The Millennial Times
Updating you on Tomorrow's Future
Vocabulary from "Three Cups of Tea"
-Acclimatize- get used to a certain environment
“And we had to bail him out before when he went up too fast without acclimatizing.” (pg 13)
-Bivouac-temporary living quarters built by the army for soldiers
“Perhaps it was his experience with solitude, being the lone American child among hundreds of Africans, or the nights he spent bivouacked three thousand feet up Yosemite’s Half Dome...” (pg 12)
-Brigand-an armed thief who is (usually) a member of a band
“They connive, and complain and frustrate one to the utmost. And beyond their often-foul odor, they have an unmistakable air of the brigand,” (pg 21)
-Taciturn-habitually reserved and uncommunicative
“But other qualities of the Balti, a taciturn suspicion of outsiders, along with their unyielding faith, have prevented Westerners from celebrating them in the same fashion as they fetishize the Buddhist Sherpa.” (pg 21)
-Kwashiorkor-severe malnutrition in children resulting from a diet excessively high in carbohydrates and low in protein
“The children, whose ginger hair he had admired, owed their coloring to a form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor.” (pg 30)
-Prelapsarian-of or relating to the time before the Fall of Adam and Eve
“...Mortenson began to see that Korphe was far from the prelapsarian paradise of Western fantasy.” (pg 30)
-Behemoth-someone or something that is abnormally large and powerful
“But along his remarkable career path, he founded half a dozen companies that would eventually, after his departure, grow into industry behemoths like Fairchild Semiconductors, Teledyne, and Intel.” (pg 54)
-Cacophony-loud confusing disagreeable sounds
“Around them, a cacophony of hawking and spitting accompanied half a dozen distant calls to prayer.” (pg 68)
-Sonorous-full and loud and deep
“A sonorous rumbling led him to kneel underneath the truckbed, where three figures lay suspended in hammocks, two snoring in languid concert.” (pg 71)
-Zakat- the fourth pillar of Islam is almsgiving as an act of worship
“This gentleman honoring him by offering to buy his lumber was a hamdard, a saint come to perform an act of zakat, or charity.”(pg 65)
Final Exam
A) K2
B) Mt Everest
C) Appalachian Mountains
D) Mt Lohtse
2- What town took care of Mortenson after his failed climbing expedition
A) Port Au Prince
B) Sydney
C) Korphe
D) New Dehli
3- What was his reason for climbing the mountain
A) to impress a girl
B) to finish his conversion to Buddhism
C) to honor his late sister
D) to prove he could build schools
4- Why did Mortenson decide to build the first school
A) there was no school
B) their current school was outside with no teacher
C) Mortenson accidentally burned their school down
D) he fell in love with the teacher
5- What was Mortenson's occupation before climber and activist
A) Senator
B) Dentist
C) Registered Nurse
D) Teacher
6- Who was the school's first teacher
A) Mohhamed
B) Hussein
C) Twaha
D) Osama
7- What major US event occurred around the grand opening of the new school
A) 9/11
B) Civil Rights Movement
C) Kennedy Assassination
D) Obama's Inauguration
8- What else did Mortenson build in Korphe besides a school
A) A bridge
B) A rail car
C) A well
D) A farmers market
9-Mortenson marries his wife Tara after...
A) six months
B) six days
C) six weeks
D) six years
10- What does the third cup of tea symbolize
A) Friendship
B) Family
C) Forgiveness
D) Betrayal
Short Free Response
"The little red light had been flashing for five minutes before Bhangoo
paid it any attention. “The fuel gages on these old aircraft are notoriously
unreliable,” Brigadier General Bhangoo, one of Pakistan’s most
experienced high-altitude helicopter pilots, said, tapping it. I wasn’t
sure if that was meant to make me feel better.
I rode next to Bhangoo, looking down past my feet through the
Vietnam-era Alouette’s bubble windshield. Two thousand feet below
us a river twisted, hemmed in by rocky crags jutting out from both
sides of the Hunza Valley. At eye level, we soared past hanging green
glaciers, splintering under a tropical sun. Bhangoo flew on unperturbed,
flicking the ash of his cigarette out a vent, next to a sticker that
said “No smoking.”
From the rear of the aircraft Greg Mortenson reached his long arm
out to tap Bhangoo on the shoulder of his flight suit. “General, sir,”
Mortenson shouted, “I think we’re heading the wrong way.”
Brigadier Bhangoo had been President Musharraf’s personal pilot
before retiring from the military to join a civil aviation company. He
was in his late sixties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a mustache as
clipped and cultivated as the vowels he’d inherited from the private
British colonial school he’d attended as boy with Musharraf and many
of Pakistan’s other future leaders.
The general tossed his cigarette through the vent and blew out his
breath. Then he bent to compare the store-bought GPS unit he balanced
on his knee with a military-grade map Mortenson folded to
highlight what he thought was our position.
“I’ve been flying in northern Pakistan for forty years,” he said,
waggling his head, the subcontinent’s most distinctive gesture. “How
is it you know the terrain better than me?” Bhangoo banked the Alouette
steeply to port, flying back the way we’d come.
The red light that had worried me before began to flash faster. The
bobbing needle on the gauge showed that we had less than one hundred
liters of fuel. This part of northern Pakistan was so remote and
inhospitable that we’d had to have friends preposition barrels of aviation
fuel at strategic sites by jeep. If we couldn’t make it to our drop
zone we were in a tight spot, literally, since the craggy canyon we flew
through had no level areas suitable for setting the Alouette down."
Read the above passage carefully, and analyze how the use of imagery influenced Mortenson's tone throughout.
Multiple Choice Answer Key
2-C
3-C
4-B
5-C
6-B
7-A
8-A
9-B
10- B