Passage Excerpt from In Search of the Unknown
Excerpt from In Search of the Unknown
by Robert W. Chambers
It was at that time the policy of the trustees and officers of the Zoological Gardens neither to employ collectors nor to send out expeditions in search of specimens. The society decided to depend upon voluntary contributions, and I was always busy, part of the day, in dictating answers to correspondents who wrote offering their services as hunters of big game, collectors of all sorts of fauna, trappers, snarers, and also to those who offered specimens for sale, usually at exorbitant rates.
To the proprietors of . . . mangy lynxes, moth-eaten coyotes, and dancing bears I returned courteous but uncompromising refusals—of course, first submitting all such letters, together with my replies, to Professor Farrago.
One day towards the end of May, however, just as I was leaving Bronx Park to return to town, Professor Lesard, of the reptilian department, called out to me that Professor Farrago wanted to see me a moment; so I . . . retraced my steps to the temporary, wooden building occupied by Professor Farrago, general superintendent of the Zoological Gardens. The professor, who was sitting at his desk before a pile of letters and replies submitted for approval by me, pushed his glasses down and looked over them at me with a whimsical smile that suggested amusement, impatience, annoyance, and perhaps a faint trace of apology.
“Now, here’s a letter,” he said, with a deliberate gesture towards a sheet of paper impaled on a file—“a letter that I suppose you remember.” He disengaged the sheet of paper and handed it to me.
“Oh yes,” I replied, with a shrug; “of course the man is mistaken—or—”
“Or what?” demanded Professor Farrago, tranquilly, wiping his glasses.
“—Or a liar,” I replied.
After a silence he leaned back in his chair and bade me read the letter to him again, and I did so with a contemptuous tolerance for the writer, who must have been either a very innocent victim or a very stupid swindler. I said as much to Professor Farrago, but, to my surprise, he appeared to waver.
“I suppose,” he said, with his near-sighted, embarrassed smile, “that nine hundred and ninety-nine men in a thousand would throw that letter aside and condemn the writer as a liar or a fool?”
“In my opinion,” said I, “he’s one or the other.”
“He isn’t—in mine,” said the professor, placidly.
“What!” I exclaimed. “Here is a man living all alone on a strip of rock and sand between the wilderness and the sea, who wants you to send somebody to take charge of a bird that doesn’t exist!”
“How do you know,” asked Professor Farrago, “that the bird in question does not exist?”
“It is generally accepted,” I replied, sarcastically, “that the great auk has been extinct for years. Therefore I may be pardoned for doubting that our correspondent possesses a pair of them alive.”
“Oh, you young fellows,” said the professor, smiling wearily, “you embark on a theory for destinations that don’t exist.”
He leaned back in his chair, his amused eyes searching space for the imagery that made him smile.
“Like swimming squirrels, you navigate with the help of Heaven and a stiff breeze, but you never land where you hope to—do you?”
Rather red in the face, I said: “Don’t you believe the great auk to be extinct?”
“Audubon saw the great auk.”
“Who has seen a single specimen since?”
“Nobody—except our correspondent here,” he replied, laughing.
I laughed, too, considering the interview at an end, but the professor went on, coolly:
“Whatever it is that our correspondent has—and I am daring to believe that it is the great auk itself—I want you to secure it for the society.”
When my astonishment subsided my first conscious sentiment was one of pity. Clearly, Professor Farrago was on the verge of dotage—ah, what a loss to the world!
I believe now that Professor Farrago perfectly interpreted my thoughts, but he betrayed neither resentment nor impatience. I drew a chair up beside his desk—there was nothing to do but to obey, and this fool’s errand was none of my conceiving.
Together we made out a list of articles necessary for me and itemized the expenses I might incur, and I set a date for my return, allowing no margin for a successful termination to the expedition.
“Never mind that,” said the professor. “What I want you to do is to get those birds here safely. Now, how many men will you take?”
“None,” I replied, bluntly; “it’s a useless expense, unless there is something to bring back. If there is I’ll wire you, you may be sure.”
“Very well,” said Professor Farrago, good-humoredly, “you shall have all the assistance you may require. Can you leave to-night?”
The old gentleman was certainly prompt. I nodded, half-sulkily, aware of his amusement.
“So,” I said, picking up my hat, “I am to start north to find a place called Black Harbor, where there is a man named Halyard who possesses, among other household utensils, two extinct great auks—”
We were both laughing by this time. I asked him why on earth he credited the assertion of a man he had never before heard of.
“I suppose,” he replied, with the same half-apologetic, half-humorous smile, “it is instinct. I feel, somehow, that this man Halyard has got an auk—perhaps two. I can’t get away from the idea that we are on the eve of acquiring the rarest of living creatures. It’s odd for a scientist to talk as I do; doubtless you’re shocked—admit it, now!”
But I was not shocked; on the contrary, I was conscious that the same strange hope that Professor Farrago cherished was beginning, in spite of me, to stir my pulses, too.
“If he has—” I began, then stopped.
The professor and I looked hard at each other in silence.
“Go on,” he said, encouragingly.
But I had nothing more to say, for the prospect of beholding with my own eyes a living specimen of the great auk produced a series of conflicting emotions within me which rendered speech profanely superfluous.
From IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN by Robert W. Chambers—Public Domain
Audubon: John James Audubon, an ornithologist and artist who created scientific illustrations of birds
dotage: a loss of reasoning brought about by old age
Question
Read paragraph 2 from the excerpt.
To the proprietors of . . . mangy lynxes, moth-eaten coyotes, and dancing bears I returned courteous but uncompromising refusals—of course, first submitting all such letters, together with my replies, to Professor Farrago.
This paragraph helps develop the plot by establishing that the narrator
- Athinks that writing refusal letters for the animals offered to the zoological society is not necessary.
- Battempts to predict what the professor would say in the refusal letters.
- Cbelieves that many of the animals offered are not acceptable for the zoological society.
- Dresents the professor’s insistence on reviewing the refusal letters.
Show the answer
Correct answer: C
The question asks how paragraph 2 helps develop the plot.
A. Incorrect. As paragraph 1 indicates, writing such letters is one of the main parts of the narrator’s job (“and I was always busy, part of the day, in dictating answers to correspondents”), and he shows no indication that this work is unnecessary. The letters are to inform people whether the zoo will accept their animals.
B. Incorrect. Paragraph 2 indicates that the narrator offers his letters to the professor merely for official approval. At the start of the excerpt, the narrator is confident in his reply and does not anticipate that his response will differ from that of the professor, so he has no need to “predict what the professor would say.”
C. CORRECT. The phrase “uncompromising refusals” in paragraph 2 indicates the confidence that the narrator initially has in his belief that the animals described in the letters are not of value to the society. This confidence is badly shaken as the plot unfolds, as when Professor Farrago states that “ ‘I am daring to believe that it is the great auk itself’ ” (paragraph 23). The narrator’s transition from an attitude of dismissive doubt to one of budding hopefulness is a major part of the plot of the excerpt (“But I was not shocked; on the contrary, I was conscious that the same strange hope that Professor Farrago cherished was beginning, in spite of me, to stir my pulses, too” [paragraph 34]).
D. Incorrect. The narrator does not resent the professor’s review of the letters; instead, the phrase “of course” in paragraph 2 shows that he expects to submit the letters to the professor as part of his job.
Question analysis
Paragraph 2 of this excerpt from In Search of the Unknown, a novel by Robert W. Chambers, shows the narrator handling letters from people who offer animals to the zoological society where he works. Students must decide what the paragraph establishes about him that helps develop the plot, reading early-1900s phrasing in which tone carries much of the meaning.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Grade 7 readers routinely say how a passage sets up a story. Here it is one quoted sentence, and only its formal, century-old phrasing takes extra effort, so the demand is ordinary.
- Estimated difficulty
- Straightforward: two steps or one careful reading.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- Hard words moderate
- Complex sentences minor
- The right answer is reworded minor
- Evidence
- Answered from one paragraph or stanza
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 9, 1066 words; question and choices: about grade 11, 98 words.
- 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
The narrator’s attitude lives in the adjectives: the lynxes are “mangy,” the coyotes “moth-eaten” and the refusals “uncompromising.” Students who read that contempt as his feeling about the job, or who hear grumbling in “of course,” pick a feeling about the work instead of a judgment of the animals. The plot point is his early certainty that such offers are worthless, the certainty the great auk letter is about to shake.
Hard words moderate Understanding the question
“Proprietors,” “uncompromising,” “mangy” and “moth-eaten” carry the paragraph’s meaning, that owners of shabby animals get firm refusals, and a student who misses them cannot tell what the narrator thinks of the offers. (Perfetti, 2007; Freedle & Kostin, 1993)
Complex sentences minor Understanding the question
The paragraph is one inverted sentence that opens “To the proprietors of,” reaches its subject and verb, “I returned,” only partway through, and ends on a dash clause about the professor’s review. (Abedi & Lord, 2001; Freedle & Kostin, 1993; Messick, 1989)
The right answer is reworded minor Choosing the answer
Every wrong choice reuses the paragraph’s refusals and letters as “refusal letters,” while the right one restates the narrator’s scorn for the animals as a judgment that they do not suit the society. (Freedle & Kostin, 1993; Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990)
Strategy: Read paragraph 2 together with paragraph 1, which explains the narrator’s job, and check each option against the words he actually uses; an option needs support in those words.
Traps
- 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.
- Reads too much in: A reasonable-sounding conclusion that goes further than the text allows.
- Wrong tone or attitude: Misjudges the tone, attitude or point of view, such as reading admiration as criticism, or taking a character's or subject's feelings for the author's.
The wrong answers, classified
A Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Moves the scorn for “mangy” animals onto the replies themselves, as if answering were pointless, though paragraph 1 makes answering correspondents part of his daily work and he still writes courteously.
B Reads too much in (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Turns the routine of showing every reply to Professor Farrago into an effort to guess the professor’s wording, though the narrator drafts the refusals himself and expects them to be approved.
D Wrong tone or attitude (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Hears resentment in the dash and “of course,” but the phrase presents the review as an expected routine, and no friction with the professor appears until the great auk letter.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This asks what paragraph 2 shows about the narrator, the person telling the story. It also asks how that sets up the plot, the chain of events in the story. The paragraph is one long, old-fashioned sentence. So put it in plain words first.
Put paragraph 2 in plain words
Proprietors are owners. People wrote to offer animals to the zoo, such as “mangy lynxes, moth-eaten coyotes, and dancing bears.” Mangy means with patchy, sick-looking fur. Moth-eaten means old and worn out. The narrator sent the owners “courteous but uncompromising refusals.” Courteous means polite. Uncompromising means firm, with no chance he would change his mind.
Decide what it shows about him
The words “mangy” and “moth-eaten” show what he thinks of the animals. To him, they are shabby and not worth having. So he turns them all down. This sets up the plot. So when a man writes that he has two great auks, the narrator brushes him off too. Then the professor disagrees, and the conflict begins.
Check each choice
- A does not fit. Paragraph 1 says he was “always busy, part of the day, in dictating answers to correspondents.” Writing replies is his job, and nothing says it is pointless.
- B does not fit. He writes the replies himself and then shows them to the professor. He isn’t guessing what the professor would say.
- C fits. He judges that many of the animals offered are not good enough.
- D does not fit. “Of course” shows that the review is normal. He doesn’t resent it, or feel bitter about it.
Choose the answer
Watch out: D is tempting because the dash and “of course” can sound annoyed. But “of course” here means as usual. So the answer is C.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
D is the closest wrong answer. The narrator does send every letter and reply to the professor. But “of course” marks this as a normal part of his job, and he shows no anger about it. The strong feeling in the paragraph is aimed at the “mangy” and “moth-eaten” animals. C names that judgment.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Excerpt from In Search of the Unknown” as printed (page 21)
