Rushabh English v2 11sep2016
Rushabh English v2 11sep2016
Rushabh English v2 11sep2016
__ Period:_____________
READING AND WRITING PRACTICE
Step 1: Read the following passage, in which the narrator of this novel
introduces the setting.
Exemplar Text
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were
striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his
breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly
through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not
quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from
entering along with him.
The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag
mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for
indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted
simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the
face of a man of about forty- five, with a heavy black
moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston
made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at
the best of times it was seldom working, and at present
the electric current was cut off during daytime hours. It
was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate
Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was
thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right
ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On
each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the
enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those
pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you
about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,
the caption beneath it ran.
Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of
figures which had something to do with the production of
pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like
a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the
right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice
sank somewhat, though the words were still
distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was
called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting
it off completely. He moved over to the window: a smallish,
frail figure, the meagerness of his body merely emphasized
by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the Party.
His hair was very fair, his face naturally sanguine, his skin
roughened by coarse soap and blunt razor blades and the
cold of the winter that had just ended.
Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the
world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind
were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though
the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there
Vocabulary
unit of measure,
equal to about 3
feet
limited or careful
use of something;
swollen vein
obviously planned
or calculated
metal used to make
steel; oval shape
longer in one
direction than the
other
a reddish color
moving in bursts
fly which makes a
loud buzzing noise
not a real word but
an idea created by
putting two words
together
dictatorial
lifeless