Passage Cross-Purposes
Cross-Purposes
What I am is built: concrete and steel.
I defy gravity. I am what every athlete
wants: to remain at the apex of the leap,
up in the air. And yet I am useful, too:
cars, trucks, people, even trains
make their way across my broad back.
Swallows and ospreys nest in my trusses.
What I am is motion. I am water, and I am older
than anything else you know. No human
built me. I am gravity’s best friend; I pool
and flow wherever gravity takes me.
I am the blood flowing in the runner’s chest,
and I catch everything: from the hills,
the mountains. It all washes down through me.
What you are is an accident,
what happens to rain when rain gives in
to Earth’s gravitational pull.
You are some tears dribbling from a mountain’s
eye, running down the pavements
of small towns, into the cities, to the sea.
You are the path of least resistance.
What I am is power. You, of course,
have none: you are a static lump, an artifact
slowly decaying. But my regal flow
nourishes grasses, permits empires to rise.
Those who made you will break you,
in time, replacing you with yet another
clumsy structure. I have seen. I know.
“Clumsy”? Being rebuilt makes me
a friend of time, does it not? And it means
that I have siblings—those “clumsy” structures,
my sisters and brothers.
We stitch across the rip you make.
We are steel thread to the human needle.
We bind you up. We sew you.
And I sow into you; in every cranny
of your superstructure my vapors cling.
They bring out your softness, your rust.
Boast your best, and boast better yet.
I am listening to the bright hum
of the wind in your wires. Because I am,
above all else, patient. I will wait for you.
ospreys: large birds
Question
How does the similar construction of the sentence in line 1 and the sentence in line 8 contribute to the meaning of the poem?
- AIt introduces the intended permanence of the structure and the ever-changing fluidity of the water.
- BIt shows that the structure can bridge the gap caused by the water.
- CIt suggests that the structure has more limitations than the water.
- DIt contrasts the stability of the structure with the instability of the water.
Show the answer
Correct answer: A
The answer is (A)
The question asks how the similarity in the construction of lines 1 and 8 contributes to the meaning of the poem. By beginning lines 1 and 8 with “What I am is,” each speaker establishes its defining feature, both of which are stated in Option A.
Option B is incorrect because the focus of the lines is defining the speakers’ individuality, not how one speaker resolves a problem created by the other.
Option C is incorrect because the structure is not stating in line 1 that it is limited because it was built to stand in place; on the contrary, the structure is stating that this sense of purpose and permanence is its strength.
Option D is incorrect because, in these lines, each speaker is trying to establish its stability, which for the structure is based on strength and for the water is based on longevity.
Question analysis
In the poem “Cross-Purposes,” a built structure and a body of water speak in turn, and both of their opening stanzas begin “What I am is.” This question asks how that matching sentence pattern adds to the poem's meaning. Students must judge precisely how each speaker describes itself, since the choices differ in small but important words.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Grade 7 poetry questions often ask what a repeated phrase emphasizes. Here the repetition sets up two opposed speakers, and the choices hinge on fine distinctions of connotation, which pushes the task above typical grade 7 work.
- Estimated difficulty
- Among the hardest on the SHSAT: a non-obvious approach, heavy reading, or a well-hidden trap.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 3, strategic thinking · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- A very close wrong answer major
- How, not what moderate
- Figurative or literary language moderate
- Hard words minor
- Evidence
- Answered from several paragraphs or stanzas
- Reading level
- Passage: 316 words (a poem; reading level not measured); question and choices: about grade 8, 74 words.
- Corrected from the DOE handbook
- A grammar slip in the explanation was corrected.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
Two choices describe the same contrast, built versus moving, and differ only in the judgment their words carry. Students who see the contrast quickly can still lose the point by choosing the version that calls the water unstable, since nothing in the water's stanza treats motion as a weakness; it boasts of being older than anything. The question rewards weighing the connotation of each word in a choice, not just its overall direction.
A very close wrong answer major Choosing the answer
A and D describe the same contrast in near-synonyms, permanence and stability against fluidity and instability; they differ only in the word “instability,” a weakness the proud water never claims. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2006; Ascalon et al., 2007)
How, not what moderate Working it out
The stem asks what the shared opening “What I am is” does, so students must see that it sets up two self-definitions, “built” and “motion,” as rival claims. (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
Figurative or literary language moderate Understanding the question
The speakers are personified and the structure is never named, so students must infer from “concrete and steel” and the trains on its “broad back” that a bridge is speaking. (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
Hard words minor Understanding the question
The choices turn on abstract words such as “permanence,” “fluidity” and “instability” that never appear in the poem. (Perfetti, 2007; Freedle & Kostin, 1993)
Strategy: Read the opening sentences of the first two stanzas side by side, name each speaker's defining quality in a word, and test every choice's wording against what the speakers actually claim.
Traps
- Half right: One half of a two-part choice is right and the other is not.
- Wrong part of the text: A choice is true of another paragraph, stanza or speaker than the one asked about.
The wrong answers, classified
B Wrong part of the text (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990)
Jumps to the fifth stanza, where the structures “stitch across the rip you make”; lines 1 and 8 only define each speaker and mention no gap.
C Reads too much in (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Infers from “built” versus “motion” that the structure is the more limited, a judgment the water makes later but these parallel lines do not.
D Half right (King et al., 2004; Thissen, Steinberg & Fitzpatrick, 1989)
Gets the structure's stability right, but “instability” casts the water's motion as a flaw, while the water presents motion as a strength.
What was corrected from the DOE handbook, and why
- Explanation: The handbook reads “how the similarity in the construction of lines 1 and 8 contribute”. It now reads “contributes”, to agree with “similarity”.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This is a question about the poem’s structure. Lines 1 and 8 are built the same way. You need to see what that sameness does for the meaning.
Compare lines 1 and 8
Line 1 opens the first stanza (a group of lines in a poem): “What I am is built: concrete and steel.”
Line 8 opens the second stanza: “What I am is motion. I am water.”
Both start with the same words, “What I am is.” Each speaker is telling you the one thing that defines it.
Work out who is talking
Two things talk in this poem. The first is a structure, most likely a bridge. It is made of “concrete and steel,” and trains cross its “broad back.” The second is water. Giving human traits, like speech, to things that are not human is called personification.
The bridge is “built”: made to stay in place for a long time. The water is “motion”: always moving and changing.
Check each choice
- A fits. “Built” suggests permanence (lasting). “Motion” suggests fluidity (flowing like a liquid).
- B The bridge closing a gap comes later, in lines 33–35. Lines 1 and 8 mention no gap.
- C The bridge is proud of being built. It admits no limits here.
- D “Instability” makes moving sound like a weakness. The water is proud of its motion.
Choose the answer
The matching lines set the structure’s lasting strength against the water’s constant flow. So the answer is A.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
D is the closest trap, because it describes the same contrast. But instability means being shaky or weak. The water never sees itself that way. It brags that it is “older / than anything else you know.” A uses “fluidity,” which treats motion as a strength.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Cross-Purposes” as printed (pages 72–73)
