How style and content give a speech its power
Grade 11 Reading Worksheet - Building Confidence
Circle the best answer.
Read this first
A Talk About Banking (radio address)
Background: [1] Franklin D. Roosevelt became president on March 4, 1933, when banks in almost every state had closed their doors, and two days later he closed every bank in the nation for a bank holiday. [2] On Sunday evening, March 12, the night before the first banks were to reopen, he spoke to the nation by radio in the first of the talks later called fireside chats.
From the radio address: [3] I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking--with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking but more particularly with the overwhelming majority who use banks for the making of deposits and the drawing of checks. [4] I want to tell you what has been done in the last few days, why it was done, and what the next steps are going to be.…
[5] First of all let me state the simple fact that when you deposit money in a bank the bank does not put the money into a safe deposit vault. [6] It invests your money in many different forms of credit--bonds, commercial paper, mortgages and many other kinds of loans. [7] In other words, the bank puts your money to work to keep the wheels of industry and of agriculture turning around.…
[8] What, then, happened during the last few days of February and the first few days of March? [9] Because of undermined confidence on the part of the public, there was a general rush by a large portion of our population to turn bank deposits into currency or gold--a rush so great that the soundest banks could not get enough currency to meet the demand.…
[10] …I can assure you that it is safer to keep your money in a reopened bank than under the mattress.…
[11] …It is your problem no less than it is mine. [12] Together we cannot fail.
Word notes: [13] A deposit is money placed in a bank, currency is paper money and coins, and commercial paper and mortgages are different kinds of loans. [14] The cuts leave out the steps of the bank holiday and the plan to reopen banks city by city.
Ari is filling the header box for this radio address. Using sentence 3, which line best fills the audience line?
- Listeners to the first of the radio talks that came to be called the fireside chats.
- Bankers and lawmakers in Washington who wrote the new banking rules and now want them explained clearly.
- The Sunday evening before the first banks reopened, at the end of the nation's bank holiday.
- The many ordinary people who use banks for deposits and checks, more than the few who know banking.
Tala is filling the job column of the section map. What job does the section of sentences 5 to 7 do in the address?
- It admits that Roosevelt himself had stopped trusting banks and kept his own savings at home.
- It explains how a bank uses deposits, so listeners see why a rush for cash could close sound banks.
- It tells listeners what happened in late February and early March, when crowds rushed to withdraw money.
- It shows that the bank holiday was the right policy and that the people who doubted it were wrong.
Jun is filling the purpose line of the header box. Which line best states the purpose of this address?
- To begin a series of radio talks to the nation that came to be called fireside chats.
- To speak on the Sunday night before the first banks reopened after the nation's week-long bank holiday, as a radio talk.
- To explain the bank holiday in plain terms so that people trust the reopened banks and leave their money there.
- To teach listeners how bonds and mortgages work so that they can invest their own savings.
Pia marks a device in sentence 10. Which choice names the device and says what it does for this audience?
- A list of three steps, which helps listeners remember the order in which the banks will reopen.
- A homely comparison with cash under a mattress, which makes the safe choice feel like common sense.
- An appeal to fear, which reminds listeners how many families had lost their life savings that winter.
- A homely comparison with the mattress, which warns listeners that reopened banks may soon fail again.
Bo is filling the job column for the closing section, sentences 11 and 12. What job does that section do?
- It shows that the plan was sound and that the banks across the country would soon be safe.
- It admits that the government could not fix the banks without help from other countries.
- It explains how banks put deposits to work in loans, bonds and other kinds of credit.
- It hands listeners a share of the work, so that their calm becomes the last step of the plan.
Why Choose the Moon (address)
Background: [1] President John F. Kennedy gave this address on September 12, 1962, in the football stadium of Rice University in Houston, Texas, where the space agency was building its new center for crewed spaceflight. [2] The year before, he had asked Congress to set a national goal of landing astronauts on the Moon before 1970, at a time when the Soviet Union was ahead in sending people into space and the program would be very costly. [3] Rice, a small university, played the much larger University of Texas in football every year.
From the address: [4] We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. [5] The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.…
[6] …But why, some say, the moon? [7] Why choose this as our goal? [8] And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? [9] Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? [10] Why does Rice play Texas?
[11] We choose to go to the moon. [12] We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. [13] It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.…
Word notes: [14] Incumbency is the time a person holds an office, and in 1927, thirty-five years before this speech, Charles Lindbergh made the first solo airplane flight across the Atlantic. [15] The cut after sentence 5 leaves out a long passage on the history of human progress, including a sentence on religion and lines about weapons and war.
Milo is filling the header box for Kennedy's address. Which line best fills the occasion line?
- Winning support for the costly national goal of landing astronauts on the Moon before 1970.
- A football game between Rice and the University of Texas, played that same afternoon in the Rice stadium.
- A visit to Rice University in Houston, a city where the space agency was building its new center.
- A report to Congress asking for a vote on the money for the Moon program.
Zee marks the device in sentence 4. Which choice names the device and says what it does?
- Parallel phrases in threes, which praise the college, city and State and then set up the challenge.
- Parallel phrases in sets of three, which show that Houston is a finer city than any other in the nation.
- Statistics about knowledge and progress, which give the crowd hard facts to judge the plan by.
- A rhetorical question, which asks the crowd why a college should care about the space program.
Kira is filling the job column for sentences 6 to 10. What job do those five questions do in the address?
- They reveal that Kennedy privately doubted the goal and hoped the crowd would reassure him.
- They voice the doubters' question, then answer it with other hard goals, ending on a joke about the hosts.
- They show that going to the Moon was worth more than any other way to spend the money.
- They set out what the program will cost in dollars, so that the crowd can weigh the price.
Ren is filling the purpose line of the header box. Which line best states the purpose of this address?
- To explain to the scientists present how the rocket for the Moon would be built and flown.
- To speak in the Rice University football stadium in Houston on September 12, 1962.
- To answer the Soviet Union, which was then ahead in sending people into space.
- To persuade the crowd and the country that the costly Moon goal is worth choosing because it is hard.
Esme marks the device in sentence 12. Which choice names the device and says what it does?
- A reference to Lindbergh's flight of 1927, which reminds the crowd that the nation has done hard things.
- An understatement, which plays down how hard and how costly the Moon program would be.
- An antithesis, easy set against hard, which turns the difficulty itself into the reason to go.
- An antithesis, easy set against hard, which warns the crowd that the goal may turn out to be impossible.