CAASPP Success - Grade 8 Reading Comprehension - Narrative #2
Read the passage and answer the questions.
Real Food [1] I was nine years old, sitting stiffly at the dining table in my blue-and-white school uniform, and across from me sat my mother, who had come home from work at the university registry, elegant in her swishy skirt, smelling of Poison perfume and saying she wanted to watch me eat. I still do not know who told her that I was skipping lunch before school. Perhaps it was the houseboy, Fide. Perhaps it was my little brother Kenechukwu, who went to school in the morning and came home just before I left. The firm set of her mouth told me that I had no choice but to eat the garri and soup placed on the table. I made the sign of the cross. I plucked a morsel from the soft lump of garri. I lightly molded it with my fingers. I dipped it into the soup. I swallowed. My throat itched. I disliked all the variants of this quintessential Nigerian food, whether made from corn, cassava, or yams, whether cooked or stirred or pounded in a mortar until they became a soft mash. It was jokingly called “swallow,” because one swallowed the morsels without chewing; it was easy to tell that a person chewing garri was a foreigner.
[2] “Hurry up,” my mother said. “You will be late for school.” We had garri for lunch every day except Sunday, when we had rice and stew and sometimes a lush salad that contained everything from baked beans to boiled eggs and was served with dollops of creamy dressing. The soups gave some variety to lunch: the yellowish egusi, made of ground melon seeds and vegetables; onugbu, rich with dark-green bitterleaf; okro, with its sticky sauce; nsala, with beef chunks floating in a thin herb-filled broth. I disliked them all.
[3] That afternoon, it was egusi soup. My mother’s eyes were steady behind her glasses. “Are you playing with that food or eating it?” she asked. I said I was eating. Finally, I finished and said, “Mummy, thank you,” as all well-brought-up Igbo children were supposed to after a meal. I had just stepped outside the carpeted dining area and onto the polished concrete floor of the passage when my stomach churned and recoiled and the garri and soup rushed up my throat.
[4] “Go upstairs and rinse your mouth,” my mother said.
[5] When I came down, Fide was cleaning up the watery yellowish mess, and I was sorry he had to and I was too disgusted to look. After I told my mother that I never ate garri before school, that on Saturdays I waited until nobody was looking to wrap my garri in a piece of paper and slip it into the dustbin, I expected her to scold me. But she muttered in Igbo, “You want hunger to kill you,” and then told me to get a Fanta from the fridge.
[6] Years later, she asked me, “What does garri really do to you?” “It scratches my throat,” I told her, and she laughed. It became a standing line of family teasing. “Does this scratch your throat?” my brothers would ask. Following that afternoon, my mother had boiled yams, soft and white and crumbly, made for my lunch; I ate them dipped in palm oil. Sometimes she would come home with a few wraps of warm okpa, which remains my favorite food: a simple, orange-colored, steamed pie of white beans and palm oil that tastes best cooked in banana leaves. We didn’t make it at home, perhaps because it was not native to our part of Igboland. Or perhaps because those we bought on the roadside from the women who carried them in large basins on their heads were too good to surpass.
[7] I wish I ate garri. It is important to the people I love: My late grandmother used to want to have garri three times a day. My brother’s idea of a perfect meal is pounded yam. My father once came home from a conference in Paris, and when I asked how it had gone he said that he had missed real food. In Igbo, another word for “swallow” is simply “food,” so that one might overhear a sentence like “The food was well pounded, but the soup was not tasty.” My brothers, with affectionate mockery, sometimes ask whether it is possible for a person who does not eat swallow to be authentically Igbo, Nigerian, African.
[8] On New Year’s Day of the year I turned thirteen, we went to my Aunt Dede’s house for lunch. “Did you remember?” my mother asked my aunt while gesturing toward me. My aunt nodded. There was a small bowl of jollof rice, soft-cooked in an oily tomato sauce, for me. My brothers praised the onugbu soup – “Auntie, this is soup that you washed your hands well before cooking” – and I wished that I, too, could say something. Then my boisterous Auntie Rosa arrived, her wrapper always seeming to be just about to slip off her waist. After she had exchanged hugs with everyone, she settled down with her pounded yam and noticed that I was eating rice. “Why are you not eating food?” she asked in Igbo. I said I did not eat swallow. She smiled and said to my mother, “Oh, you know she is not like us local people. She is foreign.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Question 1
What is the most likely reason the narrator's mother wants to watch her eat?
To enjoy a meal together
To ensure the narrator is eating properly
Because the mother doesn't trust the houseboy
Because the mother likes garri herself
Question 2
Why did the narrator dislike garri and its variants?
It didn't taste good
It scratched her throat
It was difficult to swallow
She preferred yams
Question 3
Which detail best explains why the narrator was 'sorry' when Fide was cleaning up her mess?
She was worried about spreading germs
She felt disgusted and embarrassed
She thought it was a humorous situation
She wanted to clean up her bedroom
Question 4
What can be inferred about the narrator's relationship with her mother based on the text?
It is perfect all the time
It is filled with misunderstanding
It is not important to the story
It is indifferent
Question 5
What does the phrase “You want hunger to kill you” suggest about the mother’s attitude?
Concern
Elation
Mercy
Disrespect
Question 6
In the passage, what is a “quintessential Nigerian food”?
Okpa
Yams
Garri
Jollof rice
Question 7
In paragraph 2, what does the narrator mean by "quintessential"?
Rare
Discreet
Representative
Extraordinary
Question 8
How do the narrator’s brothers use the phrase “Does this scratch your throat?” based on the text?
To express genuine concern
To acknowledge her allergies
To tease her affectionately
To mock her seriously
Question 9
How does the author develop the idea that food is important for cultural identity?
By describing different Nigerian dishes
By showing the narrator's father's reaction to food in Paris
By detailing the narrator's reaction to eating garri
By contrasting different family members' food preferences
Question 10
Which of these best describes why the author included the story about the New Year's Day lunch?
To show the importance of family gatherings
To highlight the narrator's dislike of yams
To illustrate the narrator's effort to fit in with her friends
To show that the narrator feels different from her family
Question 11
Which of the following best summarizes the narrator's attitude towards garri by the end of the passage?
She wishes she could enjoy it
She continues to despise it
She starts to appreciate its cultural value
She thinks it is over-rated
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