Writing Test 17

(1) Not many children leave elementary school and they
have not heard of Pocahontas' heroic rescue of John Smith
from her own people, the Powhatans. (2) Generations of
Americans have learned the story of a courageous Indian
princess who threw herself between the Virginia colonist
and the clubs raised to end his life. (3) The captive himself
reported the incident. (4) According to that report,
Pocahontas held his head in her arms and laid her own
upon his to save him from death.
(5) But can Smith's account be trusted? (6) Probably
it cannot, say several historians interested in dispelling
myths about Pocahontas. (7) According to these experts,
in his eagerness to find patrons for future expeditions,
Smith changed the facts in order to enhance his image.
(8) Portraying himself as the object of a royal princess'
devotion may have merely been a good public relations
ploy. (9) Research into Powhatan culture suggests that
what Smith described as an execution might have been
merely a ritual display of strength. (10) Smith may have
been a character in a drama in which even Pocahontas
was playing a role.
(11) As ambassador from the Powhatans to the
Jamestown settlers, Pocahontas headed off confrontations
between mutually suspicious parties. (12) Later, after her
marriage to colonist John Rolfe, Pocahontas traveled to
England, where her diplomacy played a large part in
gaining support for the Virginia Company.

The following passage is from a 1991 essay that discusses
the debate over which authors should be taught in English
classes.
Now, what are we to make of this sputtering debate,
in which charges of imperialism are met by equally
passionate accusations of vandalism, in which each side
hates the other, and yet each seems to have its share of
reason? It occurs to me that perhaps what we have here
is one of those debates in which the opposing sides,
unbeknownst to themselves, share a myopia that will turn
out to be the most interesting and important feature of the
whole discussion, a debate, for instance, like that of the
Founding Fathers over the nature of the franchise. Think
of all the energy and passion spent debating the question
of property qualifications, or direct versus legislative
elections, while all along, unmentioned and unimagined,
was the fact - to us so central - that women and slaves
were never considered for any kind of vote.
While everyone is busy fighting over what should be
taught in the classroom, something is being overlooked.
That is the state of reading, and books, and literature in our
country, at this time. Why, ask yourself, is everyone so hot
 under the collar about what to put on the required-reading
shelf? It is because, while we have been arguing so fiercely
about which books make the best medicine, the patient has
been slipping deeper and deeper into a coma.
Let us imagine a country in which reading was a popular
voluntary activity. There, parents read books for their own
edification and pleasure and are seen by their children at
this silent and mysterious pastime. These parents also read
to their children, give them books for presents, talk to them
about books, and underwrite, with their taxes, a public
library system that is open all day, every day. In school,
the children study certain books together but also have an
active reading life of their own. Years later, it may even
be hard for them to remember if they read Jane Eyre at
home and Judy Blume in class or the other way around.
In college, young people continue to be assigned certain
books, but far more important are the books they discover
for themselves browsing in the library, in bookstores, on
the shelves of friends, one book leading to another, back
and forth in history and across languages and cultures.
After graduation, they continue to read and in the fullness
of time produce a new generation of readers. Oh happy
land! I wish we all lived there.
In that country of real readers, voluntary, active, self-
determined readers, a debate like the current one over the
canon would not be taking place. Or if it did, it would be
as a kind of parlor game: What books would you take to
a desert island? Everyone would know that the top-ten list
was merely a tiny fraction of the books one would read in
a lifetime. It would not seem racist or sexist or hopelessly
hidebound to put Nathaniel Hawthorne on the list and not
Toni Morrison. It would be more like putting oatmeal
and not noodles on the breakfast menu - a choice partly
arbitrary, partly a nod to the national past, and partly, dare
one say it, a kind of reverse affirmative action: School
might frankly be the place where one reads the books that
are a little off-putting, that have gone a little cold, that you
might overlook because they do not address, in reader-
friendly contemporary fashion, the issues most immediately
at stake in modern life but that, with a little study, turn out
to have a great deal to say. Being on the list wouldn't mean
so much. It might even add to a writer's cachet not to be on
the list, to be in one way or another too heady, too daring,
too exciting to be ground up into institutional fodder for
teenagers. Generations of high school kids have been turned
off to George Eliot by being forced to read Silas Marner
at a tender age. One can imagine a whole new readership
for her if grown-ups were left to approach Middlemarch
and Daniel Deronda with open minds, at their leisure.

(1) Not many children leave elementary school and they
have not heard of Pocahontas' heroic rescue of John Smith
from her own people, the Powhatans. (2) Generations of
Americans have learned the story of a courageous Indian
princess who threw herself between the Virginia colonist
and the clubs raised to end his life. (3) The captive himself
reported the incident. (4) According to that report,
Pocahontas held his head in her arms and laid her own
upon his to save him from death.
(5) But can Smith's account be trusted? (6) Probably
it cannot, say several historians interested in dispelling
myths about Pocahontas. (7) According to these experts,
in his eagerness to find patrons for future expeditions,
Smith changed the facts in order to enhance his image.
(8) Portraying himself as the object of a royal princess'
devotion may have merely been a good public relations
ploy. (9) Research into Powhatan culture suggests that
what Smith described as an execution might have been
merely a ritual display of strength. (10) Smith may have
been a character in a drama in which even Pocahontas
was playing a role.
(11) As ambassador from the Powhatans to the
Jamestown settlers, Pocahontas headed off confrontations
between mutually suspicious parties. (12) Later, after her
marriage to colonist John Rolfe, Pocahontas traveled to
England, where her diplomacy played a large part in
gaining support for the Virginia Company.

The following passage is from a 1991 essay that discusses
the debate over which authors should be taught in English
classes.
Now, what are we to make of this sputtering debate,
in which charges of imperialism are met by equally
passionate accusations of vandalism, in which each side
hates the other, and yet each seems to have its share of
reason? It occurs to me that perhaps what we have here
is one of those debates in which the opposing sides,
unbeknownst to themselves, share a myopia that will turn
out to be the most interesting and important feature of the
whole discussion, a debate, for instance, like that of the
Founding Fathers over the nature of the franchise. Think
of all the energy and passion spent debating the question
of property qualifications, or direct versus legislative
elections, while all along, unmentioned and unimagined,
was the fact - to us so central - that women and slaves
were never considered for any kind of vote.
While everyone is busy fighting over what should be
taught in the classroom, something is being overlooked.
That is the state of reading, and books, and literature in our
country, at this time. Why, ask yourself, is everyone so hot
 under the collar about what to put on the required-reading
shelf? It is because, while we have been arguing so fiercely
about which books make the best medicine, the patient has
been slipping deeper and deeper into a coma.
Let us imagine a country in which reading was a popular
voluntary activity. There, parents read books for their own
edification and pleasure and are seen by their children at
this silent and mysterious pastime. These parents also read
to their children, give them books for presents, talk to them
about books, and underwrite, with their taxes, a public
library system that is open all day, every day. In school,
the children study certain books together but also have an
active reading life of their own. Years later, it may even
be hard for them to remember if they read Jane Eyre at
home and Judy Blume in class or the other way around.
In college, young people continue to be assigned certain
books, but far more important are the books they discover
for themselves browsing in the library, in bookstores, on
the shelves of friends, one book leading to another, back
and forth in history and across languages and cultures.
After graduation, they continue to read and in the fullness
of time produce a new generation of readers. Oh happy
land! I wish we all lived there.
In that country of real readers, voluntary, active, self-
determined readers, a debate like the current one over the
canon would not be taking place. Or if it did, it would be
as a kind of parlor game: What books would you take to
a desert island? Everyone would know that the top-ten list
was merely a tiny fraction of the books one would read in
a lifetime. It would not seem racist or sexist or hopelessly
hidebound to put Nathaniel Hawthorne on the list and not
Toni Morrison. It would be more like putting oatmeal
and not noodles on the breakfast menu - a choice partly
arbitrary, partly a nod to the national past, and partly, dare
one say it, a kind of reverse affirmative action: School
might frankly be the place where one reads the books that
are a little off-putting, that have gone a little cold, that you
might overlook because they do not address, in reader-
friendly contemporary fashion, the issues most immediately
at stake in modern life but that, with a little study, turn out
to have a great deal to say. Being on the list wouldn't mean
so much. It might even add to a writer's cachet not to be on
the list, to be in one way or another too heady, too daring,
too exciting to be ground up into institutional fodder for
teenagers. Generations of high school kids have been turned
off to George Eliot by being forced to read Silas Marner
at a tender age. One can imagine a whole new readership
for her if grown-ups were left to approach Middlemarch
and Daniel Deronda with open minds, at their leisure.

The following passage is from a 1991 essay that discusses
the debate over which authors should be taught in English
classes.
Now, what are we to make of this sputtering debate,
in which charges of imperialism are met by equally
passionate accusations of vandalism, in which each side
hates the other, and yet each seems to have its share of
reason? It occurs to me that perhaps what we have here
is one of those debates in which the opposing sides,
unbeknownst to themselves, share a myopia that will turn
out to be the most interesting and important feature of the
whole discussion, a debate, for instance, like that of the
Founding Fathers over the nature of the franchise. Think
of all the energy and passion spent debating the question
of property qualifications, or direct versus legislative
elections, while all along, unmentioned and unimagined,
was the fact - to us so central - that women and slaves
were never considered for any kind of vote.
While everyone is busy fighting over what should be
taught in the classroom, something is being overlooked.
That is the state of reading, and books, and literature in our
country, at this time. Why, ask yourself, is everyone so hot
 under the collar about what to put on the required-reading
shelf? It is because, while we have been arguing so fiercely
about which books make the best medicine, the patient has
been slipping deeper and deeper into a coma.
Let us imagine a country in which reading was a popular
voluntary activity. There, parents read books for their own
edification and pleasure and are seen by their children at
this silent and mysterious pastime. These parents also read
to their children, give them books for presents, talk to them
about books, and underwrite, with their taxes, a public
library system that is open all day, every day. In school,
the children study certain books together but also have an
active reading life of their own. Years later, it may even
be hard for them to remember if they read Jane Eyre at
home and Judy Blume in class or the other way around.
In college, young people continue to be assigned certain
books, but far more important are the books they discover
for themselves browsing in the library, in bookstores, on
the shelves of friends, one book leading to another, back
and forth in history and across languages and cultures.
After graduation, they continue to read and in the fullness
of time produce a new generation of readers. Oh happy
land! I wish we all lived there.
In that country of real readers, voluntary, active, self-
determined readers, a debate like the current one over the
canon would not be taking place. Or if it did, it would be
as a kind of parlor game: What books would you take to
a desert island? Everyone would know that the top-ten list
was merely a tiny fraction of the books one would read in
a lifetime. It would not seem racist or sexist or hopelessly
hidebound to put Nathaniel Hawthorne on the list and not
Toni Morrison. It would be more like putting oatmeal
and not noodles on the breakfast menu - a choice partly
arbitrary, partly a nod to the national past, and partly, dare
one say it, a kind of reverse affirmative action: School
might frankly be the place where one reads the books that
are a little off-putting, that have gone a little cold, that you
might overlook because they do not address, in reader-
friendly contemporary fashion, the issues most immediately
at stake in modern life but that, with a little study, turn out
to have a great deal to say. Being on the list wouldn't mean
so much. It might even add to a writer's cachet not to be on
the list, to be in one way or another too heady, too daring,
too exciting to be ground up into institutional fodder for
teenagers. Generations of high school kids have been turned
off to George Eliot by being forced to read Silas Marner
at a tender age. One can imagine a whole new readership
for her if grown-ups were left to approach Middlemarch
and Daniel Deronda with open minds, at their leisure.

(1) Not many children leave elementary school and they
have not heard of Pocahontas' heroic rescue of John Smith
from her own people, the Powhatans. (2) Generations of
Americans have learned the story of a courageous Indian
princess who threw herself between the Virginia colonist
and the clubs raised to end his life. (3) The captive himself
reported the incident. (4) According to that report,
Pocahontas held his head in her arms and laid her own
upon his to save him from death.
(5) But can Smith's account be trusted? (6) Probably
it cannot, say several historians interested in dispelling
myths about Pocahontas. (7) According to these experts,
in his eagerness to find patrons for future expeditions,
Smith changed the facts in order to enhance his image.
(8) Portraying himself as the object of a royal princess'
devotion may have merely been a good public relations
ploy. (9) Research into Powhatan culture suggests that
what Smith described as an execution might have been
merely a ritual display of strength. (10) Smith may have
been a character in a drama in which even Pocahontas
was playing a role.
(11) As ambassador from the Powhatans to the
Jamestown settlers, Pocahontas headed off confrontations
between mutually suspicious parties. (12) Later, after her
marriage to colonist John Rolfe, Pocahontas traveled to
England, where her diplomacy played a large part in
gaining support for the Virginia Company.

(1) Not many children leave elementary school and they
have not heard of Pocahontas' heroic rescue of John Smith
from her own people, the Powhatans. (2) Generations of
Americans have learned the story of a courageous Indian
princess who threw herself between the Virginia colonist
and the clubs raised to end his life. (3) The captive himself
reported the incident. (4) According to that report,
Pocahontas held his head in her arms and laid her own
upon his to save him from death.
(5) But can Smith's account be trusted? (6) Probably
it cannot, say several historians interested in dispelling
myths about Pocahontas. (7) According to these experts,
in his eagerness to find patrons for future expeditions,
Smith changed the facts in order to enhance his image.
(8) Portraying himself as the object of a royal princess'
devotion may have merely been a good public relations
ploy. (9) Research into Powhatan culture suggests that
what Smith described as an execution might have been
merely a ritual display of strength. (10) Smith may have
been a character in a drama in which even Pocahontas
was playing a role.
(11) As ambassador from the Powhatans to the
Jamestown settlers, Pocahontas headed off confrontations
between mutually suspicious parties. (12) Later, after her
marriage to colonist John Rolfe, Pocahontas traveled to
England, where her diplomacy played a large part in
gaining support for the Virginia Company.

Passage 1
Any wildlife biologist can tell you how many deer
a given area can support - how much browse there is
for the deer to eat before they begin to suppress the
reproduction of trees, before they begin to starve in
the winter. Any biologist can calculate how many
wolves a given area can support too, in part by
counting the number of deer. And so on, up and
down the food chain. It's not an exact science, but
it comes pretty close - at least compared to figuring
out the carrying capacity of Earth for human beings,
which is an art so dark that anyone with any sense
stays away from it.

Passage 2
Estimates of the number of humans that Earth can
sustain have ranged in recent decades from fewer than
a billion to more than a trillion. Such elasticity is prob-
ably unavoidable, since "carrying capacity" is essentially
a subjective term. It makes little sense to talk about carry-
ing capacity in relationship to humans, who are capable of
adapting and altering both their culture and their physical
environment, and can thus defy any formula that might
settle the matter. The number of people that Earth can
support depends on how we on Earth want to live, on
what we want to consume, and on what we regard as
a crowd.

This passage, from a short story published in 1978,
describes a visit to a planetarium, a building in which
images of stars, planets, and other astronomical
phenomena are projected onto a domed ceiling.
Inside, we sat on wonderfully comfortable seats that
were tilted back so that you lay in a sort of a hammock,
attention directed to the bowl of the ceiling, which soon
turned dark blue, with a faint rim of light around the edge.
There was some splendid, commanding music. The adults
all around were shushing the children, trying to make them
stop crackling their potato chip bags. Then a man's voice,
an eloquent professional voice, began to speak slowly, out
of the walls. The voice reminded me a little of the way
radio announcers used to introduce a piece of classical
music or describe the progress of the Royal Family to
Westminster Abbey on one of their royal occasions.
There was a faint echo-chamber effect.
The dark ceiling was filled with stars. They came out
not all at once but one after another, the way stars really
do come out at night, though more quickly. The Milky
Way galaxy appeared, was moving closer; stars swam
into brilliance and kept on going, disappearing beyond
the edges of the sky-screen or behind my head. While the
flow of light continued, the voice presented the stunning
facts. From a few light-years away, it announced, the Sun
appears as a bright star, and the planets are not visible.
From a few dozen light-years away, the Sun is not visible,
either, to the naked eye. And that distance - a few dozen
light-years - is only about a thousandth part of the distance
from the Sun to the center of our galaxy, one galaxy, which
itself contains about two hundred billion stars. And is, in
turn, one of millions, perhaps billions, of galaxies. Innu-
merable repetitions, innumerable variations. All this
rolled past my head, too, like balls of lightning.
Now realism was abandoned, for familiar artifice.
A model of the solar system was spinning away in its ele-
gant style. A bright bug took off from the Earth, heading
for Jupiter. I set my dodging and shrinking mind sternly
to recording facts. The mass of Jupiter two and a half
times that of all the other planets put together. The Great
Red Spot. The thirteen moons. Past Jupiter, a glance at
the eccentric orbit of Pluto, the icy rings of Saturn. Back
to Earth and moving in to hot and dazzling Venus. Atmo-
spheric pressure ninety times ours. Moonless Mercury
rotating three times while circling the Sun twice; an odd
arrangement, not as satisfying as what they used to tell us
- that it rotated once as it circled the Sun. No perpetual
darkness after all. Why did they give out such confident
information, only to announce later that it was quite wrong?
Finally, the picture already familiar from magazines: the
red soil of Mars, the blooming pink sky. 
When the show was over I sat in my seat while children
clambered over me, making no comments on anything they
had just seen or heard. They were pestering their keepers
for eatables and further entertainments. An effort had been
made to get their attention, to take it away from canned
drinks and potato chips and fix it on various knowns and
unknowns and horrible immensities, and it seemed to have
failed. A good thing, too, I thought. Children have a natural
immunity, most of them, and it shouldn't be tampered with.
As for the adults who would deplore it, the ones who pro-
moted this show, weren't they immune themselves to the
extent that they could put in the echo-chamber effects,
the music, the solemnity, simulating the awe that they
supposed they ought to feel? Awe - what was that sup-
posed to be? A fit of the shivers when you looked out
the window? Once you knew what it was, you wouldn't
be courting it.