Vocab Practice 1

Vocab Practice 1 Trying to prepare yourself for your next reading test? Whether youre prepping for the Verbal section of the GRE, the Critical Reading section of the SAT, the Reading section of the ACT or just your typical reading test in school, chances are good youll have to understand a vocabulary word or two in context. Sure, youll also find standard questions about finding the main idea, distinguishing the authors purpose and making inferences, but those can be tricky whereas vocabulary words in context are typically the easier ones to manage if you complete some vocab practice. So, lets get on with it, shall we! Read the passage below and answer the corresponding questions. Teachers, feel free to print and use the PDFs below for easy sub plans or vocab practice as you see fit. Vocab Practice 1 WorksheetVocab Practice 1 Answer Key Vocab Practice 1 Adapted from, The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce. In 1830, only a few miles away from what is now the great city of Cincinnati, lay an immense and almost unbroken forest. The whole region was sparsely settled by people of the frontierrestless souls who no sooner had hewn barely habitable homes out of the wilderness and attained to that degree of prosperity which today we would call indigence, than, impelled by some mysterious impulse of their nature, they abandoned all and pushed farther westward, to encounter new perils and privations in the effort to regain the meager comforts which they had voluntarily renounced. Many of them had already forsaken that region for the remoter settlements, but among those remaining was one who had been of those first arriving. He lived alone in a house of logs surrounded on all sides by the great forest, of whose gloom and silence he seemed a part, for no one had ever known him to smile nor speak a needless word. His simple wants were supplied by the sale or barter of skins of wild animals in the ri ver town, for not a thing did he grow upon the land which, if needful, he might have claimed by right of undisturbed possession. There were evidences of improvementa few acres of ground immediately about the house had once been cleared of its trees, the decayed stumps of which were half concealed by the new growth that had been suffered to repair the ravage wrought by the ax. Apparently the mans zeal for agriculture had burned with a failing flame, expiring in penitential ashes. The little log house, with its chimney of sticks, its roof of warping clapboards supported and weighted with traversing poles and its chinking of clay, had a single door and, directly opposite, a window. The latter, however, was boarded upnobody could remember a time when it was not. And none knew why it was so closed; certainly not because of the occupants dislike of light and air, for on those rare occasions when a hunter had passed that lonely spot the recluse had commonly been seen sunning himself on his doorstep if heaven had provided sunshine for his need. I fancy there are few persons living today who ever knew the secret of that window, but I am one, as you shall see. The mans name was said to be Murlock. He was apparently seventy years old, actually about fifty. Something besides years had had a hand in his aging. His hair and long, full beard were white, his gray, lusterless eyes sunken, his face singularly seamed with wrinkles which appeared to belong to two intersecting systems. In figure he was tall and spare, with a stoop of the shouldersa burden bearer. I never saw him; these particulars I learned from my grandfather, from whom also I got the mans story when I was a lad. He had known him when living near by in that early day. One day Murlock was found in his cabin, dead. It was not a time and place for coroners and newspapers, and I suppose it was agreed that he had died from natural causes or I should have been told, and should remember. I know only that with what was probably a sense of the fitness of things the body was buried near the cabin, alongside the grave of his wife, who had preceded him by so many years that local tradition had retained hardly a hint of her existence. Question 1 As it is used in paragraph one, the word indigence most nearly means†¦A. sustenanceB. wealthC. influenceD. poverty Answer and Explanation Question 2 As it is used near the end of paragraph one, the word suffered most nearly means†¦A. enduredB. allowedC. instructedD. agonized Answer and Explanation Question 3 As it is used in paragraph two, the word traversing most nearly means†¦A. travelingB. crossingC. shiftingD. holding Answer and Explanation Question 4 As it is used in paragraph three, the word lusterless most nearly means†¦A. dullB. brokenC. barrenD. alarming Answer and Explanation Question 5 As it is used in paragraph five, the word retained most nearly means†¦A. romanticizedB. commendedC. preservedD. illustrated Answer and Explanation

Understanding the Fifth Amendments Protections

Understanding the Fifth Amendments Protections The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as a provision of the Bill of Rights, enumerates several of the most important protections of persons accused of crimes under the American criminal justice system. These protections include: Protection from being prosecuted for crimes unless first legally indicted by a Grand Jury.Protection from â€Å"double jeopardy† - being prosecuted more than once for the same criminal act.Protection from â€Å"self-incrimination† - being forced to testify or provide evidence against one’s self.Protection against being deprived of life, liberty, or property without â€Å"due process of law† or just compensation. The Fifth Amendment, as part of the original 12 provisions of the Bill of Rights, was submitted to the states by Congress on September 25, 1789, and was ratified on December 15, 1791. The complete text of the Fifth Amendment states: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. Indictment By a Grand Jury Nobody can be forced to stand trial for a serious (â€Å"capital, or otherwise infamous†) crime, except in a military court or during declared wars, without having first been indicted - or formally charged - by a grand jury. The grand jury indictment clause of the Fifth Amendment has never been interpreted by the courts as applying under the â€Å"due process of law† doctrine of the Fourteenth Amendment, meaning that it applies only to felony charges filed in the federal courts. While several states have grand juries, defendants in state criminal courts do not have a Fifth Amendment right to indictment by a grand jury.    Double Jeopardy The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment mandates that defendants, once acquitted of a certain charge, may not be tried again for the same offense at the same jurisdictional level. Defendants may be tried again if the previous trial ended in a mistrial or hung jury, if there is evidence of fraud in the previous trial, or if the charges are not precisely the same - for example, the Los Angeles police officers who were accused of beating Rodney King, after being acquitted on state charges, were convicted on federal charges for the same offense. Specifically, the Double Jeopardy Clause applies to subsequent prosecution after acquittals, after convictions, after certain mistrials, and in cases of multiple charges included in the same Grand Jury indictment. Self Incrimination The best-known clause in the 5th Amendment (â€Å"No person ... shall be compelled in a criminal case to be a witness against himself†) protects suspects from forced self-incrimination. When suspects invoke their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, this is referred to in the vernacular as â€Å"pleading the Fifth.† While judges always instruct jurors that pleading the Fifth should never be taken as a sign or tacit admission of guilt, television courtroom dramas generally portray it as such. Just because suspects have  Fifth Amendment  rights against self-incrimination  does not mean that they  know  about those rights. Police  have often used, and sometimes still use, a suspects ignorance regarding his or her own civil rights to build a case. This all changed with  Miranda v. Arizona  (1966), the  Supreme Court  case that created the statement officers are now required to issue upon arrest beginning with the words You have the right to remain silent... Property Rights and the Takings Clause The last clause of the Fifth Amendment, known as the Takings Clause, protects the peoples’ basic property rights by banning federal, state and local governments from taking privately owned property for public use under their rights of eminent domain without offering the owners â€Å"just compensation.† However, the U.S.  Supreme Court, through its controversial 2005 decision in the case of Kelo v. New London weakened the Takings Clause by ruling that cities could claim private property under eminent domain for purely economic, rather than public purposes, like schools, freeways or bridges. Updated by Robert Longley