By Noah Stern:
Passage-Based Response | You will have 20 minutes to read and respond to the following passages.
Questions 1-4 are based on the excerpts of a speech given by President Donald Trump on July 14, 2020:
“Too hot, but it’s pretty warm. Thank you. So we’ve had a big day in the stock market. Things are coming back and they’re coming back very rapidly. A lot sooner than people thought. People are feeling good about our country...but we’re going to go over quite a bit and maybe at the end, we’ll take some questions if we have time, it’s not too hot. Today, I signed legislation and an executive order to hold China accountable for its oppressive actions against the people of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which I signed this afternoon, passed unanimously through Congress.”
1. Given the opening of this speech, which is the topic Trump considers most important?
a. The weather
b. The stock market
c. The Hong Kong Autonomy Act
d. COVID-19
“[Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden] opposed my very strict travel ban on Chinese nationals to stop the spread of the China virus. He was totally against it. Xenophobic, he called me. Xenophobic. A month later, he admitted I was right. We would have had thousands of people additionally die if we let people come in from heavily infected China, but we stopped it. We did a travel ban in January. Nancy Pelosi was dancing in the streets of Chinatown in San Francisco a month later and even later than that and others too.”
2. What strategy does Trump use most effectively to persuade his audience
a. Attacking Joe Biden: “A month later, he admitted I was right.”
b. Humor: “Nancy Pelosi was dancing in the streets of Chinatown”
c. Repetition: “Xenophobic, he called me. Xenophobic.”
d. Xenophobia: “the China virus.”
“Why are we paying so much more than China? China has 1.4 billion people. We have 325, probably 325 million approximately, nobody can give the exact count. We’re trying to get an exact count, but you have over the years, many illegals who have come into the country. So it depends on how you want to count it. But you could say 325 to 350 million people, as opposed to 1.4 billion people. And the World Trade is terrible, that deal is terrible. The World Health is terrible deal.”
3. Is the World Health terrible deal?
a. Yes
b. No
c. ?
d. So is the World Trade
“The China deal, they're buying a lot. They are buying a lot, we'll say that. They're buying a lot. A lot of people ask, "How are they doing on the trade deal?" They're buying a lot. So I want to thank everybody, and we'll be having these conferences again. We're going to be signing an immigration act very soon. It's going to be based on merit. It's going to be very strong. We're going to work on DACA, because we want to make people happy.”
4. Based on this closing statement and the previous excerpts, what was this press statement about?
a. The Hong Kong Autonomy Act
b. The COVID-19 Pandemic
c. Joe Biden
d. China is buying a lot
Questions 5-7 are based on the excerpts of an answer given by former vice president Joe Biden in the 2019 Democratic Primary Debate
“[Another thing to help fix the education system is to] make sure that we bring in to the help with the stud—the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home, we need… We have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today. It’s crazy. The teachers are required—I’m married to a teacher. My deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them.”
5. Based on this response, what question was Biden likely answering?
a. What responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?
b. As the former vice president under Barack Obama, what is something you would do differently in terms of foreign policy if you became president in 2020?
c. What’s the deal with the problems that come from home? Give me a crazy stat about it.
d. Do you have a type?
“It’s not that they don’t want to help. They don’t know what— They don’t know what quite what to do. Play the radio. Make sure the television—excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night. The phone—make sure the kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school—er, a very poor background will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.”
6. Of the technology listed by Biden, which would an American child in 2019 be most likely to use for enrichment?
a. Radio
b. Television
c. Record Player
d. Phone
“Because here’s the deal. The deal is that we’ve got this a little backwards. And by the way, in Venezuela, we should be allowing people to come here from Venezuela. I know Maduro. I’ve confronted Maduro. ”
7. Based on how he ended this response and the political climate of the time period, how well do you think Biden answered this question?
a. Nailed it
b. A solid answer
c. Left a little to be desired
d. Not even close to passable
Free Response Short Answer | You will have 10 minutes to analyze the picture and formulate a response to the question
Given the above tweet, to what end did the intersection between the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests affect the American psyche during and after 2020?