Also in 2025 Practice Test A English, question 33.
Passage Excerpt from Do Them No Harm!
Excerpt from Do Them No Harm!
by Zoa L. Swayne
This narrative is about the Nez Perce, an American Indian tribe, in what is now northern Idaho. The tribe is preparing for a gathering before the coming winter.
In the moon of Ta-Yum, the hottest days of summer, when salmon spawn in the little streams and huckleberries ripen in the high mountains, people from many villages of the Chopunnish Nation gathered in the Oyaip Prairie for the work and festivities of their annual camas1 harvest.
From far and near The People came. . . .
Should a stranger enter their homeland and ask, “Where are you from?” the reply was always, “We are Nee-mee-poo, The People who live here in this place.”
It was a time of Lawtiwa-mah-ton—a time of being friends together—when The People came for this last chance to enjoy being together before the Cold Moons kept them close to their fires. The visiting and trading, the foot racing and horse racing, and the gambling and stick games would be remembered and talked about long after they had forgotten the drudgery of digging and roasting camas, picking berries, or drying meat and fish. Lawtiwa-mah-ton! It was good to be friends together.
As was their custom since wahk-kee-ma, a time far back beyond the memory of man, they set up their camps in the same locations their parents and grandparents had occupied before them. Red Bear’s people, from Kamiah, made their camp near the trail that came out of the mountains. Their neighbors in Kamiah Valley, The People from Tee-e-lap-a-lo, had their camp close by. Across the wide meadow, by the great roasting pits, the camps of the Te-wap-poo and Ask-kah-poo were located. The tepees and ish-nash, brush shelters, of other groups nestled in their accustomed areas in and among the pines in such numbers that they encircled the entire meadow land.
Red Bear’s people had traveled all summer with neighboring bands, gathering and preparing roots, picking and drying berries, drying and smoking meat and fish for their winter food supply. Now they were at the Oyaip camp. The women worked hard to dig and cure as many bags of roots as they could during the warm, sunny days, for the sharp night air brought warnings that WARM was going and COLD was coming.
Everyone helped in some way. Most of the men fished or hunted for meat. While many of the women dug and roasted camas, other women and older children picked and dried berries.
And the younger children played. They played at hunting. They played with the babies. They played with their horses and puppies. They learned how to live through their play.
This sun, happiness, peace, and quiet blessed the Red Bear camp. All were busy with their daily tasks, until sudden cries came from the children playing by the trail.
“People coming! People coming! People coming on the trail from the high mountains!” they called as they ran to their elders, who looked sharply at the figures of approaching horsemen.
Were they friends or enemies? Did they bring good news or bad?
“Who can it be? What brings them here?” were the questions in every mind.
“Could they be the four hunters who had gone to Buffalo Country two summers past? Would they have news of the families who had gone long ago to Buffalo Country and never returned?”
It was customary for a hunting party to be gone for more than one season.
“Looks like hunters,” the older men agreed. “Looks like they had good hunting. Maybe our four hunters. [They have] been gone many moons.”
“Looks like five people—not four,” others observed.
Excitement grew as the riders came close enough to be recognized.
“A-a-a-a-a, they are our four hunters! But who is the fifth person?” they asked.
“Looks like a woman. Who is she?”
The hunters rode up to the welcoming crowd, proud to show off the loads of meat, hides, and other trophies of their hunt. They paraded around the encampment for all to see how strong their Hunting Power had been—what great hunters they, themselves, were.
Red Bear’s people rejoiced at their hunters’ success. Good hunters brought good to everybody. The meat meant plenty of food and the hides meant soft-tanned robes to give comfort through the Cold Moons. But it was the sight of the frail figure of the woman that aroused their curiosity. Who was she? Where had she come from? . . .
“Belongs to Red Bear people. Gone then come back,” the hunters said, as they dismounted and unloaded their packs. . . .
Now they could see! She was the daughter of the family gone so long ago! The girl-child who had left came back now—a grown woman.
“Wat-ku-ese!” the women cried. “Gone-from-Home-then-Come-Back. Wat-ku-ese!” And Wat-ku-ese was her name from that time on.
Gentle arms lifted Wat-ku-ese from her horse. The women brought her food and made a place for her to rest. For many suns they cared for her until she became stronger.
One evening Wat-ku-ese told her story for all to hear.
From DO THEM NO HARM!: Lewis and Clark Among the Nez Perce by Zoa L. Swayne. Published by Caxton Press. Copyright © 1990 by Zoa L. Swayne. Orofino, Idaho and Legacy House, Inc. Orofino, Idaho. All rights reserved.
1camas: a wild, edible plant
Question
The details in paragraph 5 about the locations of the camps and the details in paragraphs 23–24 about the reaction to the woman convey a theme of the excerpt by
- Arevealing the difficulties posed by moving often each year.
- Bshowing the connectedness among The People through the years.
- Cindicating the value to The People of retelling stories about the past.
- Ddemonstrating the importance of choosing appropriate names.
Show the answer
Correct answer: B
The question asks how the details in paragraph 5 about the locations of the camps and the details in paragraphs 23–24 about the reaction to the woman convey a theme of the excerpt.
A. Incorrect. Paragraph 5 does not reveal that The People move often, only that they come together near each other at this particular time of year. Paragraphs 23–24 reveal a resolution to the difficulty of people who are absent for some time, but they do not relate to the difficulty of moving often each year.
B. CORRECT. The details in paragraph 5 show that each year The People set up their camps beside the same neighbors, in the places their parents and grandparents used before them, demonstrating their connectedness. Similarly, the details in paragraphs 23–24 reveal that The People quickly embrace a member of their group who had gone away but has since returned. Taken together, these sections reveal just how much The People rely on their connectedness, a theme of the excerpt.
C. Incorrect. Although paragraph 5 suggests that The People keep the customs of their ancestors alive, it does not reference storytelling. Further, though paragraphs 23–24 suggest that The People had knowledge of this woman’s absence, they do not indicate that this knowledge came from stories in particular.
D. Incorrect. In paragraph 24, an appropriate new name, meaning “Gone-from-Home-then-Come-Back,” is bestowed on the returned woman. However, the importance of appropriate names is not a theme of the excerpt. Rather, the theme that is emphasized is the importance of the connection among The People, exemplified by the annual gathering and the warm welcome extended to the woman who has returned after a long absence.
Question analysis
This theme question asks how two sets of details in the Nez Perce narrative, where each group pitches its camp and how the camp reacts to a woman who has come back after many years, together convey a theme. Students must connect two parts of the excerpt that are far apart and find the one idea that both of them express.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Tracing a theme across a text is the grade 7 central idea standard. Students must join two passages far apart in the excerpt, but each is concrete, and the theme they share is the kind grade 7 readers routinely name.
- Estimated difficulty
- Moderate: several steps, or a close reading with one strong distractor.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 3, strategic thinking · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- Evidence in several places moderate
- Reading between the lines minor
- Evidence
- Answered from several paragraphs or stanzas
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 5, 885 words; question and choices: about grade 9, 65 words.
- Corrected from the DOE handbook
- The explanation described the wrong paragraph's details; that sentence 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
Each set of details on its own suggests several ideas, tradition, travel, naming, but the theme has to explain both at once. Students who focus on paragraph 24’s new name or on storytelling elsewhere in the excerpt choose an idea that fits only one passage. Naming what the old campsites and the warm welcome have in common, ties that last across years and distance, leads straight to the key.
Evidence in several places moderate Working it out
The two sets of details sit eighteen paragraphs apart, the camps in the places “their parents and grandparents had occupied” and the welcome given Wat-ku-ese, and the theme must fit both. (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990; Gorin & Embretson, 2006)
Reading between the lines minor Working it out
Neither passage names the theme; students must see that returning to ancestral campsites and embracing a lost daughter both show bonds that last across years. (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
Strategy: Sum up each set of details in a phrase, the camp locations and the reaction to the woman, then name the one idea both sets share before reading the choices.
Traps
- Too narrow: A single detail offered as the central idea or a summary, or a summary that keeps minor details and leaves out an essential part.
- Wrong part of the text: A choice is true of another paragraph, stanza or speaker than the one asked about.
- Twists what the text says: Uses the text's topic and ideas but changes what it says: who did it, how much, when, or why.
The wrong answers, classified
A Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Assumes the yearly trek means constant moving, but paragraph 5 stresses returning to the same sites, and paragraphs 23–24 say nothing about travel.
C Wrong part of the text (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990)
Links customs kept “beyond the memory of man” to storytelling, likely recalling Wat-ku-ese telling her story at the end, but neither cited section is about retelling.
D Too narrow (King et al., 2004)
Fixes on the naming of Wat-ku-ese in paragraph 24, one vivid detail, and ignores the camp locations in paragraph 5 that the theme must also explain.
What was corrected from the DOE handbook, and why
- Explanation: The handbook's explanation of B says paragraph 5 shows The People coming together “to share in recreational activities.” The races and games are in paragraph 4; paragraph 5, the one the question names, is about camping each year in the same places as their parents and grandparents, beside the same neighbors. The sentence now describes paragraph 5. The answer, B, is unchanged.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
A theme is a big idea a story shows about life. This asks for the theme shared by two parts of the story. One is paragraph 5, about where the camps go. The other is paragraphs 23–24, about the woman who comes back. The theme has to fit both.
Sum up paragraph 5
Paragraph 5 says they set up camp “in the same locations their parents and grandparents had occupied before them.” The same neighbors camp side by side each year. Red Bear’s neighbors “had their camp close by.” So the families stay tied to each other and to the past, year after year.
Sum up paragraphs 23 and 24
In paragraph 23 the camp learns “She was the daughter of the family gone so long ago!” She left as a little girl and came back grown. Yet they know her as one of their own. In paragraph 24 the women joyfully give her a new name. She is welcomed home after many years.
Find the shared idea
Both parts show bonds that last a long time. The People keep the same camps and neighbors through the years. They also welcome back a member who was gone for years. So the theme is how connected The People stay over time.
Check each choice
- B fits both parts: connectedness through the years.
- A: paragraph 5 is about going back to the same places, not moving often. Paragraphs 23–24 don’t mention moving at all.
- C: neither part is about retelling old stories.
- D: the new name is only in paragraph 24. It says nothing about the camps in paragraph 5.
Watch out: The naming of Wat-ku-ese is easy to remember, so D is tempting. But a theme must fit both parts.
Pick the answer
The camp locations and the warm welcome both show bonds that last through the years. So the answer is B.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
D is the closest wrong answer, because the naming in paragraph 24 stands out. But a name says nothing about where the camps go in paragraph 5. B explains both parts: The People camp beside the same neighbors year after year, and they welcome back a daughter gone for years.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Excerpt from Do Them No Harm!” as printed (pages 177–178)
