11. read the following sentence from “the balek scales.”
my grandfather was the first person bold enough to test the justice of the baleks, the family who lived in the chateau and drove two carriages, who always maintained one boy from the village while he studied theology at the seminary in prague, the family with whom the priest played taroc every wednesday, on whom the local reeve in his carriage emblazoned with the imperial coat of arms, made an annual new year’s day call and on whom the emperor conferred a title on the first day of the year in 1900.
the speaker uses the ideas in this sentence to most likely imply that the baleks
a. are generous to the people who lived in the village.
b. worked hard to earn their new title from the emperor.
c. mindlessly fulfill the duties required of their social status.***
d. did not trust the narrator’s grandfather and were suspicious of him.
12. read the following sentences from “the black sheep.”
meanwhile, the ones who had become rich got into the honest man’s habit of going to the bridge at night to watch the water flow by beneath it. this increased the confusion because it meant lots of others became rich and lots of others became poor.
now, the rich people saw that if they went to the bridge every night, they’d soon be poor. and they though: “let’s pay some of the poor to go and rob for us.” they made contracts, fixed salaries, percentages; they were still thieves of course, and they still tried to swindle each other. but, as tends to happen, the rich got richer and richer and the poor got poorer and poorer.
in these sentences, the narrator seems to suggest that
a. the people admire the honest man’s hobbies. b. most people try to cheat others in some way. c. societal structures are built on values and hard work.
d. society does not reward those who perform good deeds.