Quiz 5 · Citing Evidence — The Talking Hands Series

First, the idea

For five hundred years, readers drew a small pointing hand — the manicule, ☞ — in the margins of their books to mark one thing: here, this is the line. This series uses it everywhere, and this quiz is where the mark becomes a skill. On the test it looks like this: Which sentence best supports the idea that ___? The claim is in one hand; your answer is one sentence, named by its number and cited. Call that sentence the address: it is where the manicule points.

The manicule doesn't wave at a page. It touches one line. Citing evidence is the same act: for this claim, that sentence — here.

The method has three steps. Hold the claim steady — every word of it, especially the strong ones (strongly, both, decades, the owners). Test candidates one at a time: does this sentence, by itself, give a reader reason to believe the claim? Choose the most direct and most complete. Many sentences will be near the claim; usually one carries it.

Four traps to know by name. The near-miss: a sentence that supports a weaker version of the claim. The half-support: when the claim has two parts and the sentence proves only one. The echo: a sentence that restates the claim instead of supporting it — a claim repeated louder is still just a claim. And the neighbor: a sentence that supports a claim standing next to yours, not yours.

Worked example — thinking out loud

(1) The night crew asked for a second microwave in the break room last spring. (2) Management said the budget was tight. (3) In June, the crew bought one themselves, secondhand, passing a collection envelope on every shift. (4) The envelope filled in two days and came back holding more than the microwave cost; the extra bought a coffee maker. (5) The old microwave, for the record, still takes eleven minutes to soften a burrito.

The claim: Support for the purchase among the crew was strong. Hold the claim steady — the word doing the work is strong. Now test the candidates. Sentence 1 shows they wanted a microwave: background, before any purchase. Sentence 3 shows support existed — they organized and bought it. Close. But sentence 4 shows the support was strong: the envelope filled in two days and overfilled. Speed and surplus — strength, measured. Sentence 3 is the near-miss: true, relevant, and it supports a weaker claim than the one in your hand. Sentence 4 is the citation.

And notice sentence 5. It supports a different claim entirely — that the second microwave was needed. That is the neighbor. A good citation matches the claim you were given, not the claim the sentence happens to prove.

The other two traps, shown on the same passage. The half-support: suppose the claim had been Support for the purchase was strong and came from every shift. Sentence 4 proves strong. Nothing proves every shift: sentence 3 says the envelope was passed on every shift, which means it was offered, not that every shift gave. One half proved, one half not, and a half-proved claim has no citation.

The echo: suppose a sixth sentence read The crew strongly supported buying the microwave. It says the claim again, louder, and proves nothing. A reader who cites it has pointed at the claim instead of at the evidence.

Part A · The skill by itself

1. Claim: Patients wanted care outside working hours. Which sentence best supports it?

(1) The Grand Street clinic added evening hours in March. (2) The waiting room used to empty by four. (3) Now the six o'clock slots book out a week ahead. (4) The clinic's director trained in Buffalo.

Sentence 1 Sentence 2 Sentence 3 Sentence 4

2. Claim: The program is both popular and effective. Which single sentence best supports the whole claim?

(1) The library's GED tutoring program opened with six students and two volunteers. (2) By winter, forty-two students were enrolled, with a waiting list. (3) Nine of the first eleven students to take the test passed it. (4) By spring, the program had both a waiting list and a wall of passing-score printouts by the door.

Sentence 1 Sentence 2 Sentence 3 Sentence 4

3. Claim: The corner of Marcy and Pulaski needs a traffic light. Which sentence best supports it?

(1) The corner of Marcy and Pulaski needs a traffic light. (2) Drivers treat the stop sign as a suggestion. (3) In the last year, the intersection logged fourteen accidents, three involving children walking to PS 23. (4) A light is long overdue.

Sentence 1 Sentence 2 Sentence 3 Sentence 4

4. Claim: Amadou learned his habits directly from Mr. Park. Which sentence best supports it?

(1) Amadou counts change out loud, the way Mr. Park used to. (2) He knows the regulars by their orders. (3) On Fridays he sets aside the day-old bread for the church pantry. (4) The distributor's rep calls him "Mr. Park" by mistake, and Amadou has stopped correcting him.

Sentence 1 Sentence 2 Sentence 3 Sentence 4

Part B · The skill in the wild

A history passage this time, sentences numbered the way the test numbers them. Every question hands you a claim; answer with an address.

(1) On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. (2) The workers were mostly young immigrant women, many of them teenagers, who sewed blouses for as little as seven dollars a week. (3) The fire moved through the cutting-room scraps in minutes. (4) One exit door was kept locked during working hours — the owners said it was to prevent theft. (5) The single fire escape twisted away from the wall under the weight of the fleeing workers. (6) One hundred forty-six people died in less than half an hour, some at their machines, some on the sidewalk nine floors below.

(7) The city had seen fires before, but it had not seen this, and a hundred thousand New Yorkers marched in the funeral procession. (8) Among the witnesses on the street the day of the fire was a young woman named Frances Perkins. (9) Within three years, New York's Factory Investigating Commission had pushed more than thirty new laws through the legislature — on exits, sprinklers, occupancy limits, and the labor of women and children. (10) Perkins, who went on to become the first woman to serve in a president's cabinet, said later that the New Deal began on the day of the fire.

5. Claim: Workers were trapped by a decision the owners made. Which sentence best supports it?

Sentence 3 Sentence 4 Sentence 5 Sentence 6

6. Claim: The fire changed the law. Which sentence best supports it?

Sentence 1 Sentence 7 Sentence 9 Sentence 10

7. Claim: The public treated the deaths as a shared loss, not a private tragedy. Which sentence best supports it?

Sentence 2 Sentence 6 Sentence 7 Sentence 8

8. Claim: The fire's influence lasted for decades. Which sentence best supports it?

Sentence 7 Sentence 8 Sentence 9 Sentence 10

The key — and why the tempting answers tempt

Part A

1. Sentence 3. Evening slots booking out a week ahead is patients, acting on the want the claim describes. Sentence 1 tempts because it's the big event — but it shows what the clinic decided, not what patients wanted. The claim names the patients; cite the patients.

2. Sentence 4. A waiting list (popular) and a wall of passing scores (effective) — both halves of the claim in one sentence. Sentences 2 and 3 are the half-supports: each proves one half perfectly and leaves the other standing alone. When a claim says both, your citation must too.

3. Sentence 3. Fourteen accidents, three involving children — grounds a reader can weigh. Sentence 4 is the echo: it agrees with the claim in different words, which is not the same as supporting it. A claim repeated louder is still a claim. Sentence 2 helps, but it's a characterization; sentence 3 is a count.

4. Sentence 1. The claim's key words are from Mr. Park — and only sentence 1 ties a habit to him: "the way Mr. Park used to." Sentences 2 and 3 show good habits with no source attached; sentence 4 shows a resemblance others notice, not where the habits came from. Hold every word of the claim.

Part B

5. Sentence 4. The locked door, and the owners' stated reason for locking it — a decision, named as such. Sentence 5 is the near-miss: workers trapped, yes, but by a failing structure, not a choice. The claim says a decision the owners made, and only one sentence contains the owners deciding.

6. Sentence 9. More than thirty new laws, listed by subject, within three years — the claim, delivered. Sentence 7 tempts because it's the turning point — but a march is pressure toward change, not the change. Sentence 10 supports a bigger, vaguer legacy. The claim says law; cite the laws.

7. Sentence 7. A hundred thousand strangers marching in a funeral procession is a city grieving in public — shared loss, enacted. Sentence 6 gives the deaths; the claim is about how the public treated them. The count breaks the heart; the march answers the question.

8. Sentence 10. From a street corner in 1911 to a president's cabinet and the New Deal — the fire's reach, measured in decades. Sentence 9 is the strong near-miss: concrete, impressive, and three years is not decades. Hold the claim's time-word. This trap — the vivid answer that fails one word of the claim — is the whole reason this skill exists.