Theme across genres: mastery test question 4 of 5 instructions: select the correct text in the passage. which sentences in these excerpts reflect the common theme of soldiers’ reluctance to talk about their war experiences? ambush by tim o'brien (excerpt) when she was nine, my daughter kathleen asked if i had ever killed anyone. she knew about the war; she knew i'd been a soldier. "you keep writing war stories," she said, "so i guess you must've killed somebody." it was a difficult moment, but i did what seemed right, which was to say, "of course not," and then to take her onto my lap and hold her for a while. someday, i hope, she'll ask again. but here i want to pretend she's a grown-up. i want to tell her exactly what happened, or what i remember happening, and then i want to say to her that as a little girl she was absolutely right. this is why i keep writing war stories: symptoms by john steinbeck (excerpt) if they had been reticent men it would have been different, but some of them were talkers and some were even boasters. they would discuss their experiences right up to the time of battle and then suddenly they wouldn't talk anymore. this was considered heroic in them. it was thought that they had seen or done was so horrible that they didn't want to bring it back to haunt them or their listeners. but many of these men had no such consideration in any other field. only recently have i found what seems to be a reasonable explanation, and the answer is simple. they did not and do not remember--and the worse the battle was, the less they remember.

1. read the following excerpt from franklin d. roosevelt's "fireside chat 19":

on the other side of the picture, we must learn also to know that guerilla warfare against the germans in, let us say serbia or norway, us; that a successful russian offensive against the germans us; and that british successes on land or sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands.

remember always that germany and italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the united states at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with britain or russia. and germany puts all the other republics of the americas into the same category of enemies. the people of our sister republics of this hemisphere can be honored by that fact.  

the true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. when we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. we americans are not destroyers — we are builders.

analyze the effectiveness of this excerpt. how does it function within the speech as a whole? how does the structure of the excerpt to convey the speech's purpose and key points? support your argument with evidence from the speech. (10 points)

his tongue, i believe, was bloody and hanging out of his mouth.

he looked as if he were hungry.

he has several wolf-like qualities; a gray coat, sharp claws and yellow fangs.

those eyes made me feel, dear reader, like the end was near.

as i reached for a stick, he moved to the other side of the hill.

panting and hungry, he looked at me, a defenseless human and he snarled.

well i said my prayers, however, he simply turned and limped off.