Test: Common Core: 8th Grade English Language Arts

Adapted from “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1865; 1900)

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

1.

Which of the following excerpts serves as the strongest evidence that the astronomer is using math to study the stars?

“to add, divide, and measure them” (Line 3)

“where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room” (Line 4)

"When I was shown the charts and diagrams" (Line 3)

“were ranged in columns before me” (Line 2)

“How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick” (Line 5)

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