool heads and willing hands of practical purpose as well. They will insist that every agency of popular government use effective instruments to carry out their will.

(17) Government is competent when all who compose it work as trustees for the whole people. It can make constant progress when it keeps abreast of all the facts. It can obtain justified support and legitimate criticism when the people receive true information of all that government does.

(18) If I know aught of the will of our people, they will demand that these conditions of effective government shall be created and maintained. They will demand a nation uncorrupted by cancers of injustice and, therefore, strong among the nations in its example of the will to peace.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave this speech on January 20, 1937, at the start of his second term. The country was recovering from the worst years of the Great Depression, which had begun in 1929. In the excerpt below, Roosevelt looks back at the progress made since he first took office on March 4, 1933, and describes the challenge ahead. Paragraph numbers have been added, and some paragraphs of the speech have been left out.

(1) Shall we pause now and turn our back upon the road that lies ahead? Shall we call this the promised land? Or, shall we continue on our way? For "each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth."

(2) Many voices are heard as we face a great decision. Comfort says, "Tarry a while." Opportunism says, "This is a good spot." Timidity asks, "How difficult is the road ahead?"

(3) True, we have come far from the days of stagnation and despair. Vitality has been preserved. Courage and confidence have been restored. Mental and moral horizons have been extended.

(4) But our present gains were won under the pressure of more than ordinary circumstances. Advance became imperative under the goad of fear and suffering. The times were on the side of progress.

(5) To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose.

(6) Let us ask again: Have we reached the goal of our vision of that fourth day of March 1933? Have we found our happy valley?

(7) I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of natural resources. Its hundred and thirty million people are at peace among themselves; they are making their country a good neighbor among the nations. I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far above the level of mere subsistence.

(8) But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.

(9) I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

(10) I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

(11) I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

(12) I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

(13) I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

(14) It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

(15) If I know aught of the spirit and purpose of our Nation, we will not listen to Comfort, Opportunism, and Timidity. We will carry on.

(16) Overwhelmingly, we of the Republic are men and women of good will; men and women who have more than warm hearts of dedication; men and women who have cool heads and willing hands of practical purpose as well. They will insist that every agency of popular government use effective instruments to carry out their will.

(17) Government is competent when all who compose it work as trustees for the whole people. It can make constant progress when it keeps abreast of all the facts. It can obtain justified support and legitimate criticism when the people receive true information of all that government does.

(18) If I know aught of the will of our people, they will demand that these conditions of effective government shall be created and maintained. They will demand a nation uncorrupted by cancers of injustice and, therefore, strong among the nations in its example of the will to peace.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave this speech on January 20, 1937, at the start of his second term. The country was recovering from the worst years of the Great Depression, which had begun in 1929. In the excerpt below, Roosevelt looks back at the progress made since he first took office on March 4, 1933, and describes the challenge ahead. Paragraph numbers have been added, and some paragraphs of the speech have been left out.

(1) Shall we pause now and turn our back upon the road that lies ahead? Shall we call this the promised land? Or, shall we continue on our way? For "each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth."

(2) Many voices are heard as we face a great decision. Comfort says, "Tarry a while." Opportunism says, "This is a good spot." Timidity asks, "How difficult is the road ahead?"

(3) True, we have come far from the days of stagnation and despair. Vitality has been preserved. Courage and confidence have been restored. Mental and moral horizons have been extended.

(4) But our present gains were won under the pressure of more than ordinary circumstances. Advance became imperative under the goad of fear and suffering. The times were on the side of progress.

(5) To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose.

(6) Let us ask again: Have we reached the goal of our vision of that fourth day of March 1933? Have we found our happy valley?

(7) I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of natural resources. Its hundred and thirty million people are at peace among themselves; they are making their country a good neighbor among the nations. I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far above the level of mere subsistence.

(8) But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.

(9) I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

(10) I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

(11) I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

(12) I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

(13) I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

(14) It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

(15) If I know aught of the spirit and purpose of our Nation, we will not listen to Comfort, Opportunism, and Timidity. We will carry on.

(16) Overwhelmingly, we of the Republic are men and women of good will; men and women who have more than warm hearts of dedication; men and women who have cool heads and willing hands of practical purpose as well. They will insist that every agency of popular government use effective instruments to carry out their will.

(17) Government is competent when all who compose it work as trustees for the whole people. It can make constant progress when it keeps abreast of all the facts. It can obtain justified support and legitimate criticism when the people receive true information of all that government does.

(18) If I know aught of the will of our people, they will demand that these conditions of effective government shall be created and maintained. They will demand a nation uncorrupted by cancers of injustice and, therefore, strong among the nations in its example of the will to peace.

Read the two texts. Then answer the questions.

Text 1: Homes for People, Not for Cars

A letter to the Lakeport City Council from a city housing planner

(1) Lakeport's zoning code requires every new apartment building to include at least one and a half parking spaces for each apartment. The rule was written in 1972, when nearly every household in the city owned a car. Today, according to the city's own housing report, one in five Lakeport renter households owns no car at all. Yet every new building must still be designed around parking.

(2) Parking is expensive to build. Builders in our region estimate that a single space in an underground garage costs between $30,000 and $50,000. Those costs do not disappear; they are passed on to tenants in higher rents, whether or not the tenants own cars. In effect, a renter who rides the bus is helping pay for a neighbor's parking space.

(3) The requirement also blocks housing from being built at all. On many small lots near our downtown, there is simply not enough room for both apartments and the required garage, so builders do not build. Last year, the planning department turned away or delayed eleven proposed buildings, totaling about 400 apartments, because they could not meet the parking rule.

(4) Some residents worry that new tenants without assigned spaces will crowd neighborhood streets. But ending the requirement does not ban parking. It simply lets builders decide how much parking their tenants actually need. When Ashford, a nearby city of similar size, ended its parking requirements in 2019, builders kept building parking; they chose to provide an average of 0.8 spaces per apartment instead of the 1.5 that had been required. Meanwhile, permits for new homes in Ashford rose 30 percent over the next four years.

(5) Lakeport is short of homes that working people can afford. Every dollar we require builders to spend on concrete for cars is a dollar that is not spent on homes for people. The council should end parking requirements for new apartment buildings.

Text 2: Don't Push Cars Onto Our Streets

A letter to the Lakeport City Council from the president of the Elm Street Neighborhood Association

(6) Nobody on Elm Street is against new housing. Many of us rent, and we know how hard it is to find an affordable apartment. But the proposal to end parking requirements would solve one problem by creating another.

(7) Our association surveyed residents of the 300 block of Elm Street last spring. Eighty-five percent said they already have trouble finding a parking space within a block of their homes on weeknights. If a new building opens without enough parking, its tenants who own cars will park on our street, and longtime residents, including older residents and parents with small children, will be the ones walking three blocks in the dark.

(8) Supporters say renters in new buildings can simply take the bus. But in most of Lakeport, buses come only every 30 minutes during the day and stop running at 10 p.m. A nurse working a night shift or a cook closing a restaurant cannot depend on that schedule. Until the city improves bus service, many residents will need cars whether planners like it or not.

(9) The supporters' favorite example, Ashford, actually proves our point. Builders there kept building parking because tenants still need it. If builders will provide parking anyway, why remove the rule? Removing it only invites the few builders who want to cut corners to skip parking entirely.

(10) There is a better approach. The council could lower the requirement to one space per apartment for buildings within a quarter mile of the city's two rail stations, where frequent service makes car-free living realistic, and keep the current rule everywhere else. That would encourage housing where it makes sense without turning every neighborhood street into an overflow lot.

Read the two texts. Then answer the questions.

Text 1: Homes for People, Not for Cars

A letter to the Lakeport City Council from a city housing planner

(1) Lakeport's zoning code requires every new apartment building to include at least one and a half parking spaces for each apartment. The rule was written in 1972, when nearly every household in the city owned a car. Today, according to the city's own housing report, one in five Lakeport renter households owns no car at all. Yet every new building must still be designed around parking.

(2) Parking is expensive to build. Builders in our region estimate that a single space in an underground garage costs between $30,000 and $50,000. Those costs do not disappear; they are passed on to tenants in higher rents, whether or not the tenants own cars. In effect, a renter who rides the bus is helping pay for a neighbor's parking space.

(3) The requirement also blocks housing from being built at all. On many small lots near our downtown, there is simply not enough room for both apartments and the required garage, so builders do not build. Last year, the planning department turned away or delayed eleven proposed buildings, totaling about 400 apartments, because they could not meet the parking rule.

(4) Some residents worry that new tenants without assigned spaces will crowd neighborhood streets. But ending the requirement does not ban parking. It simply lets builders decide how much parking their tenants actually need. When Ashford, a nearby city of similar size, ended its parking requirements in 2019, builders kept building parking; they chose to provide an average of 0.8 spaces per apartment instead of the 1.5 that had been required. Meanwhile, permits for new homes in Ashford rose 30 percent over the next four years.

(5) Lakeport is short of homes that working people can afford. Every dollar we require builders to spend on concrete for cars is a dollar that is not spent on homes for people. The council should end parking requirements for new apartment buildings.

Text 2: Don't Push Cars Onto Our Streets

A letter to the Lakeport City Council from the president of the Elm Street Neighborhood Association

(6) Nobody on Elm Street is against new housing. Many of us rent, and we know how hard it is to find an affordable apartment. But the proposal to end parking requirements would solve one problem by creating another.

(7) Our association surveyed residents of the 300 block of Elm Street last spring. Eighty-five percent said they already have trouble finding a parking space within a block of their homes on weeknights. If a new building opens without enough parking, its tenants who own cars will park on our street, and longtime residents, including older residents and parents with small children, will be the ones walking three blocks in the dark.

(8) Supporters say renters in new buildings can simply take the bus. But in most of Lakeport, buses come only every 30 minutes during the day and stop running at 10 p.m. A nurse working a night shift or a cook closing a restaurant cannot depend on that schedule. Until the city improves bus service, many residents will need cars whether planners like it or not.

(9) The supporters' favorite example, Ashford, actually proves our point. Builders there kept building parking because tenants still need it. If builders will provide parking anyway, why remove the rule? Removing it only invites the few builders who want to cut corners to skip parking entirely.

(10) There is a better approach. The council could lower the requirement to one space per apartment for buildings within a quarter mile of the city's two rail stations, where frequent service makes car-free living realistic, and keep the current rule everywhere else. That would encourage housing where it makes sense without turning every neighborhood street into an overflow lot.

Read the two texts. Then answer the questions.

Text 1: Homes for People, Not for Cars

A letter to the Lakeport City Council from a city housing planner

(1) Lakeport's zoning code requires every new apartment building to include at least one and a half parking spaces for each apartment. The rule was written in 1972, when nearly every household in the city owned a car. Today, according to the city's own housing report, one in five Lakeport renter households owns no car at all. Yet every new building must still be designed around parking.

(2) Parking is expensive to build. Builders in our region estimate that a single space in an underground garage costs between $30,000 and $50,000. Those costs do not disappear; they are passed on to tenants in higher rents, whether or not the tenants own cars. In effect, a renter who rides the bus is helping pay for a neighbor's parking space.

(3) The requirement also blocks housing from being built at all. On many small lots near our downtown, there is simply not enough room for both apartments and the required garage, so builders do not build. Last year, the planning department turned away or delayed eleven proposed buildings, totaling about 400 apartments, because they could not meet the parking rule.

(4) Some residents worry that new tenants without assigned spaces will crowd neighborhood streets. But ending the requirement does not ban parking. It simply lets builders decide how much parking their tenants actually need. When Ashford, a nearby city of similar size, ended its parking requirements in 2019, builders kept building parking; they chose to provide an average of 0.8 spaces per apartment instead of the 1.5 that had been required. Meanwhile, permits for new homes in Ashford rose 30 percent over the next four years.

(5) Lakeport is short of homes that working people can afford. Every dollar we require builders to spend on concrete for cars is a dollar that is not spent on homes for people. The council should end parking requirements for new apartment buildings.

Text 2: Don't Push Cars Onto Our Streets

A letter to the Lakeport City Council from the president of the Elm Street Neighborhood Association

(6) Nobody on Elm Street is against new housing. Many of us rent, and we know how hard it is to find an affordable apartment. But the proposal to end parking requirements would solve one problem by creating another.

(7) Our association surveyed residents of the 300 block of Elm Street last spring. Eighty-five percent said they already have trouble finding a parking space within a block of their homes on weeknights. If a new building opens without enough parking, its tenants who own cars will park on our street, and longtime residents, including older residents and parents with small children, will be the ones walking three blocks in the dark.

(8) Supporters say renters in new buildings can simply take the bus. But in most of Lakeport, buses come only every 30 minutes during the day and stop running at 10 p.m. A nurse working a night shift or a cook closing a restaurant cannot depend on that schedule. Until the city improves bus service, many residents will need cars whether planners like it or not.

(9) The supporters' favorite example, Ashford, actually proves our point. Builders there kept building parking because tenants still need it. If builders will provide parking anyway, why remove the rule? Removing it only invites the few builders who want to cut corners to skip parking entirely.

(10) There is a better approach. The council could lower the requirement to one space per apartment for buildings within a quarter mile of the city's two rail stations, where frequent service makes car-free living realistic, and keep the current rule everywhere else. That would encourage housing where it makes sense without turning every neighborhood street into an overflow lot.

Read the two texts. Then answer the questions.

Text 1: Homes for People, Not for Cars

A letter to the Lakeport City Council from a city housing planner

(1) Lakeport's zoning code requires every new apartment building to include at least one and a half parking spaces for each apartment. The rule was written in 1972, when nearly every household in the city owned a car. Today, according to the city's own housing report, one in five Lakeport renter households owns no car at all. Yet every new building must still be designed around parking.

(2) Parking is expensive to build. Builders in our region estimate that a single space in an underground garage costs between $30,000 and $50,000. Those costs do not disappear; they are passed on to tenants in higher rents, whether or not the tenants own cars. In effect, a renter who rides the bus is helping pay for a neighbor's parking space.

(3) The requirement also blocks housing from being built at all. On many small lots near our downtown, there is simply not enough room for both apartments and the required garage, so builders do not build. Last year, the planning department turned away or delayed eleven proposed buildings, totaling about 400 apartments, because they could not meet the parking rule.

(4) Some residents worry that new tenants without assigned spaces will crowd neighborhood streets. But ending the requirement does not ban parking. It simply lets builders decide how much parking their tenants actually need. When Ashford, a nearby city of similar size, ended its parking requirements in 2019, builders kept building parking; they chose to provide an average of 0.8 spaces per apartment instead of the 1.5 that had been required. Meanwhile, permits for new homes in Ashford rose 30 percent over the next four years.

(5) Lakeport is short of homes that working people can afford. Every dollar we require builders to spend on concrete for cars is a dollar that is not spent on homes for people. The council should end parking requirements for new apartment buildings.

Text 2: Don't Push Cars Onto Our Streets

A letter to the Lakeport City Council from the president of the Elm Street Neighborhood Association

(6) Nobody on Elm Street is against new housing. Many of us rent, and we know how hard it is to find an affordable apartment. But the proposal to end parking requirements would solve one problem by creating another.

(7) Our association surveyed residents of the 300 block of Elm Street last spring. Eighty-five percent said they already have trouble finding a parking space within a block of their homes on weeknights. If a new building opens without enough parking, its tenants who own cars will park on our street, and longtime residents, including older residents and parents with small children, will be the ones walking three blocks in the dark.

(8) Supporters say renters in new buildings can simply take the bus. But in most of Lakeport, buses come only every 30 minutes during the day and stop running at 10 p.m. A nurse working a night shift or a cook closing a restaurant cannot depend on that schedule. Until the city improves bus service, many residents will need cars whether planners like it or not.

(9) The supporters' favorite example, Ashford, actually proves our point. Builders there kept building parking because tenants still need it. If builders will provide parking anyway, why remove the rule? Removing it only invites the few builders who want to cut corners to skip parking entirely.

(10) There is a better approach. The council could lower the requirement to one space per apartment for buildings within a quarter mile of the city's two rail stations, where frequent service makes car-free living realistic, and keep the current rule everywhere else. That would encourage housing where it makes sense without turning every neighborhood street into an overflow lot.

Read the two texts. Then answer the questions.

Text 1: Homes for People, Not for Cars

A letter to the Lakeport City Council from a city housing planner

(1) Lakeport's zoning code requires every new apartment building to include at least one and a half parking spaces for each apartment. The rule was written in 1972, when nearly every household in the city owned a car. Today, according to the city's own housing report, one in five Lakeport renter households owns no car at all. Yet every new building must still be designed around parking.

(2) Parking is expensive to build. Builders in our region estimate that a single space in an underground garage costs between $30,000 and $50,000. Those costs do not disappear; they are passed on to tenants in higher rents, whether or not the tenants own cars. In effect, a renter who rides the bus is helping pay for a neighbor's parking space.

(3) The requirement also blocks housing from being built at all. On many small lots near our downtown, there is simply not enough room for both apartments and the required garage, so builders do not build. Last year, the planning department turned away or delayed eleven proposed buildings, totaling about 400 apartments, because they could not meet the parking rule.

(4) Some residents worry that new tenants without assigned spaces will crowd neighborhood streets. But ending the requirement does not ban parking. It simply lets builders decide how much parking their tenants actually need. When Ashford, a nearby city of similar size, ended its parking requirements in 2019, builders kept building parking; they chose to provide an average of 0.8 spaces per apartment instead of the 1.5 that had been required. Meanwhile, permits for new homes in Ashford rose 30 percent over the next four years.

(5) Lakeport is short of homes that working people can afford. Every dollar we require builders to spend on concrete for cars is a dollar that is not spent on homes for people. The council should end parking requirements for new apartment buildings.

Text 2: Don't Push Cars Onto Our Streets

A letter to the Lakeport City Council from the president of the Elm Street Neighborhood Association

(6) Nobody on Elm Street is against new housing. Many of us rent, and we know how hard it is to find an affordable apartment. But the proposal to end parking requirements would solve one problem by creating another.

(7) Our association surveyed residents of the 300 block of Elm Street last spring. Eighty-five percent said they already have trouble finding a parking space within a block of their homes on weeknights. If a new building opens without enough parking, its tenants who own cars will park on our street, and longtime residents, including older residents and parents with small children, will be the ones walking three blocks in the dark.

(8) Supporters say renters in new buildings can simply take the bus. But in most of Lakeport, buses come only every 30 minutes during the day and stop running at 10 p.m. A nurse working a night shift or a cook closing a restaurant cannot depend on that schedule. Until the city improves bus service, many residents will need cars whether planners like it or not.

(9) The supporters' favorite example, Ashford, actually proves our point. Builders there kept building parking because tenants still need it. If builders will provide parking anyway, why remove the rule? Removing it only invites the few builders who want to cut corners to skip parking entirely.

(10) There is a better approach. The council could lower the requirement to one space per apartment for buildings within a quarter mile of the city's two rail stations, where frequent service makes car-free living realistic, and keep the current rule everywhere else. That would encourage housing where it makes sense without turning every neighborhood street into an overflow lot.

Read the two texts. Then answer the questions.

Text 1: Homes for People, Not for Cars

A letter to the Lakeport City Council from a city housing planner

(1) Lakeport's zoning code requires every new apartment building to include at least one and a half parking spaces for each apartment. The rule was written in 1972, when nearly every household in the city owned a car. Today, according to the city's own housing report, one in five Lakeport renter households owns no car at all. Yet every new building must still be designed around parking.

(2) Parking is expensive to build. Builders in our region estimate that a single space in an underground garage costs between $30,000 and $50,000. Those costs do not disappear; they are passed on to tenants in higher rents, whether or not the tenants own cars. In effect, a renter who rides the bus is helping pay for a neighbor's parking space.

(3) The requirement also blocks housing from being built at all. On many small lots near our downtown, there is simply not enough room for both apartments and the required garage, so builders do not build. Last year, the planning department turned away or delayed eleven proposed buildings, totaling about 400 apartments, because they could not meet the parking rule.

(4) Some residents worry that new tenants without assigned spaces will crowd neighborhood streets. But ending the requirement does not ban parking. It simply lets builders decide how much parking their tenants actually need. When Ashford, a nearby city of similar size, ended its parking requirements in 2019, builders kept building parking; they chose to provide an average of 0.8 spaces per apartment instead of the 1.5 that had been required. Meanwhile, permits for new homes in Ashford rose 30 percent over the next four years.

(5) Lakeport is short of homes that working people can afford. Every dollar we require builders to spend on concrete for cars is a dollar that is not spent on homes for people. The council should end parking requirements for new apartment buildings.

Text 2: Don't Push Cars Onto Our Streets

A letter to the Lakeport City Council from the president of the Elm Street Neighborhood Association

(6) Nobody on Elm Street is against new housing. Many of us rent, and we know how hard it is to find an affordable apartment. But the proposal to end parking requirements would solve one problem by creating another.

(7) Our association surveyed residents of the 300 block of Elm Street last spring. Eighty-five percent said they already have trouble finding a parking space within a block of their homes on weeknights. If a new building opens without enough parking, its tenants who own cars will park on our street, and longtime residents, including older residents and parents with small children, will be the ones walking three blocks in the dark.

(8) Supporters say renters in new buildings can simply take the bus. But in most of Lakeport, buses come only every 30 minutes during the day and stop running at 10 p.m. A nurse working a night shift or a cook closing a restaurant cannot depend on that schedule. Until the city improves bus service, many residents will need cars whether planners like it or not.

(9) The supporters' favorite example, Ashford, actually proves our point. Builders there kept building parking because tenants still need it. If builders will provide parking anyway, why remove the rule? Removing it only invites the few builders who want to cut corners to skip parking entirely.

(10) There is a better approach. The council could lower the requirement to one space per apartment for buildings within a quarter mile of the city's two rail stations, where frequent service makes car-free living realistic, and keep the current rule everywhere else. That would encourage housing where it makes sense without turning every neighborhood street into an overflow lot.

Read the article. Then answer the questions.

(1) Before the late 1800s, most American cities were what historians call "walking cities." Because most people traveled on foot, homes, shops, workshops and offices were packed close together, and few residents lived more than a couple of miles from the center of town. Wealthier families often lived near the center, where they could reach everything easily, while poorer families crowded into whatever housing remained.

(2) Horse-drawn vehicles began to loosen this pattern. Starting around 1830, horse-drawn omnibuses (large wagons that followed fixed routes) and later horsecars pulled along iron rails carried passengers through the busiest streets. But horses were slow and costly. Each animal could work only a few hours a day, had to be fed and stabled, and left tons of manure on city streets. A horsecar line could stretch a city only so far.

(3) The real change came with electricity. In 1888, an engineer named Frank Sprague completed an electric streetcar system in Richmond, Virginia, that drew power from overhead wires. Within a few years, cities across the country were converting their horse lines to electric power. Electric streetcars were roughly twice as fast as horsecars, cheaper to operate and able to run all day without rest. By the early 1900s, the streetcar had become the most common way for city dwellers to get around.

(4) Speed changed the map. A worker who could now ride several miles in the time it once took to walk one could live far from the factory gate. Along each new line, rows of houses appeared on what had been farmland. Historians call these places "streetcar suburbs." Their shape still shows on maps today: long, narrow bands of development that follow the old routes, with a cluster of small stores at each stop, where riders could buy groceries on the walk home.

(5) These suburbs did not appear by accident. Many streetcar lines were built or financed by real estate developers, who understood that a rail line could turn cheap, distant land into valuable home lots. In Southern California, Henry Huntington's Pacific Electric Railway extended its tracks into undeveloped areas where his companies owned land. The railway itself often lost money, but the land sales more than made up for it. Developers also used the streetcar to sort residents. Many new neighborhoods used deed restrictions to set minimum house prices or to keep out buyers because of their race, decisions whose effects on who lived where lasted for generations.

(6) The streetcar's success contained the seeds of its decline. To win permission to lay tracks on city streets, many companies had agreed to charge a fixed five-cent fare. When prices rose sharply during and after World War I, the nickel fare no longer covered costs, but raising it required approval from city officials, who often refused. At the same time, automobiles were becoming affordable, and cities began paving streets for cars and buses, which did not need expensive tracks. Over the following decades, most American cities tore up their streetcar lines or replaced them with buses. By 1960, only a handful of the old systems survived.

(7) Yet the pattern the streetcar created never disappeared. Many of the neighborhoods that planners now praise as "walkable," with houses close to the sidewalk and small shops within a short walk of home, were built for streetcar riders. Today, some cities are trying to recreate that pattern on purpose. Planners call the approach "transit-oriented development": placing housing, shops and offices close to train and bus stations so that residents can live without driving everywhere. In a sense, these planners are relearning a lesson that developers understood more than a century ago: where a line goes, a neighborhood follows.

Read the article. Then answer the questions.

(1) Before the late 1800s, most American cities were what historians call "walking cities." Because most people traveled on foot, homes, shops, workshops and offices were packed close together, and few residents lived more than a couple of miles from the center of town. Wealthier families often lived near the center, where they could reach everything easily, while poorer families crowded into whatever housing remained.

(2) Horse-drawn vehicles began to loosen this pattern. Starting around 1830, horse-drawn omnibuses (large wagons that followed fixed routes) and later horsecars pulled along iron rails carried passengers through the busiest streets. But horses were slow and costly. Each animal could work only a few hours a day, had to be fed and stabled, and left tons of manure on city streets. A horsecar line could stretch a city only so far.

(3) The real change came with electricity. In 1888, an engineer named Frank Sprague completed an electric streetcar system in Richmond, Virginia, that drew power from overhead wires. Within a few years, cities across the country were converting their horse lines to electric power. Electric streetcars were roughly twice as fast as horsecars, cheaper to operate and able to run all day without rest. By the early 1900s, the streetcar had become the most common way for city dwellers to get around.

(4) Speed changed the map. A worker who could now ride several miles in the time it once took to walk one could live far from the factory gate. Along each new line, rows of houses appeared on what had been farmland. Historians call these places "streetcar suburbs." Their shape still shows on maps today: long, narrow bands of development that follow the old routes, with a cluster of small stores at each stop, where riders could buy groceries on the walk home.

(5) These suburbs did not appear by accident. Many streetcar lines were built or financed by real estate developers, who understood that a rail line could turn cheap, distant land into valuable home lots. In Southern California, Henry Huntington's Pacific Electric Railway extended its tracks into undeveloped areas where his companies owned land. The railway itself often lost money, but the land sales more than made up for it. Developers also used the streetcar to sort residents. Many new neighborhoods used deed restrictions to set minimum house prices or to keep out buyers because of their race, decisions whose effects on who lived where lasted for generations.

(6) The streetcar's success contained the seeds of its decline. To win permission to lay tracks on city streets, many companies had agreed to charge a fixed five-cent fare. When prices rose sharply during and after World War I, the nickel fare no longer covered costs, but raising it required approval from city officials, who often refused. At the same time, automobiles were becoming affordable, and cities began paving streets for cars and buses, which did not need expensive tracks. Over the following decades, most American cities tore up their streetcar lines or replaced them with buses. By 1960, only a handful of the old systems survived.

(7) Yet the pattern the streetcar created never disappeared. Many of the neighborhoods that planners now praise as "walkable," with houses close to the sidewalk and small shops within a short walk of home, were built for streetcar riders. Today, some cities are trying to recreate that pattern on purpose. Planners call the approach "transit-oriented development": placing housing, shops and offices close to train and bus stations so that residents can live without driving everywhere. In a sense, these planners are relearning a lesson that developers understood more than a century ago: where a line goes, a neighborhood follows.

Read the article. Then answer the questions.

(1) Before the late 1800s, most American cities were what historians call "walking cities." Because most people traveled on foot, homes, shops, workshops and offices were packed close together, and few residents lived more than a couple of miles from the center of town. Wealthier families often lived near the center, where they could reach everything easily, while poorer families crowded into whatever housing remained.

(2) Horse-drawn vehicles began to loosen this pattern. Starting around 1830, horse-drawn omnibuses (large wagons that followed fixed routes) and later horsecars pulled along iron rails carried passengers through the busiest streets. But horses were slow and costly. Each animal could work only a few hours a day, had to be fed and stabled, and left tons of manure on city streets. A horsecar line could stretch a city only so far.

(3) The real change came with electricity. In 1888, an engineer named Frank Sprague completed an electric streetcar system in Richmond, Virginia, that drew power from overhead wires. Within a few years, cities across the country were converting their horse lines to electric power. Electric streetcars were roughly twice as fast as horsecars, cheaper to operate and able to run all day without rest. By the early 1900s, the streetcar had become the most common way for city dwellers to get around.

(4) Speed changed the map. A worker who could now ride several miles in the time it once took to walk one could live far from the factory gate. Along each new line, rows of houses appeared on what had been farmland. Historians call these places "streetcar suburbs." Their shape still shows on maps today: long, narrow bands of development that follow the old routes, with a cluster of small stores at each stop, where riders could buy groceries on the walk home.

(5) These suburbs did not appear by accident. Many streetcar lines were built or financed by real estate developers, who understood that a rail line could turn cheap, distant land into valuable home lots. In Southern California, Henry Huntington's Pacific Electric Railway extended its tracks into undeveloped areas where his companies owned land. The railway itself often lost money, but the land sales more than made up for it. Developers also used the streetcar to sort residents. Many new neighborhoods used deed restrictions to set minimum house prices or to keep out buyers because of their race, decisions whose effects on who lived where lasted for generations.

(6) The streetcar's success contained the seeds of its decline. To win permission to lay tracks on city streets, many companies had agreed to charge a fixed five-cent fare. When prices rose sharply during and after World War I, the nickel fare no longer covered costs, but raising it required approval from city officials, who often refused. At the same time, automobiles were becoming affordable, and cities began paving streets for cars and buses, which did not need expensive tracks. Over the following decades, most American cities tore up their streetcar lines or replaced them with buses. By 1960, only a handful of the old systems survived.

(7) Yet the pattern the streetcar created never disappeared. Many of the neighborhoods that planners now praise as "walkable," with houses close to the sidewalk and small shops within a short walk of home, were built for streetcar riders. Today, some cities are trying to recreate that pattern on purpose. Planners call the approach "transit-oriented development": placing housing, shops and offices close to train and bus stations so that residents can live without driving everywhere. In a sense, these planners are relearning a lesson that developers understood more than a century ago: where a line goes, a neighborhood follows.

Read the article. Then answer the questions.

(1) Before the late 1800s, most American cities were what historians call "walking cities." Because most people traveled on foot, homes, shops, workshops and offices were packed close together, and few residents lived more than a couple of miles from the center of town. Wealthier families often lived near the center, where they could reach everything easily, while poorer families crowded into whatever housing remained.

(2) Horse-drawn vehicles began to loosen this pattern. Starting around 1830, horse-drawn omnibuses (large wagons that followed fixed routes) and later horsecars pulled along iron rails carried passengers through the busiest streets. But horses were slow and costly. Each animal could work only a few hours a day, had to be fed and stabled, and left tons of manure on city streets. A horsecar line could stretch a city only so far.

(3) The real change came with electricity. In 1888, an engineer named Frank Sprague completed an electric streetcar system in Richmond, Virginia, that drew power from overhead wires. Within a few years, cities across the country were converting their horse lines to electric power. Electric streetcars were roughly twice as fast as horsecars, cheaper to operate and able to run all day without rest. By the early 1900s, the streetcar had become the most common way for city dwellers to get around.

(4) Speed changed the map. A worker who could now ride several miles in the time it once took to walk one could live far from the factory gate. Along each new line, rows of houses appeared on what had been farmland. Historians call these places "streetcar suburbs." Their shape still shows on maps today: long, narrow bands of development that follow the old routes, with a cluster of small stores at each stop, where riders could buy groceries on the walk home.

(5) These suburbs did not appear by accident. Many streetcar lines were built or financed by real estate developers, who understood that a rail line could turn cheap, distant land into valuable home lots. In Southern California, Henry Huntington's Pacific Electric Railway extended its tracks into undeveloped areas where his companies owned land. The railway itself often lost money, but the land sales more than made up for it. Developers also used the streetcar to sort residents. Many new neighborhoods used deed restrictions to set minimum house prices or to keep out buyers because of their race, decisions whose effects on who lived where lasted for generations.

(6) The streetcar's success contained the seeds of its decline. To win permission to lay tracks on city streets, many companies had agreed to charge a fixed five-cent fare. When prices rose sharply during and after World War I, the nickel fare no longer covered costs, but raising it required approval from city officials, who often refused. At the same time, automobiles were becoming affordable, and cities began paving streets for cars and buses, which did not need expensive tracks. Over the following decades, most American cities tore up their streetcar lines or replaced them with buses. By 1960, only a handful of the old systems survived.

(7) Yet the pattern the streetcar created never disappeared. Many of the neighborhoods that planners now praise as "walkable," with houses close to the sidewalk and small shops within a short walk of home, were built for streetcar riders. Today, some cities are trying to recreate that pattern on purpose. Planners call the approach "transit-oriented development": placing housing, shops and offices close to train and bus stations so that residents can live without driving everywhere. In a sense, these planners are relearning a lesson that developers understood more than a century ago: where a line goes, a neighborhood follows.

Read the short story. Then answer the questions.

(1) My grandfather lived in the apartment on Calder Street for forty-one years, and he packed it in four days. I had expected it to take longer. I had brought a week's worth of boxes and a speech about how it was all right to be sad.

(2) "Nothing to be sad about," he said on the first morning, taping a box shut. "A building is a building."

(3) The letter from the new owners had come in March. His rent would rise from $1,050 to $1,900 a month when his lease ended in June, "to reflect current market conditions." My mother told me he had read the letter once and put it in the drawer with the take-out menus. Then he had called her and asked whether the spare room in her house still had the blue curtains.

(4) He packed the way he did everything: by category, with labels. KITCHEN—KEEP. KITCHEN—DONATE. He wrapped my grandmother's teacups in the sports pages, saying they deserved good news. When I found a coffee can full of old bus transfers, hundreds of paper slips from a transit system that had stopped printing them decades ago, he took it from me and set it on the KEEP pile without a word.

(5) "What are those for?" I asked.

(6) "Rides," he said.

(7) On the third night we sat on the front steps because the chairs were already in the truck. The street was louder than I remembered. Two of the old houses across the way had been torn down, and a glass building stood in their place, its lobby lit up like an aquarium. A woman jogged by with a dog in a raincoat.

(8) "When your grandmother and I moved in," he said, "you could hear the 22 bus from three blocks away. Bad muffler. She used to say she could set the clock by it." He pointed down the street with his chin. "Stop was right there. She took it to the hospital every day for thirty years. Night shift, then day shift. I'd leave this light on so she could see the house from the corner."

(9) I looked up at the porch light, a plain glass dome full of dead moths.

(10) "The 22 doesn't run on this street anymore," I said.

(11) "No," he agreed. "It doesn't."

(12) On the last day, after the truck had gone, he walked through every room once. He opened the kitchen cabinets and closed them. He ran his hand along the doorframe in the hallway where pencil lines marked my mother's height, and mine, and my cousin's, each one dated in his narrow capitals. He did not say anything about them. I took a picture with my phone while he wasn't looking, and later I was glad I had.

(13) At the front door he stopped and reached for the switch by the coat hooks. I thought he was turning the porch light off. Instead he checked that it was on, then took a new bulb from his jacket pocket (he must have bought it that morning) and handed it to me.

(14) "Put that in for me," he said. "The old one's getting dim."

(15) "Grandpa, somebody else is going to live here."

(16) "That's right," he said. "And some of them will be coming home late, too."

(17) I stood on the step and changed the bulb. Below me, he waited with his hands in his pockets, looking toward the corner where the bus used to stop. When the new bulb came on, it was brighter than the old one, and the moths would find it soon enough. He nodded once, as if something had been settled, and we walked to my car.

Read the short story. Then answer the questions.

(1) My grandfather lived in the apartment on Calder Street for forty-one years, and he packed it in four days. I had expected it to take longer. I had brought a week's worth of boxes and a speech about how it was all right to be sad.

(2) "Nothing to be sad about," he said on the first morning, taping a box shut. "A building is a building."

(3) The letter from the new owners had come in March. His rent would rise from $1,050 to $1,900 a month when his lease ended in June, "to reflect current market conditions." My mother told me he had read the letter once and put it in the drawer with the take-out menus. Then he had called her and asked whether the spare room in her house still had the blue curtains.

(4) He packed the way he did everything: by category, with labels. KITCHEN—KEEP. KITCHEN—DONATE. He wrapped my grandmother's teacups in the sports pages, saying they deserved good news. When I found a coffee can full of old bus transfers, hundreds of paper slips from a transit system that had stopped printing them decades ago, he took it from me and set it on the KEEP pile without a word.

(5) "What are those for?" I asked.

(6) "Rides," he said.

(7) On the third night we sat on the front steps because the chairs were already in the truck. The street was louder than I remembered. Two of the old houses across the way had been torn down, and a glass building stood in their place, its lobby lit up like an aquarium. A woman jogged by with a dog in a raincoat.

(8) "When your grandmother and I moved in," he said, "you could hear the 22 bus from three blocks away. Bad muffler. She used to say she could set the clock by it." He pointed down the street with his chin. "Stop was right there. She took it to the hospital every day for thirty years. Night shift, then day shift. I'd leave this light on so she could see the house from the corner."

(9) I looked up at the porch light, a plain glass dome full of dead moths.

(10) "The 22 doesn't run on this street anymore," I said.

(11) "No," he agreed. "It doesn't."

(12) On the last day, after the truck had gone, he walked through every room once. He opened the kitchen cabinets and closed them. He ran his hand along the doorframe in the hallway where pencil lines marked my mother's height, and mine, and my cousin's, each one dated in his narrow capitals. He did not say anything about them. I took a picture with my phone while he wasn't looking, and later I was glad I had.

(13) At the front door he stopped and reached for the switch by the coat hooks. I thought he was turning the porch light off. Instead he checked that it was on, then took a new bulb from his jacket pocket (he must have bought it that morning) and handed it to me.

(14) "Put that in for me," he said. "The old one's getting dim."

(15) "Grandpa, somebody else is going to live here."

(16) "That's right," he said. "And some of them will be coming home late, too."

(17) I stood on the step and changed the bulb. Below me, he waited with his hands in his pockets, looking toward the corner where the bus used to stop. When the new bulb came on, it was brighter than the old one, and the moths would find it soon enough. He nodded once, as if something had been settled, and we walked to my car.

Read the short story. Then answer the questions.

(1) My grandfather lived in the apartment on Calder Street for forty-one years, and he packed it in four days. I had expected it to take longer. I had brought a week's worth of boxes and a speech about how it was all right to be sad.

(2) "Nothing to be sad about," he said on the first morning, taping a box shut. "A building is a building."

(3) The letter from the new owners had come in March. His rent would rise from $1,050 to $1,900 a month when his lease ended in June, "to reflect current market conditions." My mother told me he had read the letter once and put it in the drawer with the take-out menus. Then he had called her and asked whether the spare room in her house still had the blue curtains.

(4) He packed the way he did everything: by category, with labels. KITCHEN—KEEP. KITCHEN—DONATE. He wrapped my grandmother's teacups in the sports pages, saying they deserved good news. When I found a coffee can full of old bus transfers, hundreds of paper slips from a transit system that had stopped printing them decades ago, he took it from me and set it on the KEEP pile without a word.

(5) "What are those for?" I asked.

(6) "Rides," he said.

(7) On the third night we sat on the front steps because the chairs were already in the truck. The street was louder than I remembered. Two of the old houses across the way had been torn down, and a glass building stood in their place, its lobby lit up like an aquarium. A woman jogged by with a dog in a raincoat.

(8) "When your grandmother and I moved in," he said, "you could hear the 22 bus from three blocks away. Bad muffler. She used to say she could set the clock by it." He pointed down the street with his chin. "Stop was right there. She took it to the hospital every day for thirty years. Night shift, then day shift. I'd leave this light on so she could see the house from the corner."

(9) I looked up at the porch light, a plain glass dome full of dead moths.

(10) "The 22 doesn't run on this street anymore," I said.

(11) "No," he agreed. "It doesn't."

(12) On the last day, after the truck had gone, he walked through every room once. He opened the kitchen cabinets and closed them. He ran his hand along the doorframe in the hallway where pencil lines marked my mother's height, and mine, and my cousin's, each one dated in his narrow capitals. He did not say anything about them. I took a picture with my phone while he wasn't looking, and later I was glad I had.

(13) At the front door he stopped and reached for the switch by the coat hooks. I thought he was turning the porch light off. Instead he checked that it was on, then took a new bulb from his jacket pocket (he must have bought it that morning) and handed it to me.

(14) "Put that in for me," he said. "The old one's getting dim."

(15) "Grandpa, somebody else is going to live here."

(16) "That's right," he said. "And some of them will be coming home late, too."

(17) I stood on the step and changed the bulb. Below me, he waited with his hands in his pockets, looking toward the corner where the bus used to stop. When the new bulb came on, it was brighter than the old one, and the moths would find it soon enough. He nodded once, as if something had been settled, and we walked to my car.

Read the short story. Then answer the questions.

(1) My grandfather lived in the apartment on Calder Street for forty-one years, and he packed it in four days. I had expected it to take longer. I had brought a week's worth of boxes and a speech about how it was all right to be sad.

(2) "Nothing to be sad about," he said on the first morning, taping a box shut. "A building is a building."

(3) The letter from the new owners had come in March. His rent would rise from $1,050 to $1,900 a month when his lease ended in June, "to reflect current market conditions." My mother told me he had read the letter once and put it in the drawer with the take-out menus. Then he had called her and asked whether the spare room in her house still had the blue curtains.

(4) He packed the way he did everything: by category, with labels. KITCHEN—KEEP. KITCHEN—DONATE. He wrapped my grandmother's teacups in the sports pages, saying they deserved good news. When I found a coffee can full of old bus transfers, hundreds of paper slips from a transit system that had stopped printing them decades ago, he took it from me and set it on the KEEP pile without a word.

(5) "What are those for?" I asked.

(6) "Rides," he said.

(7) On the third night we sat on the front steps because the chairs were already in the truck. The street was louder than I remembered. Two of the old houses across the way had been torn down, and a glass building stood in their place, its lobby lit up like an aquarium. A woman jogged by with a dog in a raincoat.

(8) "When your grandmother and I moved in," he said, "you could hear the 22 bus from three blocks away. Bad muffler. She used to say she could set the clock by it." He pointed down the street with his chin. "Stop was right there. She took it to the hospital every day for thirty years. Night shift, then day shift. I'd leave this light on so she could see the house from the corner."

(9) I looked up at the porch light, a plain glass dome full of dead moths.

(10) "The 22 doesn't run on this street anymore," I said.

(11) "No," he agreed. "It doesn't."

(12) On the last day, after the truck had gone, he walked through every room once. He opened the kitchen cabinets and closed them. He ran his hand along the doorframe in the hallway where pencil lines marked my mother's height, and mine, and my cousin's, each one dated in his narrow capitals. He did not say anything about them. I took a picture with my phone while he wasn't looking, and later I was glad I had.

(13) At the front door he stopped and reached for the switch by the coat hooks. I thought he was turning the porch light off. Instead he checked that it was on, then took a new bulb from his jacket pocket (he must have bought it that morning) and handed it to me.

(14) "Put that in for me," he said. "The old one's getting dim."

(15) "Grandpa, somebody else is going to live here."

(16) "That's right," he said. "And some of them will be coming home late, too."

(17) I stood on the step and changed the bulb. Below me, he waited with his hands in his pockets, looking toward the corner where the bus used to stop. When the new bulb came on, it was brighter than the old one, and the moths would find it soon enough. He nodded once, as if something had been settled, and we walked to my car.

Read the short story. Then answer the questions.

(1) My grandfather lived in the apartment on Calder Street for forty-one years, and he packed it in four days. I had expected it to take longer. I had brought a week's worth of boxes and a speech about how it was all right to be sad.

(2) "Nothing to be sad about," he said on the first morning, taping a box shut. "A building is a building."

(3) The letter from the new owners had come in March. His rent would rise from $1,050 to $1,900 a month when his lease ended in June, "to reflect current market conditions." My mother told me he had read the letter once and put it in the drawer with the take-out menus. Then he had called her and asked whether the spare room in her house still had the blue curtains.

(4) He packed the way he did everything: by category, with labels. KITCHEN—KEEP. KITCHEN—DONATE. He wrapped my grandmother's teacups in the sports pages, saying they deserved good news. When I found a coffee can full of old bus transfers, hundreds of paper slips from a transit system that had stopped printing them decades ago, he took it from me and set it on the KEEP pile without a word.

(5) "What are those for?" I asked.

(6) "Rides," he said.

(7) On the third night we sat on the front steps because the chairs were already in the truck. The street was louder than I remembered. Two of the old houses across the way had been torn down, and a glass building stood in their place, its lobby lit up like an aquarium. A woman jogged by with a dog in a raincoat.

(8) "When your grandmother and I moved in," he said, "you could hear the 22 bus from three blocks away. Bad muffler. She used to say she could set the clock by it." He pointed down the street with his chin. "Stop was right there. She took it to the hospital every day for thirty years. Night shift, then day shift. I'd leave this light on so she could see the house from the corner."

(9) I looked up at the porch light, a plain glass dome full of dead moths.

(10) "The 22 doesn't run on this street anymore," I said.

(11) "No," he agreed. "It doesn't."

(12) On the last day, after the truck had gone, he walked through every room once. He opened the kitchen cabinets and closed them. He ran his hand along the doorframe in the hallway where pencil lines marked my mother's height, and mine, and my cousin's, each one dated in his narrow capitals. He did not say anything about them. I took a picture with my phone while he wasn't looking, and later I was glad I had.

(13) At the front door he stopped and reached for the switch by the coat hooks. I thought he was turning the porch light off. Instead he checked that it was on, then took a new bulb from his jacket pocket (he must have bought it that morning) and handed it to me.

(14) "Put that in for me," he said. "The old one's getting dim."

(15) "Grandpa, somebody else is going to live here."

(16) "That's right," he said. "And some of them will be coming home late, too."

(17) I stood on the step and changed the bulb. Below me, he waited with his hands in his pockets, looking toward the corner where the bus used to stop. When the new bulb came on, it was brighter than the old one, and the moths would find it soon enough. He nodded once, as if something had been settled, and we walked to my car.