Here are the answers to your questions based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart":
Question 1: Which two sentences best explain how Poe creates irony in the story?
- The narrator’s attempts to hide the murder actually result in him giving himself up to the police.
- The more the narrator insists that he is not mad, the more readers can detect evidence of his madness.
Question 2: Match each line from the story with the idea it best supports.
Prompt 1: Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. (paragraph 2)
Answer: The narrator’s contradictory feelings toward the old man.
Prompt 2: ... I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work... (paragraph 4)
Answer: The irrational obsession the narrator has with the old man's eye.
Prompt 3: ... I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definitiveness—until at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears.
Answer: The narrator's increasing mental instability.
Prompt 4: I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observation of men—but the noise steadily increased. (paragraph 18)
Answer: The narrator's growing anxiety and madness.
Question 3: Poe’s extensive use of dashes in the last two paragraphs is effective because it —
- highlights the narrator’s increased nervousness.
Question 4: The use of a first-person narrator in the story —
- gives readers insight into the narrator’s unstable state of mind.
Question 5: Part A: How does the author create suspense in paragraph 4?
- By describing the narrator’s anxiety and fear.
Question 6: Part B: Which two quotes from paragraph 4 best support the answer to Part A?
- And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it—oh, so gently!
- I moved it slowly—very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man’s sleep.
Question 7: Which definition best fits how the word profound is used in paragraph 4?
- Definition 1: showing great insight or understanding.
Question 8: In paragraphs 14–15, the narrator’s tone in describing his cleanup and first encounter with the police is one of —
- confidence.
Question 9: In paragraph 4, the narrator describes going to the old man’s room every night around midnight. Why is he unable to commit the murder for the first seven nights?
- He cannot see the old man’s eye, so he lacks the motivation to act.
Question 10: Which definition best fits how the word acute is used in paragraph 1?
- Definition 2: deeply felt or held; intense.
Question 11: How does the narrator’s mention of his sharpened sense of hearing in paragraph 1 foreshadow the old man’s death?
- It foreshadows the point when the old man’s heartbeat drives the narrator to kill him.
Question 12: How does the author create suspense in this excerpt?
- By identifying the source of the narrator’s irrational fear.