STAAR EOC Test: Reading : Understanding Content
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for STAAR EOC Test: Reading
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Example Questions
Example Question #4 : Poetry
Adapted from “Solitary Death, make me thine own” in Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses by Michael Field (pseudonym of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper) (1893)
Solitary Death, make me thine own,
And let us wander the bare fields together;
Yea, thou and I alone
Roving in unembittered unison forever.
I will not harry thy treasure-graves,
I do not ask thy still hands a lover;
My heart within me craves
To travel till we twain Time’s wilderness discover.
To sojourn with thee my soul was bred,
And I, the courtly sights of life refusing,
To the wide shadows fled,
And mused upon thee often as I fell a-musing.
Escaped from chaos, thy mother Night,
In her maiden breast a burthen that awed her,
By cavern waters white
Drew thee her first-born, her unfathered off-spring toward her.
On dewey plats, near twilight dingle,
She oft, to still thee from men’s sobs and curses
In thine ears a-tingle,
Pours her cool charms, her weird, reviving chaunt rehearses.
Though mortals menace thee or elude,
And from thy confines break in swift transgression.
Thou for thyself art sued
Of me, I claim thy cloudy purlieus my possession.
To a long freshwater, where the sea
Stirs the silver flux of the reeds and willows,
Come thou, and beckon me
To lie in the lull of the sand-sequestered billows:
Then take the life I have called my own
And to the liquid universe deliver;
Loosening my spirit’s zone,
Wrap round me as thy limbs the wind, the light, the river.
Which of the provided options best paraphrases the underlined and bolded selection of the text?
The speaker is making promises and assurances about his or her own demands of Death, in hopes that Death will visit him or her and bestow its wisdom and power upon him or her
The speaker is explaining the parameters of the relationship he or she would ask of “Death,” and in so, doing is expressing his or her belief that true friendship is a companionship, rather than a relationship based on exchange or romantic desire
The speaker is explaining why he or she wishes to travel with Death, and is making Death assurances that he or she will not steal from him or her or demand romantic love
The speaker is explaining the parameters of the relationship he or she would ask of Death, and in so doing is demonstrating his or her fear and ambivalence about Death’s embrace
The speaker is defiantly rejecting Death’s advances, proclaiming him- or herself neither a lover of Death, nor a beneficiary of Death’s gifts
The speaker is explaining the parameters of the relationship he or she would ask of “Death,” and in so, doing is expressing his or her belief that true friendship is a companionship, rather than a relationship based on exchange or romantic desire
The speaker is here explaining the nature of the relationship he or she would like with death, and through this is enumerating his or her beliefs about true, platonic friendship. His or her statement that he or she “will not harry [Death’s] treasure-graves” suggests that the speaker is not looking for rewards or repayment from Death, power, or wisdom. He or she is not explaining why he or she wishes to travel, merely asserting that he or she “craves” to do so" and making assurances about the parameter of the companion relationship. The speaker does not demonstrate either fear or ambivalence, and is actively asking for Death’s companionship, not rejecting Death’s advances.
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