ANALYZE CRAFT AND STRUCTURE
1.
AUTHOR'S PURPOSE
DIRECTIONS: Read passage. Answer the questions, and explain your answers.
The thing to remember about mathematics is that though it may be highly abstract,
it also always must exist in the real world. For example, I asked my niece to
consider four crows perched on a wire. Along comes a kid with a peashooter. He
shoots a pea and hits one of the crows, causing a great commotion without
actually injuring the bird. "How many crows," I ask my niece, "are left on the wire?"
Her answer: one crow. When I ask why just one, she calmly explains in that
adorable little know-it-all voice that nine-year old kids have: "Well, the peashooter
hit only one crow but it scared the other three off." So I ask, "So if the other three
got scared off why is one crow still left? Why not zero crows?" She smiles. "That's
easy," she explains. "That one crow came back to grab the pea." Then I tell her,
"Your answer is not mathematically correct, but nevertheless I like the way that you
think."
So now she's got a problem for me. Three guys are riding on the bus. One's
holding a bouquet of flowers, one a bag of groceries, and the third one's holding a
basketball. "The question," she says, "is which one of the three guys is married?" I
think about this for a while and finally say, "The one with the groceries. Am I right?"
She shakes her head. "The one who's married is the one with the wedding ring."
Again, all of this goes to show. You can master all of the technical aspects of
mathematics you want. If you don't apply your knowledge to the real world you
won't solve any problems. That I know for sure.
Which part of the passage would you identify as the first anecdote?
2. Which part of the passage would you identify as the second anecdote?
3. What was the function of these anecdotes in the passage?
4. Which part of the passage qualifies as a humorous description?
5. What kind of social commentary does the passage present?